My White Trash (or ‘Ghetto’) Storm Windows.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Kids are back in school. Persephone is returning to Hades. The leaves on the trees are transforming into a kaleidoscope of colors. And a chill is beginning to creep over those of us that live in the northern hemisphere. I’m not gonna lie. This six foot, two inch, manly man is a winter wimp! — Don’t laugh. I can be manly. I have power tools! 😎

Anyone who lives in a house knows the ongoing ritual required to maintain it. We make endless checklists, and then make multiple trips to the home improvement store because we forgot the list. Our South Philly home doesn’t have gutters or shingles. We don’t have a lawn or a garden that needs to be winterized. What we do have is that wretched mainstay of cheap post-war architecture and design, Aluminum Windows. I want to know whose brilliant idea it was to put aluminum windows on a house where winter temperatures can dip below freezing? And if that wasn’t bad enough, the designer, in his or her infinite wisdom, decided that marble would make lovely window sills. — Because, apparently, aluminum windows don’t make the house cold enough.

Our first winter here was an eye opener.

When you’re just getting started in a new home, and your relationship is all shiny and new, your mind isn’t on the little details like window sills. So imagine my surprise one morning, while going about my daily bathroom routine, when what felt like a waterfall of cold air descended upon my lap. — Brrrrrr! Talk about wake up calls.

Whose brilliant idea was it to install marble sills on aluminum windows?

We tried our best to be conservative with the thermostat but our heating bills were predictably high that winter. So we made a list. We took a walk through the home improvement store and made a list of all the things we could do to avoid freezing our butts every winter.

Now, every autumn, I get ready to install what we have lovingly come to call White Trash (or ‘Ghetto’) Storm Windows.

When September turns into October, I apply the double sided tape around the perimeter of each window. I learned the hard way that if you wait until winter settles in the tape won’t adhere properly to the cold aluminum, which has a tendency to sweat due to the temperature difference. The only downside is the ribbon, printed with the Frost King logo, that surrounds each window. But that’s a small inconvenience when you remember the cold flow of air descending upon your lap from the bathroom window.

When temperatures fall in a few months, we’ll apply the plastic to the windows. Until then we’ll try to ignore the little orange snowmen marching around our window frames.

Someday we’ll get new windows. It’s on our to-do list. Until then, we’ll be the couple that lives in the South Philly house with shrink wrapped windows. 😉

RIP Bertha and Creamsicle. …or was that Fish Two?

What we are mourning here…

is the passing of two 99¢ goldfish.

Bertha, Creamsicle, Ice, Fish One, and Fish Two. Bertha got his name because he eats everything. …and it shows.

In the spring of 2009, we re-purposed an old cast iron utility sink as a small goldfish pond. It would also serve as a makeshift water feature for the tiny 10 X 14 ft concrete space that we affectionately refer to as our “South Philly Backyard”.

Our little oasis.

Salvaged bricks frame the cast iron sink, which served as home for a family of five goldfish. Bertha, Creamsicle, Ice, Fish One, and Fish Two. — Bertha got his name because he eats everything. …and it shows.

We made good use of a discarded plant display rack from our local home center. The steel frame footing served as a guide for the bricks, which are loosely mortared together. (We rent, so nothing can be permanent.) The bricks support the sink and raised planting beds on either side.

The magic word here is upcycling. We spent very little money on our “back yard”, but the results are truly amazing. Our small concrete lot is transformed into an oasis as winter turns into spring.

A micro-ecosystem with plants, fish, insects, and the occasional bird.

It’s interesting how the addition of our little pond created a micro-ecosystem. Even though a small pump kept the water moving, some insects still found places to breed. Those insects became food for our fish and the birds who used our little oasis as a rest stop. Mourning Doves and Cardinals were a big surprise to me. Next year we’re going to try to attract humming birds.

A shoveled path from backdoor to pond.

If you follow me on twitter, you might have read comical grumblings over the winter as I performed the necessary task of chipping away at the ice that formed on the top of the water. — Even frozen fish need air.

Fish in protective custody.
Bertha (left) caught a slug!

Several weeks ago, we discovered a raccoon trying to hunt the goldfish. A Raccoon? Really? In South Philly?

After four years of heatwaves, blizzards, and chipping away at ice, we were not about to allow our goldfish to end up as a midnight snack for some wayward raccoon.

No sirree Bob! Not on our watch.

Makeshift pond cover deterred Mr Raccoon for a few weeks.

The simplest idea was to steak chicken wire around the open water, and lay a weighted board over the pond at night. This, along with sprinkling a raccoon repellant around the perimeter of the yard seemed to work.

After a few weeks, and no more signs that the raccoon was making nightly visits, we let our guard down. Three later, the raccoon had his meal.

The Evil Mr Raccoon.

Five summers is a decent lifespan for goldfish, but we’re still a bit saddened and somewhat incredulous. I’ve lived in or around Philly all my life. I’ve never seen evidence of raccoons.

I’ll miss those little guys. I’ll miss the way they come to the edge of the sink whenever they heard the backdoor open. I’ll miss chipping away at the ice in the dead of winter.

And yes, I’ll even miss the disturbing image of the eternally hungry Bertha with the occasional mouthful of the errant slug. YUCK!!

R.I.P. Bertha and Creamsicle.

…or was that Fish Two?

Mr Hopper. Then and Now

Yesterday I posted a pic on Tumblr of a grasshopper that was chillin’ in the backyard.

Mr Hopper

My other half suggested that Mr Hopper might be one of the many tiny hoppers that we saw last spring. The little guys were everywhere! — Apparently, they love basil.

Baby Hopper

Here’s a pair of pics for comparison.

See… I told you it was like Wild Kingdom here in South Philly. 🙂

Good Morning, Mr Grasshopper

Baby Hopper

A baby grasshopper sits on the leaf of a Crown of Thorns plant (Euphorbia Millii) in our back yard – Which is really just a 10′ X 15′ patch of concrete behind our South Philly row home.

Grasshoppers have invaded our garden. I wouldn’t mind it so much, but they’ve been eating our basil.

I haven’t seen any of the adults this year, just these little guys. They’ve probably become food for the family of cardinals that have nested nearby.

In the years since we moved in, several of our neighbors have also started gardens in their small paved-over lots.

We’ve got quite the little microcosm going.