Flowers, swims and ice cream – first half of summer

By the charts, we’re coming up on the halfway point of summer, so I thought it would be a good time to do a post about some swim and gardening highlights so far. And ice cream!

First, our front garden. I was much more diligent this year in identifying plants early and pulling weeds. And I spread mulch very early in the season, which kept weed growth down. Both efforts have paid off in that now there are plants covering the parkway area, without crowding. Now, you might say, hmmm there are maybe too many milkweed plants in there – those are the tall ones. That’s not a bad point, but I did thin them out much more than last year, the plants are healthy, and they are making the monarch butterflies and the bees very happy.

Here are some brown-eyed susans, just recently in full bloom; lots of milkweed; purple coneflower; false sunflower, purple coneflower and something orange that I read is a butterfly bush of some kind; milkweed flowers in full bloom.

I also repotted some of the children plants of a Mother of Thousands that Miles gave me years ago. Please let me know if you are interested in adopting! I have several pots of these now.

I’ve been swimming at beaches and pools across the city. Holstein Park has a 50-yard pool with lap swim hours that vary, and Smith Park has a 25-yard pool with a really nicely timed adult swim at 6pm weekdays. Both are just a bike ride / walk away – really convenient!

And at the lake, the Carpe swim club has been enjoying evening swims, including a really lovely one where we celebrated Jeanne’s birthday on the beach after!

John and I went to the Dunes to do the Cowles Bog hike with swim in the middle a few weeks ago – super nice!

And I’ve joined Sarah and Jeanne a few times at the Friday Morning Swim Club. The club started as a few friends jumping in the lake at Montrose on Friday mornings during the pandemic, and now there are over 1500 people who show up to do a countdown at 7am and jump in. Many people float on very charming and photogenic blow ups shaped like sharks, unicorns and traditional rings. There’s coffee served in very large quantities, super happy vibes, and it’s really fun. The idea (expressed by a guy with a bullhorn, giving the mission then starting the countdown) is to have a slow start Friday, meet people and relax. We have summer Fridays every other week at work, and people leave early, but I have really been enjoying doing a slow start instead of a leave early day.

The swim club has gotten local press lately! And if you like what you see, there is so much more on Instagram. This event is documented! And highly photogenic (beautiful city, lake, people!)

More summer fun – we had friends come into town for college tours (we are really rooting for DePaul, Will!) and had a really nice dinner with them at Parson’s then ice cream after at The Freeze. Great seeing you Eric, Amber, Will and Ben!

Earlier in the summer (strictly speaking it was still Spring, but mid June), we went out for ice cream in Naperville to celebrate Father’s Day early with Mom, Dad, Jeff and Maddie. Fun!

Next post will be from Finland, where nights are very short right now!