Wine Is Divine, Cocktails Sublime

Twenty-two years ago, when I was newly married to Anne, she worked in the innovation department for the prestigious Central Market division of H-E-B. It was a memorable time to be in Austin, Texas. The city was on the precipice of its massive boom, but it still held onto that intimate, small-town vibe.

Every afternoon, Anne would shoot me a text from the floor of the market, where she did our daily grocery shopping after work.

"What do you want for dinner?" she’d ask.

I’d tell her, and then the inevitable follow-up would come: "Anything for dessert?"

My answer was always, invariably, the exact same: "Not fruit."

Central Market had a world-class produce section, but I was a dessert purist. I’m an ice-cream-in-the-summertime guy. I’ve clocked years working alongside brilliant pastry professionals. Back in the day, when I’d visit New York City, I was the guy who wasn’t above ordering the entire dessert menu. Case in point: Gramercy Tavern, back when Claudia Fleming was executing her legendary, understated pastry magic. I wanted technique and a dose of daily decadence.

But 22 years change a person. And honestly, so does moving back to Michigan.

The Midwest Awakening

Living in a place with a truly brutal winter changes your relationship with the calendar. (Though, for the record, a rural winter is infinitely better than an urban one). You endure these impossibly long, agonizingly slow springs that feel like they will never end. You stand outside in freezing temperatures, staring in disbelief at an army of brave daffodils popping out of the ground, wondering, How are you even pulling this off right now?

But then, the payoff arrives.

Living surrounded by this incredible bounty of local farms, orchards, and vineyards has rewired my brain. Right now, we are in that holy grail window where the tail end of strawberry season perfectly collides with the arrival of the first sweet cherries. Such a spectacular time of the year.

After a lifetime in hospitality, I used to anticipate the change of the seasons because of what it meant for a restaurant. I’d get excited for new menu rollouts at high-end establishments, thinking about what a chef could do with the harvest.

Now? My excitement is entirely, beautifully simple.

It’s not about how we can transform these ingredients to impress a guest. It's about the pure, unadulterated pleasure of the raw ingredient. I’m no longer waiting for a finished plate. I’m getting excited about garlic scapes coming in, or celebrating how phenomenal the asparagus crop was this year. It's the joy of tossing that fresh asparagus on the grill with a splash of extra virgin olive oil and some salt, and having it go straight into my mouth before it even makes it to the table.

The Cherry Pitter Intermission

The best memories I’m building right now revolve around these fleeting seasonal moments. Just yesterday, right in the middle of a backyard croquet match with Eli (10) and Vera (7), we called an official intermission.

I’ve never been a fan of eating a cherry & awkwardly spitting out the pit. But I do really enjoy cherries. So, I bought a new pitter.

We all stood around together, taking a break from the game to test it out. It was the first time the kids had ever used a cherry pitter, and we just hung out in the sun, processing & eating our haul deep, glossy cherries.

But as it turns out, Anne had it right all the way back in 2004. I was just a little slow to the party.

Don't get me wrong: I will never turn down a flawlessly executed piece of haute cuisine pastry, nor will I say no to a warm, rustic peach cobbler.

Twenty-two years later, I finally get it.

*Pictured above is Petey & JoJo with today’s red bounty.

___

Every summer, I establish a motif. A liquid ritual for the backyard. I want something exceptional, something engineered with a professional balance, but completely devoid of fuss. I want a drink I can lock in on day one and just enjoy all summer without overthinking it. It’s been a tradition since 2021, the first summer in our house—a quiet marker that signals a shift in the gears, drawing a hard boundary line between the damp, cold reality of spring and the slow, sun-drenched haze of summer here in South Haven, Michigan.

Living in the heart of the fruit belt, just two and a half miles from the coast of Lake Michigan, summer is luxurious. The grounds turn lush, rustic, and incredibly green. It's the kind of setting that demands you step outside and stay there—listening to music from the hammock, pitching a Wiffle ball to the kids, or working on a round of backyard croquet.

This year, after an exhaustive audition process, the summer crown belongs to the Southside.

If you look up the Southside on online, you may find a gritty, cinematic piece of Chicago lore. The story goes that Al Capone’s gang controlled South Side bootlegging, pushing harsh, bathtub gin that tasted roughly like battery acid. To mask the chemical burn, speakeasy bartenders supposedly muddled it with heavy hits of lime, sugar, and mint.

It’s a fantastic story. It is also pure, unadulterated fiction. I’m not too proud to say, I, myself have retold this myth a few times.

Cocktail historians, mainly David Wondrich, have effectively traced the drink’s actual genealogy back to the late 19th century, straight onto the manicured lawns of the Southside Sportsmen’s Club in Long Island. There, the Gilded Age elite took their traditional bourbon mint juleps and swapped the whiskey for gin.

So, is it a bootlegger's illusion or a country club classic? Frankly, I love the split personality. But when I’m standing on my own lawn, I’m not looking to recreate the feeling of a high-volume bartending shift, and while I love the craft, my backyard is a sanctuary. Out here, my wife is perfectly content sitting nearby with a glass of ice-cold, bone-dry Cava. As for me? I’m making a drink for one, and I’m looking to step out from behind the bar.

The Architecture of the Backyard Spec

The true enemy of backyard relaxation is being tethered to a prep station. If your drink recipe requires you to head back inside to shake up a fresh round every ten minutes, you’re kind of blowing it.

To solve this, I engineered a spec that hacks the very thermodynamics of outdoor drinking, utilizing a professional balance but tailored for the elements.

3 oz London Dry Gin

1½ oz Fresh Lemon Juice

¾ oz Simple Syrup (1:1 ratio)

8 Fresh Mint Leaves (plucked straight from the garden)

Yes, that is a robust, beautifully aggressive sour ratio. It leans intentionally dry, and at a massive five-and-a-quarter-ounce yield before dilution, it is a double-strength powerhouse.

I drop the eight mint leaves into the tin and use the flat tamper end of my bar spoon to lightly press them. You aren't trying to pulverize them into lawn clippings; you just want to wake up the essential oils. In go the gin, lemon, and simple syrup. Shake it hard for 20 seconds & double strain.

Now, here is the crucial engineering pivot: Do not strain this into a delicate, stemmed coupe that will turn lukewarm under the sun in three minutes.

Instead, grab a small, classic, acrylic Tervis tumbler. Drop in one single, massive, two-inch ice cube. Double-strain the cocktail directly over that giant hunk of ice.

By combining the insulated wall of the Tervis with the low surface-area-to-mass ratio of that single, heavy cube, you get the crisp, intense punch of an "up" drink that refuses to drown. You can set this drink down on the canvas table, water the plants, mow a few rows of the lawn, whack a mallet, and come back to a cocktail that is still freezing cold and perfectly balanced. It turns the drink into a slow, sustainable sip rather than a race against the ambient temperature.

The Death of "Sad Mint"

But the real soul of this year’s motif isn't the gin, and it isn't the plastic tumbler. It’s the mint.

Anyone who has ever worked a high-volume shift behind a bar, or even just tried to buy herbs for a weekend dinner, knows the profound tragedy of sad mint. You know exactly what I mean: that bruised, blackening, sometimes slimy, aromatically deprived mess at the bottom of a plastic bag. It looks like it has given up on life. It smells faintly of a wet refrigerator. It is the depression you can muddle.

The absolute flex of summer in Michigan's fruit belt is that you never have to tolerate sad mint.

Walking out to a thriving backyard pot, pinching off eight vibrant leaves that are practically bursting with life, and dropping them straight into a shaker isn't a chore—it’s a harvest. It changes the entire process from a standard build into a ritual. It is the freshest possible ingredient, handled with zero transit time, making you appreciate the contrast of all those times you had to work with sad mint.

To finish the drink, take one final, perfect leaf from the garden. Give it a sharp slap between your palms to release the aromatics, and set it proudly right on top of that two-inch ice cube.

Every single time you tilt that Tervis back for a sip, your nose hits that wall of electric, garden-fresh brightness before the crisp, dry gin even touches your lips. It’s bright, it's sharp, and it's exactly how summer is supposed to taste.

Go tend to your garden. The hammock is waiting.

A Note on the Vessel

There is a specific kind of panic—and subsequent thrill—that happens when a hospitality consultant is handed a playground with zero store-bought toys.

I was recently brought on to curate the summer cocktail program for Noble Twist, a wildly charming brewery, distillery, and winery serving up stellar New Haven-style pizzas in Saugatuck, Michigan. The owners are the kind of dream clients you hope for: deeply passionate, fiercely dedicated to quality, and collaborative. But they are also bound by the rigid parameters of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.

For a craft beverage house that means - no Campari, no Cointreau, no standard Luxardo or imported Lazzaroni Amaretto. If I wanted a classic profile in a glass, I couldn't just reach for a premium bottle from the back bar; I had to invent a parallel universe version of it using Noble Twist's base spirits. It was a masterclass in creative constraints.

Fortunately, this wasn't my first rodeo under these rules. Back during my time with Anheuser-Busch at Virtue Cider, I had to build a craft cocktail program using nothing but cider as the alcoholic vehicle. I knew the tightropes. But this time, breaking into true custom cordials and liqueurs meant venturing into exciting, uncharted territory.

Secret Weapons, Liquid Alchemy, and the Lineage of a Drink

To pull this off, I looked across Lake Michigan to Chicago and heavily mined the phenomenal botanical catalog of Rare Tea Cellar. If you know, you know—their stuff is pure magic for chefs and bartenders looking to layer flavor without relying on artificial syrups.

For the menu's sweeter, nutty foundational notes, I crafted a proprietary Green Tea Amaretto. It had to carry a heavy burden: it needed to mimic the almond-marzipan depth of Lazzaroni, carry the structure of a Luxardo Maraschino, and be a little reminiscent of Orgeat. By marrying Rare Tea Cellar's botanicals with Noble Twist's neutral spirit, we built an absolute workhorse ingredient that grounds drinks like the West Side Sour and the Improved Beach House.

The true test of this reverse-engineering process, though, came when I wanted to pay homage to a cocktail deeply rooted in my own history. At Shift Drinks—the bar I used to own with my wife, Anne, and our brilliant partner Alise Moffatt—Alise ran a drink inspired by her travels through Argentina called the Palermo Viejo #2. It actually had its own family tree; her boyfriend at the time, Ansel, had run the Palermo Viejo #1 on his menu over at Free House. Alise's iteration was a stunning, bitter-elegant build of Cynar, Gin, Combier Pamplemousse liqueur, and slapped mint.

When looking at the back bar at Noble Twist, I had to pivot. The only amaro at my disposal was their incredibly beautiful house Fernet. I couldn't buy Combier, so I utilized our custom-engineered Grapefruit-Hibiscus Liqueur (steeped with RTC's Grapefruit Grove tea) to mimic that citrusy, floral sweetness.

To bridge the gap, I swapped out Alise’s gin for Noble Twist’s high-quality Rum, kept the signature slapped mint, and finished the build with one precise drop of 20% saline solution. That tiny hit of salt acts like a volume knob, perfectly tempering the aggressive, medicinal bitterness of the house Fernet and making the whole drink sing. The resulting Palermo Viejo #3 is the evolution of a recipe that means the world to me.

Technical Specs, Agave Nectar, and the Tiki Pivot

Building this program wasn’t a solo act. For six weeks leading up to the launch, the owner, Wes, and I had weekly R&D sessions to align on how to best showcase Noble Twist’s house spirits.

A prime example was handling their house agave spirit. Because it is distilled directly from agave nectar rather than crushed, cooked agave piñas, it bypasses the typical roasted, unique profile of a traditional tequila. It yields something deeply earthy, complex, and strange. Structurally, it is much closer to a French Caribbean Rhum Agricole distilled from fresh sugar cane juice, sharing that exact same prominent hogo—that beautiful, wild, earthy funk.

To demonstrate this, I set up a side-by-side tasting for Wes with a bottle of Rhum JM. Once we established that his spirit behaves like a high-end Agricole, it completely unlocked our approach to the menu. Instead of forcing a standard tequila template, we leaned into that distinct rum-adjacent funk to anchor two major menu standouts:

Via Martinique: A hyper-local, contemplative variation on a classic Martinique Ti' Punch, utilizing the agave spirit, our custom grapefruit-hibiscus liqueur, and a fresh lime coin.

Beach Playdate: A straight-up play on a very fancy tiki drink. For this one, I relied on Rare Tea Cellar’s Tropical Spiced Clementine blend. Because it’s packed with anthocyanins, it infuses the drink with a stunning, vibrant color. We built it to carry a beautiful, velvety foam top, dusted it with a sharp hint of Aleppo pepper, and let that base hogo funk ride cleanly through the back end of the sip.

Nostalgia in a Cocktail Glass: Portland to Dearborn

Every drink on this menu is a postcard from a different era of my culinary journey, reinterpreted through Noble Twist's house spirits:

Saffron Cream Soda: Years ago, I became utterly enamored with the Genmai Fizz served at the legendary Biwa, my first job in Portland, Oregon. For Noble Twist, I wanted to capture that toasted-rice grain luxury but elevate it to mirror the complex, honeyed saffron notes you get in a beautifully aged Champagne. I took organic brown rice, toasted it, and infused it into a rich cream using the traditional Persian saffron "shock" technique (blooming the saffron over cracked ice before introducing it to warmth to lock in that vibrant, brilliant yellow color and aromatic punch).

Espresso Martini Au Levant: Most espresso martinis are cloyingly sweet vodka-and-coffee-liqueur bombs. For ours, I drew straight from my childhood memories of traveling down to Dearborn, Michigan with my dad, drinking Lebanese cardamom-infused coffee, brewed in the traditional pot. We steeped Noble Twist's house coffee liqueur with cracked cardamom pods, creating a bitter, aromatic ritual in a coupe glass that pairs beautifully with their charred pizza crusts.

The Final Cut: Summer 2026

From the Kilgore Was Here (our nod to the bittersweet, bracing bartenders' handshake of an Industry Sour) to the deeply personal historical love letters laced throughout the menu, this lineup represents what happens when you refuse to let production restrictions stop you.

Look at the Campfire Gimlet, for instance. The baseline is a lime cordial technique pioneered by Jeffrey Morgenthaler—a nod to our days running bars around the corner from each other in Portland’s West End. Though he released the recipe years after I left Oregon, it was the exact foundation I needed. We infused it with Rare Tea Cellar’s phenomenal Forbidden Forest Lapsang Souchong tea. By building a quad-strength, fortified version of this smoky tea, we created a deeply complex, spirit-forward stirred gimlet that balances bright acidity, black tea tannin & campfire smoke.

And then, of course, there are the dessert cocktails anchoring the bottom of the page. Structurally, these are built almost like a botanical White Russian, reinterpreting the nostalgic roots of a classic adult float:

Sun Over Saugatuck: A direct nod to the classic "Boston Cooler"—the iconic Vernors and ice cream staple I grew up with on the east side of the state. This version features Noble Twist's complex house Genepy, combined with Boylan's Ginger Ale, local cream, and a grating of fresh nutmeg.

Moon Over Saugatuck: A darker, moodier counterpart built around their brilliant house Fernet & Boylan's Root Beer.

When you look at the final menu, you aren't just looking at a list of ingredients and prices. You're looking at six weeks of collaborative texts, custom-built liqueurs, childhood memories, and a testament to what can happen when a client trusts the process implicitly.

Stop into Saugatuck, grab a New Haven pie, and ask Wes to pour you something twisted. You won't find these flavors anywhere else on earth.

There is a specific kind of anxiety that comes with owning something "too nice to use." When my partners, Alise, my wife Anne and I opened Shift Drinks in downtown Portland, the crew from Bull in China—Katie Burnett, Lucas Plant, and Daniel “Danimal” Osborne—walked in with a gift that defined that exact feeling: a hand-blown, hammered glass mixing vessel.

In a city like Portland, where craft isn’t just a buzzword but a baseline, this glass was the gold standard. It was stunning. It was weighted perfectly. It was also, frankly, terrifying to put into a high-volume service rotation where one stray tin or a frantic Friday night could turn it into a memory.

So, it stayed tucked away, surviving the beautiful chaos of the bar's opening. But these days, as my schedule fills up and the "shift drinks" happen more often at my own wooden table than behind a stainless steel bar, this piece of Oregon artistry has become my daily driver.

Why It Works

Unlike the mass-produced, seamless beakers you find in every big-box kitchen store, this glass has soul. The ripples in the glass don’t just catch the light; they provide a natural grip when you’re stirring down a Negroni or a stiff Martini. It’s a reminder that the tools we use should be as intentional as the spirits we pour into them.

The Sentiment

A good mixing glass is about more than just physics and thermal mass; it’s about the community that built the scene. Every time I hear the click of ice against these hand-blown walls, I’m back in the early days of Shift Drinks with the Bull in China team.

No, it’s not Cognac. Yes, you should absolutely put it on ice.

As a sommelier, I am culturally predisposed to wax poetic about the rugged terroir of Armagnac or the ancestral prestige of a Grand Champagne Cognac. But have you seen the price of a VSOP lately? My "willingness to spend" threshold has been officially breached.

Back in my twenties, I was the guy at the club ordering Hennessy VS on the rocks while catching a DJ set. Even then, dropping ice into a glass of "liquid gold" felt a little like committing a minor felony in the eyes of the spirits elite. But here’s the thing: I like the profile of brandy. I love the soft-focus aromatics, the deft (not clumsy) use of oak, and the complexity that only comes from distilled grapes.

And more importantly, I love a cocktail I don’t actually have to stir.

Enter St-Rémy XO. At roughly $20 a bottle, it is—without exaggeration—the least expensive distillate in my cabinet. It is my transitional season MVP. When the weather is playing a chaotic game of "Is it 65 or 32 degrees today?" this is the tipple that bridges the gap.

The Lowdown on the "XO"

Before we get into the glass, let’s clear up the nomenclature. In the world of Cognac, an XO (Extra Old) designation means the youngest eau-de-vie in the blend has spent at least a decade in oak. St-Rémy is not Cognac. It’s French Brandy, sourced from grapes across the country and distilled in the Atlantic-adjacent reaches of the Loire.

In this neck of the woods, "XO" translates to roughly two and a half years of aging. Is it a centuries-old heirloom? No. Is it made by the experts at Rémy Cointreau who know more about high-quality distillation than almost anyone on the planet? Absolutely.

How to Drink It

I like to enjoy it in a stemless Gabriel-Glas with a large cube. As the ice melts, it opens up those tight, fruity aromatics and rounds the edges just enough to make it dangerous. It’s refined, it’s relaxed, and most importantly, it leaves enough in the budget to fill up my gas tank.

The air has finally softened, and at last, the backyard is ready for a proper afternoon of sledding. A four-foot drop into the creek requires more than just a passing thought; it requires a solid, reinforced barricade. Because our base layer endured a fortnight of deep freeze—with temperatures hovering quite steadily between zero and fifteen degrees—the track has become remarkably fast. To provide the necessary stability for our creek-side barricade, I’ve repurposed our cornhole boards. They offer a reliable, flat-surfaced reinforcement that ensures the kids don’t end up in the water.

As per usual I find it rather restorative to enjoy a well-aged Bourbon County Stout by the fire pit as well as Rare Tea Cellar’s Sicilian Wild Flower Chai, sipped in my vintage Wedgwood mug.

I’ve spent this brutal, snow-blown winter rediscovering the utility of the "fridge bottle." In years past, sweet vermouth was a ghost in my refrigerator door—bought for a single Tipperary, then left to languish until it lost its zeal. But something about this season’s deep freeze sent me to Trader Joe’s for a liter of Solo Rosso. At $4.99, it’s a low-stakes investment that has somehow become the champion of my bar cart.

Lately, I’ve been chasing the spirit of a Vieux Carré without the Cognac price tag. My solution? The Poor Man’s Vieux Carré. We’re swapping the brandy for the oaky, tropical funk of Appleton Estate 8-Year Rum and leaning on the high-proof heat of Wild Turkey 101 Rye to cut through the cold. It’s warm, herbaceous, and punchy enough to make you forget the wind chill.

Specs/Build

• 1 oz Solo Rosso Vermouth

• 1 oz Wild Turkey 101 Rye

• 1 oz Appleton Estate 8 Year Aged Rum

• 2 barspoons Bénédictine

• 4 dashes Angostura bitters

• 4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Some like to look back at the news stories and trends from the year gone by. I prefer to think about all the delicious cups I enjoyed each and everyday this past year. Coava Coffee in Portland, Oregon still reigns supreme in my world.

Before moving to Portland from Austin, Texas in 2011, Anne and I visited there. My dear friend, Jesse Bates, was our host. This would be one of those epic culinary trips, soaking in all we could, drinking and eating as much as we could handle, sometimes eating two dinners in a night. Jesse’s really not into coffee, so I asked my favorite barista, Lorenzo, who worked at Caffé Medici on West Lynn for some recommendations. He hooked us up with an exhaustive list. Coava was the top recommendation. Then living in Portland for 9 years, I can say that there are many outstanding roasters with Coava outshining them all. I’m thankful they ship their fresh roasted beans to me in South Haven, Michigan.

While I no longer enjoy the richness of the Portland culinary scene, I can still enjoy the coffee from its best roaster. I order a 2 kilo bag a month. Here’s a look back at the last 12 months.

Jan: Sacuanjoche, Nicaragua

Feb: Carlos Sergio, Brazil

Mar: Sholi, Rwanda + Jaguarundi, Honduras & Sulawesi Kayuaraiya, Indonesia

Apr: Rayos deal Sol, Peru

May: Melaku Negash, Ethiopia

Jun: Kilenso, Ethiopia

Jul: La Llamarda, Nicaragua

Aug: Idiwili, Tanzania

Sep: Ribang Gayo, Indonesia

Oct: Cerro Palma, Mexico

Nov: Anbessa, Ethiopia

The wine for today’s Thanksgiving feast is lightly concentrated ruby colored. The beguiling bouquet soars out of the glass - raspberry liquor, dried apricots, dehydrated apple slices, ripe black cherries, wet stones, warm brioche. Light bodied & gushy with a supple texture, light tannins, balanced acidity, a long fruity finish. 90% Merlot 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% abv

I rarely use the word beguiling to describe a wine. Considering what I paid for this wine [under $15], the unexpected aromatics and overall quality, I think the word is appropriate.

Always a little bittersweet to see the snow blanket when there are still many, many leaves left to fall. Yesterday was beautiful & eerie. Yet I felt summer really crept into autumn this year. Tomatoes were the latest I’ve seen still around. Pennyroyal had them on the menu until the first week of November. Nobody’s going to complain about that. So no one should complain when winter pummels into fall. It will be back in the 50s by Friday, anyway.

During the recent bye week for the Atlanta Falcons, Kirk Cousins & his son Cooper visited Eli’s practice. Cooper joined the practice squad and even tossed one to Eli for a TD. Kirk was nice enough to sign a ball. He also gave a great pep talk to the team. It amazes me that Kirk took time out of his busy schedule to meet with the kids. We were all very grateful.

Eli’s season wrapped up last week. He loved it, and I thought that his coaches, Tom & Colin, did an excellent job leading the team and shaping their fundamentals. We’re already looking forward to next year.

Happy 100th Birthday to Brush’s Farm! I was proud to see our neighbor receive the Centennial Farm award from The Historical Society of Michigan when they opened their doors for the 2025 season.

Our home is a mile and a half away. We particularly love their late summer offering when autumn squash and pears start to come into season and is sold along with the last of the blueberries and summer melons. Overall, the array of produce they grow is impressive. Here’s a list of what they selling right now:

Plums

Peaches

Nectarines

Blueberries

Pears & Apples

Cantalope

Honeydew

Watermelons (various varieties)

Tomatoes (various varieties)

Okra

Eggplant (various varieties)

Tomatillo

Yellow & Green Zucchini

Yellow & Petty Pan Squash

Onions

Garlic

Green Beans, Wax Beans, Purple Beans

Various Bell Peppers

Various Hot Peppers

Various Sweet Peppers

Corn

Acorn, Spaghetti, Butternut Squash

Cauliflower

Broccoli

I’m certain I’m the only one lamenting this soon to be paved dirt road. This is the closest one to my home, we call it the “Bud Light Cooridor.” It earned its name as the street always has empty cardboard 12-packs of Bud Light on the side of it - usually two, sometimes more. How they perpetually get there sparks the imagination. High school kids, drinking in the field, leaving the evidence behind? Farm hands, knocking a few back after work?

The lament isn’t that I think the littering will cease. Time will tell. The lament is that these gorgeous dirt roads I enjoy cycling upon are slowly disappearing. There was a pristine one and a half mile stretch of gravel road on 104th Avenue between 62nd and 65th streets, which was replaced by pristine pavement last year. So sad.

I’m not one to stand in the way of progress and I’m sure the neighbors along the road are jazzed to get new pavement in place of dust, but I will make the most of the gravel roads while I have them to explore.

This is our sixth South Haven summer and the twins’ third. We have a lot of fun watering the plants in the morning. The lilacs never blossomed this spring, but the Adam’s Needle on both sides of the garage door returned after a two year hiatus. I used to think these tropical looking plants were out of place until I started noticing dozens of them in bloom along the roadsides on my various bike rides. See picture below.

In the four pictures below: Petey and JoJo inspecting the day lilies, my favorite barrel plantings this year and a picture from late spring Anne seated in a winter coat beneath the massive Rhododendron shrub. It was a long cold spring.