We have retrieved all our booty from the fair. We got our Third Place winning bottles of wine along with the First Place winning label that Ellen designed.
We also picked up Ellen’s wine, which got a Blue Ribbon and the label bottle that Susan designed that got Reserved Grand Champion.
I can only hope the Judge doesn’t see this Blog, realize the deception we pulled off and recall our awards.
One of the signs of Fall is a trip to the County Fair. We went on Friday because we had a couple of discount passes and then we went again today because it was Senior Day.
They are charging ten bucks just for parking but today, we got a 50% discount. We found a spot in the handicap section and I took the walker with me because i wanted to have a ready seat whenever I wanted it. It was also very convenient to carry water, and other crap we picked up at the fair.
We ended up spending six hours there. We were joined by Mark and Jim and Jill Cathey.
I started with $52.00 and I think I've still got about 20. Susan and I both made a couple of poor food choices. I got the deep fried Mac n' Cheese balls (with bacon) and Susan got a Cheese Steak from the Longhorn. Mac n' Cheese Balls just weren't that good. The Cheese Steak was bad because they poured crappy melted cheese sauce over the cheese steak. Nothing sucks for than cheese from a ladel.
Susan entered one of her water colors in the fair and won a ribbon for "Best Depiction of Fair Theme". The fair theme is "Discover the Fun". Her painting was of her nephew Neil as a young kid playing in the rain.
Our wine didn't fare as well. We got a Third Place ribbon for the Wine but I think we did better with the Label. Maybe Reserve Grand Champion. We won't find out until next week when we pick everything up.
Anyway, another fair is in the books and out of the way.
It is now official! Summer is over.
We attended the Spokane Symphony Free Labor Day Concert in Comstock Park. It was a really hot day and they were talking about moving the concert to 7:00 if it didn’t cool down enough.
Fortunately, nature cooperated and we enjoyed a great concert, as always.
Now we just have to stand by and wait for Autumn.
We have just returned from Riverfront Park in beautiful but very hot downtown Spokane. It's Labor Day weekend so that means Pigout in the Park is happening.
Pigout is a tradition that Susan and I have enjoyed for years. Unfortunately, it's becoming quite expensive. I spent $45.00 and Susan must have come close to that as well.
There was a day when their big selling point was "Nothing over $6.00". Now they have a happy hour where selected items at each both cost $6.00.
We started with a $7.00 Classic Lemonade which was refillable for $3.00. We went and listened to Victims of Love, an Eagles tribute band. They were pretty good. At three o'clock we went to the Schnitzel booth and had some schnitzel bites. $6.00. They were okay but I won't do that again. We then walked over to the Fried Cheese Curd booth and bought one of those. $6.00. A better value and really pretty damn good.
At that point, we were ready for our cheese steak. There has been a booth at Pigout for several years that makes the best cheese steak we've ever tasted.
This year, we split it. $17.00. I was complaining that it was smaller than last year and as I took my first bite, I just didn't care anymore. Damn, it was good.
We finished up with ice cream. We went to Mary Lou's and Susan had a cone with Cookies n'Cream. $6.00. I had the Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae. $10.00.
We are back home now, and I think we've got Pigout out of our system for another year. We saved out lemonade cups in case we go back tomorrow. But we need to refocus our energy. We have to get ready for the County Fair next week.
For several years now, I have been concerned about our hot water tanks. You may recall that prior to our purchase of this home over 20 years ago, it was a group home. To accommodate the eight persons living here, they installed three hot water tanks.
So, when we moved in, we had plenty of hot water. About ten years ago, one of them started leaking. I shut it down and pulled it out of the system. Now we were down to only two hot water tanks. Don’t feel bad for us. We still have plenty of hot water. In fact, I take rather long showers, and I have never run out of hot water.
So, that’s where we are today. Since these two existing tanks have been here well over 20 years, I have been expecting a failure. I have not spoken of it, knowing that to mention the situation would exacerbate the situation.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a small stream of water leading from the Hot Water Tank in the Laundry Room to the drain. That was the clue. This tank is on its way out.
I was very concerned that this was going to be a tough install. Mostly because I thought it would be difficult to get the old one out.
Several years ago, I thought it would be smart to drain the tank and try to remove some of the calcium that builds up inside them. I opened the valve and couldn’t get anything to come out. I tried fishing a wire hanger up through it and got nothing.
Today when I opened the valve, the thing easily drained all the way out. After that, it was quite easy to disconnect it from power and the water lines and haul it out of the basement and into the back of my truck.
In any event, another successful episode of Handyman Corner.
It is just after 11:00AM and I have just place a brisket on the barbecue. I am expecting this to take about seven hours, the first part, getting it up to 170 degrees should take up to five hours.
It shows me my target temp, the actual temp of the meat and the ambient temperature of the barbecue. Once it has had some time to assess everything, it will even give me an estimated time to reach my target.
I’m going to give it another 20 minutes and then I’ll switch out thermometers.🌡️
At that point, I will cut it up and it will be ready to serve. We’re not serving it for dinner until tomorrow. We have invited our neighbors, Tammy and Lou over to thank them for looking after Delilah when we went to California.
4:05PM: Okay, the cook is done and the roast is in the cooler. I’ll be keeping an eye on it until it gets to 160. Let’s see how long it takes.
My neighbor down the street is having some major landscaping work done on her yard. They’ve put in a new sprinkler system, leveled all of the yard, and today started laying sod.
I went down this afternoon and asked one of the guys if they had any scrap pieces they were throwing away. He pointed to a palette over on the curb and said, “Have at it!”
I came back with the truck and loaded up a bunch of pieces.
I’ve been wanting to do something with my little triangle corner of grass over on the corner of Waverly and Wall. I’ve tried several times to replant grass there but nothing has taken.
So, with the help of Cole Anderson from down the street, we (Cole) dug out the old crappy grass, leveled the ground and then we (us) laid the grass in.
As promised, it’s supposed to rain today. When we started setting up this morning, it started raining. Not too bad, but stuff was getting wet.
By the time we got the tents up, it had stopped raining and so far, the rain has stayed away.
We’ve had some pretty good crowds and we think we’ve made about 100 bucks so far.
This Saturday is the Annual Corbin Park Neighborhood Yard Sale. We don’t participate every year but this year we decided it was time to unload some of our crap…I mean, underutilized items.
So all this week we are prepping for the sale. The last two days, we’ve been tearing into “the Hole”. It’s an upstairs storage area where we stored lots of boxes when we moved in twenty years ago and then forgot about it.
We are pulling out a lot of crap…stuff we will never use. Interspersed, there are little gems that I forgot we had. Books, like my old Yearbooks, pictures, fun little niknaks, and some stuff we’re finding is kind of valuable. Cool!
The weather has been spectacular for a good month. It’s been hot but not too hot. The tradition of the neighborhood yard sale is that we always manage to pick the weekend in June when it rains.
I was looking at the forecast today and here’s what it shows.
I would like to take a moment to comment on our kitchen fan.
Our gas cooktop is located on the island and it required a downdraft fan. We were able to locate a nice GE brand fan for about 800 bucks.
Susan is making Split Pea Soup. She is currently boiling the hambone left over from Easter.
The pot is on the burner, simmering away, and I was noticing how the steam was gracefully being sucked into the fan.
The fan vents on the back of the house.
I went out on the front porch to enjoy a beer. While sitting on the porch…at the front of the house…I distinctly smelled ham.
That’s quite a powerful fan. I’m feeling better now about spending that 800.
After five months and three days, our piano has returned.
It left us last November 25th, for sound board repair. It was now returned all shiny and new. Unfortunately, it is completely out of tune. I mean, it is not even close.
The Tuner will come on Friday and try to clean it up a bit and then will be back in another couple of weeks to finish the job.
The strings have to acclimate and stretch a little before they can be properly tuned.
Okay! We are going to attempt (again) to finish getting all the tiles up on the kitchen ceiling. After that there is some caulking that needs to done but that shouldn’t take long.
The wall has been patched and painted.
2:53 PM: There’s one tile up. It’s a really tight work space.
3:05 PM: There’s the second tile in place. We’re down to the last one. The final corner piece has to be cut on two sides, so it’s a little trickier than the others. We starting with a cardboard template.
We are working on the last five tiles for the ceiling. We really want together this finished. It’s been going on since January.
It turns out it won’t take so long. But we’re not finished.
I still have a little prep work to do too. This final row is where the soffit was for the old kitchen cabinets. There are some uneven areas on the ceiling where the soffit connected to the ceiling. I pulled out a putty knife and started scraping. It’s making a horrible mess of drywall chunks and dust. I tried holding a dust pan to catch the debris but it’s still pretty messy.
