Trip to the Fair

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.

End of Summer

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.

As you can see, we had great seats. There was lots of food and drink and frivolity.

Susan and I were joined by Ron and Kelly and a new addition, Jim Cathey. His wife, Jill was playing in the band. She had a nice solo during a West Side Story montage.

Now we just have to stand by and wait for Autumn.

Pigout Report 2025

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.

Hot Water Tank Install

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.

Today, with the help of Handyman Shawn, we replaced it.

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.

The new one went in beautifully with just a couple of adjustments that Shawn made. I’m very glad he was here. I believe I could have installed it on my own, but it would have taken much longer and there would have been several trips to the General Store.

In any event, another successful episode of Handyman Corner.

Brisket Sunday

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.

The one thing I missed in my preparation for this cook is I did not make sure my Bluetooth meat thermometer was charged. The brisket is on with another thermometer while I charge the MEATER. I really love using the MEATER because it gives me so much information.

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.🌡️ 

It’s almost 3:30 and I have about 20 minutes to go on my brisket cook. Then I’m going to stick it in a cooler and let it cool to 160. 

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.

New Grass

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.

It’s the best it has ever looked!

It makes the rest of my lawn look like crap!

  

Yard Sale Day

 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.

The main thing is that we managed to unload this old Hammond Organ that we had in the Carriage House for the last 15 years. It doesn’t work but the guy who’s coming to get it knows about these organs and can probably fix it.

I also sold my old golf clubs that were my Grandfather’s. I got 15 bucks for the bag, a complete set of 50 year old clubs and about $20.00 worth of new golf balls. I’m happy!

Corbin Park Yard Sale 2025

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.

Let the tradition continue.

FAN-TAS-TIC!

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.

Steinway Come Home

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.

Anyway,  she’s back.

Almost A Wrap

 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. 

We only have three tiles to go. It’s 2:43PM.

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.

3:39 PM: VICTORY! That last tile took some ciphering. The corner is totally not square.  Here’s a picture of the last placement.

But, the tile portion is done.

Me happy! Susan says it’s not done.

Five Tiles To Go

 We are working on the last five tiles for the ceiling. We really want together this finished. It’s been going on since January.

This is how the last unfinished space looks. It is 12 noon right now. Let’s see how long this takes.

It turns out it won’t take so long. But we’re not finished.

I’m on my way to Sherwin-Williams to get a quart of the wall paint that has hardened up on us. So that took us 20 minutes to get to this stopping point.

1:10PM: I’m back from the paint store and I was able to get a quart of the paint we need. Susan has filled in the gap on the wall above the cabinets and now we need to wait for it to dry. 

So, unless we finish this tonight, I think we’re done for the day.

I’m going out to do my first mow.

So Close

We completed another row of ceiling tiles today. Just one row left. That last row will probably take longer because every tile will need to trimmed and some of the spots are going to be difficult to access. The oven cabinet and the one above the fridge are 36” deep which makes it hard to get the tile measurements and work in the tight space.

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.

This and That

We have both been pretty productive over the last couple of days.

Yesterday I did a little yard work. I cleaned up the leaves in the front gutter, I emptied the pond in the east back yard of all the water and leaves, and I emptied some unwanted paper stencils from the top floor of the Carriage House. 

Back when we painted windows, we would make stencils if there was a logo or lettering we had to do. I always saved them and that actually paid off a couple of times. 

But we are now done painting windows for the holidays so it’s time to get rid of these stencils.

I backed my truck into the alley, positioning the bed under the alley door, and tossed all the stencils down into my truck bed. I have some other crap I’m taking to the dump so that trip will be in a couple of days.

I took my scissors to the chive shrubbery and cut it way back. I want to see how quickly this thing will recover

I also got a shot of my Sterling hops. I have documented it here before but it’s really amazing to watch how fast these things grow.

I will bet that little sprout will be up to the decking on the back porch by May First.

Susan got out her mud bucket and did some spackling along the side wall of the kitchen where the ceiling meets the wall. We had substantial gaps that would still be exposed once we tiled the area. So, just to make sure, she filled in this gaps. She will do a little touch up painting tomorrow and then we will be ready to finish the last two rows.

Let the productivity continue!