It is official. Mountain Spokaloo is open for the season.
They only have two lifts open so it’s very limited skiing.
I think the story is the same at all the area ski resorts. It seems the best skiing has been at Lookout Pass. They have most of their chairs and terrain open.
From the looks of their webcams, they are busy and it looks pretty good there today.
I’m very anxious to be skiing. It’s now the second day of Winter and my mountain is not open yet. I know the globe is warming but I do not want to attribute this late start to that. Rather, it’s just one of those years. We’ve had them before.
But now that this is something that dominates my daily rumination's, I’m going to start keeping a bit of a record here on Mt Spokane’s progress towards opening for the season.
It’s been a pretty warm Autumn up until the last couple of days. The forecast is calling for snow over the next few days but it could easily come as rain.
I’m posting this so I will be able to refer back when we get a crap load of snow and I start complaining about having to clear it.
Here it is, the last day of Autumn and there is no Winter in sight.
Mt Spokane was all set to open last week and then the monsoons came rolling through and washed away all the snow.
Here’s how it looked earlier today.
Looks like I picked the right year to not buy a Season Pass.
It seems like all I’m writing about lately is problems with Utility Services.
Our internet has been out since Thursday. We hosted Thirsty Thursday this week and we were looking forward to watching Thursday Night Football featuring the Seattle Seahawks vs. the L.A. Ramses.The game was to be on Prime, available only on the interweb.
So when we lost our connection to the World Wide Web, we were devastated to learn we would not be able to see the game.
Fortunately, my Tech-savvy neighbor Derrick was able to get the game on his phone. So we got to watch it on a 3” x 6” screen. Eighteen of us crowded around this tiny screen.
Earlier in the afternoon, I received an automated message from Quantum, my interweb provider who said they were working on the problem and would have it repaired by 5AM on Friday. So, we knew in advance that we couldn’t see the game on our TV.
I got up well past 5 on Friday morning and still had no interweb. I got a couple other automated calls during the day that said they were working on the problem and would have it repaired by 9:02AM on Saturday.
As I was going to bed last night, I happened to look at the modem and noticed a solid green light, indicating interweb service.
It was back. I checked my email prior to going to bed and erased most of the 127 emails I had.
Among them were emails from Quantum telling me my interweb service was out and they were working on the problem.
The fact that they were sending me emails makes me think they don’t really understand how the internet works.
All the weather services started talking on Sunday about the coming windy weather. They said it would be windy on Monday, ease up a bit on Tuesday and be back on Wednesday...all of this with intermittent rain. We were also told to be ready for power outages.
I got in the shower at 7:40 this morning and almost immediately, the power went out. I showered in the dark and made it a short one so as to not use up whatever hot water we had remaining.
I drove around the neighborhood to try and figure out the extent of the outage. It went from our block to the west, over to parts of Monroe Street and south to Buckeye. It didn't look like it went north beyond us and houses down the street to the east from us had power.
The electricity stayed off all day. I essentially did nothing but nap.
We left the house about five to go watch the Gonzaga game. As we left, the power came back. Then went out. After a few more minutes, it was on for good.
I'm sure I have noted this before here in this Blog but let me note it again. I find it quite disquieting how dependent on electricity we are. I do have a generator, but I did not bother to pull it out as I figured the power would come back on sooner. I mean, Hell, we are in the middle of the city. Isn't that a priority?!
Anyway, I think I'm going to dig out the generator and make sure it's working okay and place it where I have better access to it.
The other problem we ran into today was accessing the garage. With the power out, the garage door won't open. We have a side door on it, but the concrete has heaved up to such an extent that it prevented the door from opening much more than a Susan sized sliver.
She was able to get in and detach the door from the rail so we could open the door.
I took a sledgehammer to the concrete and made it a bit more accessible.
In short, not much accomplished today.
Being the second Sunday of December, tonight was the Annual Corbin Park Carriage Ride.
It has been unseasonably warm lately and tonight was another nice warm evening.
The forecast is calling for rain for the next five days and some huge wind.
So, stand by.
This is the day for the outdoor lights to go up.
Up on the balcony, we have the icicle lights, the star projection light and the neon running light.
On the front porch, we wrap the pillars with white twinkle lights.
So, here we go.
Thankfully, it was a relatively warm day but the wind was gusting pretty good. We managed to get the lights up in no time at all.
We also got the lights on the balcony up quickly too.
So now, we’re festive.We are down to the best possible conclusion to the Thanksgiving Season. Turkey Soup.
I think it’s the barley that brings me back to Mom more than anything else.
9:36 AM: The bird is in the pot and the pot is coming to a boil. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
9:55 AM: The kitchen is already filling with the smell of Turkey boil. Yum!
2:00 PM: The carcass has been boiled and the broth is cooling. We are going to complete the cook tomorrow and have it ready for Karen and Randy when they come over.
We have received the first major snowfall of the year. It looks like we got two, maybe three inches and it all needs to be cleared from the sidewalks. I will get out there shortly.
The trick is to decide whether you think the snowfall will melt away naturally or it’s going to remain cold, with the threat of more snow on the way and you need to clear it now.
The turkey was pretty good. I didn’t burn it this year although I maybe should have left it in a bit longer. I pulled it at 165 and I should have left it in until 170.
Anyway, all was well, nobody got sick, at least not from the bird. Perhaps from over eating. We had a lot of food.
I think we have decided that all the extra work I put in to barbecue this turkey isn’t really worth it. The turkey was good, but so is a simple over roasted turkey. So this might be the last barbecued turkey for a while.
Now it’s time to turn to the Christmas Season. Susan will be wanting to start decorating. We need to have the house looking Christmassy by the Carriage Ride on the 14th…so we have some time.
It’s barbecue day!
I just pulled the turkey out of the brine after an 18-hour soak.
We are trying something slightly different this time in order to get some authentic turkey gravy. We’ve pulled the wings off the bird and Susan is roasting in them in the oven. We’re hoping to get enough dripping for gravy.
1:15 PM: The starter charcoal has been lit.
1:36PM: The turkey is in. Here is the first photo capture of the Meater display.
Two days to go to Thanksgiving and my preparations are underway.
I was consulting this blog from when I barbecued a turkey last year and I found I had left some information out. Specifically, I had questions about the brining that I had not made note of last year.
Let’s start with the basics. Into the pot goes two gallons of water, three cups of apple cider, the peel of three large oranges, a cup and a half of kosher salt, two cups of brown sugar, 5 bay leaves, 4 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, 5 minced garlic cloves, and three tablespoons of peppercorns.
Susan bought fresh rosemary but I used the stuff in the spice rack. Oops! For garlic, we have a little jar of minced garlic and I put in a couple of spoons full. I used the apple cider I made the other day for the apple juice.
I’m boiling up the brine in the pot I use to brew beer. Once it boils, I am to let it cool completely before sticking the turkey in it. The turkey is to soak for 16 to 24 hours. My plan is the soak the bird in the brew pot. I hope it fits.
It is now cooling. I’m going to set the pot out on the deck to hasten the cooling process. It’s about 30 degrees out there.
In the meantime, I’m going to sit back, read the morning paper and enjoy a nice hot cup of homemade cider. It’s really good.
1:45PM: The brine is still cooling. I was hoping to have the turkey in the brine by now but I’m still okay. Even if I get the bird in the brine by 4:00, I’ll still get a good 17 hour soak out of it. That’s assuming I start cooking tomorrow at 9:00. I will probably end up starting later.
3:36PM: The turkey is in the brine. It’s going to be in there for at least 18 hours which will be plenty of brine time.
Okay we will be picking up the continuation of this marvelous story tomorrow.
I’m barbecuing the Thanksgiving turkey this year. Here it is, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and I am already prepping.
Today, I am making Apple Cider, which will be used for the brine for the bird…and a little left over for us to enjoy.
This recipe is pretty basic, which I like. It comes from the website, www.allrecipes.com. The ingredients are as follows:
10 apples - quartered with core and peel. (I’m going to cut my apples with an apple corer so I’ll get eight apple pieces per apple.
Place in large pot and cover with water, add about 2 inch coverage.
1 Tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of ground allspice.
3/4 cup white sugar
Boil for one hour, simmer for 2 more hours. Strain out fruit. Probably best to strain twice.
Can be refrigerated and kept for one week.
Okay, here goes.
We’re about 15 minutes into the boil and the room is starting to smell of apples. It adds a nice autumn ambiance with a hint of cimanon to the kitchen. (Yeah, I know I misspelled cinnamon.)
We have made it through the hour long boil and it’s time to simmer down now. The flavor is building but it’s not there yet. I’ll be back in two hours.
The simmer is over and we have apple cider. I had to strain out all the apples and then I strained it again through a mesh bag I use for brewing beer.
I got just over half a gallon. I need three cups for the brine recipe so we don’t have much to drink beyond the recipe.
I guess I’m going to have to make some more.
I was cleaning out one of my dresser drawers and I came across this old receipt from 2005.
I just thought this was an interesting little time capsule to get out there.
We spent Saturday and Sunday working the front yard. We had a lot of leaves fall this week after several days of rain. Susan raked and I used the blower.
We have a crap load of leaves to take to the dump. I estimate we harvested about 40 bushels yesterday and probably an equal amount on Saturday.
I bought a box of construction grade leaf bags. These are thicker than the standard garbage bag and therefore reusable. I think the last time I bought bags was about three years ago.
The bags get placed in a garbage can and fastened tight around the top. I used a snow shovel to load leaves and Susan used the claws.
Getting the bag out of the garbage can was difficult. We had to put the can on its side while both of us pulled a groin muscle to get the bag out. Then we put it the bag on a hand truck and wheeled it over to the truck. We had a couple of milk crates stacked by the tailgate, which allowed us to lift the bag on top of the milk crates, and then the rest of the way to the truck bed.
I'm clearly doing a horrible job of updating the progress of the wine.
We ran all the grapes skins through the fruit press last weekend and ended up just short of six gallons of must. It continued to ferment through the last week and it appears to be complete. There is no action going on in the vapor lock.
I will be checking it out, getting a gravity reading and we will probably rack the must (wine) to a clean fermenter. At that point, we need to figure out if we should add wood chips for aging and flavor.
More to come.
We have survived another Halloween and we are again asking ourselves why we put ourselves through this. It’s a lot of work and money.
While we put out some lights and a few decorations prior to the 31st, the bulk of our decorations go out on Halloween and get torn down once we run out of candy…or choose to shut down, whichever comes first.
Generally, we’re all pretty tired by 8:30 and ready to call it.
Between 3:30 and 8:30, we had an estimated 1,500 Trick or Treaters. My main complaint this year, as last, is that there are some really old people out for candy. If you facial hair, you are too old.
But, we had a good night and we are glad it’s over and behind us. The rest of the Holiday season is going to be a breeze.
The wine is churning away and we’re loosing some juice. The vessel we are using is a se7en gallon bucket. I wish it was eight gallons.
We have returned from our trip to Prosser, WA to get grapes and taste some wine.
We got 100 pounds of Cabernet Franc grapes. It cost $115.00.
We crushed them yesterday and they are sitting in the Carriage House awaiting the pitching of the yeast. I’ll probably do that tomorrow.
The ALCS series went to seven games. The Mariner’s won the first two games in Toronto. The Blue Jays won the next two games in Seattle. Last Friday night, the Mariner’s won Game 5 to send the series back to Toronto. The Blue Jays won Sunday night. Here it is Monday and the final game. The winner goes to the World Series.
I have been saying that I want to see the Mariner’s in the World Series before I die. Well, I get to live for another year.
The Mariner’s lost 4 to 3.
Up until yesterday, we’ve had a wonderful Fall. It’s really been more like Summer. But that has all come to an end and it’s been quite rainy the last couple of days.
And that has prompted me to Pyromancy. Is that a word? Doesn’t matter. Cuz I’ve lit a fire. And I did it in the fireplace, so it’s seems appropriate.
It seems so strange to be talking about the Mariner’s playing baseball in October. That hasn’t happened in many a year. Here’s to hoping for good ⚾️ juju in the coming days for Seattle.
We have just returned from the Hub Tavern where we watched a marathon baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Seattle Mariners. It was the deciding game five of the American League Division Series and it took 15 innings. That’s almost two baseball games.
In the end, the Mariners prevailed when Jorge Polonco fired a nice base hit into right field to drive home the winning run from third base. Final score, 3-2.
The folks in the Hub went nuts. It was really fun and a very joyous occasion.
Now they move on to the American League Championship against the Toronto Blue Jays. I don’t know much about Toronto but they are favored in the seven game series.
I say, Go Mariners!!!
For those of you playing the Boiler Game this year, I’m afraid I have some disappointing news.
I don’t care.
I turned on the heat last Wednesday night as it felt like a chilly evening and my old bones don’t like to shiver.
Since that night, I haven’t had to heat things up but the switch to the boiler is in the “ON” position. It felt quite nice when I came downstairs this morning and felt the heat.
So, I guess if you picked October First, you win. However the prize money is not available because I want to buy an e-bike.
There are other things going on today. Mark is coming over shortly to help me put the air conditioners away. I also have purchased a door knob set for the hall closet (that used to be the back stairwell) that has been knobless since we moved in.
So, I’m going to get to work on getting the a.c. units out of the windows and ready for storage.
6:44PM: I managed to get the door knob onto the door. It’s not pretty. It’s still not quite right. But, the door now has a knob to open it and it closes and stays closed.
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.
