All Hallows Eve 2021

After taking last year off, Halloween is just about to start for 2021. We had a bunch of friends come over and help us get the yard set up. We have over 2,000 pieces of candy. The yard is dressed up and looks pretty good.

It's been a nice sunny day but it is still cool. The temperature right now is around the low 50's which feels really comfortable. I know that is going to change in about ten minutes when the sun sets.

More of a report tomorrow.

One Day to 'Ween

It is the day before Halloween and Susan tells me we have a lot of work to do. I'm not even going to go into it, other than to say that there will be lots of pictures tomorrow. Here is one of a punkin that Susan carved.

Prepping for Thanksgiving

Along with all the stuff we are getting ready for Halloween, I am taking today to do a test run on a turkey.

I want to barbecue our Thanksgiving Turkey but I have never done it before and I would like some practice time.

Fortunately, while looking through the freezer the other day, Susan discovered we had a 12 pound turkey in there. Just right for practice.

I decided to thaw it and give it a try on my Weber, using the rotisserie and charcoal.

I am using the method for slow cooking in a Weber where the charcoal is placed in a ring around the outside of the kettle. This is known as a charcoal snake. I lit one end of the snake and that starts the cooking.

2:15 PM: The kettle is up to 200° which is good. The problem I am running into already is that the turkey is not very well secured to the spit. I have already opened the lid to reposition the bird and I am hoping that will work.

The turkey has been on the spit for 40 minutes so far. It has about two more hours to go.

3:19PM: I just shined a flashlight through the vent to see if the turkey was spinning on the spit. There was a little movement I didn't care for but it is spinning and the temperature is up to 260°.

4:53PM: It is almost time to check the turkey and see what the temperature is. I'm supposed to pull it off when it reaches 170-175° in the thickest part of the thigh. It still is not terribly secure to the spit but I have let it go anyway.

5:04PM: I just checked it and it is only at 145°. I'm going to let it go another 1/2 hour and then I'll check it again.

5:45PM: I have pulled the turkey and placed it into a cooler wrapped in aluminum foil. We are going to the Hub to have some beer and let the turkey rest.

6:30PM: I am very pleased with the way this all worked out. I have learned a couple of crucial lessons which I shall apply to the bird come Thanksgiving.

One lesson is to make sure the turkey is really bound up tight and secured to the spit. The other lesson is to do some flavor injecting into the turkey. It has a definite smoky flavor but I think it could be better.

The main thing is that I am full now. 

Back On Line

I have been off line for the last couple of days. My computer would not go on line. It kept telling me the Wi-Fi button was turned off. I went into Settings and found the Wi-Fi button but it would not engage.

This morning, I took the computer to Friendly Computers to see if they could fix it. We plugged it in, he did a couple of things and it was working.

There is a Wi-Fi icon at the top of my keyboard. It must have been touched and turned off the Wi-Fi. I think the cat got up here and walked on the button. The reason I think that is because my mouse was on the floor on Monday, the same day I realized I was not getting on line. I'm sure she got up on the table, walked on the keyboard and batted the mouse around. It is a mouse after all.

Today, in preparation for Halloween, I am going to get our little fence put up around the yard. It's just a series of stakes pounded into the ground around the sidewalk with a chain hung on them.

Then I need to work on the pallets we set up in the yard. I have to build and repair some shelves that I built into the pallets. I'm also going to get the Scarecrow in the ground and perhaps get to work on flying ghost.

But the main thing is that I'm back on line.

 

HalloPrep

With nine days remaining before Halloween, and our decision to participate this year, the Halloween stuff is coming out.

There is a lot of work ahead of us this weekend but I've given us a good start.

Ten Days to Halloween

Here is a picture that appeared on the cover of the Northwest Section of today's Spokesman-Review.

 I added the commentary.

Waverly Place Winery 2021

Hewlett-Packard was started in a small garage. Apple Computers was started in a small garage.

Likewise, the Waverly Place Winery is still in a small garage and not likely to change, unless we build a bigger garage.

Today we crushed 200 pounds of grapes that we purchased in Prosser last weekend. We have 100 pounds of Cabernet and 100 pounds of Syrah.

I tested the gravity on the two wines and it is up there. 1.110 for the Syrah and 1.100 for the Cab. We are looking at around 14% alcohol by volume.

I also completed a little work around the yard despite the half inch of rain that fell. We are supposed to get an inch on Friday.

I have put away the yard furniture and got some of the Halloween stuff down from the Carriage House. Look out for that bat!

R.I.P. Jim's Home Brew

It is official! Jim's Home Brew, one of my favorite businesses in Spokane, is no more.

I drove by yesterday and the building was a small pile of rubble.

I should have driven by on Monday. I've been keeping tabs on the building and should have realized it was coming down on Monday.

In any event, I will have nothing to do with Consumer Auto Liquidators (C.A.L.), who purchased the building, gave thirty day notice, and put Jim's Home Brew out of business.   

Trim Painting

I have completed most of my painting project.

I am going to wait until Spring to add a second coat.   

A Typical Retirement Tuesday

I have spent the day working on productive projects around the house. This is in spite of my having contracted the Covid 19 Virus. I am well past any major symptoms, having lost the sense of taste and smell. But they are back now and I am in quarantine until Friday.

I spent the day working in the yard. I am painting the trim around the base of the house. The same dark green that we painted on the front porch last summer.

Yesterday, I did most of the scraping. Today, I used my belt sander to sand out as much as I could from the trim. It's a pretty long stretch. From the front porch...

to the rear of the house...

and up onto the rear deck.

I managed to get the whole thing sanded and primed today. It took a while but I'm not on the clock. I'll do it in my own sweet retired time.

I'm pleased with my progress. I got everything sanded and everything primed.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I'll get started on putting down the dark green.    

Boiler Game Canceled

I have had to cancel the Boiler Game for this year. On Saturday morning, I noticed that the heat was on. I am not sure how that happened but I'm afraid it is a disqualifying factor for the Boiler Game.

It's really too bad because I had great hopes for a record this year.

Susan has gone to work today, having received a negative Covid test from the place to which she went. I am feeling better with my sense of taste and smell returning. No more Sluggo on the couch. It's back to life in the real world!  

Frustration and Covid

It is the time of year to start working on getting Halloween set up. We had no Halloween last year due to the pandemic. We have decided to proceed with the scary festivities for this year.

However,  a monkey has thrown a wrench into the works. I tested positive for Covid two days ago. Thanks to the vaccine, I have minimal symptoms. I'm feeling sluggish, sniffly, and my sense of taste and smell are on hiatus. Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good and am not really suffering.

Susan on the other hand is a twisted pile of seething frustration. She went to this local urgent care place (Indigo) for a test. She is feeling no symptoms but can't go to work until she gets a negative test result. 

She finally got a text this morning from them (Indigo) but when she clicks the link, it goes to a page that gives her no information about her test results, only that she did indeed show up there. Calling this place (Indigo) is like calling a brick wall. 

I think she is going to have to go up there (Indigo) and find out in person.

In the meantime, she is trying to work from home and can't completely access her programs at work. This causes a large amount of expletives' and unkindness to come forth from her angry, frustrated lips.

So I'm in quarantine for at least another week and Susan is beating her head against an intractable wall of frustrating frustration.

(Indigo) Not a fan

Editors Note: Italicized words should be expressed with distain and a sense of derision.

Susan eventually got her results and tested negative.  

Goodbye Summer

The Autumnal Equinox hit today around noon o'clock. It was a nice day, sunny with a bit of briskness to the air. A perfect day to welcome the Fall.

The main event of the day was acquiring a new Cement Bench for the front garden. You may recall that our old one disappeared a year ago on June 1st.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased one through a local cement statuary company for $168.00 under the guise of a birthday present for Susan. Her birthday is in July. This is September. 

This one came with a built in security cable to make it a little harder for some Scumbag to haul it off. See the chain?

And we had to return TinMan to the bench. He's very kitschy but I somehow like him. I've even given him pronouns.   

Finally, Rain

For the first time in what seems like a very long time, it is raining. I mean, substantially raining. It started lightly yesterday afternoon and continued sporadically today until about an hour ago when it let loose.

We are on the verge of having a half inch fall between yesterday and today. At least, that's what my rain gauge indicates.

Today's newspaper said that we are likely to get more rain this weekend than we got in all of July and August combined. That's not hard to believe because I don't think it rained at all in July and August was very sparse.    

A Day at Cd'A

Today, I rode out to Coeur d'Alene Lake with my friend Rob. He has a place out there and he needed help closing it up.

We didn't do a full shut down. He'll go out later this year to drain all the water and winterize the cabins.

Today we hauled the gangplank from the shore up onto the main dock. There it will sit in its winter home down the bay.

Rob has been doing this for years by himself. Since I am now a retired person of leisure, he invited me to help. Although he didn't really let me help much.

Here he is with a strap attached to the gangplank that is wrapped around him as he pulls the gangplank to the dock. All I did was help lift the end up on the dock, slide it forward a little bit and then took a bunch of pictures.

Afterwards we barbecued some Brats and drank some beers.

It was a good way to spend the day.

Chop Saw

I solved my chop saw conundrum today by purchasing a new one. Well, new to me. I'm not paying those high retail prices for a saw at Home Depot that I can get for half price or more at the local pawn shop. Pawn One, to be exact.

I'm quite happy with it.

It helped to turn that unsightly pile of scrap wood into nice little pieces for the fireplace.

As a bonus, it came with a nice sharp blade.

That pile is significantly larger now but I forgot to take any pictures.
   

Interstate Fair 2021

We went to the Spokane Interstate Fair today.

It was better than last year's since it was canceled due to Covid. But because Covid is still around, it was extremely scaled down.

For instance, they did not have a wine competition this year. The exhibits were about 50% of the number they would normally have been.

There was lots of food but two Fair favorites were conspicuously missing. The Shriners Elephant Ear booth was closed. No activity. 

And the Boehm's Chocolates ice cream bar was missing.

With all that was missing, it didn't prevent me from spending $55.00 in no time at all.

Messy Space

 I had a very productive Friday. I got to work on cleaning up the area between the garage and the Carriage House. It was full of mostly scrap wood and a lot of garbage.

I loaded the garbage into the bed of the truck and I'm going to the dump tomorrow with Mark and bunch of his garbage.

I ended up with this pile of wood that will soon become fire wood. That round table you see is going to remain intact. The rest gets cut up into easily handled fireplace lengths.

I would have gotten started on that today but my chop saw is no more. The safety switch on the trigger seems to have a problem completing the circuit. I can only turn the saw on some of the time. It's quie annoying and therefore, toast.

Labor Day Float

 It has been a wonderful Labor Day Weekend. The weather was fantastic all three days. Hot, but not too hot. We had some excellent food and there was of course, plenty of beer.

We rounded off the weekend today with a float on the Little Spokane.

With our friends Randy and Karen, we parked a car at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers. We put in at the Robinson property and took a three hour tour.

The highlight was passing this moose who was happily grazing in the river. We kept our distance as we passed her and she didn't seem to pay us much attention. 

If only we had seen a squirrel too!    

Labor Day 2021

It's Labor Day weekend which means the unofficial end of Summer. I looked back at my posts from last year to see what we were up to. We were varnishing the floor in the TV Room and cooking a brisket on the barbecue.

This year, we don't have anything as ambitious planned. I have just finished staining and varnishing a shelf for the armoire we are using as a stereo hutch. I think we'll be cleaning out the old and moving the new into place.

I'm going to work on the hot tub. It needs a cleaning and a filling, followed by a servicing. When last I had it filled, the breaker in the tub was flipping off when the heater was turned on.

The first thing I'm going to do is glue a piece of tile into place. That means I'm off to the General Store for some Gorilla Glue. But first, my final visit to Jim's Home Brew, which is closing forever after today.

5:28PM: As usual, some other stuff got in my way and prevented me from replacing the tile. It's not a problem though because I managed to get the hot tub cleaned out.

It's been sitting empty since last Fall and it had some small puddles of water and some badly decaying organic matter...mostly leaves.

So I got it scrubbed out pretty well and it is filling now. I'm going to run some chemicals through it to clean the jets and all the attached tubing.

Then I will drain it tomorrow and glue the tile in place and hopefully, refill the tub by the end of tomorrow. At 500 gallons, I'm using a lot of water this weekend.

For now, the tub seems to be heating but we shall see how long that lasts.

9:24PM: We have just returned from the Hub where we watched the first half of the WSU vs Utah St Football contest. It was a very low scoring half with the Cougars putting up 9 goal scores and the Utahians placing 5 goal scores. In the end, the Cougs lost by 3.

We barbecued some tri tips but the cat got lost so mine was slightly overcooked while we looked for her somewhere in the yard.

I drained the tub mostly after running the chemical stuff through the jets. The water was very cloudy and it seems like I may need to fill and drain a couple of times.