Shrubbery Maintenance

 A beautiful day here as April winds down. I got out on a nice bike ride and I accomplished a little yard project.

I've been wanting to cut back this shrub for a while now and today, I finally did it. I don't think we've ever really tended to it so it was waaaaay past time.

I broke out my crappy little electric hedge clippers along with a set of loppers to get the large stems the clippers can't. Everything went pretty well and I am happy with the results.

I'm going to do it again as soon as some vegetation grows into the side and fills it in.

The Kessel Run

For the third year in a row, Susan and I have won the costume contest at the annual Hub Tavern Fun Run. Every year there is a theme and the costumes are based on the theme. 

Our first win was several years back when the theme was Jurassic Jog. We dressed up as Cave peoples.

Three years ago the theme was "The Big Jogbowski". We dressed up as Kaluha and Cream.

Last year was the "One-zy Runzy". We dressed up like Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" in Bunny Suits. It was the first time we purchased our outfits rather than made them.

This year, the theme was based on Star Wars. They called it "The Kessel Run". We made our outfit and dressed up as...well, check out the video.

So, once again we are the big winners.

Three years in a row. We really did not expect to win this year. We didn't think the idea was all that great and somebody would come up with something really good. I guess we were rewarded for our effort more than anything else. That and the 70 bucks we spent on build this thing.

Arbor Vitae Revitalization Day

We are spending a chunk of change today.

Every couple of years we have a pruning company come in to clean up and trim our Arbor Vitae. Today is that day.

It's one of the reasons we were out earlier this week raking up all the crap under the shrubbery.

I didn't manage to get a before picture, but we are happy with the after.

Rather than see it as an expense of $900.00 we prefer to look at it as an investment in the long term care of this treasured feature of our yard.

Early Spring Yard Work

We got a start on some yard clean up today.

Susan did the bulk of the work. My stamina is so crappy now that I really don’t even have the energy to do sustained raking. So I use the leaf blower.

I also got a fire going in the fire pit and burned up a bunch of sticks we collected from the yard.

It’s the second day of really nice weather. It got into the 70’s yesterday for the first time in 2026. It’s a bit cooler today but not so much that we couldn’t work in the yard or go on a bike ride.

So that’s the early Spring update.

Lunch wid'da Boyz

One of my favorite Retirement Activities is to go to lunch with people. For the most part, those people are “guys”, but I don’t feel limited by that.

On Tuesday, Susan and I went to lunch at Jimmy John’s in Lincoln Heights for our 31st lunch. It’s a group of about 10-12 folks who get together on any month with 31 days. We know each other from church. I would not classify this lunch as ‘the guys”.

I have a regular weekly lunch date, loosely scheduled around Thursday, where I go to lunch with Rob (who I’ve known since kindergarten) and Mark (who I’ve known for about 45 years). The routine is we go somewhere to get a sandwich and take it to the Hub Tervan, where we enjoy our sandwiches with relatively cheap beer.

Today I went to lunch with Geoff and Mike. The routine with these guys is we go to different places and check out their food.

The destination was the Logan Tavern (ya see, I known how to spell it right) and we enjoyed their footlong hotdogs. Ten bucks! I had the chili dog which was quite a meal.

Beer was also included as well as lots of conversation.

I was hoping to ride my bike to the lunch, but the day was quite rainy.  The weather service recorded .17 inches fell today. And I’m too much of a pussy to ride wet.