Jake wrapped up his Eagle project last night. What a relief! It kind of dragged on longer than it should have, but now everything is done except for the paperwork and board of review, both of which should happen within a month. After that, we’ll have his Court of Honor ceremony/party and that will be that.
phil
Last year, it was mice, this year, it was a groundhog. One set up residence in the pond area and had to be dispatched. It’s just as well, because he thought my garden was his personal farmers market. Brian set up a trap and relocated the bugger once he was caught. It didn’t take very long to capture him–it turns out that groundhogs can’t resist cantaloupe.
canning and freezing
I’ve continued to can and freeze as much as possible. One thing that’s not vegetable-related is that I canned up some BBQ Pulled Pork. I have not tried it yet, so I hope it turned out well. I also did another three trays of zucchini stuffed shells, so we should be good on those for the winter. The garden season is winding down, but I still haven’t canned any tomato-related recipes. I have two in the queue for the weekend, but I just don’t have that many tomatoes and the weather is turning cold already. I’m hoping that I can do at least another recipe or two down the road.
driveway
Our driveway has needed redone ever since we bought our house 21 years ago. This should have been straightforward, but we share a driveway with our neighbor, so we’ve been trying to work something out with him for probably the last decade. But, it never came to fruition, so we had to draw a line in the sand and put a deadline on it (due to the fact that our move is in the not-too-distant future and there’s no way anyone is going to buy the house with the driveway like that). The deadline still didn’t work so we just got our part of the driveway done. It really wasn’t that big of a deal–they just cut out our portion and replaced it. However, the neighbor’s side looks even worse now that our side is good–like one of those double houses where one side is kept up with and the other side is falling into disrepair. The good news is that now we have a decent surface to park on.
We only got the top part of the driveway done, mostly because of the cost. We had $x allotted for the sewer work and driveway and that’s all it would cover. The lower part of the driveway wasn’t in anywhere near as bad of condition, so we did some filling and patching and it’s getting topcoated tonight. Once it’s all a uniform color, I’m sure it will look even better.
ann wilson of heart
I’ve been a fan of Heart for just about ever and have been kicking myself ever since I missed them on tour in Pittsburgh a number of years ago. The band broke up recently, so when I saw that Ann Wilson (the singer from Heart) was playing at The Palace Theatre, I decided to take the opportunity. The show was pretty good–she can still belt one out. The only disappointing thing was that she didn’t do a ton of Heart songs (only 1/4 of the set was comprised of those–and she also did two originals–but the rest was covers of classic rock songs). Still, it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to see her.
On a side note, The Palace Theatre is quickly becoming my favorite entertainment venue. It’s only an hour away and there are no traffic or parking issues to deal with. Plus, it’s small, so you can actually see what’s going on. Heck, we were home by 11 last night–not bad for a concert on a school night.