The End Of The Long Weekend.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  ( That sounds kind of bad...)  If you are like many Americans,  you show your support for deceased American soldiers and loved ones by grilling out over a long weekend.  Three Days!   What better way to show your patriotism?  ( Just wait until the 4th of July...) And, like so many other red blooded Americans,  I spent the three days relaxing and doing stuff.  Nothing too crazy.... Just trying to rest and recover from a busy week at the Zebra Warehouse. 

So... What did I do?   I exercised...  A LOT!  I ran a LOT! 6 miles several times last week and 6 on on Friday. I ran 12 miles yesterday.  At least I'm counting it as that.... it might have been further  And YES! You Grammar Nazies!   Further is used properly in this case. I checked!  

A few oysters.

Dave ran 6 miles with me today and about killed me.   ( He runs fast!  And is in better shape than I am.) And here I was thinking I was in pretty good shape after running 12 miles on Sunday!   Guess I have a ways to go

Didn't look all weekend.

.  However, I have found myself running a lot lately.   I don't know why I have decided to increase the distance,  but I have.  Hopefully I will be a little bit healthier for all of my efforts.

Earlier week flowers

Dave had a busy weekend as well.   He had Church on Saturday and two times on Sunday.  

More flowers.

He had a marriage class, several graduation parties and events to attend, and I think a Baptism.  A full week/weekend for the Clergy man.   

 

Another Flower!

While he was doing those things, I began unraveling yet another string in the basement. 

Um... Is this how I got Poison Ivy?

This time I cleaned up and organized his "work area" or shop.   This is really the wrong term for this as Dave does not do "craft things" or wood working or anything that requires tool or a work area in general.   

Mostly finished Work Space.

Some clean up remains.

But I do!   I will admit that there are certainly some self-interested motives behind my actions.  Many of the tools you see on the peg board are ones that have been left behind by the former house owner.  I can't tall you what half of the tools I found are even used for.  But I'm guessing the former tool owner ran into the same problem many folks run into:   They do not know what they have... so they buy replicants. 

My next project?

Putting the tools on the wall helps a lot.   It shows Dave... or whoever might need a tool.... exactly what they have and how many are available.  ( Like 6 hammers... And 12 screwdrivers.) And now, for the first time since I got here, I can see the actual bench!   I'm pretty excited about that. 

Today,  Dave finally had a complete day to relax... so we went fishing.   I was a little disappointed at the results though.   I think another group must have came before us and cleaned out the bluegills off their beds.  We did manage to catch a few nice ones that were left over. Dave had the advantage with his waders.  Whereas I was restricted to the locations with small gaps in the brush.   I also caught a  very large frog. 

And that was it.   After cleaning the fish,  Dave grilled up some Chicken and we ate supper.  Time now to finish up this blog and prepare for tomorrow.  I'm thinking it is going to be another busy day at the Zebra. But it was fun having an extra day to catch a few things up.  

Hope everyone had a great weekend this weekend.  Perhaps you spent it with friends and family.  (Living or dead!)  Which is what I think everyone should do.   Or enjoy the graduation of the next generation as we send them out to face the world and pay taxes.  Enjoy the party kids!  Adulting  is a long and sometimes depressing career.   Thanks for stopping in.

A Very "Productive" Weekend.

 I got a lot accomplished this weekend.   It might not seem like a lot to others, but there  were various projects that I have been putting off and finally got to tackle them...  So I'm feelin' pretty good! 

I ran 7 miles! I did laundry.  I embroidered a half dozen things for myself and other people.  I fixed the coffee maker! I purchased vacuum parts and bags at Menhards.  I replaced the batteries in the Garage Door Opener.  (Kind of a big deal.) But the really, really BIG thing was I cleaned up the basement area and organized a sizable section.  That took most of my Saturday.

And finally,  I was able to marathon through several episodes of Game Of Thrones.  

The big thing was the clean up/ organization in the basement area.  I kind of live down there and each day I walk around a mountain of old magazine collections and dead plants that Dave has "saved" from the recycle bin at church over the years.  But somewhere while doing my seemingly endless embroidery projects,  I tugged on the cleaning thread and it began to unravel. 

It started with just a simple shop vac of the area.  My embroidery area has scraps of thread and material that looks unsightly and can only be vacuumed up with the shop vac.   The problem in that the handle has limited reach.   I used an old tube from a Christmas wrapping paper roll,  and it worked!

Right up until the suction of the vacuum collapsed the tube. ( which was kind of hilarious if you ever saw it.)   I needed a better tube extension so I headed to Menhards to buy more.    While I was there I bought some vacuum bags for Dave's obsolete vacuum.  (They didn't fit... But there is more to that story.) 

No, it didn't look this bad.

I hurried back and continued cleaning things and stacking things and organizing things and ultimately,  throwing a number of things away.  By the way,  I found the "right" vacuum bags in the process!  See!   One of the perks for discovering what you have buried under a mountain of cardboard and magazines.You find things you thought you had lost. 

No, it doesn't look this good.

Don't worry!  Nothing "important" got tossed. Mostly I simply consolidated things and stacked them up neatly.   Any left over crushed cardboard was thrown into recycling.  ( Which is brimming at the moment...)  But now I can see all the way to the Basement door from my dark little corner.  And there are no longer any "trippables" out there. 

I still may have to make a trip to good will for a few items that people might be able to use.  But I will wait for Dave's "OK" on that one.  

There is still the other side of the basement to organize.   And there are the shelves and tables that have tools and shop materials all over them.  A project for another day.   But for now...  They pose no immediate threat to me or any  unsuspecting wildlife.  

I also fixed the coffee maker ( no pictures.) This will be the third time I actually took this specific brand of coffee maker apart.  I guess German Engineering is not all it was cracked up to be. There was a short right at the connection of the power cord.   I removed the bad part and reconnected the wires.  I'm not sure what caused the short, bt for now, it appears to be working.   Without any of my special connectors,  I will have to make do with what was provided.  Hopefully it will last a while this time. 

There is more, but I don't want this blog to get too long.  ( They always do when you wait to sum up the week on a weekend.)  Perhaps I will have the MOJO to blog again tomorrow.  We shall see. 

Hope everyone else is having a great and productive weekend.  I think  I have a long weekend next weekend, so I will have to plan accordingly.   I wonder what I shall do with my extra day.  I'll have to think about it.  

As for me...  Have a great day and thanks for stopping in.   

A Successful Mushroom Hunt.

I dislike Morels.   I think I have covered that before on this blog.   Everyone wants them.  Everyone is out looking for them.  No one wants to share their successful hunting spots.  It is a dodge ball, secretive competition that seems to favor everyone but me.   So I hate them.  Silently.  ( unless you read this blog) 

So needless to say.... I did not find any morels  this year... Again! A big zero!  Unless you count the one that someone left in the middle of the path a few weeks ago.  ( I don't!)  As if to taunt me by showing me that they are in the area.. but I will never find any.   And THEY can find them so often that they just leave the surplus on the trail for random strangers to find.  So mushroom hunting for morels is a complete waste of time!

And yet... I continue to look for them.   Why?  Such self abuse should be banned.   But similar to fishing...  you never know when you will find something out there that was unexpected, but still desired. 

And so it was that Sunday afternoon,  I found my first Oyster Mushrooms of the year. Pleurotus populinus     Also known as the "Spring Oyster mushroom."

I found them in a stand of big leaf aspen.   And they were growing in several places.   I gathered what I could and brought them to Dave.  

He was excited and wanted to hunt  for some more.   And since it was mother's day,  they was still the opportunity to possibly find a morel or two. ( except for me... cause morels hate me.) 

On the way out to the woods,  we found a tree loaded with Dryad Saddle!   

Honestly,  ever since I found those ones pinning a few weeks ago, I had given up on dryad saddle being anything other than survival food!  But catch them early... while they are still tender, and they are awesome!   These guys were still in the pinning stage and had not yet formed their pores under the cap.  They were tender and brittle when you flexed the caps.  We harvested everything we could. 

Once in the woods,  we found even MORE!  But these guys were past their prime.  It was obvious the moment we tried to cut them from the tree.  They were tough and leathery!  We took a few of the smaller ones, but even those will be set up for drying later.   Once they open those pores, they seem to get overly tough and inedible for normal dishes. 

Once home,  I cut up all of the oysters and about half of the dryad saddle.   Dave whisked them up with some noodles and beef tips and they were delightful! perfect texture and flavor. I guess part of the mushroom education is knowing when to harvest certain mushrooms and how to cook them at their best.  Our education continues. 

So I just wanted to post that since it was not going to make it in the last post.   Certainly a different subject from racing and family.   So... here it is.   I now will be looking forward to hunting other mushrooms as they make their appearances.   And I will be enjoying the forest now that many of the morel people will be leaving.  I doubt they will be caring much about new and exotic species of edible mushrooms that make their appearances all summer long.  ( Except the Chicken of the Woods....) And this is where I will gain ground and use my new found knowledge to acquire mushroom species they have ignored or  abandoned.  They will be mine!  All Mine!  muhahahaha!

Hope everyone had a great Monday. And thanks for stopping in.

The River Bank Run, Mother's Day, 50th Anniversary, Family Gathering in Michigan Weekend!

Whew!  That is a Huge title!   And we tried our best to cram in as much junk into two days as we could.   Which means that we pretty much had no time for ourselves and did not achieve everything we had wanted.   But we survived!   And I have something to blog about at the very least.

And it is late.... so I should try to limit the 700 pictures and all the details to just the bare memories that we will be able to recall...  So let's get started

I was fortunate enough to have Friday off from Work....  A Z day!  ( That's "Z"  for Zebra... Not "Zombie"...   Which would still be cool.  Just sayin'.)  Cheryl and I spent that day traveling to Michigan and picking up our packets for the Grand Rapids River Bank Run!  I signed up for the 10 K and Cheryl went for the Big 25K. ( about 15 miles... for those of us who only live in the US and are not Military....) She was part of the "two Hour Club" from last year and wanted to get in the special bib and special room set aside for the snobs that can run faster than everyone else.  Snobs!

How did it go?   Well, I finished my 10 k in under an hour.   That is fairly consistent for me.  ( Just under a 10 minute per mile pace... for those who are not runners...  Living only in the US and do not know the Metric System conversion rate.) I was pretty pleased with that.  

Cheryl, on the other hand....  Finished 14 seconds over the 2 hour mark.   Meaning... She got kicked out of the two hour club the very year she was allowed into it!   What a loser!   ( First loser.... to be exact!  Her words.. not mine!)   But..... She was still able to climb the golden stairs and join the uber elites in the special "two Hour Club" room.   And what did she find? 

Wait for it....

Bagels.   That's it.   No wine,  no cheese, no special beer or cigars.  No dancing women.... just bagels.  That was a lot of work to get something rather "ho humm."    Somehow, that made her feel a little less bitter about failing to crack the two hour time  for two years in a row.  

But the celebration could not last forever...  And eventually we had to go to the Fam's for some additional celebrating.   Namely,   The folks were having their 50th Wedding anniversary.  They wanted it to be small, so we just invited Andy and Tanya.     

Mike and Julie's new cat.

But then Julie and Mike heard about it and decided to crash the party.    

Are we boring?

It didn't take them long to get bored, but we managed to have a good time despite their constant yawning and stretching.  It was almost as if they had run a 10k run that morning.  ( That is a little over 6 miles... for those folks who were educated in the US public School system, are  not military, or have ever run a race in the early morning.) 

Finished take.

Outake #1

One of the highlights was when we got the folks to pose with their cake.  Andy made them take several dozen takes to get the right ones.   Just like Mom makes us do every time  the entire family gathers up.  

 

Finished Take

Outtake #2

What a long weekend!   And there is MORE!  But it is getting late and I will have to blog about the rest tomorrow.    Monday is supposed to be a big day at the Zebra.... So I will definitely need some beauty sleep tonight. 

Outtake #1

Outtake #2 But Cats are Family!

Hope everyone had a great Mother's day weekend this weekend.   Cheryl and I managed to kill 4 "birds" with one weekend visit to Michigan... so I think that is pretty impressive.  Perhaps next time we will be able to spend some time with each other.... just the two of us.   Maybe....  

Thanks for stopping in!  And I hope everyone has a wonderful week this coming week.  Until then.