Thursday, July 03, 2008
Stuff
Crime
This week a black car drove by a house in town three times over a couple of hours shooting a different kid on each drive-by. One lady in the area was on the news complaining about the violence and how her kid was shot and killed just last year. Police have no leads because no one will cooperate. Lady; as long people follow that stupid no snitch crap, your kids and neighbors will keep getting shot.
Sales
I stopped at my local Home Depot to pick up some gutter downspout material. After first checking to see they had some (there were five stacked and I need four) I returned after work to pick them up. Four of those were broken so I could only pick up one.
Hummingbirds
In the last couple of weeks I've finally seen hummingbirds in the wild - on our deck. I watched a male buzz and sip at our hummingbird feeder and then watched the female ignore the feeder for some lavendar flowers my wife had planted. They are the coolest birds ever.
Frogs
Two nights ago as I was watching a DVD from Netflix, while taking a break from cooking beans. I happened to look out the window and saw a rather large frog clinging to the screen - strange. Did I mention all the tiny toads that scatter every time I open our garden shed?
Hoppin' John
Our company recently had a July 4th shindig and I volunteered to bring in some Hoppin' John (see the recipe here). That morning I put it in the back of my car and navigated 11.3 miles of the 11.4 to work of neighborhood roads, four-lane highways, and a shopping street stretch of stoplights and potholes. As I braked into my parking spot at work, the slow cooker rolled over and spilled beans and rice all over the trunk.
Mosquitos
Ye gads and little tadpoles! There are a bunch of shin loving mosquitoes running rampant around our little country home. I read where Chicago has five times their normal allotment and water-logged Iowa has hundreds of times more. Here in wet Michigan, all I know is that they are hungry.
Manual Lawn Mowers
No - not as in gas powered, but pushed. But as no gas or electric. I have a Scott reel lawn mower (bought a few years ago) I use on our lawn (under .24 acres). With the amount of grass we have to cut it takes me just under an hour to do the front and back. The only drawbacks are it doesn't do well with wet grass, and it doesn't do well with long grass. Best advantages? It's very quiet and doesn't smell of gas and oil, oh, and people keep stopping me to ask about it, as in, "Wow, I haven't seen one of those since..."
