Fire And Ice - First Frost

When I left for work on Friday morning the frost was very apparent.

It won't be long now and I'll be strimming the melting plants into mulch for next year's spring revival.

One day earlier we had a company out to wash the house.  Temperatures were around 40ºF so I wondered if they would cancel, but they carried out the job.  Normally I get the power washer out every year and clean the house as good as I can, but things build up and don't come off with just the power washer.  It was expensive, but the house siding and gutters look immaculate now.  Blankets of white snow will not make the dirt on our white house stand out this year.  There was a faint smell of bleach outside, but already seems to be fading.

And last night was perfect conditions for a fire, very little breeze and not too cold.  I built up a big fire about a half hour before sunset then settled in to watch it burn for a few hours.  Had a good phone conversation with my Mom and watched the Bucks game on my phone while being warmed by the flames.

I should really do this more often.

Fall Updates & More

We've had a much milder fall than normal so far, but cooler days are coming.  This morning was our first frost warning though we had none here, but a few more chances are coming soon.  I'm writing this on Monday but I think I'll set this to post on Tuesday, just to put a day between this and the Ace stuff.

My wife cleaned up the stump area on Saturday leaving only the wildflowers that were still blooming, a couple red ones, one cone flower plant, and there are still small yellow ones that appear from time to time.  We also got the new bushes caged for winter so the rabbits don't eat them down to the nubs like they did last winter.  Hopefully by the end of next summer they'll be big and strong enough that we won't have to do this again.

I spent 4 hours on Saturday morning making baguette, and 4 hours on Saturday afternoon/evening making loaded baked potato dinner rolls to go with steak for dinner.  Another King Arthur recipe, which is my first stop when looking for something different to make.

My wife thought I was just making potato dinner rolls, so this was a tasty surprise seeing all that went into these.  They were a lot of effort for only a small pan of rolls, but they're so very good.  So good that these will definitely be made again in the future.

On a side note, I also made my first batch of homemade taco sauce.  It seems to have turned out well, and we'll have tacos later in the week to verify.  But another thing that we have everything in the cupboard to make, so why the heck not?

After all that on Saturday I took Sunday almost completely off, except for making the taco sauce mentioned above.  But today I looked at the forecast (cold and rainy tomorrow) and so I went out after work to do some of things I had planned on doing yesterday.  First off, I cut up all the sunflower stalks.  There is only the one sunflower left out front by the bird feeder and I may leave that for some time yet until it is completely dead.  

Once the stalks dry out completely there's not much to them, but they'll be easy to light and will make good kindling.  The root balls I separated into another bucket.  Those I may just run to the dump as yard waste to get rid of them.  I like to keep organic waste right here and compost it, but sometimes it's just got to go.  And as you can see the gardens have been cleaned up, mostly.  The two parsleys will be removed when it is time to plant garlic in that garden, yet this fall.

We've been pretty windy lately so I had to pick up some sticks today, which I would normally put in the fire pit but realized the pit needed cleaning out, so I got that done, too.  Ready for a fire now, whenever the wind dies down and I have that energy.

The calendar has me itching to clean up everything for winter, but the mild weather has stretched that timeline quite a bit this year.  I'm not going to complain, once winter gets here it will drag on seemingly forever, then we'll happily do it all over again come spring.

Farewell, Ace Frehley

I also found my first Ace autograph in a storage box.  I had it in an old, dirty frame with two Kiss trading cards, of which I have both sets still stored somewhere.  Anyway, I ditched the frame and scanned them all together. 

In the late 80's I met a friend who had run into all 4 members of Frehley's Comet outside their hotel, I forget which city.  He realized how big of an Ace fan I was and gifted me this autograph, though he wouldn't part with the other band members'.  A few years later he moved to Colorado and I haven't heard from him since, but I still have this.

This also seems an appropriate time to share the first Kiss poster again, original post here.  I also have the aforementioned trading cards, Kiss On Tour board game, all 4 puzzles, die cast toy cars, tons of magazines and posters, several of all of their albums including rare releases, plus some t-shirts, pins, patches, hats, bandanas and more.

Well, things go in threes, so thank you for attending my Ace Frehley tribute posts this weekend.  We did some more cleanup in the back yard so I'm delaying pictures of that until sometime this week.  For now, here is Ace's biggest hit performed during his last live concert.  

Farewell, Ace Frehley.

Ace And I, 1994

It was the summer of 1994 when I first saw Ace Frehley and his solo band live at a club in Chicago.  I was coming into town to visit a friend and heard an ad for the show on the radio.  When I got to my friend's house I let him know exactly what we were going to be doing the next night.  Thankfully, he agreed.

At that show I met a woman who knew Ace, and though I had been drinking quite a bit she seemed to like me a lot and took me backstage to meet him after the show.  It was brief, and I was drunk and starstruck.  We kept in touch and eventually she invited me down for a Kiss convention in November that year as Ace was the featured guest.  It was there I met Ace for the second time, an even more brief meeting as, because of my woman friend, I was allowed to cut the line to get a picture with him as he was about to greet everyone.

This is the only picture I have of Ace and me.  It was a Kodak 110 Instamatic camera with a flash bar, but even the archaic camera could not be blamed for the poor picture she took.

This picture was taken right after as attendees started moving through the line.  I have that same shirt he's wearing as I bought it at that earlier club show.  Very cool shirt and I still have it, but it's way too small for me now.

All just memories I've had for decades by now, but a youthful, fun experience that I will hold on to forever.  Thank you, Ace.

R.I.P. Ace Frehley

Ace Frehley is my all-time favorite rock star, and has been for almost all of my life.  If you've been under a rock recently, he died yesterday at 74 years old.

I had the pleasure to meet Ace twice, both times in the early to mid 90's I think, and I was completely drunk the first time and totally starstruck dumb the second time.  But I've also been lucky enough to see him perform live several times with Kiss and solo twice, up close in clubs.  I can't say much more than I've already written now or have written before.  Ace has been a constant in my life, and will continue to be.

Thank you, Ace Frehley.

Schuster's Farm

I had the opportunity at work today to visit Schuster's Farm, a family-friendly local attraction.  I've driven by it many times but have never been, and today another staff and I took 6 clients for a several hour visit.  I tried to snap pictures when I could, and while they were quite busy today it is a large area so I managed to get some pictures mostly without people in them.  I can take pictures of our clients for work, but once I transfer them to work I'm supposed to delete them from my phone.  There's rules about pictures, and there were several other groups like ours there, as well, so just being mindful.

I'm finding it hard to describe the place as I'd never been anywhere quite like it.  They have fields of flowers and pumpkins, and corn for mazes.  Several different farm animals to pet and even a bunch of parakeets.  Wagon rides, a haunted forest, and several different areas for kids to play and climb.  I didn't get pics of the other areas as I had to stay back with a couple clients while the more mobile ones explored.  Overall, lots for kids here though they sometimes have bands at night and do have a bar for the adults.

The day was mostly overcast with just a peek of sun here and there, while temperatures called for a light jacket or sweatshirt.  I found the day interesting and I believe all had a lot of fun, especially since we got to take them out to eat afterwards.  After the break are more pictures, if you're interested, and you can find more information on their website here.

Leaf-Free Streets

 ...For healthy lakes, a grass-roots movement to help protect our lakes.  We'll be officially participating this year.  Via a recent email from Clean Lakes Alliance, also linked in the right column, we agree to remove leaves from the first few feet of the street in front of our house before a rain event this fall, and they've given us a sign to put in our front yard to encourage others.

Currently, most leaves have yet to turn let alone fall, but the inevitable will happen soon.

*Boy, I've not had luck with video here lately.  I can't see why it doesn't embed unless they didn't allow embedding.  Here's the link, I hope this will go to the video on ToYoube.

And Then There Were Two

Yesterday got up to 87ºF and today was to be the same, so I got started early on some more yard clean-up.  Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, as well, with our highs only in the 60's for the next few days after, followed by a bit warmer again.  Strange weather, this October.

The front sunflower is still doing okay and has two new beautiful blooms and they face the house.  This was the last to bloom and will be the last removed.

The large sunflower behind the corner of the garage also got a reprieve as it had two nice new blooms on top.  All others have been removed, with some bare stalks remaining to dry out until they are more easily removed from the ground.

It was a shame to take out most of the large sunflower plant by the back steps, but it was done blooming and all heads had been eaten as much as they could be.  This stalk was by far the thickest and pulling it would have brought up the whole area so that and the smaller one next to it remained as bare stalks to dry out in the ground.  I also noticed it had a new tenant this morning that I would have to evict before I started.  

My biggest sunflower, 2025

And actually, by the time I got to this plant I forgot about the spider as I snapped off limbs, so I have no idea what happened to it.  But I don't have any spider bites, so that's good.  Leaves and limbs went into the compost bin, the thick stalks are by the garage to dry out so they burn well and quick.

There's still plenty of time for fall cleanup, especially with the summer-like weather we've had.  Lots of leaves yet to turn before they fall, and we still have some wildflower blooms in the stump area.

Otherwise, a mostly relaxing weekend here.  (I've been following the news a lot this year, but I have to stop.  What is happening is so outrageous at every turn - I just can't comprehend the madness anymore.)  The Badger football team lost today, as I expected.  And the Brewers beat the Cubs in grand fashion to open their playoff series.  This is a good team; I really hope they go all the way and win the World Series.  Whether they do or not, I'm enjoying the ride.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Fall Is For The Birds

The autumn equinox was Monday, and it came with little fanfare around here.  I've not had a fire since before my vacation, and I went downhill after getting home from work that day.  My wife had been sick over the weekend, a stomach bug with mostly extreme exhaustion as the symptom, and I was getting it.  I spent the next two days at home, mostly in bed.  Today was my second day back to work and while still tired I've got a few good meals in me again so feeling much better, thank you, but cold and flu season is coming.

I caught the birds above in a spur-of -the-moment video just a bit ago.  Though only one sunflower survived there it got big and made the birds very happy for the cover and extra seeds.  And the cats spend lots of time sitting there watching (and chirping at) them.  

I took the pics below yesterday afternoon.  I've not done much in the yard the last few weeks, and the flora is certainly losing its luster.  Many of the sunflowers are half brown, but their last little buds are still blooming.  I'll do some mowing and cleanup tomorrow, but it's still too early to pull and compost most everything.  The ten-day forecast shows beautiful weather for us for this time of year, probably our last taste of summer temperatures, and I hope to enjoy it fully.

New Mums for fall, on the steps.  Plenty of time for those blooms yet.

If I find good seeds available on the sunflowers I will save them, otherwise I still have enough from my big sunflower two years ago to plant more next spring.  At that time I will make myself more prepared to harvest the seeds from the first, biggest, and strongest blooms for the future.  Right now, the heads get poached before the seeds are even ready to harvest, by birds and small critters that climb the plants  to get after their bounty.

I'm very tired tonight, but maybe after some cleanup of the yard tomorrow I may try to have a fire while watching the Brewer game.  Then later tomorrow night I have another live-stream concert I want to watch.  I love a good concert better than a movie any day, always have.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

*Well, I guess you can't upload a short video just to Blogger anymore.  If I get a better, longer video I may upload to ToYoube, which seems to be the only way to put a video here now.  I'm too beat to do anything else right now, sorry.

Vacation Recap

I was looking through the pictures I took last week and found there weren't many.  I truly did just try to take it easy, and apparently I managed that pretty well.  Yet, there were some highlights so let's see what I can remember.

First off, we'd had fall-like temperatures for a few weeks, but as if on cue the weather started turning nicer and warmer during my vacation.  This looks to last for at least another week, which is good.  It was way too early to have to switch from shorts to pants!

I didn't mention it last post, but there was a bit of a bigger project on my list - actually more of a PITA than "big" - that I chose to ignore all week.  There is a drawer in the kitchen I need to figure out how to fix.  The old, outdated hardware simply wore out and my first fix, didn't, so I do still have that to do but I have a new plan and will get that started this weekend.

I began the week by going to my Mom's on Saturday for the Badger game.  We hung out, I cooked dinner, and I spent the night.  It was nice, but I got some wires crossed in my head about the Packer game that Sunday so left for home earlier than I needed to.  Not a big deal, but another lunch out with Mom would have been nice.

On Monday we had a new rug delivered for the living room, which led to maybe the biggest chore of this vacation.  The new rug was for the living room, so that rug was to move to the bedroom, and that rug was to move to the porch.  So, basically, we had to work backwards; clean up the porch for the rug from the bedroom, clean up the bedroom for the rug from the living room, then clean up the living room for the new (bigger) rug to be placed.  It was certainly good to get the cleaning done, but we wound up moving around most all of our furniture that day.

Some shopping, mowing the lawn, and plenty of time spent with my feet up all week.  Oh, there were a few little jobs done here and there but hardly anything else worth mentioning.  Now that I said that, I did want to mention the dill pickle bread I made.  It was interesting and not bad, a good baking exercise, but I may look for a different recipe if I make similar again.  

Most importantly, my wife and I did get to spend some good time together and enjoyed several lunches or dinners out, and several drinks out during the week.  It was nice to spend the time together, but later in the week the less I seemed to do, and that was good, too.  Now, sigh, back to work.