{"id":1214,"date":"2012-09-04T20:14:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T01:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2012-09-04T20:15:13","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T01:15:13","slug":"aww-end-of-summer-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"Aww! End of summer already?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I always hate to see Labor Day come.\u00a0 It’s the end of summer and it starts the beginning of fall and cooler weather.\u00a0 If you didn’t know it, I love, love, love the hot weather.\u00a0 Growing up in Southern Indiana, it was usually warm and humid.\u00a0 So I’m used to that type of weather.\u00a0 I mean until it gets in the low 90s, then it is gets to be too much.\u00a0 I love the sun and getting in my garden to work.\u00a0 Now the 100s are an entirely different matter.\u00a0 A dry heat maybe, but not with a little humidity. That’s been our summer this year.\u00a0 You just sit inside staring out at the bright sunshine and wishing it didn’t feel like you were swimming to walk across the yard.\u00a0 Worse yet is getting into a hot car with leather seats and be wearing shorts!\u00a0 I keep a towel in the car for these occasions.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0We have a couple of traditions that we have for Labor Day.\u00a0 For one, we attend the Renaissance Faire one last time.\u00a0 This is usually on the Sunday of the holiday weekend.\u00a0 Fewer people attend the faire that day.\u00a0 This year, Jim and Barb Doty met up with us and we wandered the forested town of Bristol together.\u00a0 It was their first time so we tried to show them the things you should do.\u00a0 Of course, you can’t do them all in one weekend, so you have to make multiple trips over the summer.\u00a0 Hopefully, they will be back next year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another tradition is to BBQ.\u00a0 Rich is legendary for his BBQ.\u00a0 Just ask a lot of our friends.\u00a0 So this means that you have to have picnic style meals.\u00a0 Rich did a slab of ribs and a whole chicken.\u00a0 They were wonderful.\u00a0 I put together baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw, and deviled eggs.\u00a0 Don’t worry, there are leftovers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rich bought a true smoker a couple of years back.\u00a0 A guy who was a dealer for Yoder smokers was changing to another dealer and was looking to sell off his own Yoder.\u00a0 It was a great price and just in the next town over.\u00a0 It beat having to drive to Texas to pick one up.\u00a0 It is heavy cast iron.\u00a0 Not being satisfied with the performance, Rich engineered up a solution with a couple of fans to keep the heat up at the temp he wanted.\u00a0 Now we have perfect BBQ every time!\u00a0 Not mention that Rich’s rub is killer.\u00a0 That doesn’t hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n

The weekend was a hot one.\u00a0 I ended up taking Sascha out for very early morning walks when it was definitely cooler.\u00a0 Even at that, she would get very hot.\u00a0 I had to give in on Monday and fill up her pool.\u00a0 Now huskies are suppose to love the water, but Sascha is totally infatuated with the liquid stuff.\u00a0 I put a few inches into her husky pool and she stretches out on her stomach to dig and splash.\u00a0 She’s fun to watch.\u00a0 However, it takes hours for her to dry out.\u00a0 Just don’t stand to close when she splashes.\u00a0 She doesn’t care who gets wet in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it is official.\u00a0 We have a groundhog living under the deck.\u00a0 Sascha has been very insistent that something is under the deck for the last few weeks.\u00a0 I actually scared something off the deck a few days ago, but I didn’t catch sight of what the creature was.\u00a0 Today, Rich was working in the basement.\u00a0 He went to the back and noticed something furry lying up against the window under the deck.\u00a0 Tapping on the window, a groundhog turned around to check out the noise.\u00a0 He didn’t run away though.\u00a0 Must know he’s in no danger.\u00a0 So now we have confirmation what the creature is that Sascha wants to get to so badly. <\/span><\/p>\n

We knew we had groundhogs in the area.\u00a0 We’ve seen hanging out in the yard and around the compost pile.\u00a0 While we were on vacation this year, the neighbor across the street reported a sighting of 9 total groundhogs in the covert. \u00a0Looks like one got kicked out and has to make his own way in the world.\u00a0 He moved under our deck.\u00a0 This could be interesting with Sascha.\u00a0 Now she won’t know whether to go after a squirrel or the big furry guy under the deck.\u00a0 Decisions!<\/span><\/p>\n

Today wasn’t Labor Day, but some people were working hard.\u00a0 That was Pete, our contractor guy.\u00a0 We had called him last week to come out and discuss the possibility of putting a detached garage in the backyard.\u00a0 Sally (the coupe) puts out a lot of fumes when they are working out there in the garage.\u00a0 I’d really love to get the smells away from the house.\u00a0 Not to mention that we have too many cars now.\u00a0 Seems like good time to talk to Pete.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure enough, Pete is quite willing to put in a 1 1\/2 car garage out there for us.\u00a0 He even came with some cool ideas for what we could do.\u00a0 Today, we met with the architect to go over the details and show him the space.\u00a0 Luckily, he’s done plans for garages in our area before and dealt with the building inspector.\u00a0 So now we wait for Dave to come up with a drawing and get back to us.\u00a0 Then Pete can tell us how much this is going to hurt.\u00a0 But in the end, it’ll be great for us and hopefully for resale on the house.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Wouldn’t you know it, Rich wants to do the garage up right.\u00a0 He’s planning for a heated floor, insulation, and a comfortable work environment.\u00a0 It should make working on Sally much easier.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Not only did Pete have ideas for the new garage, but he gave us some ideas for some our problems around the house also.\u00a0 Now we have ways to resolve some issues that we’ve struggled with.\u00a0 And we got them for free.\u00a0 At least they are free until they put the garage in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, that was our weekend and plus one day (today).\u00a0 Time to relax with a slice of cheesecake and then call it quits for this day.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Down<\/a>
The other night, I had some down time sitting in the basement with my favorite people, Rich and Sascha. I was enjoying some Zurekbrau Weizen straight from the tap. It’s good to have a bar at home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Rich<\/a>
The Merchant of Holiday Hills and his lovely wife. We love Ren Faire. Darn, should have gotten a pic of Rick in the kilt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Shaespeare<\/a>
Loved this one. The Suitcase Shakespeare Company did Shakespeare vs Marlowe this year. For those who study the time period, this was great! A contest to see who was the best playwright of the time. Too bad Marlowe died so young.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Rich's<\/a>
The might smoker stands in the driveway. We had delicious ribs and chicken that day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Sascha<\/a>
For those really warm days, there’s nothing like a dip in the pool. This is the Husky pool. Sascha loves her pool, tool. Stand back and don’t get wet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u00a0I always hate to see Labor Day come.\u00a0 It’s the end of summer and it starts the beginning of fall and cooler weather.\u00a0 If you didn’t know it, I love, love, love the hot weather.\u00a0 Growing up in Southern Indiana, it was usually warm and humid.\u00a0 So I’m used to that type of weather.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,12,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}