The leaves are just starting to hint at turning, and all the weather dudes in this area are very excited that it looks like today is our final day of summer weather. Everything is supposed to go to shit starting this evening. Fall seems to always take the weather people by surprise.
But, since it's the last nice day for a while, I decided that I'd better wrap up some yard crap that I'd been putting off. I had sealed the front porch last week, and it turned out like shit, so I thought I might do better on the back patio ... but I didn't. It turned out all fucking streaky and blotchy too. One of these days, I might figure out how to do it right. It seems like it would be a pretty simple thing to do.
I had that done by 9 a.m., so I was looking for something else to do, and I happened to look at the ugly bare spot we have right in the middle of the back yard. We had a willow tree there for years, but it became infested with insects, or mold, or some other vile shit and I had Jose Maldanado and his crew remove it in April. They ground the stump out for me too, and I thought it would be a simple matter just to plant some grass seed there and everything would be cool. But the first seeding didn't take, nor did the second ... or the third. So, for three or four months, there's just been the ugly scar in the ground where the tree used to be. It's too late to try to plant any more seed, and no one has sod anymore. So, utilizing my mad landscaping skilz, and using whatever I could find lurking in the corners of the yard, I came up with this:
It's A ... Thing!
While I was putting this thing together, the word "obelisk" kept coming to mind, but I just looked up obelisk on Wikipedia, and this isn't any thing even close to that. Here's a close up so you can appreciate all of the fine detail and craftsmanship:
I Amaze Myself
As I was standing back and admiring it, I wanted to think of something to give it meaning. I toyed with the idea of a 9/11 memorial, but that's been done to death. It could have been a marker for Sam The Cat's ashes, but I didn't think of it in time, so they're still sitting in the upstairs hallway closet. If I bought some of that outlawed tiki torch fuel, I could pour it over the rock and make an almost eternal flame out of it.
I don't think it really matters, because once Jan gets home this afternoon, she'll probably shit a brick and make me take it apart ... reasoning, no doubt, that she'd rather look at a bare patch all winter. At least I have a picture for my portfolio.
While I had the camera out, I decided to walk around the neighborhood for landscaping ideas for next year. I really didn't have to go any farther than next door to Hillbilly Ron's house though. I should have known that he'd have some ideas. He's had this in his front yard for years now, but I think it gets better with age. And since no one was home, I sneaked over for a close up:
Inflatable Goose, Two Deer Skulls, Birdhouse (?) And A Shredded Scrap Of Canvas Stuck In Fork Of Dead Tree
HR is the Jackson Pollock of yard design. Anyway, as long as I'm talking yards, here's a super cool tip for all of you lawn jockeys. Did you ever plant a bush, or a tree and wonder how you keep a bare space around it so all of those pesky weeds don't grow in and fuck everything up? Do a dry moat! Simply dig a slit in a circle around your bush, tree, whatever. Make a cut with your shovel around the plant, then come back and make a back cut. Remove the thin strip of sod and fling it into your neighbor's yard. Here's an example of the finished product:
Don't Forget The Mulch ... And A Better Looking Plant!
Eh, what the fuck. It was 75 percent off at Home Depot a couple of weeks ago. I think it'll live and maybe cover that ugly-ass transformer in the background.
Shifting gears ... Jan and I were out last Saturday trying to find a bottle of Sake to go with our Kung Pao Shrimp that we were going to make that evening (I know, incongruous pairing). I've never tasted Sake and I was pretty bummed when our totally inadequate local liquor store didn't have any. But we did run across something that was pretty cool. I'm not a real big expert on wines (I think Mogen David is good, if you add 7-UP), but apparently, blended wines are now the "in" thing. So we found a bottle of white that was a blend of Chardonnay, Riesling, Muscat, Gewurztraminer (?) and Pinot Gris. It was pretty damned good, actually. What is it? Here:
We Drank All Of It
The company that makes it (The Magnificent Wine Company of Walla Walla, Washington) had a red too, named "Steak Wine", but we thought that it actually might be made out of steak, so we didn't try that one. Maybe it was kind of like bacon vodka, which I actually saw on The Travel Channel the other day. It's a bottle of vodka with a bunch of raw bacon stuffed into it. The bartender on the show was making "bacon Martinis" and charging ten dollars a glass for them.
Anyway, that's been Tuesday here in the heartland. Tomorrow, maybe I'll go play in traffic or rob a bank or something, so I can come up with a story. Until then ...
Next Post: Maybe A Real Story!
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