Good Morning All. Clear and 67° here this morning, expecting 93° today just like yesterday. Cooler weather is forecast for next week starting Wednesday, maybe even a little rain.
Spent the morning yesterday mowing, and shredding leaves for the garden. It's amazing how much the weeds in the unimproved parts of the yard grew with no more rain than we got last month. Then I spent an hour trimming and cubing up a pork butt for the overnight dry marinate for making Carnitas in the crock pot today. I used half of the 8 lb hunk of meat, the other half with the bone went into the freezer for pulled pork in the future. My dry marinade consists of a generous measurement of toasted cumin seeds, lots of minced garlic, chopped Jalapenos, a large handful of homegrown Oregano and ground pepper. It will be seared this morning and placed in the crockpot for a slow 6-8 hour cook. Last nights supper was a mushroom/onion gravy smothered pork chop dish, that I varied by searing the pork chops on the grill instead of the skillet on the stovetop. Quite a successful venture. I also cooked a package of hot dogs on the grill as well, since I didn't want to waste all of that charcoal for just 8 minutes of searing! Hot dogs went into the fridge for use later this week.
Today marks a tragic yet humorous anniversary in my family. On October 1, 15 years ago, my sister's husband set their house on fire. He had just installed a fire pit, on the wooden back porch, and started a fire to test it. He left it to answer the landline phone since my sister had taken their cell to the store. He was walking around in the house with the portable extension when he came back by the patio door to see that the back porch was on fire. He ran out another door and around to the back of the house, by then the wall and roof were on fire as well. So he went to grab the hose and try to put it out himself; not! The hose was stored under the porch and had melted by the time he hooked one end up to the faucet. So he ran back inside to call 911, but the phone that he went to didn't work; he had laid the portable down somewhere without hanging it up and he couldn't find it. Out the door to the next door neighbor's house in desperation, but that neighbor wasn't home. So now with flames visibly coming through the roof, he ran across the street (a good distance since this was an affluent neighborhood), and finally got to a working phone. By the time the fire department got there, one whole end of the house was basically destroyed including the garage where he had his still operational classic 1949 Mercury pick up truck parked. If that wasn't enough, four hours after the fire department left, the fire reignited in the attic. The firemen couldn't access it safely from the burned rubble, so they had to cut a large hole in the wall of a second floor bedroom in the still unscathed part of the house. Insurance company declared it totaled and it had to be demolished. Tragic and humorous at the same time, but no one was injured. Insurance company recovered most of their payout when they sold the land for nearly as much as they paid out.
Typical Sunday agenda today, church pretty much wipes out any useful chore time in the morning, but there will still be a little bit of cooler weather around noon. I should mow a bit more today, since medical stuff will occupy my time the next two mornings and then that chance of rain Wednesday.
Not a lot to report from out in the train shed yesterday. It was basically a clean-up day. I decided that my cardboard pad on the workbench had seen better days and I replaced it.
Boring pictures I know, but it is actually progress for me.
Then I grabbed some detail parts that I had laying around and tidied them up a bit. Some needed a bit of touch-up paint as well.
These will hit the layout in the next few days.
David - Congratulations on the anniversary.
Today is Julie Andrews 88th birthday; I didn't know that she was still around!
Everybody have a great day.