Independence Day

After rolling around like a muppet in bed until 8am I finally arose and made a tasty breakfast. I cooked some of the beautiful bacon that the Chef sold me and I scrambled up three eggs in my scrambling dish, I used the ‘spicy’ salt and some pepper to season them. I laid out a couple of wraps with sliced cheese on them, much to the dismay of Sassy Girl. She has been on me to use real cheese and says that sliced cheese makes her barf. I drizzled some sriracha on the cheese and when I cooked the eggs I did it akin to the Gordon Ramsey method. You drop the heat way back and basically temper the eggs into being cooked. I purposely went a touch futher than he would have but I did the “on the heat and off the heat“ stirring part of the gamet. I think they came together nicely. I drizzled some Cholula hot sauce on the top of the eggs once they’d mounted the crumbled up, crispy bacon who was sitting on the cheese mats. The double hot sauce gave it a nice kick, a fairly balanced one too. Seems to me that those two ignitors attack different parts of the mouth so it was a nice, holistic heat that I enjoyed. That spice kick started what would become a very busy morning.

After eating and washing up I started to hammer through a few household type tasks. Firstly I watered the flowers in the back of the house with the hose. Next I hauled my softener salt downstairs and dumped it into the stock/brine tank. Naturally this elevated the water level in the tank and an uncomfortable amount started puking out the overflow valve. That was fantastic. I raced upstairs for some old towels to sop up that mess after I’d scrambled faster than my eggs to find some kind of bucket to jam underneath. The enormous ring on the concrete floor is starting to make more sense to me after seeing that. I tried to use the hose that came with my new shower head to create something more permanent for overflow but it was too small. I guess I’ll have to try and find some rubber hose length to use to guide overflow to a drain or storage apparatus. Add it to the list. While all this was happening I had the garage open and most of the doors on the main floor wide open to create a wind tunnel much like the one that nearly cost me the cacti. My plan was to air out the garage some, get that garbage haze out of there. I decided to putter in the garage for a bit, the neighbour directly across was doing the same thing and it turned into a game of chicken of who would stop first. He was working on his car and kept going for test drives so he had a reprieve from the heat. I first fixed the snapped off tip of my older fishing rod. I basically cut it off above the next eyelet and filed the fibreglass down a bit. I’ll have to put some caulk in it once I make that purchase. Hose, caulk, I’m getting a bit of list going now. I took out my woodburning kit and tried drawing and writing on a piece of scrap. The verdict is that I still suck at it. I put that stuff away and watered the flowers at the front of the house. Next I put the mower up on the bench and tried to tighten the wheels. I learned that it’s the bushing inside them that is the issue and nothing to do with the actual wheels. Those will have to be monitored and replaced if they get much more wobbly. Since I was near the mower wheels, I jacked them up uncomfortably high and cut the grass. The job that had been eluding completion all week.

I admit that it doesn’t look like much. The scadling heat of the last two weeks and the next two weeks are doing their work on it. The weed situation is compounding the look. I regret not cleaning it up in the spring more and more. I’m going to have to buy or borrow a sprinkler and water it a bit at some point, particularly when I finally apply some fertilizer, might have to wait until fall for that now. It’s done, that the important part. After taking some time to stop sweating and physically recover I dabbled in some computer activity. I played some games, tracked my bike part package and posted the latest Space Bucket update in the Archive section. This brought me into the afternoon. For lunch I decided to make a classic Tugboat dish.

The Tugboat’s Gutfill Gumbo. It was the first batch I’ve made in months, since before the pandemic and likely months before that. I made it fairly spicy but not as bad as when I made it for my family at Christmas. I ate a heaping bowl and had to lay down after. I should have gone for a walk, yes but it was super hot and the bed was close at hand. I watched YouTube for an hour or more and then went and played some C&C. More gumbo followed for supper, topped with a drumstick. I did walk up to the mailbox after that only to find it empty. When I returned I grabbed my book, the third in the Witcher series and started into it finally. That took me close to bedtime. After a hectic start I sure leveled off. Next thing to deal with is the beard, we’ll see how that goes.