Really?

My maiden name has a reputation for being misspelled, mangled and altogether recreated, but these two recent interpretations of my name in general are a new low.  A recent fun interpretation was "Cantalope", just a few letters short of the fruit, but unfortunately I neglected to capture that gem with a photo.

  No doubt these little glories will continue. I'll be sure to update as they trickle in.  My money is on the C manifesting to a G sooner rather than later.

Family exercise

Despite a busy routine, Jonathan always finds time to bond with Toby and keep fit.  Surprisingly enough, Toby is quite docile during exercise routines, but he doesn't hesitate to let you know when he's hit his limit.

Press play to view a little family exercise time.

 

 

Pushed to the limit

About  3 weeks back Jonathan sent me a picture text of what looked like a bent branch on one of the front yard palms.  Bummer I thought, then gave pause, zoomed in on the picture and better understood his text of "Oh No!!"

This dreaded beast gives the appearance that we share our neighbor's outlook on politics.  Honestly, could they get it a little closer to the property line, do the signs come with instructions for how to push the limit of your neighbor's boundary?

 Despite a good amount of frustration, I let it slide for a while, and ordered up some political signage of my own.  However, a note recently shoved in our door for a "doomsday preparedness" meeting, including spiritual preparedness, was the final straw.  If by chance one of our neighbors has been duped by this sign, it was time to set things straight, in the gentlest of ways possible.

The flamingos served their purpose quite well for a few days but returned to slightly random lawn ornament status after the neighbors moved their sign.  As I stopped mid driveway pull-in and glared at my reinvigorated nemesis my rage-o-meter ticked its way to the red zone with record speed especially since upon first glance I was sure they had moved our birds. A little reason later, I decided they'd moved their sign.  I called my mom to vent, and came up with all sorts of fantastic signage retaliation concepts, however Jonathan's "play nice with the neighbors" attitude has quashed all potential snarky awesomeness. 

It may be another week before my political sign/shirt/buttons arrive, but when they do, I will certainly be working on clever and mobile placement.  No, not right in front of their sign, which Jonathan has already forbid, but located in a place where people coming down our street can see our side of the political story.  One would think they could at least have some common decency and place their sign on the other side of their driveway, however, the fine words of a recent Pickles cartoon ring true in this situation, "...the key to having fewer disappointments in life is to lower your expectations".

Sweet surprise

In an effort to continue our progress on the attached shed Jonathan and I took to tearing down the funky ceiling drywall.  We were aware of an inactive bees nest hanging out behind the drywall but had no idea its potential size.  Turned out to be quite an impressive hive.  No bees or other bugs, but plenty of honey. 

The photos are a bit dusty since the ceiling deconstruction kicked up all kinds of debris, but dusty or not, you get the picture.

 

After some of the dust cleared, Jonathan used the floor scraper to remove the glued on honeycombs.  He made pretty good progress but the most difficult part came when we tried to clear the clumps of saturated honeycomb from the inside of the block wall.  Gloves on, of course, I reached into one of the blocks and was able to grab a few decent sized chunks, however I have a limit to how long I can keep my hand in a dark, unknown area before the heebie-jebbies kick in and I have to call it quits.

The little comb, (I suppose that's what you'd call it) that I have between my fingers below was interesting in its composition.  When it came down from the ceiling it was a firm, honey filled waffle.  Hard texture, rigid, but light weight.  However after warming in the sun for a few minutes it became outright floppy, like a syrup saturated ego left unattended.  I couldn't resist taking more pictures of the comb, as I found it quite impressive, and unique.

 

As much as we appreciate the bee's hard work, we're hoping they'll resist building another nest any time soon.  I was a bit bummed that I couldn't taste the honey but there is certainly something to be said about a sugary substance that doesn't attract other bees or even ants. My guess is that it contains some sort of exterminating chemical, and if the bugs will not touch it, I suppose its best if I avoid it as well.


Since quite a bit of honey remains in the block, we called up a bee removal company that also takes care of left over hive and honey removal.  By the end of the day today we should have a honey free shed ready for some weekend work.

Labor day weekend

With temps still above 100 Labor Day Weekend didn't include too much house hold labor this year.  Saturday, looking for pretty much any excuse to get out of the valley, we took a drive toward the Tonto National Forrest just beyond Scottsdale.  We were looking forward to a slight drop in temperature, a few more trees, and plenty of space for Jackson to adventure about.  Our hopes were quickly dashed when we came upon a road block alerting us that the road was closed due to recent flood damage.  Dead end indeed.

Only momentarily deterred, Jonathan started looking for another, not too distant, day trip. We headed North East along 88 with the intent of enjoying a scenic drive that would include pull offs for Jackson walks, however, sans any actual pull off spots, it ended up becoming a drive to Payson. Never having been on this road, I was impressed with the amount of unexpected rolling green hills and valleys. Certainly more than one would think even existed a little over an hour from Phoenix. Before passing the the almost unnoticeable town of Rye we eyed the beauty of a billboard below. Somehow we managed to stay on track and avoid said establishment.

 Just as we arrived in Payson it started to sprinkle. We turned down what was marked "Historic Main Street" only to drive by about 15 "Antique" stores, plenty of abandon store fronts and a slightly random totem pole. After shooing some Canadian honkers out of the road we pulled into the parking lot for one of the town's parks which just so happened to include a large pond. The rain quickly dissipated as we started our walk around the pond's path. Payson seems like a nice little area, perhaps a bit over-hyped by its banner seen below, but seeing that it was still pretty warm for Jackson we didn't want to wander too far. We hopped back in the car for the drive home, looking here and there for anything exciting before we left town. Not quite what we had planned but a nice little trip out of the valley. We finished the day with a pretty successful first attempt at grilling pizza, which we tried grilling on our tiny bucket grill and learned that with such a large amount of dough, we'll fire up the larger grill next time. The lightly smoked crust was a pleasant flavor addition as was the difficult to obtain when cooked in an oven, crunch to the crust.



Payson, the outdoor paradise!



Looks more like something for
San Diego if you ask me.



hmmm



Still in Arizona, believe it or not.



Enjoying a brew while bottling

Sunday was the day Jonathan bottled his brew.  Since we didn't have 40+ beer bottles laying about we made a quick trip to Tempe to pick up some supplies.  Jonathan was progressing right along by the time I returned from an errand, but to aid in the process I became the bottle capper.  Quite an interesting looking tool is used to place and pinch the cap, kind of look a bit like a mini Transformer of some sort.

 As before, and as appreciated for sanitary reason, the animals kept their distance.  We made pretty good time and ended up with about 45 or so bottles, which are now resting in our hall bath.  They are supposed to hang out for another 7 days and we have our fingers crossed that they don't start blowing their tops before cracked with a bottle opener.


No, that's not the surface of the
moon, its beer sludge.  Yum



 

 

Having an extra day to our weekend was quite a nice change of pace.  Being itchy for some sort of home improvement we made our way to Ikea to pick up some large shade umbrellas for our yellow bells on our back patio.  Poor little plants are fire roasted daily thanks to often clear skies and reverberating heat from a block wall.  The plants may not have been the best choice, but they've been troopers so far and can only improve with their new shade.  I could have sworn the patio already felt a bit cooler, but it could have been the illusion of a new purchase.  Later that night I made waffle maker chocolate chip cookies, which despite being a little different in texture, were pretty tasty.  The waffle maker cooking process is helpful when avoiding baking an entire batch of dough, and is an ideal solution discovered on the interwebs by Jonathan that meets our home made cookie needs without the added scorch of turning on the oven.  Nature, beer, and cookies, not a bad holiday weekend in the least!