Labor Day and Avocado deprivation

I don't know who said you are not supposed to work on Labor Day weekend... that never really seems to apply very much around here. Not to worry though, we did get some brats going on the grill along with some home made ice cream with handfuls of wild blueberries poured on top! You are probably not feeling so sorry for us now!

David and Doug finished the ceiling and got the fans on.

They look fantastic! This photo is at a strange angle because I am standing in the living room looking towards the loft window. The larger fan is centered over the living room and that smaller one with the light will be over the bed in the bedroom loft. The trim around the fans and seams of the wood between living room and loft will come later. That will define the space between loft and living room a little bit. They discussed the stairs awhile, we made some changes, and then the guys moved on to trimming out the windows and the doors.

There is even a door on the bathroom now!

Wowee what a great idea! A door on the bathroom! That is kinda handy!

Here is the missing picture of the toilet. :)

Also below is the tile in the guest shower downstairs...
waiting for grout and shower head.

There was a little excitement though... for David anyway. He was working on the house (as usual) and so were the new neighbors over at the log cabin a couple lots away. The family owned the old cabin that stood there and are now putting up a new vacation home.

Old:

New:

They came up from Chicago (they being the husband, wife, college age son, and younger daughter) to do a little work on the house and probably just check it out as they have not seen it since the construction started. Anyway, while applying some stain to the logs the owner fell off his ladder! David was working away and here comes the little girl running up the hill yelling that her Daddy fell off the ladder. David ran down to help the man. Turns out the man broke two ribs... in two places! He has been in the hospital for two nights now. He fell off the ladder onto deck joists (there is no decking down yet). He was very lucky, he could have broken his back just as easily. The family has been carrying on with the staining but how awful for them!

This weekend was the annual Fly In here in Sidnaw. I suppose the best way to explain it is that it is like a poker run... sort of... for private planes along a string of small airports with Sidnaw as one of the stops. That is my understanding anyway. So, several private planes land at our airport along with their camping gear and the party begins! There are craft booths, and people can pay between $30-$50 to ride in a helicopter, an ultra light, or some parasail scooter kinda ultralight thing.

Kids who were at least 8 got to ride in the ultralight for free! There is also a fund raising Soup and Sandwich feed and rummage sale at the church to benefit the Historical Society. This is the second year we have been to the Soup and Sandwich feed. For $4 you get a choice of 5 home made soups, a choice of 5 types of sandwiches, a choice of home made desert, and a drink. I picked Jane Wyatt's (nee: Kennedy) Corn Chowder again... it is absolutely the best I have had. No kidding. I wish they would do it more often! Its a great fundraiser and is very popular.

After the doings in town, we had a barbecue dinner at Jerry's.

I am wearing that darn knee brace so I did not get to prep in my normal hostess type fashion. Joy had to do most of it. Much thanks to her! The party goers were the normal crowd... David, Me, Jerry, Joy, Dick, Richard, and then you toss in Terry and the new neighbors (Lori and Lon and their family) who are re-doing the old hotel in town and plan to retire there as full time residents.

Here is Terry fishing a golf ball out of the creek with Lon's help.

Here is the hotel again. You may remember it from my tour of Sidnaw.
The hotel will take a lot of work but it has great character and a very pretty setting.

They (Lori and Lon) were originally friends of Joy, Dick, and Richard and are VERY nice folks. Seems like a lot of people end up moving here after visiting friends who live here.

There was actually a lot of Hershey's around this weekend...
and I think Keith and Heidi are coming next week...

It has actually been very nice getting to meet the family members.
Hmm... notice any familial similarities?
Terry is the oldest of the five kids... David is the youngest.

As mentioned above at the party we enjoyed grilled brats etc. AND... as I have already mentioned I usually try to make some kind of veggie dish but was unable to this time. Fortunately for my palate the new neighbors, Lori and Lon came through with a broccoli dish.

I must say one thing about veggies though... I miss avocados.

I know I know... according to some scientist somewhere they are not a veggie but a fruit.

What-ev-er.

I don't really care... I just know I miss them. I mean... just LOOK at this:

Oooo man.

I can actually remember the first time I ever tasted one. We lived on South Grant Street and I must have been pretty young. I remember biting it and then leaning over onto the chair seat and spitting it back out... bright green foam... right onto the seat. Yuck. I also remember the distance between my mouth and that chair seat was not very far so I was still a little kid... anyway.... I hated them.

Oh how I have changed.

I had not realized how much David and I enjoyed them, until we did not really have access to them anymore. When I would go to the co-op in Ukiah I would always get one or two... Even in the middle of the stark Northern California winter (cough cough) I could usually find one that was delicious. If they actually made it to the dinner table we were lucky.

They don't have avocados in Michigan.

Well, they have them but no one seems to know what they are because they sit on their styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic on the grocery shelves until they spoil. I am not quite sure yet why grocery stores up here tray some of their veggies like that. I probably don't really want to know. However, even the avocados not imprisoned in plastic by the time I get to them they are wrinkled, black, and squishy. Rotten. The tragedy of it all!

As I was looking around the internet for photos of the lovely avocado to post here, I found a few other people who love them even more than I do. I have included a haiku and a poem celebrating love for the creamy green treat.

People are interesting.

I suppose I could have taken the safety screening off of my search engine and found even more disturbing things about avocados but I decided against that. What I might have found could have scarred me for life...



Here are the odes to the avocado I found. The haiku first and then the poem:

Well, geez... I dunno about all that.
I just know I could use a good guacamole once in awhile.

Or as my niece used to say when she was little bitty... Rocknrollee.
You could tell she was an Elvis fan from the beginning.
I think it's in the genes.