I fully intended to get this thing updated on time for once. Alas, everybody’s favorite power company decided to shut off my power again. I honestly think they just step outside and hold their finger in the air. If they feel a slight breeze, off go the lights. So low-rent, it boggles the mind. On the upside, we were much more prepared this time around. Last time when they shut us off, our generator was still in a box down in the shed. This time, we rolled it out and fueled it up, and ran the cords to our “necessities.” These consist of my office PC, the garage ‘fridge, a floor fan, and the coffee pot. We also went ahead and hooked up the TV for the Sunday night NFL game, for a little entertainment. Donette grabbed a few of the solar powered landscaping lights and brought them in for some light, and we were good to go. When we went dark about 6:00 Sunday night, we just fired it up, switched out a few cords, and we were back. The biggest inconvenience is still the lack of running water. We are holding out hope for our backup batteries to come through, so we don’t want to pay to have the generator installed more permanently. Still no dates on if we’ll get them though.

As far as entertainment, we hosted our second annual backyard BBQ this weekend. It went off without a hitch, if I do say so myself. I thought the ‘que was a lot better than last year, and for whatever reason it was much easier to cook. Finally getting the new smoker dialed in? Not sure, but it only took around 9 hours to cook a full brisket and two pork butts. Much smaller crowd than last year too, which exponentially lowered the stress factor. (Nobody wants to drive this far up the hill. Our move plan is working fabulously.) Donette made some beans that were a huge hit, and a big bowl of slaw. A few desserts showed up on the counter, and we ended up with a pretty darn good meal. Did a bunch of chicken on the weber too, which came out tasty.

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That wasn’t much of a weekend. We had another brunch on the schedule for Sunday, which essentially was the only notable event on my calendar. Alas, it got wrecked by work at the last minute and I had to cancel. I was genuinely excited to hone my biscuit recipe too. Tragic. Other than the canceled brunch, we also… No, there was nothing else. Bad movies and the occasional game of fetch with the pups. Speaking of pups, I guess we did babysit again. Our friend Dakota came up and hung out with us for a few nights while her family was on a trip. Dakota is a little bigger than last weekends guest; She’s a retriever, cleverly shaved down to look like a lab. (I think her haircut embarrasses her, but hey, it’s hot up here.) Her and Quinn had a great time running around all weekend. Nacho, as usual, was terrified of the huge monster, which amused me probably more than it should have. Well, anyway, maybe next weekend will be better. If I was a bettin’ man…

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Well, well. Where does the time go. I didn’t even realize I missed a weekly update until I got to looking at this thing. And on a holiday weekend too, tsk. Can’t say I really had anything anyway, maybe some more pictures of my dinner. About the same this week, but I won’t skip consecutive updates on principle. We did get caught up in the first big power shut off of the season. If you haven’t heard of this practice, last year they started cutting power whenever the weather forecast calls for wind. Yep, you read that right. They just flat cut the electricity, for 48 hours or more. We were unaffected last year in our fancy-house, but we’re right square in the middle of it now. We bought a generator several months ago in preparation for this situation, but in true Phil-Fashion it was still in the box, out in the shed. Well, time to figure out how to fire it up I guess. Honestly I’d hoped to return it when our backup-battery system gets installed, but it’s a little murky when or if that is going to happen. So anyway, we woke up to a pitch black house, and trudged outside to figure out the new generator. Wasn’t too hard really, aside from being crazy-heavy to get in place. Most people around here have them wired into their house for a quick hookup; We did the power strip and extension cord method. Hey, we had a fridge, Internet, and a few lights; Good to go. It did get a little old after a few days though, especially the noise. Wow, that thing is wicked loud. Part of the fun I guess. Not having any water was something of an inconvenience also. Not an ideal time to finally look at the well pump and find it’s hardwired to the box and can’t be plugged into an extension cord. Whoops.

The majority of our weekend was spent babysitting our little friend Renfield Cornelius. Being a dog, he is blissfully unaware of his unusual name. Seems to kind of like it as a matter of fact. He joined us Friday night, and we mostly sat out in the back yard watching him and Quinn run around all crazy, until the smoke smell drove us back inside. The smoke is just nasty. While we are in no immediate danger from the wildfires, the haze and the smell are about intolerable. With any luck the wind will kick up and blow it out of here soon. Of course then they’ll shut off our power again; Oh bother.

Saturday we left the dogs to entertain themselves and went wine tasting with friends. It was nice to get out of the house for a few hours, and the temp was a little cooler than it has been. We only went to two places, not wanting to push our luck with the pups back home. Turned out they did just fine as usual. Never hurts to have something to stress about though.

Sunday Renfield’s folks swung by on their way home from Tahoe and picked him up. Being excited to have visitors out in the booneys, we cooked up a little brunch in an attempt to lure them into staying for a bit. In what probably qualifies as the most exciting thing to happen to me this year, I even tried making homemade biscuits. I know that sounds like sheer lunacy, but that’s just how I roll these days. Life on the edge at the Kenagy Ranch. They came out pretty good, or at least good enough that I didn’t feel compelled to fall back on the tube of Grands I had in the fridge “just in case.” I’ll make them again, already got a few adjustments in my head. After that whirlwind of biscuit excitement, we settled in for a day of football on the TV. Speaking of TV, we finally have TV service after going without since June. Honestly we haven’t really missed it, but football did give us a cause for concern. So, we chipped in on youtube TV with some friends, and now we’re back to mindlessly clicking through 100’s of channels of nothing for hours on end. Ah, entertainment.

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Nothing too exciting to work with this week. That seems to be something of the “new normal,” but what can ya’ do. I’ve been on a sort of self quarantine lately, which greatly limits my already scarce social interactions. No, no, not quarantine because of THAT, just some other unrelated health-ish issues. They’ve left me pretty much feeling like just sitting on the couch and sulking. Well, and watching the Royals games, which is pretty much the same as sulking.

Aside from cooking lots of dinner, about the only thing we did all weekend was work on our new gazebo. It was a Costco order, and hopefully will provide some much needed shade in our back yard. The reviews online are generally positive, with an oft-repeated caveat that the set up is somewhat difficult. Uh yeah, agreed. We worked on that darn thing all day Saturday, and the better part of Sunday, and still don’t have any shade. We have a structure, but the roof got the better of us. It just won’t go together. As is always the case with these stupid “some assembly required” projects, it just doesn’t go together like the pictures, or at least my interpretation of the pictures. I don’t see how it even could really, it’s impossible. We took turns climbing the ladder in the 98 degree sun trying to put the puzzle together, but finally gave up. We think we have a new plan, but that wasted Sunday kind of knocked the wind out of us for the time being. I hate putting that stuff together. I have a friend who claims to enjoy it, which I think an indication of deep emotional troubles. None of it’s fun, from a simple desk assembly to this behemoth. Good grief, the parts list for it is five pages long! I spent over an hour just sorting the B’s, A1’s, J’s, M2’s, blah blah blah. At this point I am considering just strapping a large blue tarp over the top and calling it good.

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This last weekend was a scratch. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. Luckily I have some material from the previous weekend to blather on about, or a least a bunch of photos. So last Thursday, as in the 13th, we finally got to take our new motorhome out. We went in on one with some friends back in March, and about the time we closed the deal everything got locked down. Figures. Technically we’ve been out in it once, but it was so long ago I can’t really remember. This was a bona fide “Trip.” We took off driving Thursday night after work, and made it to a truck stop near the California/Oregon border. (A casino that allows overnight parking, actually.) We called it a night there, then the next morning took off again, destination Klamath Falls, OR. Our friends have family there, so we spent a few days visiting them. Had a big bbq, toured Alaina’s home town haunts, and that kind of good stuff.

We stayed through Saturday night, then got up and backtracked to Lake Siskiyou, which we’d passed by on the way to OR. It is in the middle of a mountain range, and made for a quite scenic weekend camp. Bit short though. We could have stood at least two more nights. Alas, stupid jobs and stuff. We rented a pontoon boat and cruised the lake, enjoyed the views, made some great food, and tried to keep the dogs occupied. Solid trip, but definitely ready to head out again. Of course, we did experience the requisite motorhome issue, as is the case nearly every time you take one out I think. When we were putting the slides in getting ready to leave her Dad’s house, there was a quite audible “crack.” After some searching, we found the slide is just a bit off, and had gotten caught, sheering off a pvc drain pipe in the process. Blech. Luckily her Dad has tons of tools and is quite handy with him, so he was able to save the day. (Well, he saved our day anyway; Probably ruined his, it took like 4 hours.)

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