Wow, I am just completely unable to get back into any kind of routine to regularly update this silly thing. There are myriad reasons behind my frequent lapse in posts, but chief among them is that I just really can’t be bothered to walk downstairs and turn on the PC. It’s almost like those 30+ years of sitting in a chair staring at a monitor have left me with some type of unique disability; I just can’t do it anymore. Or, maybe my pseudo-retirement has just made me that lazy. Yeah, let’s not rule that out either. Anyway, today I decided to try something new: I fished out one of my laptops and brought it upstairs so I can use it instead of the PC downstairs. That way I can sit on the couch, or the porch, or just stay in bed, whatever the situation calls for. Will this help? Who knows. The qualifying factor is that it’s not a Windows laptop, so that brings it own “challenges.” So far, so good though.

Maybe another factor in my lack of updates is that I really don’t do much anymore. As I mentioned last time, I’ve been on a run of trying out new recipes, but that’s about it. I do visit the lake up the hill a few miles from us, but not much to tell there. Hike with the dogs, commune with nature, that kind of Californian hippy stuff. Speaking of the lake, we finally took the hike to see the waterfall that feeds into it. Worth the walk. Did it twice so far, matter of fact. I think it dries up later in the summer, as things around here tend to do, so gotta go see it while it’s here. Oh, I’ve been getting the garden going too. So far it’s pretty meager; Three tomatoes, two hot peppers, and two squash. I’ve got a few more pepper plants and some tomatillos ready to go also, need to get those out there. I have to say, I’m getting pretty confident about the garden, given last year’s rather lackluster results. Everything looks very nice so far. But then, it hasn’t gotten crazy hot yet either. It’s coming though.

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Geez, the weather out here has been crazy! I feel like I’m back in the Midwest. Mid-seventies one day, then drops to the forties the next. And, every so often, we’re still getting rain! The rain should be done by this time of year. I haven’t even put the garden plants out because it’s still questionably cold at night. I need consistency!!

Other than crabbing about the weather, I haven’t really done anything worth mentioning. The wife is out of town, so the dogs and I have spent the days foraging for food and doing some light yard work. Speaking of which, I have to say I did a much better job of keeping up with the grass this year. So far, that is. The downside is you have to mow it much more often until it quit raining, but it sure looks a lot better than doing it just once or twice when it’s knee high. I’ve even been keeping up with the weed eating for the most part, which is not one of the more joyful tasks in life. In another major event, I finally started cutting the back yard with a push mower. The hill is far too steep to use the rider, so since we’ve moved here I’ve been knocking it down with the weed eater a few times a year. One year I even just let it go, which turned out to be a horrible idea. The dogs drug burrs into the house endlessly. They have such short hair wouldn’t really get matted in their fur, but that meant they left them on the couch, the bed, the carpet, and everything else in the house. Long summer. So yeah, anyway, I spent quite a bit of time cleaning it up this year so I could use the push mower. Lots of branches, rocks, and other general debris that I wouldn’t want to hit with the mower. And, at the end of the day, it works “pretty well.” I’m not sure it’s any easier than the weed eater but dang it, I did a lot of work so I could use the mower and I’m gonna stick to it. (This season, at least.) It’s really just too big an area for a push mower. I keep having flashbacks to push-mowing the huge yard at the house we lived at in Grandview. Every time I got sentenced to cutting it, it was a whole weekend off the books. I still wake up from bad dreams of that job. (No, really, I do.)

Otherwise, I’ve just been passing the time trying new recipes. The wife isn’t usually too fond of my experimental menus, usually with good reason. I like to try new things though, so while she’s out of town offers a perfect opportunity to exercise my creative passions. (I really don’t have any of those, which could be why the majority of the recipes are abject failures?) This week’s photo album is dedicated to a few of the recent culinary projects.

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Sigh, another lull in updates. This one can be attributed to technical challenges. I haven’t really had any to speak of, but that’s the story I’m going with. Trouble is, when I get so far behind, I can’t remember everything we’ve done over the past several weeks. Suffice to say it’s been super exciting though. (Insert eye roll here.) I did go to KC over Easter, which was great. There is a new nonstop flight from Sacramento to KC, and it gets there in just over 3 hours! That is way better than the usual 7-8 it takes bouncing around the country to get there. I went to Float Trip, visited family and friends, and enjoyed some great food. Other than that, most of our time lately has been spent trying new recipes, and mowing. Yippy.

Oh, also of note: We went to the theater yesterday and saw the 50th anniversary of The Holy Grail! What a great movie. I don’t know what was funnier, the movie itself or listening to the entire audience quote along with every line. Can’t believe it’s been around 50 years, quite the classic!

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I don’t have any material. Went nowhere, did nothing, saw nobody. Sigh. It’s a rough life up here. Grilled a few pork chops yesterday, that was exciting. No, really, it was. Been wanting to roll the grill out for a while, and the weather yesterday was a great opportunity. I really like to dry brine them overnight before grilling, but it was kind of a last minute decision so I didn’t have time. Still came out pretty good. Spent the rest of the day out back burning a big brush pile. Yeah, crazy weekend. Glad baseball is back to occupy at least a little of my time.

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Andddd we’re back from commercial break. Wow, longest downtime in the history of pkenagy.com. Long story as short as I can make it, we’ve been out of town in the RV since late February. Shortly after we left (4 days or so?) all my websites went down. (I’ll generically refer to them as websites… Most besides this page would be better described as “utilities.”) There wasn’t anything I could do about it because, well, I was gone, with no means to see what happened. Upon our return home Saturday, I looked into the issue, and it turned out to be a very simple change I’d made on the way out the door for our trip. Gee, where have I heard this story before? Ugh. I still don’t know exactly WHY it broke everything, but I guess I’m not worried about it. Just kidding, of course I am, I’ll be trying to recreate the problem until I figure it out. Or, just as likely, it never happens again. Who knows.

So, as to our big trip. We loaded up the RV back in February and headed to Salome, AZ. Took a little get-away from the cold (OK, cool) weather here in CA, see some friends, and have some fun. We did a little light house-hunting while we were there too, because hey, you just never know. We’ve got some friends who winter at an RV park there, and they were able to score us a nice spot with full hookups for free! It was, in my opinion, the best part of the trip. Hung out with friends, ate some great food, had several bonfires, took a ride in the desert on side-by-sides… Just a great time. As a nice bonus, it was in the mid-seventies for our stay. Fun times.

We were in Salome just under a week, then we packed up and headed for Cottonwood AZ, which is about 30 minutes from Sedona. Also a great stay! We did some hikes, visited a few nearby National Parks, mingled at the park clubhouse (yes, really!) and just generally relaxed. Side note on the National Park visits: When we were standing in line for tickets, there was a sign that said “free pass for veterans.” Well, what the heck, I’ve got my card with me, I shall inquire. Well, in less time than it took to fork over my $20 entrance fee, she handed me a card good for both of us, told me it was good at any National Park, and never expires! Worked out quite nicely. For our other touristy days, we visited downtown Cottonwood, Jerome, and of course Sedona. Cottonwood had a nice little old-town area, we went there more than once. A few easy hikes for us and the pups, nice shops, and great scenery. Jerome… meh. It was definitely a dedicated tourist town. Absolutely packed, difficult parking, crazy prices, and long waits for everything. And this was on a Monday, can’t imagine what it would be like on a weekend. And then Sedona, take all those descriptions X3. No thank you, although we did go on a great hike while we were there.

In the house hunting category, that was limited to the Salome area. Our realtor here in CA was nice enough to set us up with realtors in both places we visited. Salome went very well. Looked at probably half a dozen homes, and one of them is actually pretty high on the list. Heck, I’d buy it today if not for the daunting prospect of moving again. Still in the “thinking” phase of that one. (Which means we’ll procrastinate until somebody else buys it and miss out.) When we got to Cottonwood, we contacted the guy there and told him what we were looking for and laid out our budget. Never heard from the guy again, haha. OK, I can take a hint. Honestly we pretty quickly crossed it off the list anyway, after it snowed on us more than once. The weather there was not nearly as nice as Salome. The qualifying factor there is, it was March… Summertime will be another story I am told. Apparently Sedona routinely hits 115-120 during those months. Uhhh, what?!?! And people survive there?

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