Wow, it really cooled off last weekend, which was much appreciated. After running the a/c around 8 hours per day all week, it didn’t kick on at all over the weekend. Keep those bills down! The nice break was due to the fabled “Delta Breeze,” which occurs pretty frequently and really makes things tolerable around here. Fox40.com had an article on it last week, which I tried to read but got bored about 1/2-way through. If I’d have been a little more productive, I’d have taken advantage of the low temps to take care of some yard work. Instead, I opted for hanging out in the backyard all weekend, reading and bbq’ing. Hey, maybe it’ll cool off again next weekend and I’ll get the yardwork done. (Slim chance.)

Donette’s younger sister and one of her daughters came out last week, so that was a nice little visit. The 11 grandkids came also, so that kept us quite busy. OK, there’s only two, but one moved around so much he seemed like a small crowd. On the upside, he wore Quinny into the ground playing fetch; Little guy has been asleep since they left. They also ran up to Tahoe for a day and visited the county fair. I missed out on the fun while working, but they came back to the house in the evenings for bbq and catching up. Good visit!

[Show slideshow]

Where does the time go? I guess it flies when you’re having fun, or actually even when you’re not. We’ve been reasonably busy it seems. We had our big annual music festival at the end of May, and we’ve been keeping busy in the garden… OK that’s all I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure we’ve done dozens of other fascinating activities also.

Since I can’t seem to remember any further than 3 days ago, I’ll have to limit my update to this past weekend. We started off strong on Friday night at the second meeting of our Wine Club Wine Club. This group is comprised of a small number of friends that are all in various wine clubs out here. Clever name, huh. We meet once a quarter and enjoy a nice meal, then sit around and discuss the latest varietals we’ve received lately from our favorite vineyards, and of course taste a few notable bottles. Yeah, you could say we’re pretty fancy. That is also a pretty liberal stretch on the actual meeting description, but hey, it sounds good I thought.

Saturday, we drove down to the big downtown area of our little town, to watch the annual Wagon Train coming in from Tahoe. It was a pretty fun event, if just a little on the warm side. Basically, it’s a historical recreation of the old wagon trains that rolled west during the 1800’s gold rush. They shut down the street and had lots of informational booths set up to read about the event. Then about 3:00 the wagons rolled in, which is almost the end of their multi-day trip over the mountains. Pretty fun time! This was the 75th one they’ve done, rather impressive. After that we headed down to Cameron Park and met some friends at Moonraker. Good times there also. We even got to see our friends Grandpa Josh & Grandma Jenn! Haven’t hung out with them in quite a while, as they have been busy building out a nursery in their house in preparation for the arrival of grandbaby #1.

Sunday, speaking of wine clubs, we headed up to Edio Vineyards to pick up our summer shipment of wine. They had a nice event going on; You could taste each of the wines in your shipment, and they were paired with some small bites which were quite tasty. We stayed a few hours, but it was pretty hot out, so we headed back to our house and had some friends over dinner. This was a particularly notable event, as none of our friends have visited our house since July of ’22. Excitement was in the air, let me tell you. I put a tri tip on the grill, and thought it came out quite well. Even managed to hit the group-requested medium doneness. After dinner we sat around in the a/c and somehow lapsed into a somewhat odd karaoke session… Not entirely sure what happened there. No, there were not any pictures permitted.

[Show slideshow]

Another year in the books! I swear they keep getting longer. I guess at least they keep coming. I had a good time of it this year. Seems like I’ve just kind of let the last few slip by unnoticed, but I had an actual party this year! Granted, the guests didn’t actually know it was a birthday party, but I did so that’s what is important. I had a good time of it. Fired up the smoker and threw on some meat, and we hung out playing games and enjoying the nice weather all afternoon.

So that was Saturday, then Sunday we got up and drove to Napa for a Dwight Yoakam concert. Neither of us have ever seen him, so we were pretty excited. I would give the show 2 thumbs up. Donette wasn’t a fan of the rather “subdued” venue, but I sure was. Dwight is 67 years old, and the majority of the crowd was at least 110; There was no need to be getting all stirred up. Plus, it was at the Meritage Hotel (ooohhhh, fancy,) which just isn’t the place for getting all crazy. All in all, great show!

[Show slideshow]

Wow, the weather went from freezing rain and snow last weekend to blazing sun and 80’s this weekend. Now that is a wild swing. We broke out our farmer’s almanac and determined last weekend was the last cold weather this year and got started on the garden. We already had it mostly cleaned up, so it was just a matter of putting the plants in the ground and putting the drip lines in place. I tried to reuse the lines from last year, and I think it was mostly successful. Got a few leaks I need to fix, but hopefully it lasts the season. I imagine next year I’ll be running all new ones. I keep saying I’m going to bury pvc from the well house over there, so I don’t have to drag a garden hose across the yard, but that project hasn’t quite happened yet. Kind of missed my window, should have done that when it was rainy and cool. We also planted everything from seed this year instead of spending $5 a pop on plants, so we’ll see if that works out.

Other than that project, the weekend was rather mundane. Saturday, I ran the weed eater all day, which effectively put me on the couch all evening. There is quite a bit more to do, but my back is going to have to recover for a few days. I really hope that is the last time for the summer, but last year it needed a third round. Then on Sunday, we traveled out to Lotus and checked out a little shopping fair. It made for a great drive in the convertible if nothing else. Then we wrapped up the day (and weekend) with dinner at our favorite taco spot. I made the mistake of ordering their “bbq special,” which was a 1/2 rack of ribs and potato salad. Predictably, this was a mistake. When you go to a taco place, you always want to order… Well, tacos. I would say “lesson learned,” but I keep making similar errors when going out to eat, so probably not.

[Show slideshow]

Boo on that weekend. As predicted, it stormed the better part of my free days. Went from 70 and sunny on Friday to rain all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Saturday it even dumped snow for a while. IT’S MAY!! STOP SNOWING!! I guess that’s why they say not to plant your garden until Mother’s Day up here. Luckily, we heeded that advice this year.

Given the horrible weather, we stayed cooped up in the house for the most part. We did go out Thursday, but that’s not the weekend. Worth a mention, all the same. I made a bet with a buddy on the Super Bowl game, with the winner getting dinner at Amore Mio. I’d call it my favorite place to eat here locally. If you happened to catch the Food Network special on Placerville, it was on there. Pretty fantastic food, we’ve loved it every time we’ve been. I was a little worried we were in for a letdown, because it was very crowded and we had a table of 6, but the owner took good care of us. Another awesome dinner, and having my friend pick up the tab was a welcome bonus. They should have won on the show, or at least been picked over the BBQ place. (That ‘que is… not good.)

Saturday the rain started, and did not let up all day. Well, except when it was snowing I guess. I spent my afternoon working on a paella dish I’ve been wanting to make. Not the fancy-schmancy paella with all the seafood, just simple chicken paella. This is more the style in Valencia, Spain, which I am much more familiar with. OK, actually I’m just far too “thrifty” to pay for all that shellfish, nor was I about to go out in the weather to find it. It came out pretty well, even Donette was a fan. (She doesn’t always approve of my odd recipe experiments.) It’s on the keeper list.

Sunday, the project of the day was ribs. I saw one of my BBQ idols do ribs slathered in birria sauce the other day, and decided to give that one a shot. Added bonus, ribs were on sale at the butcher shop, so that made up my mind. I was able to fire up the Traeger under the cover of the patio, and stayed mostly dry. Between making the sauce and smoking the ribs, that project managed to keep me occupied the better part of the day. I was quite happy with the end result, I’d make them again. Donette inferred she would just as soon have regular ol’ smoked ribs, but I thought they were great. One thing we both agreed on, the slab of ribs from the butcher shop were fantastic. Even on sale they weren’t exactly cheap, so I was glad they didn’t turn out terrible.

[Show slideshow]