What a week

Man, this week has been super crazy. I've been so busy getting ready for Memorial Weekend that I was just trying to get everything done in time. No time to ride the bike or update the blog.

This week I spent a lot of time putting together the rest of my raised beds for our vegetable garden. I did decide to do the tire trick for potatoes so I'll be building those in the near future. Building the beds didn't take much time but doing that and mixing the soil mix and dealing with my crushed ribs was pretty tough. They were hurting so much that I was having a hard time hauling stuff around the yard and working the shovel. (The ribs are hurting from softball two weeks ago when I took that nasty spill) I was able to get zuchinni, summer squash, herbs, okra, beans and carrots planted so far. I'm hoping to get to the nursery this week to pick up the peppers, strawberries and tomatoes. And also plant the muskmelon, watermelon and cucumbers soon. My lettuce, spinach and arugala all came in well and have been feeding us this past week. The peas are growing but they are still at least a month off from harvesting, I believe.

At the same time I was doing this I was getting ready for a houseful of visitors this weekend. I had a cousin getting married on Saturday and my parents and brother came up from below the Mason-Dixie line for the weekend. The wedding was good. Always fun to go to a wedding, eat some food, drink a little and talk to all the family.

Ol Smokey got a workout this weekend. My brother is heading to South Korea on Wednesday to teach Korean kids English for the next two years, so he wanted some good BBQ before he left. Friday afternoon we had Iowa Chops that I had bought from a farmer at a farmer's market who was selling his pork that was antibiotic free, hormone free and pasture raised. I brined the pork chops for about 3 days (which was way too long, they were really salty) and smoke/roasted them for about 3 hours. They turned out very tasty. They were too salty so I'll need to reduce the brine mix next time for chops, but they were still extremely moist and full of flavor. They really tasted like an oversized piece of bacon, which is great because bacon is one of my favorite foods. Then on Sunday I fired it up again and smoked 3 big ol' slabs of ribs for about 11 hours that we enjoyed Sunday night. (I enjoyed some again last night with a beer butt chicken that was delicous too. Definately the way to make chicken.) The ribs turned out good but the rub was a little too spicy. I'm going to increase the sugar and decrease the cayenne in the future. The rub works great on chicken and pork shoulder but it's too much on something small like ribs.

We also got a swing set up for the kids. Some neighbors of ours were giving it away and we happened past at the right time so now we have a swing set that was free. Most importantly, since it was already constructed all we had to do was move it around the yard and find the best spot. That opened a big hole in our schedules so we could do a ton of other things. Getting things like that for free is awesome! My Dad and I built a sandbox for the boys on Friday night/Saturday morning from some leftover wood that a neighbor of theirs was going to throw away. That sandbox is a tank. We could barely pick it up to slid some plastic under the edges to keep the grass down in the sand. So now we have a sandbox, vegetable gardens, a swing set and a pool in our backyard. It has turned into a giant playland.

You would think that with so many days off I would be able to get some bike time in but the temps were in the 90s this weekend so I spent the time in the pool.

I'm happy to be back at work and get some rest.

FGLB