Cool weather

We've had cool weather here in Kansas City, so the lawn has stopped growing so darn much. That's been strange to see such wonderfully warm weather, and now it's regularly down to 40 again.

Go figure...

I hate weeds

Weeds stink. They sprout up in the yard, make the grass look stupid. I mow, mow, I spray weed killer, I pull weeds, but they keep coming back. Weeds come back.

Why do weeds come back? Survival, I guess...

Do you have any weeds in your life outside your lawn?

Day in the kitchen

I spent the day in the kitchen today testing a recipe. The directions ended up giving me about eight times more dough than I intended, so I won't have to make dough any time soon.

And that leads me to a story...

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Pat (my older brother) has only followed one recipe in his life. It was such a disaster that he never followed a recipe again!

We were kids, and Pat had just become a Boy Scout, so I guess that would make him about 11 or 12 and me about 7 or 8. It was mother’s day and he wanted to make “Breakfast in Bed” for Mom and Dad. We got up early and went to the kitchen. Pat got his trusty Boy Scout Handbook out and looked up “French Toast” and we got busy.

We clanked around for a while and made a mess, but somehow managed to come up with breakfast. We mixed up the batter and made the toast in the skillet. It looked delicious.
There was plenty of batter left and so we made some more French toast. Why not? We had to eat too!

After that, we saw that there was still plenty of batter left so we thought we’d make seconds. We figured it had to be a great recipe for the Scouts to use it!

This process continued for some time, and we deiced that we’d just bring the food up to Mom and Dad (who were wide awake and in complete fear of the noise we were making) and then come back down and make the rest. We brought it up and they enjoyed their breakfast.

Dad was the first one down to the kitchen and saw what we had been doing. He looked over the situation and looked at all the French toast we were making. He then looked in the bowl of batter we had made and saw that there was a lot left.

“Thanks for the breakfast, fellas.” Dad said.

“You’re welcome.” Pat responded.

“We had fun!” I chimed in.

“Where’d you get the recipe for the French toast?” Dad asked.

“From the Scout book.” Pat replied.

Dad walked over to the Scout book and looked at the recipe. At the top it said: “Serves 40.”

Pat never followed a recipe again.

In Memory of Officer Kurt Ford

Officer Kurt Ford was shot and killed in the line of duty on April 9, 2005. He was attempting to rescue a hostage.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Officer Ford a few years back through some volunteer work I was doing that involved another individual. He was very helpful and a total professional.

One local resident of Newton, Kansas stated "Kurt Ford was the nicest guy I've ever met in law enforcement. Something about him always reminded me of my little brother who he looked a bit like. I didn't know him well but my deepest condolences go to his family. This is a great loss to the community also."

Officer Ford was married with two kids and coached his kids soccer team.

The world of law enforcement lost one of its finest ever.

Saturday, more yard work!

What is it with yard work in the spring? Hey, I love how stuff grows and WOW does it ever grow! Now we got more yard work.

Well, it will pay off when the veggies come in!

The P's come up

My Ma and Pa came to visit and Dad helped me clean a bunch of limbs out of the back yard--lots of work, that yard stuff!

At the same time, we saw a county road truck come by and park for 20 minutes then get out and walk around for 5 minutes, picking up a few pieces of trash, and then got back to the truck and pulled forward50 feet to do the same thing again.

Can I get a job for the county?

Mowing the lawn

Mowed the front lawn today. Must be April, time to mow! I'll save the back yard for tomorrow morning because I've felt really lethargic today.

Same-Sex Marriage Ban coming to Kansas.

The Wichita Eagle reports "With about 50,000 votes counted, 72 percent of Kansas residents have voted yes to the proposed marriage amendment, which would ban same-sex marriage. " (http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/11318902.htm)

Looks like it's going to pass.

What's next? A constitutional amendment that we can't call a dog a horse?

"But what if the dog really wanted to be called a horse?" "what if he was BORN wanting to be a horse?"

bleh.

Time to plant... hope it's in the right spot!

Okay, so my wife was going to point out where she wanted the herbs yesterday and watch me plant them so I can be sure to get them in the "right place" ... and she was too tired to go show me last night.

SOOOO... I get to guess. Hope it's right, because I don't want to dig them back up again!

Getting ready to plant herbs

Last year we used our neighbor's yard for our garden because we didn't have ours ready yet and they weren't using theirs. Worked out great! But here's what's cool... the chives we planted last year have come back up and are in full growth, so we've got chives to transplant for our herb garden (we're putting the herbs in another location).

So tomorrow I'm planting chives and five other herbs. Cool! I love fresh herbs!