Happy Fall!!

I can't believe how the days fly by sometimes.  Summer is gone and now it's fall, my favorite time of the year.  We've been busy here at the West A House.  School and work, going here and there, meeting new people.

It's been a busy past month since I was here last, the Missus and I went to Dave Matthews at Qwest Center a few weeks ago.  It rocked as usual.  They played a new song, "Black Jack", it was awesome.  I hope the studio version turns out as good as the live version was. 

A week after Dave, we went back to Omaha and met some folks at Mt. Fuji for the first and hopefully annual "Mid-West Mai Tai Meet-Up".  We had dinner in a Tatami (tea) room with three other tiki-minded couples then migrated downstairs to the Mai Tai lounge for drinks and conversation.  Another couple joined us in the lounge and for a first time event, 10 people made for a nice party.  I look forward to doing it again!

Have a good week and if you get tomorrow off, have a nice Columbus Day.

And now for some pictures!!

Pupu ribs and ginger pineapple fried rice.
















Hand carved tiki "Nui Niho" by "Lake Tiki"-Dave Hansen of Milwaukee.
















Hot bowl of smoked pork three bean chili.

Gigantic fish float lamp by Trader Bill from Newport Beach California.

Ecstatic people getting Mt Fuji shirts. Thanks to Silverline for the picture.

Happy Labor Day

Here's hoping you had a nice day today.  Sorry if you had to work.  We made the most of our weekend by traipsing all over Eastern Nebraska.  We meandered up North 14th Street to Martin's Hillside Orchard and picked raspberries, apples and some of the best peaches I've ever had.  That prompted a nice batch of peach cobbler when we got home.  Probably make some sauce or syrup with some of the raspberries for pancakes.  And I know some of the apples have apple crisp in their future! The orchard is a nice excuse for a drive through the countryside to see the coming of fall.  Some trees are changing, the corn is drying.  The weather was perfect.  Decided that beef would be featured this weekend so I grilled up a platter of kebabs and the crowd went wild.  Okay not really, but the kebabs were devoured.

We loaded up the wagon the next day and wandered around Mahoney and Schramm State Parks.  The aquarium at Schramm is a popular spot for us and The Boy is always fascinated with the fish.  Especially "Big Blue" the huge catfish.  We explored the canyon ponds of the Gretna Fish Hatchery up into the bluffs on the north side of the Platte River.  One canyon pond was full of carp and another pond further up had great looking trout. Very cool!  

After lots of hiking we motored east, crossed the Platte into Louisville and searched for ice cream.  Finding none we ventured north through South Bend, past Mahoney Park again and found frozen treats in Ashland.  
All the fresh air and excercise made me hungry like a bear so I grilled steak for dinner.  Sauteed shrooms and broccoli too.

We rolled out to Seward today and hung out with the better half's family for lunch and conversation.  It was a great three day weekend and I hope yours was too.  Have a great week!

Sunday Dinner

Hi there!  Spent a lazy afternoon in the pool today, it was pretty chilly but we got used to it.  Tomorrow and Tuesday look to be possible swim days and that's probably about it for the season.  I like the fall season the best and I'm looking forward to it again this year.  I don't mind the fall yard cleanup, it get's you outside in the fresh air.  I've got some minor exterior house projects to finish up then too.  I hope you've had a good summer, you've got a couple weeks left.  Let's hope for a nice long Autumn! 

I ran across a recipe for some enchiladas a few weeks ago so that's what we had for dinner tonight.  It's not the usual enchilada but it was mighty tasty.  Here we go.  Using pecan wood, I smoked two pork loin, four tomatoes, an orange bell pepper (red is preferred) and a hot red pepper.  Smoke all of this for 40 minutes, the pork cooks until medium doneness.  Cut the pork into bite size pieces and set aside. Remove the skins and seeds from all the veggies.  Puree them in the blender along with some onion and garlic.  Simmer this sauce for about 15 minutes and give it a shot of salt and some chopped cilantro as you take it off the heat and set it aside. 

Sautee more onion in a large skillet until it's soft and nearly translucent.  Add some garlic and the pork and sautee this for a few minutes.  Then add some cooked drained black beans, chicken broth and chili powder.
Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer it until the liquid is mostly gone.  Prepare the corn tortillas the way you like to eat them. Fried, microwaved or like I do, tossed onto a hot gridle.  Place some filling and some Jack cheese on each tortilla, roll em' up and place in a baking dish.  Cover the whole lot with some of your sauce and top with more cheese.  Bake until the cheese is to your liking.  15-20 minutes.  EAT!!

Have a good week everyone!

Goodbye Sweet Zoey

We had to put Zoey down this morning.  The last couple of weeks have been pretty rough.  The vet said she had congenital heart disease and it was amazing that she lived as long as she did.  We adopted her from the humane society and we think she was 11 or 12 years old.  We promised her that she wouldn't ever suffer again like she had before we adopted her.  I remember her being so emaciated her front legs almost touched when we brought her home.  She must have been beaten because if you touched her anywhere near her tail she would cower from you.  She grew out of that and was quite the specimen!  We knew she had a heart murmur but she was very strong and such a sweet dog to the very end.  She loved being in the front yard where all the neighbor kids would give her attention. 

Williamsburg Vet Clinic was very kind and let us use their special quiet room, we laid on a soft blanket together, Zoey was given the injection and was gone in less than a minute.  My heart said "no" but my head said it was the kindest thing to do.  We stayed with her body for a little while and we'll get her cremated remains in a few days. 

She was a wonderful affectionate gentle dog and I will miss her.  Boxer's are such clowns and Zoey was no exception.  One time she chewed up a stuffed toy and that was it.  Never trouble, loved everyone she ever met. 

Goodbye monkey girl, I love you.

Weekend Eats and Treats

Since the Mai Tai Lounge in Omaha is not a convenient place for me to practice my tiki hobby, we're planning a tiki hut/bar in the backyard next year.  With the house all spruced up now, part of the the plan is to make a little "escape from reality".  We'll build a bigger deck and in one back corner I plan to construct an A-framed hut of sorts and load it up with my tiki treasures.  I've been steadily collecting mugs, artwork, carvings and other Polynesian paraphernalia.  I got two of these cool fish float lights from a fellow member at Tiki Central.  Awesome! 

The Boy had requested bbq ribs the other day so I obliged him Saturday evening for dinner.  What with Ribfest in town the last several days, it seemed the tasty thing to do! I got two fresh racks from Sam's club

Saturday morning, put a sweet/smokey rub on them and rested them in the fridge for several hours.  I have read on several barbeque sites that pecan is the Cadillac of wood to use for smoking so I used that.  The chunks of pecan don't have an in-your-face smell and they don't emit much smoke during the cooking process.  But man does it give the meat an awesome taste.  I smoked them slowly for two hours then mopped on some homemade sauce the last thirty minutes of cook time.  Dem bones was good eatin'!

Tonight was a simple Thai chicken sate and some roasted zuchinni and onions from the garden.  Odd combination but pretty darn tasty! 

Have a great week everyone!

All Spiffed Up

After replacing the siding, we shot new paint on and brush painted the trim and windows.  It's a damn big yellow house! 

Before:  Polished Oak with Hunter Green Trim

After: Quiet Veranda with Fossil Butte trim and Vanilla Milkshake shutters.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Excuse To Rent Machinery

When we decided that the house needed the rotten siding replaced and a whole house paint job, we thought, "We can do that".  My company owns a nice set of scaffolding but after lugging it home and setting it up we realized it was no where near tall enough for what we were doing.

One of our neighbors said he'd rented a "boom lift" for trimming tree branches at his parents acreage.  I checked it out on the internet and the next day we went to NCS Equipment and rented a Genie Boom Lift. What a great machine it turned out to be and we couldn't have done the work on the house without it.  It has a max height of 55 feet and a reach of 29 feet which allowed me to swing up and around the house while I was doing the siding and while the Missus and I then painted the house.  Being towable, we could change the machines position to reach everywhere we needed, including the 30 feet straight up from the driveway.

                                                                                  

Off comes the siding.  I left the Celotex insulation attached and covered it with the Super TUFF insulation which was triple ply.  More insulation is a good thing!  Taped all the joints and hung the new siding.