Sunset

Weekend closes with this.

7:14 PM 

7:53 PM

 

The Oriole Ranch

The oriole camera has been deployed.

Stay-tuned......

Life Under Quarantine

Another statement about remaining hopeful while under quarantine...

 

Saturday Update

Project kind of day today.  Up early, trip to the dump, some groceries from Marchant's.  Jill cleaned the bird spikes above the windows and doors and I’m finally at 75% reorganizing the machine shed.

Son-in-Law shared with me last winter that a ‘Slow and Sear’ setup for his Weber kettle had ‘altered his life’.   So, of course, I purchased one.

Now that the grilling season is officially upon us I smoked a rack of baby back ribs today using my Adrenaline Barbecue Company device.  This was a test flight.

Penzeys 33rd and Galena rub and hickory wood 3.5 hours. 

This was excellent. Next time I’ll for sure go 4 hours. I think I could push ‘falling-apart ribs’ at five hours without any dryness. 

Juicy with a perfect smoke ring. 

And there was this for dessert....

I am admittedly a wee bit pissed that we have no guests. 

Being social animals - this time of year there should be some turkey hunters with their wives or girlfriends and maybe some of my friends from Brussels or Sturgeon Bay around here.

Would have been fun to set on the porch and crack wise over cocktails while smoking some excellent food.

COVID crap!

Learn more about the Slow 'n Sear here..... 

Death to the Queen

Yellow jacket wasps are bastards.  Which would explain their taxonomy - Vespula vulgaris. 

These nasty insects do not winter in a colony like honey bees.   Only an impregnated yellow jacket queen hibernates overwinter until the spring temperatures of April warm-up enough for the queen to emerge from her long winter slumber and seek a new nest site.    

Trapping the yellow jacket queen is an exceedingly efficient means of putting the hurt on the bastard wasp population around your home.  For every queen trapped and killed in the spring there will be one to five thousand fewer bastard yellow jackets during the summer and into the fall.  

Lest there be any misunderstanding – I hate yellow jacket wasps.    Every spring I trap and kill one or more of the queen bastards in my pheromone-baited trap.

Bastard insect sociopaths...

Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

Every year the earth crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet.  As our planet passes thru the debris left behind by the comet some of the detritus burns-up as it reenters the earth's atmosphere with a resulting meteor shower.  Shooting stars! 

  

Most of the activity should peak in the hours before dawn on May 5 thru May 6.  Nevertheless, there will be viewing opportunities beginning in the predawn hours starting May 1, 2 and 3.

 

Get yourself comfortable in a lawn chair and allow your eyes 30 minutes to adjust to the dark.   

Look to the southeast and the constellation Aquarius – although a shooting star can occur just about anywhere.

In our mid-northern latitudes you can expect to see ten or more meteors per hour.  The late evening hours are the best time to observe earthgrazers – more meteors that make the long streaks across night sky.  

Fingers-crossed for dark skies and clear viewing conditions. 

Friday Music

This song was written during Iron Butterfly's early days.  According to drummer Ron Bushy, organist-vocalist Doug Ingle wrote the song one evening while drinking an entire gallon of Red Mountain wine.  When the inebriated Ingle then played the song for Bushy, who wrote down the lyrics for him, he was slurring his words so badly that what was supposed to be "in the Garden of Eden" was interpreted by Bushy as In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.     - Wiki  

I’m old enough to remember Red Mouuntain wine and to have purchased the original vinyl Iron Butterfly album.  

Sina nails it with this cover…..