Disneyland on Steroids…

Saturday I drove to Livermore, CA. to pick up Jake from my sisters. On my way to pick him up I noticed a huge building off the freeway with a sign that said, “Bass Pro Shops”. I picked Jake up and told him that before lunch we were going to take a side trip. He asked “to were?” and I told him a “fishing store”. He was moderately enthused until we walked in the door….

It was as if Walt Disney himself designed the perfect 120,000 square foot theme park/retail store. Shooting gallery’s, bow hunting demos, aquariums, stuffed wildlife, and EVERY outdoor product imaginable. I consider myself to me somewhat of a sporting goods store connoisseur but nothing prepared me for this.

I could have spent all day there.

I told Jake to “look natural and act like you’re about to get eaten”. The most disappointing part of the trip for Jake is that I refused to buy him a “souvenir”. He wanted a machete….. 

It took all of my parental restraint to deny my son this tool of destruction but I refused. If he knew how close he was to talking me into it he would probably be a machete owner. Few things in life are more empowering than a 24 inch razor sharp serrated blade in the hands of a 9 year old. 

Bass Pro Shops

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An Eventful Day!!!

So yesterday I picked my first two tomatoes of the season!!!! They weren’t quite as ripe as I would have liked but the second I touched them they fell off the vine so I suppose they were ready. I am officially in “Farmer Mode”!!! I actually planted WAAYYY too many peppers and tomatoes so I’ll probably start randomly leaving them on the porch of strangers.

I also got to spend the day with Jake, Jake’s mom, my sister, and her family, at Magic Mountain!! (Brie is in Florida) It was sort of a last minute trip but we had a blast. 

How I know my kids are really my kids…..

…..they’re champions!!! :)

Jacob holding his 2009 River Park Little League AAA Championship Trophy!!

 

Brieana wearing her Gold Medal for the CIAL 200M Freestyle Relay for Kastner, defeating all of the biggest and best schools in Fresno/Clovis!!

I know I started this blog as more of a analysis of life as a Republican rookie tree hugger. However, at times I have found it necessary to venture from the message and share experiences that I find to be either interesting or in this case just plain incredible.

My daughter is a swimmer. I know what you all are thinking…duh. She clearly got her streamlined, svelte, carving-through-the-water physique from her father right? However, you would be wrong.  She did not get the swimming gene from me and I am forced to give credit to mom on this one.

In the Valley’s most competitive junior high swim meet she rose to the occasion and got a Gold medal in the 200M relay. They nearly broke the meet record and pretty much buried the other teams.

 

Last night Jakes baseball team won the AAA River Park Little League Championship. In the semifinals in the very last half of the inning with the score tied, Jake hit a walk-off RBI hit to win the game catapulting the team into the finals where they beat the Cubs, a team that had dominated the league for most of the season.

Next up…..the Tournament of Champions which is the District Little League tournament.

We’ve had a pretty good year and I couldn’t help but take this opportunity to brag on my kids a bit. Thanks for indulging me. :)

Catching a Thief….Part Deux

As mentioned in my last blog post I had my suspicions that the half-pint sized baby possum that I had trapped the night before was not acting alone. I had a hard time imagining the tiny possum carrying off a baby carrot much less a full sized zucchini. So I reset the trap…….

At about 10:00 last night I hear the trap snap shut. Thinking it was still pretty early for a possum and that I had probably trapped my neighbors cat again I got out of bed to inspect. There is was….a full grown mama/daddy (I didn’t inspect closely) possum. It was not pleased at the situation and was not shy about sharing those feelings with me.

Teeth bared, going crazy in the cage, I realized that I was going to have to move him to a more distant location. So I went out, picked up the cage, and the possum went ballistic. Thinking that it was way too dark to be carrying around a crazed possum by a tiny cage handle I moved quickly moved it to the grass so it would at least make less noise that it would have on the cement.

   The good news is that I picked a nice juicy zucchini this morning and will be consuming it for lunch. Hopefully that is the last of the possums but I am going to be resetting the trap just to be sure…..

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Catching a thief…..

I have a gorgeous garden. I’ve always enjoyed fresh produce, but it wasn’t until last year that I was introduced to the experience of producing your own vegetables. So this year I decided to plant a front yard garden. So in early spring with the help of my (at the time) personal master gardener, I interplanted Brandywine tomatoes, San Marzano tomatoes, one other type of tomato that I forgot the name of, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, Anaheim chilies, and my personal favorite, Big Jim peppers.

After being nearly wiped clean by a stampeding herd of hungry snails, I replanted, and watched as my garden grew fast. Like really fast. Some might call it beginners luck, but I call it copious quantities of performance enhancing plant steroids. No worries though, the chemist at the lab promised me that it was safe for humans, and as a bonus my garden gives off a nice soothing neon green glow eliminating the need for any additional electricity-consuming yard lighting. Just doing my part for the environment.

About a month ago I started noticing zucchini and squash starting to develop. Then they would be gone. More zucchini/squash……then vanished. Something was eating my vegetables. At first I suspected my next door neighbor. She seems a little shady at times. However, then it occurred to me that she weighs over 300 pounds so I doubt that when she goes out at night looking for a snack that fresh veggies are what she is after.

So my focus turned to thieves of the furry variety. I Googled “Disappearing Zucchini” and found a blog entry on possum vegetable thieves. I had a hunch I was onto something.

I went down to Harbor Freight, bought a live animal trap and waited for the sound of the trap door slamming shut on whatever thieving creature was lurking in the night. SLAM!!!!!! I rush outside to find my neighbors cat in the cage. So I let the cat out before any of my neighbors noticed me trapping their pets and reset the trap. Woke up the next morning…..

  

A baby possum!!!! It was actually kinda cute. If it wasn’t mooching off my garden I might have let the thing go.

Of course I can’t imagine that this singular marsupial was responsible for the decimation of my zucchini. It must have accomplices so I am officially on a possum mission.

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Memorial Day Camping!!

One of my pure joys in life happens to be camping. I love everything about camping. The relaxation, the smell of the forest, campfires, and camp cooking. It’s just a fact that everything tastes better when you’re camping.

Memorial Day weekend was what I call pseudo-camping. We had no reservations and I happened to get lucky Saturday morning and pulled in to Camp Edison in Shaver Lake right after a cancellation. Very lucky. Camp Edison is a great place to pull in your RV, hook up all of your fancy equipment, and enjoy the same comforts you would have from you Lazy-boy chair at home. We lack the fancy RV, but we were able to take advantage of the free cable and catch soon-to-be World Champion Los Angeles Lakers systematically dismantle the Denver Nuggets.

Often camping involves fishing yet for some odd reason 90% of the time my son Jake is with me we get skunked (that’s fisherman language for NO FISH). Don’t ask me why but literally the last 4 times we’ve been fishing we haven’t even had a bite. Jake is 9 and at a pivotal age where his boyhood experiences will be engrained in his psyche. I don’t want my inept fishing skills to turn him off from the experience but I was beginning to believe that he was just bad luck. :)

So Saturday morning we get up and I announce that we are going fishing. At which point Jake says, “Dad, how come we never catch fish?” No sooner had the words left his mouth that I realized that the gauntlet had been thrown. We were going to catch fish if I had to sit out there all day. And catch fish we did….

First day we caught three, second day we caught four. And while I hate to see others get “skunked” no one else on the shore caught a single fish and I confess to feeling a touch superior. Everyone was wondering what we were doing different. Hated to admit that we were just simply overdue for some luck.

Jake with the catch from day one.

Jake playing with a fish head…..

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