Out of Order

Good morning, my friends. My day was a little off kilter yesterday. It was a nice day to have breakfast with my friend Sue. As I headed down the road the leads from our hill to the valley floor, I didn't get far before I found the road completely blocked by a crew moving one side of a mobile home up a driveway. After an exchange with a rude woman who was standing by, and then with one of the more polite crew members, it became clear I would have to take the long route to the restaurant. Oh well.

Arriving at the restaurant, I found it mobbed. The parking lot was what we refer to here at the Three Cats Ranch as a "sh*t show." I swear there were people there who had never parked a car in their entire lives. At one point, I was tempted to offer to park their cars for them, but I was mostly able to maintain my composure even at this second obstacle standing between me and my morning oatmeal. Sigh.

Okay, so it was one of those times when nobody died (partly due to my ability to override my baser instincts). And if nobody died, really, how bad can it really be? So I shook that off and enjoyed spending time with Sue. We had to wait for them to make more oatmeal, but it gave us plenty of time to catch up after not seeing one another for several months.

After that, I had some errands to run. It was the day I set aside to pick up annuals for planting the flower pots. I ended up with these pretties.

Also, I got a potted coreopsis to plant in one of the larger barrels. This barrel contains some tulip bulbs...all bloomed out by the time we came home. For some reason, we'd moved the barrel closer to the house before leaving on our trip...I think possibly to put it nearer a sprinkler. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why we moved the barrel, but it's back in the sun now.

After selecting the annuals, I had some grocery shopping to do. I picked up the items that had accumulated on our shopping list, and it was a short list.

Yesterday's mail contained the spare tire cover for our Jeep. When we make our trip to Alaska next year, we'll be taking our truck camper and towing our Jeep. Obviously, it needed this spare tire cover.

My day's routine was completely off by the time I'd finished lunch. I'd missed the morning's slow-stitching, and so I did it in the afternoon. 

I rarely lose my sewing mojo, but I just wasn't feeling it yesterday afternoon. It meant I didn't get any farther with my quilting. Mainly, I was sitting where I had a view of the door. Smitty was taking a final stroll around his estate before coming inside and relaxing on the soft carpet and soaking up the afternoon sun.

Mike and I were in the final stages of barbecuing some "Burnt Ends" for our dinner. Mike did the lion's share of the cooking here. The day before, I'd made a rub for the meat. While I was eating lunch, I was cooking some bourbon BBQ sauce on the stove-top. It needed about a half hour of simmering before it was ready to use. 

Earlier in the day, Mike added the rub and began the process of slow-roasting and smoking the meat. Later on, it was cut into bite-sized chunks, mixed with the bourbon BBQ sauce, and then drizzled with honey.

Then, it was roasted one last time to finish off our Burnt Ends. And let me just tell you, that is some tasty BBQ right there.

We had it with a side of Dill Potato Salad, and that was a good way to end the day. I've had this recipe in my "Untested" folder for quite some time. You can find it right here. Just know that we used a tri-tip instead of a brisket, and our cooking time was shorter. If you'd like to have the recipe as we adapted it, email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

So if it isn't obvious, today's effort will go toward getting the annuals planted. It's the last thing I need to do to set things right after missing most of the spring yard work. It'll be nice to have it all caught up. Of course, I'm going to need to start again with the weeds very soon. It's a never-ending battle. If I'm not too worn out after that, I'll get back to my quilting.

It's the first day of summer, my friends! It's time to get out there and enjoy some sunshine.