Took time out to closed the pool for the summer…what a bummer.

I hate it when summer comes to a close.

It is a bit early, especially in Michigan, but the pool is open for business.  Usually the pool opening doesn’t occur until Memorial Day weekend.  This year, however, I was able to drain the murky water from the top of the tarp and this event coincided with a nice, warmish weekend so off came the cover and the pump was primed.  The tarp was cleaned and temporarly stored in the garage. 

The patio funiture was placed around the pool.  It looks like summer in my backyard.  All that and the schedule for beach volleyball is being set.  I am ready for summer to start!

This year in Southwest Michigan the blooming trees are vibrant.  The neighbor’s lilac bush, which is right outside the kitchen window, is in full color and I can smell the lilac fragrance wafting across the strip of yard that separates their bush and my house.  The lilac’s purplish hue is stunning this year.

The crab apple tree in my front year is just past peak color.  Earlier this week the tree was an incrediblelight purple.  The tree bloomed more intensely than it ever had. 

In the back yard both the dogwood and the weeping cherry trees are showing very nice color.  I believe that the warm weather coupled with the amount of rain that we have had this year has created an optimum enviroment for the blooms to become especially intense this year.

The weekend looks to be great.  Although there is a ton of work to be done around the yard.  It’ll be nice to be outside in the sun getting the work finished. 

The chores are:
  Mow the lawn
  Remove a couple of stumps
  Shovel river rocks to improve landscape
  drain the pool cover

These task will take a good part of the weekend but I’ll be very happy to put them behind me.

Ahh…I remember when I was a kid during this time of the year.  There was great anticipation for Christmas.  The snow would make the landscape a winter wonderland and everything would be great…

That is until the Scary Christmas Shows began showing up on TV.

The most frightening of them all was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer created in stop motion animation. Every year…every single year, since 1964 they have shown this terrifying TV special. I know most of you think of this show as a cute if not quirky rendition of the classic song by Johnny Marks and the original 1939 poem by Robert May.

But there are kids the world over that cower in fear when they realize that their parents are going to watch this horror flick.  The frightening Bumble also known as the Abominable Snow Monster of the North has scared me more times than I would like to admit.  His incredible strength, gnashing teeth and psycho eyes…..brrrr…..a shiver has just run up my spine…..yes he is scary indeed.  This creature, probably a Yeti, chases anyone and everyone and probably eats his prey.

Near the end of the show there is the misfit toy by the name of Charlie-in-the-box.  Charlie guards the Island of Misfit Toys.  This Jack-in-the-boxesque entity pops out unexpectedly as visitors approach.  His eyes hold a bit of crazy similar to Bumble’s eyes.

Fortunately the show has a happy ending otherwise it would be completely unbearable.

Yes, that’s right I did two paid posts in a row.  At this point of my blogging paid posts are my quickest way to make some cash.  So you’ve probably been wondering what I’ve been up to since the end of volleyball season and the whole big bee incident.  Well I’ve mostly been working that real world job that allows me to spend some of my time as a beach bum. 

But now that the bee situation seems to be taken care of I now have an woodpecker that thinks a corner of my house would make a good place to live.  So back to Google to find a way to keep old Woody away. Tomorrow I’ll be running to Meijer to purchase a couple of concave mirrors to place on the house.  They are suppose to make Woody think twice about pecking on my house.  Wish me luck!

You may have seen advertisements for the Great American Seafood cook off on the Food Network.  It is brought to you by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board.

I visited the site and reviewed the recipes.  Since I’m partial to creole cooking I selected the Mississippi Redfish Courtboullion with Seafood Dirty Rice.  The recipe was created by Chef John Currence of Mississippi. The picture makes the recipe look yummy…I’m hungry just thinking about it.  Or maybe I’m hungry because I skipped breakfast this morning.  It still looks yummy though.

There is one thing that I would change about the recipe.  I would replace the Top Shock beer in the dirty rice portion of the recipe with Bell’s Oberon beer.  Oberon is a local favorite and would give the dirty rice more of a Michigan flair.  Hmm I’m thinking of giving the recipe a try this weekend.

All the recipes include domestic seafood. This means that the seafood is both fresh and locally caught.  Of course fresh seafood has better taste and texture than seafood that has been sitting in a container ship of days.  Buying seafood caught locally helps our economy and this year the economy needs the help.

Due to regulations that apply to domestic fishing our seafood is a sustainable resource.  There is no need to worry about over fishing that could create a shortage that could lead to higher seafood prices.

So check out the contest and the recipes at www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com.  If you enter and vote you could even win a trip to New Orleans!

Well the buckets sprayed with bee killer seems to have done the trick.  There were a bunch of dead bees around the entrances and I am hoping that some bees that had been coated with the poison returned to the underground core of the hive to spread the poison to the queen.  I have dumped dirt over the two entrances and soaked it with water.  I’ll monitor the two spots for the next several days to see if new entrances appear.

Thanks for you comments on the previous two posts, I appreciate the input.

Seeing that I needed to do something about the bees living in my front yard I logged into my Homepages Friends account and searched for ways to eradicate the bee infestation.

Side note about Homepages Friends: This is a way to earn money by doing searches that you would probably do anyway.  I have been signed up for a week or so and have earned £1.33 [it is a British company] on 79 searches.  At today’s exchange rate that is $2.45.  Of course there is a referral program, so if you are interested in joining please follow one of my links so I can get credit for referring you.  As of today I have 2 referrals that have earned £.02 for me.  I receive 10% of my first tier referrals so I presume that they have earned £.20 for themselves.  HomePages Friends pays out when you reach £20.00 to either a PayPal account or a British bank account.  The search results come from Yahoo UK so they are a little skewed toward British domains…just an FYI.

Back to the Bees.

According to one website I should make a torch by wrapping canvas around a long stick and douse it in gasoline.  The next step was to light it and hold it over the hole in the ground at night.  The light from the torch is suppose to draw the bees out and in doing so will fry them like Joan of Arc as the exit the hole. WHAT??? I question the effectivness of this idea. This approach seems a bit dangerous to the extent that I may get stung again.

Further reading on that website brought your typical pour gasoline down the hole and light it.  Given the explosive nature of gasoline I kept reading.  Pouring bleach seemed like another popular idea but I question the environmental impact as well as the quantity needed to accomplish the task.

Near the bottom of the page I found a possible approach that I am trying.  This idea consists of finding a bucket for each entrance and spraying them with bee killer.  Then after dark when they have returned to the hive place the buckets over the holes and place a stone on top.  The theory goes that the bees will come into contact with the poison and then return to the hive to die taking the poison with them.  I’ll post an update after I know how well this works.

We had family over today for a cookout and some swimming.  The temperature was mid 80’s with a fairly high level of humidity.  A good day for a swim.  I had been watering the front lawn prior to everyone’s arrival dispite the fact that rain was a possibility.  The lawn had gotten a little crispy in spots.

Fast forward to T minu 15 to arrival time.  It began to sprinkle.  Darn it!  We decided to place a tarp on the deck to create an area underneath the deck for the food and some people to sit to get out from the rain.  Our house is a walkout so the deck is quite tall.

The first guest start to arrive and the rain tapers off.  Great timing by Mother Nature.  The grill was cooking chicken, brats and hot dogs.  As the food was cooking a bunch of the kids hit the water.  Most of the adults just watched.  I had my suit on but since no other adults were swimming I decided to play lifeguard.

Dinner was great..plenty of awesome tasting food was consumed.  After dinner was time for games.  Inside the pool table got its first action in months and the table tennis matches were mostly fast paced.  I think that everyone had a good time.

Why the title of this post??? As people were leaving my brother-in-law stepped in an area in the front lawn that collapsed.  The “sinkhole” was about the size of his foot.  It turns out that the sprinkling earlier in the day combined with his weight had collaped a ground bee hive.  And they were mad.  Fortunately none of my guests received bee stings.  But after they all left I decided to spray the hole and their original entrance with bee spray.  This activity resulted in a bee in my shirt and a sting right above the waistband.  There’s the Ouch.