Busy Weekend

…I guess I was too "busy" for pictures - I never touched the camera all weekend

Saturday started with a lazy morning, followed by a 4th Birthday party in Rossford. We hung out there (hoping for nicer weather) until it was time to leave for a Mud Hens game.

I had never been at a game where an umpire reversed a call – what he had called a three-run homer, was actually a foul (after some words from the Hens manager and consulting with the two field refs)! This reversal was quickly followed by a tirade by the Iron Pigs manager resulting in his ejection from the game. Can you imagine the 3 players having to come back out of the dugout and return to the bases and the plate? Of course it didn’t sit well; and after the next pitch resulted in a strike out, the batter was ejected from the game (as he has dragged away by fellow teammates). I was beginning to wonder if this was a hockey game!

Fantastic and long lasting fireworks were a great conclusion to our first trip to the ballpark this season.

SNL with JT as host was the perfect ending for Saturday – I think he is so multi-talented and am looking forward to his fourth appearance as host.

Reading the paper and drinking coffee in the living room was not as long as some Sunday mornings – there was a lot to get done outside! BEB joined us and as D worked on a water pressure switch in the utility room and then cut grass, she and I accomplished more than I anticipated:

** Stained the upper deck, steps, and the rafters underneath
** Stained the north side of the back garage
** Took all the deck furniture out of storage and placed it on the upper deck
** Wire-brushed and touched up the lower deck furniture

We worked HARD with only one break for lunch! A little before 6 the three of us decided to go geocaching for about an hour. We needed to be back by 7 since BMA was heading out to visit for the evening.

Climbing under and around bridges between home and GR was part of our caching adventure as it was lightly sprinkling rain. We found the first micro immediately; the second was a bit tougher terrain and difficulty and took about 15 minutes around a one-lane bridge. Our third search had to be aborted due rain and time constraints (this one was proving tougher to locate) – we’ll have to go back to this bridge and complete the hunt another day.

As we ate and talked (and opened much appreciated gifts) it was a nice ending for this great Mother’s Day weekend! ~~ K

Birthday Caching

...actually, the day after my birthday

Late Sunday afternoon we took advantage of the beautiful weather to do some geocaching a bit south of us. All caches were south of Route 6 located in an area bounded on the east and west by Rudolph and Wingston Roads with Greensburg Road on the north and Hammandsburg Road to the south.

Our first stop was at a “Pause Along a Road Less Traveled” (the name of the cache). We’re starting to enjoy these with a bit higher difficulty and terrain rating.

Fayler Cemetery is an old, but well-maintained small graveyard. Unfortunately many of the grave markers are nearly destroyed; the same can be said for the trees within the burial grounds. Luckily the poison ivy near the cache is just getting started for the year, so I don’t think there will be any skin consequences.
Slippery Elm Trail was busier than we anticipated; but not enough to deter us from quickly locating the stash. I was a bit surprised that they have not replaced the sign – the posts are still in place.

Another cemetery stop concluded our adventure. Driving down the long entrance I realized I had been at this cemetery before with a friend whose father’s ashes are here. The cache puzzle was quickly solved, but I think it’s terrain is over-rated – this is land as flat as a pancake! D enjoyed some of the names on tombtones and there was a Celtic cross I liked.

Arriving back home, it was time to EAT! We enjoyed ribs that had slow cooked in the oven with a dry rub, as well as birthday cake (from yesterday [thanks to B,D,&Z], so it really didn’t look like this anymore).

What a nice day! ~~K

Cache Craft

You’ve probably heard me mention Celtic stones as swag we usually leave at a cache. Creating these has become a new hobby for D.

Using the Dremel hand tool he has been carving crosses, runes, and other symbols into flat, small stones. He then accents them with a bit of permanent marker.
I purchased some Celtic rubber stamps at the last Irish Fest in Dublin and have found they work well on flat smooth stones. I’ve been using a thin coating of acrylic metallic paint on the stencil. A bit of clear spray after the stencil paint dries serves as a protectant.

We also made our own “logo” to represent our geocaching username – BradClanOH. D likes skulls and crossbones and thought it tied in since we search for "treasures" and "X marks the spot"; of course, it had to have something Irish; and then we just piled it all on Ohio!
Can you tell we’re into geocaching? ~~K geocaching, crafts

35th Wedding Anniversary

Saturday was a day for celebration – in our own way. D and I don’t put too much weight on the “number” of our anniversary, since we have always considered ourselves to be committed to each other forever!

We started the beautiful day with our favorite weekend morning activity – reading the newspaper together in the living room while drinking coffee.

As it became warmer outside we were drawn to yard work. After about 3 hours, I was picking up 5-foot logs D had cut and I had a mishap. I stepped on the end of one of the logs and it catapulted into my face! My shocked reaction to the surprise and pain made me think I might have broken my nose and some teeth. Upon closer inspection, after clearing all the blood, I only experienced a lot of bruising with a cut above my lip and a puncture next to that. Thanks to ICE my swelling is minimal with no black and blue as I write this on Tuesday after the fact. I’m concerned about running, since the jarring is quite uncomfortable to my face now.

One of our anniversary plans had been to geocache. BEB was in town to join us, and I was feeling OK. There were three cemetery caches near Custar that I figured we could tackle (including travel time) in about 90 minutes. We were successful!

Our first stop was as St. Louis Catholic Cemetery. We found the design of many of the tombstones interesting. Etchings just about covered the markers on both sides – there were pictures of the people (many not yet dead), their homes, tractors, names of all their children, and a lot of other clutter (note I said they were” interesting”, not that we liked them).

The geocache was an easy find, but a true level 3 terrain difficulty. D joked that he needed his “Everest” climbing gear and Sherpa Guide! But at least he was glad it was as dry as it was to prevent major slipping. We took an eraser and left a Celtic stone.

We then moved on to Milton Twp Cemetery. As we approached we were intrigued by the strange pruning job on the trees along the cemetery – they were all flat-topped – they almost looked like the shape of a wine glass (sorry, no picture). This was another beautifully maintained area – all bushes had been trimmed recently; all the tombstones (no matter their age) had been weeded and dug around – we haven’t noticed many cemeteries that do this consistently. Again, the cache was a quick find by BEB – she took a plastic good luck token and left another of our Celtic stones.

Interesting OLD tombstones (some with quite a “lean” on them) and a fun, quick find met us at Richfield Cemetery. The terrain difficulty of this one was a true 2.5 with a tricky placement. Another of our Celtic stones was left as we took a poker chip.

After we got back home, I was a bit out of sorts (my face and mouth were hurting and swollen) so you’ll need to visit B’s blog to see our “food”.

Later in the evening B & Z came over – primarily to deliver a present to us. But of course we all had a great time visiting. As we sat outside the conversation was all over the place – music, movies, etc. What fun!

Look at the great paint job Z did on my toes! It’s sometimes difficult to do my own feet; and today was definitely one of those days. Z proceeded to do BEB and BMA – for some reasons D didn’t want his toes polished.

D and I were planning on going to Biagi’s in Levis Commons on Sunday for a bit of a celebration, but I didn’t feel like it – we’ll do that another day!

What a wonderful anniversary, with hopes of many more! ~~K

Monday Meanderings

… geocaching

Making a short loop around Route 6 yielded four cemetery geocaches after running some errands in BG on the last day of spring break.

Our first stop was to an old off-road cemetery – its latest burial was in the late 1800’s! Apparently Potterstown was a village south of Weston that burned to the ground and was never rebuilt. The cache was a large treasure trove that included a turtle travel bug we intend to move along. (See below)
Grelton Cemetery is a large, beautifully maintained rural burial ground. Benches and labeled trees were quite inviting, but it was raining so we went on a quick hunt here.
Arachnophobia was the name of the clever cache we found in Hoy Cemetery. Can you guess what the container looked like?
As the rain intensified, we made our last stop at Olive Branch Cemetery. There we found a cache named “Barking in a Tree” – I don’t have any idea why.
It was a fun adventure despite the rain.

Thursday Tommy Travels After supper we went out to further Tommy the Turtle on his journeys. We had heard of a large cache near Haskins that had other travel bugs and geocoins. Although parking was next to impossible, the cache was a quick find and hopefully Tommy will move along soon. It is said this cache is located along the former right of way for the Lima & Toledo Traction Company.
We decided it was so nice out we would try to find one more geocache. “Welcome to Haskins” was another quick find, but a micro (our least favorite).

Geocaching is proving to be a nice hobby – it also helps to get us out walking a bit on nice evenings. ~~K

Howell Hunting (geocaching)

… more “Friday Fun”

With three geocaches under out belt in Brighton, we wanted to tackle five more challenges we knew were in the Howell area.

Hager Hill Cemetery was especially interesting to D as we approached and observed a German flag on a younger man’s grave.

Parking was a bit tricky, but the coordinates were right on target. Notice the snow!

Kid’s Cache took us to a car pool parking lot where a cache was hidden on the slope going down to I-96. This was one of the largest containers we’ve encountered, but pretty junky! It would have taken a crew of 5 all day to properly clean this trashy, muddy area – CITO made no dent! NOTE: CITO is the eco-minded geocaching slogan – Cache In, Trash Out – like a good Girl Scout, you should leave an area better than you found it.
We continued north to the very small Mount Olive Cemetery on Thompson Lake. We thought a woman walking 2 dogs was not very respectful of the location – we named her “Poop Lady”. We had to broaden our search and use our geosenses to find the micro-cache hidden here.
We then went to another edge of the lake to Lakeview Cemetery (I do mean the “edge”).

This was a multi-stage small cache called SQ Howell Remembers. It took a while before the “force” decided to help us find the “chambers” yielding the cache. We enjoyed the beautiful setting and the challenge of this hunt.

Closer to the outlets was Pioneer Cemetery, which was a quaint, small cemetery with a few unique grave markers.

As our swag we took a Euro “penny”.
It was a most successful, informative, and entertaining day of geocaching. ~~K

Brighton, Michigan

…more “Friday Fun”

Our plans for “Fun Friday” included lunch at an Irish pub and geocaching. I originally thought there was a third Irish pub in Howell (one we had not yet visited), but I realized it was actually in Brighton. See note at end of post about two wonderful Irish pubs in Howell.
On our way to Brighton we took advantage of a geocache called "A Short Walk in the Woods” located at an eastbound rest stop on I-96. It was a nice secluded location for such a busy area. Our swag exchange yielded a Molson can cover.
Brighton’s beautiful downtown city park with an elaborate play area and pond was our parking location. It also held a geocache called “Crazy Quackers”. On this day I would have called it “messy honkers” due to the geese rather than ducks. There were too many muggles in the park as we arrived, so we walked over to the pub, ate, and came back; then we enjoyed observing other geocachers before logging our “find”.
As we walked to Stout Irish Pub (http://www.greatplaces4goodtimes.com/index.php?page=stout-irish-pub) we were quite impressed with this ski resort town. It reminded us a bit of Worthington, Ohio. Sometime we’d like to spend more time exploring – especially on a bit warmer day. If cars are any indication, Brighton reeks of wealth! How many Lexus and Infinities can you see on any one-block stretch?
OK, back to our primary Brighton objective – Stout Irish Pub. It was well worth traveling a few extra miles from Howell. Great service, décor, and food was as expected, and then some.
The décor included straw on some of the walls, a nice bar, and an intriguing mural of a lion and girl from the Berlin Zoo dated 1863 - check out the story and history of this http://www.intimateforest.com/lady_lion/l_l.html.
A nice selection of beer on tap (in addition to Guinness) led us to choose two English brews – Tennant for D and Botington’s for me. It would have been all too easy to have another pint, but we successfully resisted this early in the day.
Traditional “fish and chips” were enjoyed by D. I devoured a delicious bowl of the House Special soup that included champ, Irish bacon, cheddar, and scallions; I also ordered three Irish Sliders thinking they would be much smaller Reubens than they actually were – one served as my “snack” after we arrived home. Their menu is included on the web site link.
Obviously, we highly recommend this Irish pub.
After returning to the city park and finding the cache, we proceeded to St Patrick’s Cemetery in town. Another geocache was waiting to be found there. In addition to quickly finding the cache we enjoyed looking at tombstones including one of a man from Ireland buried nearby.

Pub Note: Cleary’s in downtown Howell is traditional both inside and out. Chris McGurrin’s on old US 23 at Route 59 has a modern exterior but an authentic Irish bar replicated inside (there’s even a map of County Cavan inside since the owner’s grandmother came from Cavan) – I highly recommend the liver and onions in a whiskey sauce.

Looking forward to another day in Brighton in the future. ~~K

Thursday’s Tasks

…but they were enjoyable “labors of love” outside

Finally, a decent day to spend working outside! It was only 25 degrees at 7:30 am, but the sun looked promising. I did around in the house, then I went outside at 9:30 since the temperature had reached 44 degrees.
I washed and hung sheets outside – notice my clothespins are in an old bleach bottle I cut so it can also hang on the clothesline and slide along as I need a pin.More geocaches are needed along the nature trail out back. As I was scouting the area and recording coordinates I came across a skull, jaw bones, and neck vertebrae. I looked around but couldn’t find any other bones from the carcass. After D looked at it later we think there must have been an illegal hunter who killed a deer and field dressed it right there and left the head.

After the creek was cleaned last fall, most of the mud and dirt was piled along the top of the creek bank. Unexpectedly I heard a bulldozer working out back even before I went outside – As I was burning yard debris I proceeded to talk to “Mr. Bulldozer” when I saw he was even seeding the area by hand while walking – what a pleasant bonus!

Tree trimmers for Edison started “working” out front (I noticed their breaks are twice as long as their work time) – I talked to them a bit – hopefully they’ll leave me some wood chips next week – I won’t count on it though – the last time Edison trimmed they had told a friend of mine they would drop some wood chips off, but they never did.

The asparagus patch got its spring cleaning.

beforeafter

I gathered about 5 trailer loads of clippings, branches, and other burnable yard waste throughout the day and burned it all, plus I was able to burn much of what was already out in the burn area – right now there’s mostly log size debris.

When I came inside at 4:30 it was 61 degrees, the sun was still shining, but the wind was picking up.

After we ate supper, D got the tiller going for the first time this year. I was able to get the west side garden turned under – I never got around to it last fall. I’ll have to do it a couple more times before planting.

After coming in a little after 7, I had a tired, dirty body, and needed to call it a day. ~~K