Saturday, June 14, 2008

Happy Father's Weekend!

Dad’s weekend is upon us. Most dads will be celebrating their day, Father’s Day, Sunday. I’ll have a two day celebration that begins Saturday. I don’t think I’ve ever had a two day Father’s Day celebration before. In fact until I retired a few years ago, I didn’t even get one day to celebrate as I worked Sundays. So I guess it’s fitting that I get a chance to make up some of those missed days. This is the first time I’ve done it, though.

I don’t have my hopes up that I’ll get two full days of celebration this year. But I can pretend, can’t I? The problem is I’m not sure which day will be the celebrated day. What I do know is the Saturday one will be the cookout. I’m not exactly sure why my wife has chosen Saturday for the cookout, except she did have some reservations about the weather after listening to the weekend weather forecast Friday.

It’s really not that bad of a forecast, either. The weatherman said that we might get some showers late Saturday night into early Sunday morning. For the last several weeks, the words “might get” have simply meant “probably won’t even see a drop or two” in my little corner of this world. That weather guy also said Saturday would be the better of the two days and, even though any “might” showers will end early Sunday, the day will remain mostly cloudy with just a chance the sun will come out in the afternoon.

So we’re having our cookout Saturday.

My daughter and her dog will be here. I’ll probably get a phone call from my son who lives in a West Coast state; but since he doesn’t know about the weekend plans, that call will most likely be Sunday. So for this Father’s Day, for me it has the makings of being truly a weekend affair. And I’m planning on enjoying every minute of it.

I doubt the Father’s Day stuff will fill both days. I have no idea what my wife and daughter have planned for yard/garden activities for the weekend. Speaking of gardens, our vegetable gardens are coming along very nicely. I think we’ll end up with enough squash to supply the local supermarket for a few weeks. And tomatoes. If you’ve ever grown your own tomatoes, you know it’s either famine or feed the whole darn neighborhood. It’s looking like we’ll be well fed.

Pepper plants, beans, beets, carrots are all doing well. My wife also planted some green stuff, like Swiss chard and the like. I can’t eat green stuff because it contains vitamin K which fights with my Coumadin. But the girls like it. The beans are also showing signs of being very plentiful this year. We grow both green and yellow beans, and this year for the first time, the gals are experimenting with pole beans.

About the only things that are giving us some fits are the cucumbers. There’s a critter out there who absolutely loves cucumber plants. It ate our first planting so the gals bought some more plants. They planted them carefully and stuck a wire screen into the ground that surrounded the plants. It didn’t even slow down whatever the critter is.

Since we mowed Thursday, I don’t have to do that this weekend. As I’ve said before, except for mowing (and snow blowing in the winter) I don’t do outside work. That simply means if the gals do go outside to do some yard/garden work, I’ll get to see the opening round of the baseball College World Series. Two games are on tap for both weekend days, but I’m not sure how that awful weather they’re having out Omaha way will affect the games. If they’re played, I’ll be planted in front of the TV as I love watching the kids play ball.

My ranting will return Monday, but in the meantime I hope you’ll join with me and have an absolutely wonderful Father’s Weekend.

GiM

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