This is one of those events we like to do every year but consistently screw up the schedule. We have good intentions, but somewhere along the lines, we miss what we are looking for. At times, we have been pleasantly surprised by some available “pick your own” crop and went about our day full of smiles. Well, I think I have fixed the whole scheduling problem.

A few weeks ago, Laura printed out the berry, apple and pumpkin schedule from Rose’s website. The schedule is accurate for basically any pick your own farm around here. Also, after we go picking, I put the event on my Outlook calendar and make it yearly recurring. That way, we won’t miss it next year.

Anyway, the day went well. Rose’s is a pretty enormous farm. It was much bigger than I expected and we actually needed to get a ride in a truck to go out to the strawberry and raspberry fields. I liked the truck ride. Wait until you see the photos below to see what kind of truck it was.

The strawberries were very tasty, but picked over a little bit. We are pretty late in the season for them and unfortunately, many other people got there before us. We did manage to get a bunch of nice ones though. The raspberries were in plentiful supply. I ate a whole bunch of them while picking. There really are only so many you can eat while on the job, but I did my fair share.

Next up is blueberries in early July. Rose’s has tons of blueberry bushes full of blueberries, but I think we are going to try out a different farm in the area, just to see what they are like. It’s nice to experience some variety.

Here are those pics…

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About five minutes later, the sky fell. It was crazy. The wind picked up and there was like a sheet of rain falling from above. Then, the hail started. I am so glad the cars were in the garage because I am almost sure they would have been all dented up from the hail. Some pieces were really big. They were actually bouncing off the grass and rolling down the front yard.

The storm lasted for about 15 minutes and then slowed down. I looked outside and there was a complete mess. Leaves everywhere. There are now holes in many of our plant leaves because of the hail.

Everything was cool for a while and then the power went out. It just came back on this morning. Ugh. That really stunk.

Here are some pictures. I didn’t get any of the big hail, but my brother’s verbal abuse will make me remember for next time.

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You like?

PS – If you notice, his tail doesn’t match. His was tucked under him and looked weird, so I had to crop one from a picture on the internet and paste it on him.

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I called the fireplace guy yesterday and told him that I wanted to go ahead with the install. We were at the point of having my debit card in hand for the deposit, when I started digging into the necessary clearances. I hadn’t looked all that hard at these because I thought it was very straight forward…pop a free standing wood burning stove into the fireplace. Done deal. Right?

Not so fast. Apparently, the manufacturers of these stoves want huge clearances from any combustibles. We have space, but not the space the stove people want. I decided throw my hands in the air and say that I just don’t care. haha.

My new project is to figure out a way to make the existing fireplace more efficient. My brother and father mentioned to me that there was something called a “Tube Fireplace Heater.” Click here to see what I’m talking about.

Also, I wouldn’t mind getting some ceramic, tighter fitting glass doors. That would be cool. An outside air vent would be the icing on the cake.

So, even though my little project of getting a wood burning stove fell through, I still have some things to think about. And, after all, that’s what keeps me going.

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Earlier this week, our instructor told three of us that the forth guy was going to go through his blue belt test on Wednesday. It was going to be a surprise for the guy, so I was pretty excited.

He has been working really hard for about a year now…coming to all the classes and then some. He’s a pretty tough fella and he knows his stuff. Our instructor wanted us to keep the occasion quiet because there is sort of a routine or tradition that you follow when someone achieves the next belt level.

When we got to class on Wednesday night, there was a buzz in the air. The soon-to-be blue belt didn’t know what was going on, but the rest of us did. We were all happy for him and were thrilled to be part of the process. The class was a bit more formal than it usually is.

It’s hard to explain, but I’ll give it a shot. Basically, we all warmed up by rolling for three minute rounds. I am guessing there were about five or six of them. Then, the guy who was going through the test rolled with each of us for about a half hour’s worth of two minute rounds. I am not sure about exactly how long it was, but it was long enough to really wear him out. I felt bad, because he was so whooped for most of the matches, but I knew that he would be a better man for it. He did a great job and was rewarded his blue belt. We all congratulated him. It was a great night of exercise and learning for all of us.

But wait…not only did one of our guys get his blue belt, the three of us also got a blue stripe. Now, one guy has his blue belt, one guy has a white belt with two blue stripes and two of us have our white belt with one blue stripe.

Jiu Jitsu white belt with one blue stripe

I am pretty proud of myself for getting that blue stripe because I have been putting a lot of time and effort into learning this martial art. I haven’t missed a class and have been pretty much going for an extra session each week. A lot of times, it’s those extra sessions that really help.

What’s really cool is what our instructor told us after the physical part of classes was over. He made it very clear that each of us was making good progress and that we each had our own style of doing what we do. It’s like anything else in the world; you learn how something is done and then you tweak it so it works best for you. That’s probably why I like this stuff so much…it’s not rigid like other martial arts. This is something that is more internal to each person and is something that can be adjusted to fit just right. There is a certain feel to it.

Another thing that I really appreciated that our instructor said was that we were working out in “our” club. It’s a small club and one that work’s well because of that. We all get along really well and learn from each other. It’s a good feeling.

Just one thing I want to add here…if you have ever had any interest in learning this terribly satisfying exercise and self defense skill, please let me know and I would be happy to bring you along to a class. You might just get hooked like I did. It’s cardio, flexibility and strength training all wrapped up in one. I’m sure I can make a long list of its benefits, but what fun would that be? You will just have to see for yourself.

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If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing “Charlie The Unicorn” yet, I suggest you do. I am embedding the video from YouTube below. This is a very odd video, and like all odd videos, you need to see it a few times to see the humor of it all. It’s kind of like Napoleon Dynamite. You can’t just watch that movie once. We have probably seen it over ten times…kind of like this damn Charlie video. Although, I will mention that as weird as it is, it’s been viewed tons of times, so that says something.

Here goes…

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Okay, the guy from Scott’s Lawn Service here in Hartford just called to schedule our grub control application. We went over the stuff and I told him that I had a few questions. I asked when I am supposed to plug aerate and apply an overseeding of grass seed. He told me that I should do the whole thing in early September. Then, I asked what type of grass seed I am supposed to put down. He told me to apply a grass seed with “Thermal Blue.” This is a Kentucky Bluegrass hybrid or something like that. It is really green grass, durable and survives hot and cold. Oh yeah, it also spreads to fill in bare spots, which is good.

I wanted to do a little more research on the grass seed, so I went over to YouTube and found a really neat video that had nothing to do with what I just wrote. I wanted to share it with you. It’s how they grow and roll up turf grass over in England (I think). If you are a grass guy like me, you’ll like this video.

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When I got there, I did my typical “guy” stroll around to browse all the stoves and inserts. I see it every time. The guys walk in with their hands in the pockets making grunts and noises, like “hmmm” and “hmmph.” It’s so funny because I do it too. There is kind of a lot to take in. Good thing the sales guy walks out to put things in perspective. I must say, I really love wood stoves and stuff like that.

I saw the “Hampton HI300 Wood Insert” that I wanted. It’s just as nice as I thought it would be. If money wasn’t an issue, I would tell them to pack it up and bring it over. Since I really don’t want to drop that kind of coin, I am becoming more and more interested in a smaller free standing wood stove. Remember, we already have the pellet stove, so we don’t really need that much more heat. Just something to keep my toes warm, something that doesn’t use electricity and something that will burn all the wood I am cutting down so I don’t have to watch it rot in the woods.

The sales guy introduced me to the more “economical” line of DutchWest wood burning stoves. They are pretty good looking and don’t have a lot of frills. Here is a picture I just took from the brochure.

DutchWest free standing wood stove

It’s cute, isn’t it? It’s also about $1000 less than the other one. A large part of the expense comes from the lining of the chimney and the installation. Heck, if all I needed was the stove, I could just run over there with the trailer and pick it up. That’s not the way it works anymore. Now, you need to have a 35 foot piece of insulated lining stuffed down the entire length of the very tall chimney and attached to the stove. All of that extra stuff actually costs more than the stove itself. At least I managed to drop the price somewhat.

I am hoping to have the stove stand on the stone outside the fireplace. The stove is 17 1/2 inches from front to back and the slab of stone is about 20 1/2. If we can do this, I can still access the side door to put longer (up to 19″) pieces of wood. That would be good. Otherwise, I will have to load shorter pieces through the front and cut about two inches off the stove legs so it fits inside the fireplace.

Anyway, I’ll get into all that stuff later if I decide to get this stove. I’ll make my decision by Saturday.

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Last night, we decided to go out to eat at Houlihan’s up in Glastonbury. I kind of like that place and the food is good. The only problem was that when I pulled into the Houlihan’s parking lot, the place was closed. I have no idea why. I sure hope they didn’t go out of business or something like that. My brother was in his car waiting for me. I drove around to meet him and told him that I had another place in mind right down the road.

We drove down Glastonbury Boulevard and made a right into the J. Gilbert’s parking lot. I have actually been wanting to go to this restaurant for some time because it looks pretty cool from outside. I always see a packed parking lot, so I usually avoid it. Last night I wanted to give it a shot.

We walked into the restaurant and found that even though there was a full parking lot, there were a whole bunch of tables open. I guess many of the cars belonged to people who liked to hang out in the bar area.

Okay, so here is my review of the restaurant:

- Good service, good atmosphere, good food, decent drinks
- Definitely not worth the money

Between the two of us, we spent over $100. That’s just crazy because all we had were two drinks, two salads, two entrees and two desserts. The entrees were “light,” if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, everything was very tasty, but a little sliver of this and just a few of that doesn’t really explain the $25 plus price tag for the entree. That kind of ticks me off, because I was freakin’ starving last night. I wanted to be fed.

Listen, if you are an independent restaurant and have a really talented head chef who brought his or her own menu with them when they arrived, go for it and charge an arm and a leg for what you’re serving. The average diner doesn’t know how to put a price tag on that. I am thinking of our last dinner up at the Mayflower Inn. It was so unique it was incredible. I wish I took a picture of it.

But, if you are a chain restaurant, don’t charge so much. What’s going to happen is you are going to get a lot of one time customers who leave to never come back. Eh hem.

I gotta tell you again, really nice restaurant, great service, good food, okay drinks, but no way worth the money.

And, that’s my review.

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