My Radical Sabbatical. Or, My latest Excuses for not Blogging.

"So, what happened to your blog? Are you on sabbatical?" came the question from a friend of mine at the bottom of an e-mail last week. I realize it has been quite some time since I made a blentry. All the same excuses apply in one order or magnitude or another. Since I don't get paid to write, I write when I can. I have a second now, so I figured I could squeak out a blog post.

A lot has been going on here on Michigan's West Coast. Not one bit of it has to do with sun and nice weather. I have been traveling and working such that I didn't get to mow my lawn last week. Now it's been raining constantly. Did I mention I fertilized the week before? any minute now, I will be able, if I am so inclined to go meet the giant living in the sky who has the goose that lays the golden eggs. I have a lawn that looks like summer wheat only green, with tall stalks topped with seed flowers. It isn't pretty. Looking at the weather, it may get a whole lot uglier before I can get it chopped down. Forget the mower... I need a brush hog.

I dared to take the Corvette more than 25 feet and drive at more than 45 miles per hour, which of course resulted in a blown heater hose. I have the replacement hose. I just haven't put it on. The heater core, which requires the partial removal of the dashboard to replace is also bad. I bypassed it a couple summers ago since we only drive in the summer and never use the heat anyway. Beside, the air conditioning doesn't work, so why should the heat? I guess I am trying to weigh whether to just do the whole job and be done with it.

My new grill came last week and I broke it in yesterday. It is a new infrared induction heat grill. It still uses propane, but the grate system is closed, so only the heat, not the flame hits the food. It is impressively quick to heat up, and unlike my old grill that had a difficult time maintaining 450 degrees, this one goes from 0f to 700f in 10 minutes. I lit it yesterday, put one burner on high and the other 2 on medium and it took 1 minute and 52 seconds to get to 575 degrees.

I grilled beef filets. The heat on the grates allows for instantaneous searing. The meat doesn't stick to the grates and in theory should retain moisture better without the flames hitting it directly. I was concerned at first that it would be too hot, or that the meat wouldn't get that nice flame crust on it that I love so much. I needn't have worried. It really does the job! I also roasted some asparagus and yellow squash. Those, too, were a success. It is a bit of a high bar coming right out of the chute with filets as the first thing to grill all summer- And on a new grill. I am happy to say it all worked out well. Tonight, hotdogs. How's that for a follow-up?

As for my old grill, I think I would like to try and turn it into a smoker. The cabinet is fine, it just rusted inside. All the cheap parts are ripped out now. I need some sheet metal to create a bottom and voila I have a smoker. I should get around to that project around 2024.

This all assumes the weather starts to cooperate and realizes we are now in May. Since February was like April, March was like June, April was like, well, April and May looks a lot the same, it's hard to tell what we're going to get and when. For instance, I listened to the weather people and decided we would get no rain on Saturday and so started staining the deck.  I got halfway before the rain that wasn't supposed to come, did, and when it did, even though it was supposed to stop, it didn't. Oh, bother.

We are going to have a new sliding door and new storm doors put on the house and I am still committed to making good headway on the window restorations, so our anniversary trip to Mackinac Island is off. We just don't have the time and money to afford all the energy and wanderlust we have. Instead, we bought some patio furniture to go with the new grill. If it ever stops raining I will finish staining the deck and we will have a great place right here at home to relax and enjoy.

You are now up to speed. Hopefully I will have a post that has something to do with something semi-funny or at least somewhat amusing for next time. Sorry for the autobiographical boredom.