Clean Dogs

One of the wonderful things about Pyrs is that they have gorgeous long coats and a regal bearing. One of the quirks about Pyrs is that they are happiest when they are doing something that will make them filthy.

10 minutes after Dakota's bath.

Two hours after Buddy's bath—back in the dirt.

And unnecessarily pleased with himself.

El Cheapo Brickmann (the ECB)

"Welcome to your new obsession." That's what they say to people who get their first tattoo. That's what we will now say to people who start barbequing.  Not grilling hamburgers, mind you. I'm talking about really barbequing in a smoker. Like our new BBQ setup courtesy of Evan.

Evan has upgraded to a more advanced (and easier to use) model and we got to take home the original version. This weekend was our first opportunity to try it out and it was an unqualified success.

Step one: get the starter coals good and hot in the chimney.  I cheated on this one and used the gas grill to get them toasty and they got the smoker up to temperature in no time.

Me, looking proud of my new toy. Who's a good little smoker? You are! Yes you are....

 The menu for the first attempt was ambitious: pork butt, marinated chicken, and pork ribs. All came out highly successfully. The ribs have an interesting pop to them when you do not baste them with BBQ sauce. I wanted to see how they would pick up the smoke flavor without too much treatment the first time. Next time we'll add some more rubs, marinades, and sauces. The chicken probably came out the best, but the pork butt was excellently smokey as well.

We picked the bones clean and they were smokey and tender to the last nibble.

Happy Dog 2

As previously mentioned it takes very little to make a dog happy. Here Dakota is enjoying a little smear of yogurt.

This is one of the more flattering pictures where she doesn’t have her whole head stuck in the container.

And here she is trying to get to the very bottom of the container.

New Backyard

The first year we lived in Bayonne my parents came out and helped up to clean up the backyard and plant stuff: a lilac bush (still persevering despite repeated attempts by Buddy to dig it up), a rhododendron (deceased for reasons unknown), grape vines (I don't know what we were thinking and then Buddy ate them), irises (still blooming) and morning glories and sweet peas (we didn't realize that they're weeds).  Last year we let it grow wild and ended up with so many morning glories they threatened to topple the fence.  This year my parents came over again to help us tame things a little. 

We tried to trellis the rosebush and added some nice, bright forsythia.

In place of the deceased rhodedendrone I relocated the irises from their former home in a disintegrating decorative wooden barrel along with something leafy and decorative that I can't remember the name of.

Along the fence we planted marigolds, ivy and some ground cover with little purple flowers.

Buddy and Dakota shot right over to play in the dirt by the rosebush.

Then watched our progress from the tiny bit of shade near the fence.

As a finishing touch we added some fun citronella tiki torches.

Ginger decided to grace us with her presence and inspect our handiwork.

And then roll around on the newly cleaned cement.

Jess' Friends From Bangladesh

Jess and her friends were visiting in NY this weekend so we go to meet them as they hit all the attractions.  For dinner we came up with the idea of going to Carmine's and it was a huge success.  The family style portions we great for sharing with a large group and they easily accommodated our large group. 

It was great to get a chance to meet some the great people met in her travels and who took such good care of her while she away.

Four computers no clothes

Hmmm...not our best planning work ever. Last weekend we packed up (or so we thought) for a weekend trip to visit Whitney and Evan. When we got there we discovered we had forgotten all the bags with any sort of clothing in them. We did, however, manage to bring no less than four computers and several other electonic items. We are nerds and have been punished accordingly.

[But everything ended happily with a quick shopping trip for summer clothes. And for once I was happy that clothing stores had scrapped the clothes for the current season in favor of next season's attire (normally that pisses me off). Because it was unseasonably warm and summer clothing was exactly what we needed.  --Todd]

Regardless, the weekend was a fantastic success. Evan and Todd brewed a Trois Monts Flanders golden ale clone and we had a thrilling late-night pickup adventure at the brew store. We also took a trip to visit the location for Whitney and Evan's wedding. It's absolutely gorgeous and I'm super excited for their wedding now. On top of that Whitney and Evan are fellow foodies and we had a few great meals while we were there. More on that later. But one of those places was Martha's Exchange, which is where they're having the rehearsal dinner. They brew all their own beers and the food was uniformly excellent. I predict a huge success.