Cornholio

Behold, the great Cornhole boards that Terry crafted with his own two hands. I know the name of the game sounds totally nasty, but it's actually kinda fun. You put these things 27 feet (I asked for the official distance) apart, and take turns throwing bean bags at the holes, or really they are supposed to be full of corn, hence the name. We cheated and got ours at the store, they have little gravely things in them, which puff out dust and kill the grass, as an added bonus. Anyways, you get different points according to whether your bag goes in the hole, or lands on the board, and there's a whole buncha boring rules that I don't really care about and I make Terry keep score, I just wanted to show y'all this:


I mean, there's missing the board, and then there's like, missing the YARD. Annie tossed this baby into the tree! I mean the boards are straight across from each other, there's not too many tricky trajectories involved. You do not get points for hitting the landscaping.

This is her pouting because we are all laughing hysterically and telling her she has to get it out of the tree, unless she can coax her stupid cat up there to retrieve it or something. Luckily, she had this handy stick.

Poke, poke, poke.

Victory. She may not be able to throw a corn bag, but at least she can balance one on the end of a stick. No points for that though.

Hops, ready for harvesting.

Annie and I making like migrant Hops harvesters and picking all those annoying little things off. I was taking the opportunity to tell Annie how they harvest tea, or at least what I've seen in commercials on tv. Being as it wasn't even that hot the day we were doing this, we decided that being a tea leaf harvester is a job that would suck.

I think we might have actually had more than this in the end. It was quite the bumper crop compared to last year. So Terry dried them, bagged them, and put them in the freezer, and then threw away the ones from last year that were in the freezer that he still hadn't used. He doesn't want to admit it, but he's really just growing hops for fun. I like that they do the climby thing up the house, so it's okay with me.

First day of school pic, they look so enthused, no? Annie is riding the bus for the first time this year, but at least she has her badass sister with her to keep everyone behaving proper.

This is the CatLoaf, or Snarf, or SnarfLoaf, and she hets you all. She has a perpetual cold and loves to choke on her own phlegm and barf at the top of the stairs. Any takers?

End of summer extravaganza, aka these pictures took forever to upload and I'm sorry if you have dial-up

They left the head on the pig this year, that was a bit disconcerting when the opened the big roaster thingy and it was all upside down staring. Evidently it's easier to spit that way, plus maybe it makes the guys feel more manly or something. This was right before they finished unwrapping the poor thing and began hacking at it with their big knives. Barbaric, but tasty. And also, this is the hot Jeremy pic of this year. Sorry Jeremy, you looked kinda goofy in the other one I took, it was not an accurate representation of the hot factor. (But never as hot as my dear husband, no never ever)



Me and Al probably waiting around for the pig to be done, or maybe watching them hack at the beast with their steely knives. Notice the colder weather garb, this was Aug. 22 and I was freezing, not unlike Annie's field day. You can't even see my pig roast shirt -it has a pig drawn on it with X's for eyes and it has a USDA tattoo. You can see the oh so lovely shade of bright pink it is though.

Annie and Terry taking a paddle boat ride. Or is it pedal boat? I mean, the boat has pedals like a bicycle, but the thing on the back that propels it is a big paddley whatsit. So maybe it's a pedal paddle boat, which makes me think of that Fox in Socks book. Sorry it's kinda blurry, but the blazing speed they were churning through the water at made it hard to get a good pic.

I think Terry was starting to run out of steam by the time he went with Al, he made her do most of the work. He looks kinda scared that she's driving, or maybe that look of discomfort is from the fact that he's freezing to death in shorts, and his ass is kinda wet after two boat rides.

My dream house on the other side of the channel. There are a lot of gorgeous houses out there, but this one is my fave.

You know it's getting to the end of summer when these big ole noisy bugs come out of hiding. Al had never seen one up close, I think this one might have jumped her while she was mowing or something. Notice the artfully chipped black nail polish. (On Al, I don't think the bug is wearing any)

The great white hunter chased a squirrel up a tree, and then followed it onto the shed roof as it tried to make its escape. And then he got stuck up on the shed roof, because he's a dweeb like that. He paced back and forth, surveyed his neighborhood kingdom for a bit, made that sound that appoximates a meow...

But scorned any proferred help, I think he is actually waving me away with his paw. He stayed up there about 40 minutes or so and then finally figured out he could ever so carefully ease down the slant of the roof and then jump for it.

Is it wrong that we want to get another little black cat so we can make a furry Oreo?

Creepy statue thingy at the Renaissance Festival Terry and I went to this past weekend. We were mean and ditched the kids and went by ourselves. My favorite part was avoiding using the Kingdom's Privies. You would think with having a big ass permanent installation like they do at this place, they could put in some real facilities, it's not like Port-a-John's aren't anachronistic, for reals. Oh, back to statue--it was really a person, and it would move eeeverrr so slowly, being creepy as all get out.

The Flying Zucchini Brothers, we love these guys. They juggle and joke and generally entertain. We usually go see Ded Bob too, but we didn't this time. I was afraid I would laugh and then you know, have to use the privies. And there were waaaay too many people eating those big turkey legs wandering around for me to want to do that.

I think she likes the smell of his butt, she spends a lot of time like this. And as for the following, that is if there is a video there after you scroll down, at least according to the wacky format I see every time I try to preview, I heartily apologize. This song has been stuck in my head for ummm, going on a week now, and it's all Al's fault. I first heard the ukulele version by Julia Nunes, but then I had to look at the real song and this techno crap got stuck in my head. So being the generous person I am, I thought I would share.