Memorial Day

Hi readers.

So today is Memorial Day, when we as a nation have the opportunity to come together and blah blah blah blah.

Just like we've done the last three or four years, Erik and I assembled our local Masonic body - Centre Lodge #273 - and marched in Midland's annual parade, throwing out candy to dirty-faced children and letting the people of the community know that, yes, Freemasons are still a thing. 

We had an okay group of guys turn out - about eight, same as usual (which is infuriating because there's over a hundred able-bodied members in our lodge, plus another seventy or so who are too old and decrepit to get out of a chair) - and like always Yours Truly was in charge of reserving us a spot in the parade, making the announcements, gathering up the banner and aprons, and making sure everything went according to plan.

This year we had perfect weather - pure sun and low-70s - and the parade itself went off without a hitch. Kris didn't march with First United Methodist Church this year, but she was in charge of orchestrating their placement and arranging the parade crap for them, and Abby marched with her MHS Varsity Pom Team. Alayna and her boyfriend, Sebastian, watched (and got some pics for us) down on Rodd Street, too.

Afterwards, according to custom, Erik and I - and those Kings of the Hill that volunteered to help us (this year it was Rob and Steven, our two newest recruits) - had lunch at Big E's. Following that, it was a sunny, afternoon tanning session in our backyard, where the Houghs (and Ella) worked on establishing our base tans for our upcoming Florida trip in June.

So here you go, gang - this year's Memorial Day Parade. Enjoy. . .

First attempt at getting a group picture in front of the banner (Evan, who's like 7 ft tall, wasn't sure where to stand.)

Centre Lodge #273

Kris' vantage point in the parade was across the street from First United Methodist Church, down on Main Street. Midland High was towards the front of the parade, with the Varsity Pom Team leading the band down the street.

MHS Varsity Pom (Abby is third back in the column closest to the camera)

Abby and the team marching by. . .

Crabigail

A little while later, the Masonic bodies of Midland - us and the Shriners, who came up directly behind us this year - came up. We had a large gap between us and the Fischer Concrete people directly ahead of us. The old guys driving the truck (that Morgan generously rented for us from his Ford dealership) were going slow, so we had to keep slowing down so they could catch up with us.

I helped take the banner out of the back of the truck at one point while we were setting up at the staging point of the parade, and got stuck holding one end of the banner for the remainder of the parade (opposed to throwing out candy, like I usually do.)

As always, we had a bunch of candy stored in the back of the truck, and the guys throwing out candy had to regularly run up and grab more bags out of the truck to whip out at little kids waiting eagerly along the sides of the parade route.

The Birch Brothers, institutions in our local Masonic bodies (this year the parade organizers demanded there be spotters in every vehicle in the parade. . . which is probably a good thing, I guess.)

Erik and Steven, throwing out candy.

The Shriner Cars (as usual, we had a car break down fairly early on in the parade this year. . . but only one, which I believe is a record.)

Turning onto Rodd Street (I tried to take some pics while walking with the banner.)

Meanwhile, back on Main Street, Kris' church was coming up from a little farther back in the parade.

Back on Rodd Street, our candy was still going strong - nearly made it to the end of the parade this year, which was awesome.

Abby finished before us (obviously), and got a selfie with Brooklyn at the retirement home that's the ending point for the parade route.

Sebastian and Alayna, meanwhile, on Rodd Street, were able to get some pics of us as we came by.

Seriously couldn't ask for better marching weather this year - I was stoked.

Booya.

Rob scrambles to reload.

Erik whips some candy at the teenagers.

Coming towards the end of the parade route.

Afterwards, like we always do, everybody piled into the backseats and bed of the rented pickup truck (which was frickin' HUGE) for what was supposed to be a quick drive back to the staging point, where everyone's cars were parked.

Instead, for whatever reason, Chuck drove out to frickin' Saginaw Road and proceeded to take some long-ass way back to Revere Street, going 40 mph with the tail down and all of us hanging on for deer life in the back. No idea who thought this was a good idea.

Cruising down random side streets on the way back to the staging area, going much faster than we would have preferred.

After miraculously not dying on the drive back to the cars, we loaded up and met Steven up at Big E's for some post-parade lunch and beers. There weren't a lot of people up there, but there was only two servers working the whole joint, so service was insanely slow. We were there nearly two hours.

A bunch of the pommers and other teenagers, meanwhile, had some post-parade grub over at Pizza Sam's, downtown. This pic accurately sums up where Abby was at at that point of the day.

By the time I got back to the house, the girls - and these two assholes - were setting up outside for a multi-hour bronzing session in the backyard.

Kris, Alayna, Abby, and Ella were oiled up and working on those base tans so they didn't fry like lobsters in the blistering Florida sun.

I was quick to join them (though due to the crazy amount of yard work I've been putting in the last couple weeks, I already have a decent base to begin with.)

Dogs being dogs.

Hours of this. Seems boring, but I frickin' love it.

So there you go, gang - another Memorial Day Parade in the books. We'll see ya next year.

- Brian

Sodbusters

Hey, Internet.

This entire weekend was devoted to grueling yard work. And grueling yard work f***ing sucks.

With the Cannonball turning 16 in a few weeks, we'd been needing to create some serious parking space for the additional car that's gonna be clogging up our driveway. At one point in time, months ago, Kris and I had entertained the idea of going in with our neighbors when they announced they were repaving their driveway, because God knows it'd be way cheaper to do it all in one, fell swoop. Then we had to go and buy a third car (which is loads of fun, by the way), and I started thinking about losing all that side yard grass permanently.

Ultimately, we decided to just take our neighbors river rock when they repave their driveway (they offered to have the cement company guys just shovel it over to our side of the property line when they moved it out of the way.) Ideally, we'll keep this parking space with rock until both girls are out of the house for good, then move that rock into the various beds around the house and yard, plant new grass seed, and go back to having a legit side yard again.

That's the plan at this point, anyway.

So early this morning Kris and I ran down to this local, heavy equipment place that rents out various machines on a two or six-hour basis and rented a sod-remover for the morning. In order to get the driveway prepped for all that rock, we had to first remove the grass by cutting up the sod; I wanted to keep the pieces of sod intact so that I could transport them around the yard and plug up holes and fill in not-as-awesome spots here and there with good, legit grass. To do all this by hand would take forever, and it would be mindless, excruciating work, so we looked into renting a machine to do it.

As you can see in the video above, this machine made short work of the actual cutting process (once we got the hang of it - there was a definite learning curve to operating this 500 lb monstrosity.) The worst part of this whole project, by far, was the moving of the sod pieces - it's far heavier than you'd think, and difficult to carry (it flops around and crumble, so you have to be extra careful transporting it.) Kris and I were able to, miraculously, get the machine back up the ramp into her van and return it to the rental place in little over an hour after checking it out, then spent the remainder of the day (seriously) moving sod.

The girls helped a little, too. . . but there was a difference in Abby's contributions to the project versus Alayna's.

Anyway, here you go folks - a not-at-all fun, but productive, weekend project.  Enjoy. . .

With the sod all cut up in neat, little columns, we set to work chopping it up into rows with shovels in order to get them to sizes we could actually carry out.

We had no idea that this part of the process - the cutting up and removing of the sod in smaller pieces, carrying it all into the backyard, would be the most grueling part of the process. . .

Definitely didn't help that I had set the sod-cutter to its lowest setting in order to make sure I had cut up all the grass. Mission accomplished as far as that goes, but it added inches of dirt underneath the layer of grass, and that was not fun at all to move.

Abby created a pile of sod in the backyard, kinda by our back patio, as a staging area that I could grab pieces from as I re-planted them in various spots around the backyard (that whole endeavor took up eight hours of the following day.)

We'd rotate jobs so that no one got burnt out with doing the same thing for too long. I'd cut sod for a bit, with Kris and Abby moving the pieces into the backyard, then we'd switch it out.

Alayna kinda putzed around the edge of the yard and cut out the grass from the sides of the driveway and sidewalk (I didn't want to get too closet to the concrete when running the sod-cutter, so gave it about 6-8" on all sides.

The sod weighed so much in transport that Abby at one point broke our gardening wheelbarrow. So now we get to buy a new one, which is totally awesome.

Still chugging away at the side yard, in the early afternoon. As people broke for a lunch break, I cracked a beer and sat in the sun for twenty minutes or so, giving my worn-out, old man body a bit of a breather.  Best. Tasting. Miller Lite. Ever.

I tried getting Alayna to help us move the random pieces of sod lying about to various parts in the front yard (like what I was doing on a much bigger scale in the backyard) to plug in holes and help out crappy spots, but she wasn't really feeling it I guess. She went inside and showered shortly after this.

Around dinner time, we had successfully removed all of the sod from the side yard (though the pile you see here still has to be relocated.) I sprayed an entire jug of Round-Up weed killer on the dirt, just to play it safe, before rolling out a mid-grade weed cover to prevent plants from growing up amidst the soon-to-be distributed river rock. 

To say I was sore after this project would be an understatement. Holy Christ. . .

So there you go, folks - in a few days all that rock you see to the left there will be moved over to the weed covering, and - once the sprinkler heads (flagged) are capped off by our sprinkler company - Alayna will have her very own space in the driveway.

- Brian