Fruit, Fall and Frivolity

I opted to take things easy this past Friday night.  I had Nelly's annual pig roast on Saturday, and the Blue Wheels of Valor m'cycle run on Sunday, so I figured a nice relaxing evening at home was not a bad idea.  Besides, I had some preparations to make; Rum Fruit Bowl!  That's right, I made another watermelon fruit bowl, full of rum-soaked fruit.  Quite tasty, if I do say so myself.  It's pretty easy, too; just buy several different kinds of fruit, a watermelon, and a big bottle of rum.  For my concoction, I used bananas, watermelon (obviously), pineapple, and mangoes.  Mangoes are a pain in the balls to cut up!  I'm not sure I'll use them again, but who knows.  Anyway, cut an opening in the top of the watermelon, scoop it out, setting some of it aside and the rest goes into a water-tight, sealable container (I like to use the lock 'n lock ones).  Anyway, cut the fruit up and put into the container with the rum, and put it into the fridge for overnight.  Periodically, take the container out and spin it around a few times to really get all the fruit mixing into the rum.  As for the watermelon, I put the "cap" back onto the watermelon, wrap it up tightly in a plastic bag and stick it in the fridge as well.  This helps keep it from drying out.  The next day, put the fruit and rum into the watermelon, and voila; a great party idea.

The rum that I'd used this year was a mix of 96 proof, as well as 140 proof.  Yikes!  Each person (during the daytime) that tried it, all said it was VERY strong, and were not too keen on having more than one or two pieces at a time.  As the day wore on, I was afraid there was going to be a lot left over, but then sometime after dark, when all the young kids came out to play, they must have stumbled upon it and lit into it with a passion.  Nelly's son Storm came up to me asking if there was any more.  More?  Yeah, there's a whole watermelon full of it, over on the table.  Nope, it's all gone he says.  Wha...??  It was full, not one hour ago!  LOL, good luck to the ones who tore into that stuff!

Now then, back to Friday night.  There's been a lot of talk in the news about food companies adding things to our food which is really bad for us.  Pesticides, growth hormones, and other additives.  I really don't pay much attention to these things, but perhaps I should.  Why?  Well because I bought a watermelon a long while ago and was going to do a rum fruit bowl with it, but that never materialized.  After sitting on my counter for weeks and weeks, I finally decided to toss it and get a fresh one.  So I tossed out in my back yard a week and a half ago, assuming it would be devoured by the wildlife that flourish in the woods out back.  So imagine my surprise when the next morning came and it was untouched.  Huh.  Oh well, surely it'll get chowed on the next night.  Nope.  Not that night, nor any of the remaining nights that week.  Figuring maybe the animals were just being cautious, and didn't want to come out into the open (which didn't really make sense, since every other thing I toss out there is gone in one night), I moved it over to the edge of the woods, under the trees, and out of sight.  Well, after almost another week of sitting out there, this is as far as things have gone...

Yep; nothing.  It looks the same as when I bought it in the store, oh so long ago.  Can it be that the animals sense something about this thing that we humans don't?  Oh well...at least the one I used was smothered in rum.  I'm sure that killed anything that would otherwise be bad...

And speaking of 'bad', this is what I saw on my lawn when I was out inspecting my fruit;

That's right; LEAVES!  Dammit...Fall is right around the corner.  And yes, I actually do enjoy the Fall; dry air, great riding scenery, but at the same time, it heralds the end of summer.  Bleah.

Moving along; Saturday came bright and early and I was out the door, arriving at Nelly's house before 7am.  Time to get some last minute stuff taken care of around the yard, as well as heading out for the traditional breakfast before going and getting the pig.  Upon our return, we got the fire going, kept the beerverages going, and settled in for a long, but awesome day.  Time for pics!

The fire is started...

The pig is cleaned, racked, and mounted...

They make 24-oz bud light cans!!!

The piles of pallets for the after-fire...

The after-fire is started...

Ta-da!  The after-fire!  It actually didn't get as tall as it has been in years past.  Someone placed a half-sized pallet near the bottom when we weren't looking, and it caused the entire burning stack to tumble over, as you can tell by the pallets on their sides, in the pic below.  So we were relegated to letting things burn down a bit and then try and keep the cinder pile from growing too big.  Meh, it was still a great fire, though.

And there you have it; Friday and Saturday.  I'll get Sunday's pics/post done when I have all the pics collected.  It was a greaet run to honor the memory of the MIT cop who was killed by those pieces of shit that blew up the Boston Marathon.   Details to come.  Until then...   Ride Hard, Take Chances