Category Archives: Castle Willett

Tiny Oasis

We had a drought a couple years ago which resulted in there being significant restrictions imposed on water useage, especially things like yard irrigation. We managed to keep some/most of the front yard green-ish, but the back yard got abandoned. Even though we’ve gotten some rain again in the last year or two and the restrictions are gone, the back yard has never come back and is pretty much just hard-packed dirt and bird seed.

The sprinkler system is still there, and even though it doesn’t get used it’s still pressurized, and the sprinkler heads still drip or leak the tiniest little bit. This has led to tiny little oases surrounding the sprinkler heads, where hearty little weeds have managed to eke out an existence. Now they’re blooming.

This makes me think that the back yard could be re-planted with some work – breaking up the hard-packed topsoil, fertilizing, getting some grass seed (or sod if we wanted to be fancy fancy), watering it, and so on. But all of those steps come with dollar signs attached and I would rather save my dollars to spend on The Forever Home and getting out of here and into it. If the landlord doesn’t care, then I’m going to pass as well.

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Forever Home, Photography

Unintended Consequences

The gophers are back. (It’s not like they ever really, REALLY left!) We’ve had a “gopher guy” showing up about once a month, but it’s had little effect.

 

Almost every day there’s another mound of debris and a new hole.

I suspect they’re ALL interconnected. If we hooked up a smoke machine and started pumping the output down this hole, the whole yard would soon have smoke drifting up from a hundred holes, looking a lot like a battlefield from no-man’s land in WWI.

Two weeks ago they started showing up in the back yard as well, eating the roots and killing the remaining decent landscaping.

I don’t want to start dropping poison down the holes, since the hawks and owls would end up eating the tainted meat and I won’t do anything to harm my raptor friends. But I don’t know what else to do.

I did find some solar powered vibrating spikes that you can drive into the ground in or around their digging sites. They power up during the day, then spend all night tricking the gophers into thinking that something big is stomping around or digging nearby.

Cool! But what do I do when these “thumpers” start attracting sand worms? I don’t have any idea how to ride one, even if I learned it’s going to be a bitch to find a parking space for one, and I would imagine that they’ll do more damage to the lawn than the gophers.

Perhaps this plan needs more thought…

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Farce, Photography

How Was YOUR Pi Day?

We had pizza (pie). I had apple pie.

And our water heater went nuts, cracked open, and sprayed thousands of gallons of water all over the garage, soaking and ruing a ton of shit that I had to take out onto the back porch to try to dry out (while it was raining).

Our landlord got that fixed, we have water, hot and cold again tonight.

But the house is farting every time we turn on the water as the air in the pipes gets pushed out.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Paul, Video

Ready To Party

The Super Bowl is tomorrow, my beloved Chiefs are in it for the fourth time in six years, and trying for the first “three-peat” in NFL history. We’ll be having a party, as we’ve done the last several years.

The cleaning crew has gone through, furniture has been re-arranged, the banners are up, the Chiefs memorabelia and sacred icons are all on display.

The dining room tables will be covered with BBQ (imported from the legendary Joe’s BBQ in Kansas City), a salad bar, and the appropriate side dishes for a BBQ tailgate in the finest Arrowhead traditional style.

So many appetizers – nuts, fudge, cookies, vegys, fruit, pretzels, chips, shrimp, etc. So many desserts – cake, pie, ice cream, etc.

The kitchen fridge is stocked to overflowing with food.

The porch fridge & freezer is stuffed with sodas, beer, wine, water, and fudge. Let’s hope that the raccoons haven’t figured out how to open it up!

It should be an excellent game tomorrow. Enjoy it wherever you’re watching!

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, KC Chiefs, Photography

How To Assemble Our Christmas Tree

It’s a fake tree, and it’s probably 10+ years old, but it still is holding up at least as well as I am, so who am I to judge?

Stack the three sections. I don’t remember this many of the built-in white lights being out last year. I would love to troubleshoot and repair them, but fixing these light strings is the bane of my existance. Probably more on this some other day.

Start putting on strings of colored lights. Six strings of mini incandescent lights is something like 450 lights. Nice!

Add two strings of bubble lights. I do so love me some bubble lights! Reminds me a lot of when I was a kid. The ones today are (fortunately) far less flammable than the ones we used in the 1960’s.

Finally, put up the stockings and the skirt, and add literally HUNDREDS of ornaments of all kinds. Some are new – we get one every time we take a trip. Some go back to before the kids were born. A lot of them are the Sporty’s annual ornaments with a different airplane every year. Some are of the “baby’s first Christmas” sort of thing, some are just stupid and goofy.

It’s chaotic and insane looking, but it’s ours!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Critters, Photography

Creatures From Below

They’re back!

The front yard all of a sudden is being shredded at an astonishing rate.

Every morning, the new excavations are bigger and deeper and more widespread.

If only I owned the house and could do something about it… But that’s a different discussion. (And an exercise in futility, unfortunately.)

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography

Decorating For Halloween

I don’t do nearly as much decorating for Halloween as I do for Christmas. By an order of magnitude.

So it’s two strings of lights instead of dozens and dozens.

A couple of skulls and a skelaton instead of a huge, decorated Christmas tree.

A couple of large, faux spiders instead of huge wreaths on the front door.

A couple of illuminated faux pumpkins and a couple of yard signs.

Up here on top of the hill, odds are that we will get zero trick-or-treaters on Thursday night, and no one except the immediate neighbors will even see that we have any decorations up at all.

That’s okay. We’ll see what happens when we find the Forever Home. But for now, this will do.

I just hope I don’t end up with too much leftover candy and have to eat it myself. I’m trying to behave and watch my weight, blood glucose figures, blood pressure, and A1C numbers. Really!

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Photography

Superb Owl 2024

We were ready.

BBQ imported from Joe’s BBQ in Kansas City. So many appetizers and snacks and sides and salads and sodas and drinks and beers.

So many friends and family.

A good time was had by all. The game was close all the way, going into OT for only the second time in Super Bowl history.

There was tension, there was suspense, and in the end there was cheering and champagne.

There were a lot of lousy years for Chiefs Kingdom in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s. There were only a handful of playoff appearances in a span of almost 50 years, and no playoff wins.

But we’ve been in the AFC Championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl six years in a row. We’ve won that game gone to the Super Bowl four of the last five years. And we’ve won the Super Bowl three of those four appearances.

Next year will be next year. For now – it’s good to be a Chiefs fan.

Oh, by the way, Angels pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training camp on Wednesday.

1 Comment

Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Sports

Back To The Super Bowl

Yet another excellent day for Chiefs fans. We were underdogs, playing on the road against a Ravens team that had a better record, was the #1 seed, and on paper should have handled us handily.

That’s why they play the games. They made several mistakes, we didn’t, and we won 17-10.

That was our sixth straight AFC Conference game, and we’ve won four of the six to go to the Super Bowl. Four Super Bowls in five years? I’ll take it!

Now the preperations start for our Super Bowl party. We’re hoping for an eclectic group from family, some of my co-workers, and some of the Long-Suffering Wife’s former co-workers. It should be fun!

The Chiefs Kingdom flag flies at Castle Willett. This will be exciting, win or lose on February 11th.

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Photography, Sunsets

View From The Edge Of The Roof

The Christmas lights are down.

There were no falls off of ladders. There were no falls off of the roof. There were no ladders (large or small, but more notably the former) tipping over onto my head. (Narrator voice – “These are all things that have happened in the past, but we do not speak of them.”)

I did get a nice view from the edge of the roof, looking to the north-west-ish, toward Simi Valley (just beyond those hills just to the left of the tall trees next to our driveway) and Ventura County (just beyond all of the other hills on the left and center).

As always when working near the roofline at this corner of the house, I’m extremely cautious and careful about the power line coming in.

No touchy the sparky ‘spoldy wire!

Next year – in the forever home!

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography