Week 43 & 44 - Check out the set on this guy.

Troy and I were sick this week. Really sick. His doctor said he had Bronchitis. My doctor didn't say a damn thing because I didn't go. Either way, it was a virus because we are still coughing up nastiness a month later and his cold didn't go away any faster with antibiotics than mine.

Anyway, we didn't really do anything new.

One night we went out with our good friends Kyle and Carla. Carla got roped into buying us dinner, and in return they come over to our house to carve pumpkins. I think that this was a Monday.

I never made pumpkin seeds before. I kind of thought that I didn't even like them, but it seemed like a total waste to throw them away. The pumpkins this year were weird (probably from the drought) and all 4 pumpkins together didn't produce many seeds. They were also kind of green. After Troy dried them overnight, I tossed them with water and some Kosher salt, put them in the oven for 2 hours on very low heat and voila. The best day pumpkins seeds I've ever had.




BTW, Tre, pumpkin seeds remind me of Jimmy the Baker. That, and wax bottles.


The weather was starting to turn, although there were still a load of leaves on the trees, and we decided to finally pull the rest of the veggies fromthe garden. After a whole summer of growing, this is as big as our carrots got.




Sad, huh? The green onions were worse - like embroidery floss. This at least were cute, they lived through the summer and they satisfied these wild animals that we have.

We also plucked the remaining heirloom tomatoes that we manage to not kill. We made the last kick-ass pizza that we will probably have this year. If you think it looks good, you can't imagine how great it tasted.




Saturday, 11/3/07: Pa Grand Canyon: Animaland

Troy and I have gone to the PA Grand Canyon for the past couple of years, so this trip wasn't really all that different from any other trip, EXCEPT that they weather screwed up the trees and parts of the mountain were still peak and that there was nary a lady bug in a state park that is usually rotten with them.

Here is a picture of Animaland. The young girl working in the gift shop looked overjoyed to still have a job this late in the season. Maybe she was just ashamed that they were selling maple syrup for 10 bucks an ounce. Who knows.

After such a long drive, I had to use the restroom and they had the best toilet handle ever. I'm not sure if it's a cougar or a lion or whatever. I call it bad ass.




The first animals that you come across are these bad ass pheasants. Like most animals and birds especially, the males are colorful and the females melt into the background. Thinking about it, I guess that that is pretty bad ass considering the males make really good targets with all that color while the dames sit back and watch the guys get picked off.


Either way, this guys is gorgeous. I can't remember what he was called.




Troy grew up across the street from his Uncle's dairy farm and when he was a kid he would often wrestle with the cow. He can tell you some funny stories. He decided to wrestle with this little white deer. The deer kinda kicked his ass.

This is the deer's "WTF" face.




This is the deer slamming Troy's arms into the fence. He had black and blue marks up his arms for about 2 weeks.




This white tail deer fawn was very tame and curious. It ALMOST made me forgive the buck that smashed up my cars 9 years ago. ALMOST. I still kinda hope that buck died.




Here is a lovely black sheep. There ears perked up when they heard the gumball machines filled with corn click. In fact, the only way that you could get a reaction from any of the animals is with a fist full of food.




All I could think was, "Please don't eat my finger you little bastard!"




This little male pygmy goat broke out of his enclosure with his girlfriend goat and were running ruffshot all over the park. They were tiny enough to slink in and out of the other animals fences to eat there food. His other buddies were stuck in their enclosure ramming their heads against the gate.




If your wondering what the rear end of an animal like this looks like, well, here you go. Magic.




They had mini horses too.




After the excitement of Animaland, we headed over to the Grand Canyon. It was busy, but not packed. Here is Kyle, Carla and Troy.




Here you can see how one half of the canyon was bare and the other was at the end of peak.




This was the one lone lady bug we saw and I think that Troy killed him a little.





It was a lot of fun making an annual event "New!" It was also pretty easy. And I'm glad that I didn't get some fucked up disease from petting wild animals