Fall Facts and Fun for Folks
It’s Time to Vote
We got our pamphlet, in the mail the other day, “advising” us of the many rules, regulations, laws, taxes, candidates, etc. that are on the ballot. We really need to sit down and take the time to study this thing! The pamphlet “touches” on some of the information that is vital to make an educated decision, but without really looking into it, I can see where we could easily make a decision we didn’t really mean to make. Mostly, I’m talking about the wording on some of the initiatives. They kind of sneak in a double negative sometimes. Meaning you want something not to pass so you vote no, but the wording is jumbled so you should have voted yes if you didn’t want that particular initiative to pass. I’m just saying, we need to be really careful of what we’re voting for.
FALL COLORS
Catch the beautiful colors in the Foliage around us this time of year. Absolutely beautiful. Try to get out and enjoy the fall, because it passes through quickly, especially this year! Seems like we went from summer straight into winter on some days! My wife, Beth, and I are big fans of Mount Rainier and the Olympia area this time of year. There are a lot of different Maple trees, in the Olympia area, that make for a really cool scene on a brisk sunny day. Last weekend, we met a friend (hey Jeff) for lunch at The Falls Terrace Restaurant in Tumwater. We had a great lunch with a beautiful view of the river and the falls. Afterward, we hiked around the trails and the river. There is an old fish ladder for the salmon to run up stream, and many locations you can stop and view the rapids and take in all of the sites. We saw a bunch of salmon swimming upriver to spawn. They had quite a journey ahead of them, as the river was flowing quicker than I remember in recent memory. On the other side of the river, from the restaurant, is the old Olympia brewing building. It reminds me of the old days when Olympia Beer was around. They have some plaques around the trails with a lot of old information. One of them states that Olympia beer was known as the best beer on the west coast at one time. Hmmm.
Speaking of Beer
Fall is the best time for beer! (in my opinion) All of the fall seasonal beers come out. These beers are a little heavier than your IPA’s and pilsners, and don’t really hit the spot on warm sunny summer days. But there’s nothing like a good brown, amber, or porter on a cool fall afternoon!! I’m partial to Snow Cap beer and Black Butte Porter. The last couple of years I’ve had a hard time finding Snow Cap in the stores. They sell out of it so fast there’s never any left when I go grocery shopping. Last year I went to several stores and bought whatever I could. The first store I went to only had the larger 22 oz bottles. They had 12 of them and I bought them all. I ended up going to about 4 stores within about a month’s time. I eventually stumbled upon some half cases and bought 4 of them. It tied me over the winter and I even have most of my big bottles left. Time to restock!! Evidently, there are a lot of fans of Snow Cap out there. So, unless they tripled their output this year, you’d better get out there and get some.
Halloween
Have you heard the push to have Halloween always on a weekend night? What a bunch of Malarkey!!! Halloween is, was, and always will be on October 31st!!!! There’s no reason kids can’t go out for a while and trick or treat on a weeknight. Adult parties usually take place the weekend before anyway. I like my birthday to fall on the weekend but it doesn’t mean I’m going to change my date of birth every year just so I can go out and party longer! The bottom line is everyone can dress up, trick or treat, entertain, or do whatever they do on a weeknight and enjoy themselves without having to change a century old tradition just so they can benefit from partying excessively and not having to worry about going to work the next day. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
Football
The Seahawks are 4-1! By beating the Rams, they put themselves in a prime spot to compete for the conference championship! Who’d a thunk the 49ers would be in first place going into week 6? Jadeveon Clowney and Ezekiel Ansah have yet to put it together, but I’m hoping they will. Actually, Clowney has looked really good with shades of greatness. Still waiting on Ansah, haven’t seen a whole lot from him at all. We’ll see what the Hawks can do against the Browns in Cleveland on Sunday. Go Hawks!!!
Baseball
Unfortunately, fall (playoff) baseball hasn’t been in our back yard for decades! With the exception of the first month, the Mariners were a real bust this year! I don’t know if we’ll ever see them be any good again. Frankly, I’ve lost interest. The current Seattle Mariners roster now has an “overstock” of young players with “potential” and little payout. Hopefully, we can parlay that into fielding a team full of promising young guys who reach their potential and spend the money, we’ve saved, on an ace pitching staff. Looks like we could use an all out #1 ace pitcher and a really solid, proven #2. Wade Leblanc and Marco Gonzales may be able to fill the 3 and 4-spots. Not sold on Yusei Kikuchi at all, but who knows? Relief pitching and finding a stud closer (like we had in Edwin Nunez) are also areas of HUGE necessity.
TV
The fall line-up is OK. We’ve gotten hooked on The Masked Singer. Anybody seen that? It seemed like such a dumb premise when we first saw the trailers we decided to watch it. Now we think it’s pretty entertaining. I’m not sure how long it will be on, or how long I can watch it, but for now it’s fun
THANK GOODNESS FOR Sling TV AND Roku!
Our cable bill got so expensive it was ridiculous. All we had was hi-def basic cable and it was costing us a small fortune. We don’t really watch that much TV anyway. I must admit, when Beth first suggested discontinuing cable and trying sling, I was skeptical. But after doing it, I only wish we would have done it sooner! We can customize our programming, and during football season we add ESPN networks and we can get a lot of the football games, including the Huskies. Beth enjoys the Hallmark channel during the holiday season too. We added an antenna plate to get the local channels (and more) and we don’t miss a beat.
With Netflix and Amazon Prime we get all kinds of programming and movies. Speaking of Netflix shows- we LOVE The Ranch. It stars Sam Elliott and Ashton Kutcher and an array of other folks (seeming to stem from That 70’s Show). Debra Winger has a cameo role for a season or two. The show started out slow and sometimes there’s not a lot going on, but if you see it a few times it grows on you and can be pretty funny.
RATS
Rats are everywhere! As the nights get colder, they are looking for food and shelter. As natural food sources such as berries, grass seed, etc. become non- existent, rats will explore all avenues to survive. As they do their exploring, they are also looking for warmer areas to help them survive. This means areas in, under, and above your home. Here are a few things to think about when trying to avoid rats and mice from getting into your home.
- Be a little stingy on the amount of bird feeders and bird seed you put out on a regular basis. I’m not saying to let the birds starve, I am merely saying to put less seed in your feeders and wait until the seed is gone before refilling. Rats LOVE bird seed and are attracted to feeders IMMEDIATELY. Bird seed can sustain a large group of rats and aids in increasing populations.
- Look around the house for openings that will allow rodent access. As a rule, we look at any gap larger than ¼ inch to ½ inch as being ample space for a rat to intrude.
- Don’t let them get to your roof! Easier said than done, but keeping shrubs and trees pruned away from your house by approximately 2 to 3 feet will help. The problem is, some of those rats can really climb and jump. The thing here is to make it as difficult as possible. Nothing’s fool proof, when it comes to rats, and identifying every single little gap in a sizeable house is difficult. Especially areas on steep roofs!
- When all else fails, call us. We have a proven track record for many, many years. We are a local, family owned, permanent fixture of our community! We can help you get rid of your rodent problems, repair access points, Remove and replace old contaminated crawl space vapor barriers, and keep you rodent and pest free through preventive maintenance.
Get Ready for Winter
These were just a few thoughts as we roll through the Fall on the way to winter. I wonder if we’ll get snow? Now’s the time to be mowing our lawns for the last time or two, trimming down all of our overgrown shrubbery, putting our hoses away and installing our outdoor faucet covers, cleaning our gutters and downspouts, running the fuel out of our lawn mowers and trimmers, etc., making sure our generators start and are in working order, maybe having our furnace ducts cleaned and our furnaces tuned up (with a new filter), and everything ready in case we have a winter like last year!!!
In the meantime, Go Hawks! And Dawgs! Happy Halloween! And enjoy a Snow Cap (room temp/garage room temp) while watching your favorite team, show, or event! Cheers!!!!
