Cleaning the Barbecue

John has insisted for as long as I can remember that it is better to barbecue because 'there are no pots and pans to wash'  When I went to India for a month (in January) he swears he cooked all the meals on the barbecue. It's true that there are no pots and pans to wash, but he doesn't clean the grill until the yellow jackets are swarming around it and it doesn't smell so great. He waited until there was some shade to tackle the job today,  and his body language in this badly lit picture suggests his general lack of enthusiasm for tackling the chore today. 

He will never agree, however, that washing a couple of pots and pans is a lot easier than mucking out a barbecue that hasn't been cleaned in months....

We got off to a slow start this morning and decided to take Spike to the regional park that is a short drive through the vineyards of the Sonoma Valley. It was interesting to note that some vines were neatly pruned while ones next to them were on wires but not yet pruned. The old vines right across, the street, my favorites, are head pruned, so don't change their gnarled shape and lush leaves much. 

By the time we got to the Sonoma Valley park, it was quite warm. The sun was overhead and there wasn't much shade to mitigate the heat radiating up from the black asphalt paving. The normally interesting vegetation looked dry and tired, and the small creeks have long since dried up. Even Spike's normally enthusiastic tail wag was a bit droopy.

Strike another promising place to walk...at least if we can't get it together to go earlier. 

Dana, Jim and Peter all tested negative today and Dana said Will would test 'when he gets home' so he will no doubt be negative too. That family has all had it, some more than once, but none of them have ever been very sick for very long. We've  missed our Sunday family dinners, so we're looking forward to going tonight. 

Will and Chloe will be moving to San Diego in a couple of weeks, so it will be good to have a last bit of time to spend with him. In the meantime, there are still four cats roaming around the house, two of which will go with Will and Chloe to their first 'grown up' apartment as Jim put it. We'll see what Spike makes of that. He can usually not even handle two cats. They're always upstairs, and he can't go up there, but he knows they're there....we'll see if he can count cats....