The thunderstorms developed overnight as forecast.  I woke up around 3:30 AM to the strong smell of coffee, the sight of lightning, and the sound of thunder and rain.  Although the two bags of coffee beans we had roasted yesterday were closed, they were not sealed air-tight and the lovely smell had spread through the house.  We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on because of the humidity, which probably helped circulate the smell.

It never sounded like it rained very hard, so we were surprised to find our road flooded in the usual places on our way out to our ham radio club (SLAARC) breakfast in South Lyon.  I had my usual dry English muffin with strawberry jam and Linda had her usual dry rye toast with orange marmalade.; and coffee, of course.  (We go for conversation, not the food.)  The day remained overcast and humid, but there wasn’t any appreciable additional rain.

Since we have now been in S. E. Michigan for 37 years I may have picked up some sort of local speech inflection, but if so I am unaware of it.  For most of my life people who did not know me we generally unable to guess where I was from.  The reason is that I hail from the St. Louis, Missouri area.  That may seem strange given that the Mason-Dixon Line goes right through the middle of Missouri, dividing it in half north and south, with the Ozarks in the southern portion.  That’s “hillbilly” country, and southern speech inflections are common there.  And while they are heard in the St. Louis area, more now than when I was child, St. Louis speech is distinguished primarily by being indistinguishable, that is to say, very neutral.  Add to that the fact that I was raised by an English teacher whose father was an English teacher and whose mother taught Latin (for a while), and you get a very neutral speech. Except for one word…”wash”.  For some reason I learned to pronounce it “warsh.”  The “r” in that word was my only real speech tell-tale, and it was usually too subtle and too specific for folks to pick up.  This brings me to my major task of the day.

While Linda was occupied with cleaning the inside of the bus and the house and making food for tomorrow, I got to use the power washer to clean the lower deck.  The basement would not have a walkout feature had the builder piled dirt completely around the basement walls, but they left an area unburied and formed a kind of valley leading out into the back yard.  There is a 12’ x 15’ deck set into the ground outside the doorwall, and based on the labeling of the electrical panel, it apparently once supported a hot tub.  This lower deck is under part of the upper/main deck and had gotten very dirty over the years.  In fact, it was coated with a green growth (mold/mildew I suspect) that was quite slippery, especially when wet, and a bit of hazard.  Another piece of neglected maintenance, I either had to clean it or close it off with yellow caution tape.

We have an electric power washer and it was the right tool for the job; powerful enough without being too powerful, and without the hassle of a gasoline engine.  I was also pleased to find that the well/pump did not have any trouble supplying the needed raw water.  (The outside faucets are plumbed so that well water can be supplied directly to them without going through any of the filters or conditioning equipment.)

The hardest part of this work was being slightly bent over for three (3) hours.  The trigger wand requires two hands to control, and is just short enough that I have to bend over slightly to get the adjustable nozzle the right distance from the wood to work effectively.  Getting the green stuff off of the wood was really a stripping job not a cleaning job, and I needed the nozzle about 2” – 3” from the surface to get the job done.  I found it easiest to clean about a 2’ section of each 6” wide board before moving on.

Linda worked off and on all day making the food for tomorrow since the open house starts at lunch time and runs through the dinner hour.  We have an assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as chips and pretzels, but no tree nuts as one of our guests as a serious air-born tree-nut allergy.  We have hummus and she made a vegan “ranch dressing” for dipping.

For “main course” selections she made a vegan chili that she will keep warm in the crock pot and serve on slider buns from the bakery “as needed.”  She also made one of my favorite dishes, a chilled garbanzo bean (chickpea) salad that tastes just like egg salad (as best I recall).  That will also be served on the slider buns as needed.

For dessert choices she baked eight dozen chocolate mini-cupcakes and frosted them with vanilla icing, all vegan of course.  She also made two large dishes of apple crisp using apples from our own apple tree.

Beverage choices include water, sparkling water, sparkling fruit flavored water, a variety of beers, red and white wine, and coffee.  If someone wants it, we can also make tea.

We finished up with our days work around 8 PM, a much more satisfying day than yesterday.  We had a simple dinner of Linda’s homemade granola with fresh fruit.  We went to bed excited about the open house and satisfied with the preparations.