ness

Wonderful trip report! Congrats on a great trip making memories with the family You got into some nice fish too! Silverthorn is an interesting experience: Drop off the shoppers, go do some fishing, everyone’s happy!!

Sounds like fun! We love the area, though we’ve never done it in the summer. Sounds like that was a good thing!

I can’t estimate size with any certainty but maybe you can judge by the pic. That’s a typical suburban curb behind it. Maybe 14 to 18 inches?

That’s a good point about the legs. Thanks.

Service to others is a good thing, and your granddaughter is to be commended. It takes a good heart, commitment and effort to serve. More than most are willing to do.

Alright gentlemen…Help me with this one. Turned the corner at the end of my street and this fellow was just sitting there. I stopped, thinking, ‘Cool, a Cooper’s Hawk! I never have seen one up close.’ Why he stayed there looking at me, I don’t know. I rolled down the window and took a pic. As I got to looking at it I thought the color was wrong. Cooper’s should be more of a buff color. Anyhoo, he sat there longer than I thought he should, then he flew up into a nearby tree. I never saw anything he may have been eating, so I’m kinda puzzled.

We did a Mediterranean food themed cooking class with my daughter and future son in law over the weekend. We’ve done several of these and they’re always fun. We did hummus, tzatziki, kafta kabobs, dolmathes and a Greek salad. The dolamthes were onion, rice and some seasonings. Not that great, honestly. The ones we make at home are a meat and rice combo and much better. We’ve never made hummus before but will in the future. It was delicious. Kabobs were overcooked (by them) but would have been good otherwise.

I always try to use natural light whenever possible, hence the deck pics. Photography is about the light!

That's crazy enough it just might work!

Bourbon brown sugar glazed salmon with pecan crust. The missus did a good job with this.

As long as we're talking about MY trip now I'll share a little excitement I had. We were staying in Breckenridge and I had gone to the edge of town to fish the Blue River a little. I parked and was walking up to the stream kinda looking down and not really paying attention to my surroundings. I heard someone to my right say, 'Look out'. Not in an urgent way, but pretty calmly. I looked up and there was a momma and baby moose in front of me. Maybe about 50 fifty feet? I stopped and started to retreat a bit. Momma didn't seem to be too worried, but I don't have a lot of moose-reading experience. I felt comfortable enough with my situation and her demeanor that I snapped a phone pic. Here it is, cropped some so they look much closer than they really were.

Sounds like a fun trip. We were in that area back in 2017. Did the raft thing on the Arkansas near Leadville. I don’t know what class rapids we did, but it was right at pucker level for us.

Looks good. Details please.

As I said, I’ve got the small Blackstone. It gets stored on a shelf in the garage.

I’ve got the small Blackstone and really like it. The missus got it for me a few years back. I haven’t used it a ton, but have done pancakes and smash burgers on it. We’ve done smash burgers for get togethers and the relatively large surface area makes it pretty easy to crank out volume.

My advice is to use just a tiny amount of oil to wet the surface, then wipe it out. If you leave a pool in the pan it will get gummy.

Yeah, I know but I try to watch the carbs. Just 18g there

Our first BLT of the season too. That’s a Black Krim in there. We’ve had four so far, and that’s a record for us this early. And, Duke’s mayo. I’ve already eaten this sandwich and am enjoying a cocktail while you’re all slaving away with ‘proper’ bacon 😀 Clean up’s a breeze! 😀

Where? 🤪

Paper towels, microwave, ready in seconds. No mess, much less fat/calories. Good enough for us. Frown away, boys. But, for the real thing, when we need a lot, we do it in the oven.

EXCHANGE --- Heard on the Street: A Boat Boom Runs Aground --- Sales of boats, RVs, motorcycles and snowmobiles have fallen stee By Spencer Jakab (Wall Street Journal) -- [Financial Analysis and Commentary] They say that the second-happiest day in a sailor's life is when he buys his boat. The happiest is the day he sells it. Buyer's remorse isn't universal, and it often takes a while to set in, but the Covid-19 pandemic saw more than its share of regrettable big-ticket purchases. Extra cash and a desire for social distancing pushed sales of recreational vehicles, boats, motorcycles and snowmobiles to multiyear or all-time records. Then the cost of living increased, remote working got harder and, crucially, the interest rates to finance shiny, new playthings surged. "The whole business is based on a monthly payment," says Marcus Lemonis, chief executive of Camping World Holdings, the world's largest RV retailer. The result: Overflowing dealer lots at a time when plenty of lightly-used versions sit in driveways and marinas. That sounds like awful news for companies that struggled with pandemic supply-chain issues only to see demand for their recreational wares collapse once those problems got ironed out. It depends, though: Some are making lemonade out of lemons. Take Brunswick, the world's largest maker of pleasure boats. Its first-quarter sales dropped 22% from the year earlier period and its operating income plunged by 53%. Brunswick's retail boat sales this year probably will retreat to what they were in 2012 or 2013. But, even though its shares, along with other pandemic darlings, are well off their 2021 boom-time highs, someone who invested in Brunswick five years ago has made a 97% return. As its Chief Financial Officer Ryan Gwillim points out, sales of new boats are among its least profitable business lines. Once one has been sold, higher-margin items like motors continue to be needed for years to come. Another sideline: Less than a year before the pandemic, Brunswick bought Freedom Boat Club, which allows people who don't want to own a boat or deal with maintenance and storage to use one regularly. Membership has more than tripled since the acquisition and attrition is only about 10% a year. "We made a lot of smart portfolio moves in the last decade to make our business less cyclical," says Gwillim. Likewise, MarineMax, which describes itself as "the world's largest recreational boat, yacht and superyacht services company," still gets most of its revenue from new boat sales through its dealerships. But it made 16 acquisitions between 2019 and 2023, mostly in areas like insurance, marinas and other services. It nearly doubled its revenue and tripled its net income during that span. Shareholders have made a 108% total return over the past five years. The boat market might have gotten choppier when the tide went out if it weren't for especially sharp supply constraints that limited the number of vessels that could be manufactured when they were most in demand. The National Marine Manufacturers Association forecasts that combined U.S. new and used boat sales this year will be about 22% below their 2021 peak. The boom and bust for RVs has been steeper. Initially hampered by its own supply-chain issues, the industry geared up and hit its monthly record for North American wholesale deliveries to dealers of 64,454 in March 2022, according to the RV Industry Association. That was the month the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates from zero. Within a year, monthly shipments had dropped by more than half, with the decline much sharper for pricey motor homes than for trailers. They have improved only modestly since then. Meanwhile, the number of used units listed for sale on RVTrader.com is more than twice as high as during the period of peak demand. If nearly all you do is make RVs, that is a problem. On Wednesday Thor Industries, the world's largest RV manufacturer, reported that sales for its fiscal third quarter were down by 40% and earnings per share down by two-thirds from the same period in 2022. Some RV makers have scrambled to redesign their products so that "decontented" versions with fewer bells and whistles can be sold at a lower sticker price -- a move one blogger dubbed "cheapification." Times are also trying for Polaris, a company that boasts it is "synonymous with adventure and passion." Its all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, snowmobiles and boats were in high demand and earnings surged in 2021 and 2022. In April it reported a 20% drop in first-quarter revenue and a 97% fall in net profit compared with the same quarter a year earlier amid "elevated promotions." Its stock, which has given up all of its pandemic gains, rose briefly this week when it said it was expanding its boat-rental business. Recreation companies that took hard decisions early could find themselves rulers of the waves or kings of the road, though. Knowing that price cuts on newer models were coming, Lemonis, known for playing "The Profit" on CNBC where he doled out tough-love advice to struggling businesses, took the painful step of discounting Camping World's older inventory ahead of price cuts he knew were coming on 2024 models. As with boats, new RVs don't carry a large markup. Camping World's most profitable business is its Good Sam Club for RV owners. Parts and service, finance and insurance and used RV sales are also more lucrative. Since 2017, it has expanded from 124 to about 215 dealerships and is targeting 320 by 2028. An investment made five years ago has produced a total return of 115%. People who can't make it to the lake, trails or campground as often as they had hoped, or are just looking to economize, might be disappointed in what their pandemic purchases can fetch today, but some of the companies that sold them their toys will benefit for years no matter who winds up owning them. Recommended Stories FLY 07/02 HOG: Harley-Davidson dealers seeing weak retail demand, says Baird BI 07/02 Leisure Companies Top $150 Billion of Possible Junk Refinancing JPM 07/02 [Delayed] European Sporting Goods: Read across from Nike Q4’24 results BFW 07/02 Benefit Systems Drops as User Card Numbers Decline: Street Wrap BUS 07/02 Mattel Announces Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results and Conference Call Date Topics More BUSINESS Business News ANA Analyst Ratings & Commentary AUT Automobiles CONS Consumer Goods, Retail DJEXCL Dow Jones Exclusive Analysis DJFEA Editorials and Columns (DJ)

It’s been a great year so far. Plenty of rain, tons of lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, chard, and herbs of all kind. But, the news is we’re bringing in tomatoes. I don’t recall ever getting them this early: June 30! Black Krim and Blondkopfchen cherries. (Edited to put in a better pic). That's a new cherry for us. Just one plant and I expect to get many dozens. This is the largest blossom cluster of three or four on that vine.

I don’t hate you and don’t read anything more into my post.

I had a feeling this thread would go south. Didn’t think it would be a moderator that steered it into the $hit. That’s uncalled for BS man. What do we gotta do to keep the politics outta here?

What??? I’m around. Knives are all sharp as hell. Sliced through a brisket point like a surgeon today for some burnt ends. See the “What’s Cooking” thread.