Lake Michigan Summer Vacay 2015: Day 4 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Ok, I got up and made breakfast with the help of the other birthday person in the house, my father. I started frying two eggs, sliced some aged sharp cheddar from Dairy State, and put some hearty wheat bread in the toaster oven. My dad came in and told me to add some pork sausage, and got out two patties to make for me. He also told me about a great life hack to avoid getting hands all greasy when handling pork sausage. He phrased it as "and this is why I keep those cereal bags, so I don't have to touch this stuff!" or something similar. My dad's got tons of those things, which I'm going to call "#DadHacks". The pork sausage was the perfect addition, and the sandwich was incredible.

THAT is a breakfast sandwich.

I took a shower and stuff, then noticed something about the decor in the bathroom and took a photo in an effort to do something about it. See, there is this cute drawing on the wall to your right as you sit on the toilet, but the wall behind the toilet is bare. What I envision going there is something like this: an arrangement of cattails & leaves made of metal, wood, or something else, with a cat that looks like this one, sitting and looking at them.

The cattail becomes the cat.

After the above photo, I went outside where my dad was picking cauliflower for the birthday dinner, then feeding the leaves to the cows. He told me all of the names of the cows, but I only remembered Spot, since that one is part Belted Holstein, my favorite breed of cattle.

Feeding cauliflower leaves to the cows.

Here is the cauliflower that was broken apart and cooked for the Birthday Dinner.

Harvesting part of the Birthday Dinner.

I then got a tour of the garden. It included information on where applied weed killer worked, corn that was planted last and didn't grow because of flooding, and passive aggressive signs posted by neighbors because of lawn mowing.

We eventually walked from the garden on the south side, around the front of the house, to the garden on the north side. This garden is decorative in nature, but is often a little neglected due to the presence of the five-leaf plant pictured to the right. Well, the garden looks okay, it's just not as perfectly landscaped like my parents would like. I can't blame them at all. If you ever saw the effects of this plant, you'd never go back there. Friends on Facebook gave some ideas for what the plant might be, but the one that has seen it didn't know the name of it. She said that she did get a painful reaction on her hand where she made contact and asked if my parents were exposed to the sap or not. After this comment, my dad explained that now he wears gloves while dealing with it, and got the rash that my mom had from it in the 90's when the "juices" got on him at one point, 10 years ago. A conversation the next day with a local gardener hinted that the issue may be one of skin sensitivity or specific allergy rather than the plant being universally poisonous, but the identity of the plant is still unknown. The rash it produced on my parents' arms, however, was no joke, and far, far worse than my own experience with poison oak. It was puffy and red, yes, but it included numerous weeping sores and looked like nothing that you ever want to experience.

I posted the above photo, in a smaller size, to my Facebook page to see if my friends could help identify it. Some think it is Virginia Creeper, which is not poisonous, but often near poison ivy. This plant, however, never flowers and does not have berries, that I know of. The leaves pictured on the Wikipedia page also appear waxy, while the leaves of the plant above are not waxy.

We went inside, where my father showed me the green rings below, and told me that after a wind storm, my dad saw lots of the little green rings on the ground at some farm. He asked the farmer if he could have them, and the he said yes. We then created this photo.

Can you guess what they are used for?

I believe that I began doing some penny sorting around this time. My dad had a Planter's nut container (one of the big ones) full of pennies. Earlier this year, I got into sorting pennies in order to find those older than 1980, which are all copper (and worth 2 cents). I use them in the penny smashing machines. I went further with my own pennies, sorting them by year, then cleaning many of them, from the oldest through the 1980's or 90's. I had far fewer pennies than my dad, however, so my goal with his was to sort them by decade and clean those that were from before 1980. My father claimed that just sorting the pennies would take "weeks".

However, 2pm got closer and closer, and that had been deemed "dinner time", based on my 10am breakfast time. Food began to come together, and soon, the table was completely set.

Birthday Dinner

In the center of the table are cards for me and my dad. And here are the foods we ate, close up.

My parents eat kale. I ate it, but I didn't like it.

Dad's dinner.

Dinner was steak from a different beef farmer, since my dad had not had any of his cattle butchered recently, potatoes, and cauliflower. It wasn't very green, and a little heavy on the meat, but not entirely unhealthy. The kale salad, while better suited to lining restaurant buffets, was consumed and did increase the healthiness factor, not to mention the hipster factor. Did I ever mention that my parents drink almond milk too?

Dad photographing Mom's dinner, shown on the right.

Nom nom nom. And now for my dinner, the photo on the left was taken after consuming the plant materials and part of the steak, and on the right is the photo that my dad took before the meal began.

My dinner.

I made sure to take a selfie with my dinner, best done from above so as to get the dinner and myself in the shot. The first one seemed a little indecent for the affair, so I adjusted my shirt and took the photo again. The second one turned out better and was posted to much acclaim.

Birthday Dinner Selfie

I also tried to take good photos of my father, and you previously saw the first one. The first two here were severely back-lit, so we pulled the curtain down.

The issue became one of catching a decent facial expression on my dad's face. A Sisyphean task if there ever was one.

Of course, you may have noticed the addition to these photos over my dad's shirt. This has been added due to the holes in the shirt, which expose certain body parts that my upbringing taught me are inappropriate. Sure, men expose those all the time, but that doesn't mean that I'm not uncomfortable with the exposure. Furthermore, there is something creepy about wearing a shirt AND exposing that body part at the same time. If these photos get my dad to get rid of that shirt, in addition to being amusing, I'll be very happy, in addition to being amused.

Mom reacting to my father's indecent shirt and odd facial expressions, or maybe something else.

In the photo above are some birthday gifts, mainly for my dad. Below are some photos that my dad took.

Photos actually taken before dinner.

Dinner was consumed, including some of that "salad", and then it was cake time! There were two cakes, one chocolate, and the other blueberry, with chocolate frosting. What can I say? Dad and I like chocolate.

Birthday cake!!

And then it was gift time. I can't remember if I got more than the check from my parents, but that doesn't matter. What matters are the paintings that a Houston artist made from some photos I took of my parents' place. I gave the originals to my dad, and he did make an expression that could be read as "impressed" with the one of the shed.

Original paintings of scenes from my parents' place.

We cleaned up after dinner and other things happened. I know that I watched some polka on River Cities Community Access with my dad, and saw a friend's dad on the same channel.

Watch what it is really like to stay with my parents

I may have sorted more pennies, a nap might have happened, I took the photo below, and there was talk about going to the site of the St. Philips school, which had been torn down around Memorial Day.

Decomposing dragonfly on broken coral.

I did take a little drive, and I might have stopped somewhere in Rudolph, but instead of going to the Grotto and St. Philips, I went to where I had seen the great view of the moon the night before. I drove down to the intersection of County Highways C and O, parked my car to the side on the gravel road across from C, and took some photos. The scenery looking east was as photogenic as the scenery to the west.

The rock in the photo on the left is painted frequently, usually with wedding announcements.

The view on the east side of County Highway O, looking west along C. 

This photo was taken further to the west, and closer to the hill.

Still further to the west and closer to the hill. "Mack Beiber's" farm is the one on the left.

This is looking east from the vantage point in the previous photo.

And here is the view from the top of the hill, looking back east. 

After all my photos, I opted to drive home via 3rd Avenue and Plum road, for some different scenery.

And after those pretty scenes, I'll leave you with this weak sauce train crossing.
(I mean, OF COURSE YOU YIELD TO A TRAIN)

I got home, probably drank more La Croix, had some chocolate and other random foods. I probably watched some TV with my parents, and this might have been the night that my mom and I waited until astronomical twilight and then went out to the garden to look at the stars. To be honest, the view was even better than at the star park, but there weren't any clouds in the sky either. I was able to locate the North Star and the Milky Way, along with some other constellations.