Getting Ready for Barbeque

We always have our first barbeque of the season on the weekend that falls around July 1st which happens to be my birthday.  This year, we had this barbeque on July 1st.  If anyone is wondering, I turned 61 years old this year.  Unfortunately, most days, I feel like I'm 81 and I have difficulty and a lot of pain trying to get around and I even look the part due to being hunched over and having difficulty standing.  Contrary to how I feel on these days, my birth certificate claims I am 61 years old this year.  

We had a very dry spring to the point where everything in the yard was dying and turning brown but the past two weeks were filled with day after day of solid rain until the day before our scheduled barbeque.  The rain stopped just in time for me to mow the lawn, do some much needed landscaping and set up the backyard for our barbeque.  It was sunny, hot and humid with a bit of smoke from Canadian wildfires hanging in the air.  My health didn't fare so well and I ended up with heat exhaustion but I managed to get the backyard ready anyway.  

Within about ten minutes of starting on the lawn, I realized that I was sweating profusely...  I was sweating far more than I have sweat in recent memory.  I thought this was odd but I attributed it to the relatively hot and humid day we were having.  By the time I finished mowing the lawn, I had a massive headache and I do not get headaches so I thought this was a bit odd.  I still was not making any connections between the headache and the profuse sweating.  

Then I started getting the sailboat ready for the grandkids.  I knew they would want to play on the boat as they always do.  It was sometime while working on the sailboat that I made the connection between the profuse sweating and the headache.  By now I was also feeling quite weak as though I could sleep for a week.  It then hit me that I was probably suffering from heat exhaustion.

I took a bit of a break and went indoors.  I washed my head in cool water...  had a few cold drinks...  and took some extra medications in case my mast cells started degranulating too.  Any little stressors will cause mass mast cell degranulation and this was a rather big stressor.  If that happened, we would have had to cancel our barbeque scheduled for the next day so I knew I needed to attempt to stay in front of the inevitable process of mast cell degranulation in my body.  

After about an hour or so, I started feeling slightly better so I headed back outside to clean up all my lawn tools and just slowly set things up in the yard for the barbeque.  By now it was about 4:15 in the afternoon so I went inside again to take more medications and to lay down until Sheila came home from work.  When she arrived home from work, I let her know what I experienced and then we continued to get the house and yard ready for guests.  

Since the outdoor kitchen is covered with a roof, I was able to sand the countertops and then apply a couple of coats of polyurethane a few days ago while it was raining.  I also applied a single coat of polyurethane to the homemade cabinets.  Actually, the countertops and the cabinets were made by me.   They're looking pretty good again and I didn't need to wait for good weather to get this relatively small task completed.  If I wanted the kitchen ready for the barbeque on July 1st, then I needed to do this on a rainy day.  I had no choice!

Here is the cleaned up outdoor kitchen...

The Adirondack chairs needed a good cleaning and they needed all their joints tightened up so I did that and placed them around the firepit...

I set up the Giant Jenga game so it was ready for play...

I stacked some crumpled paper, twigs and small branches in the firepit.  Now it was just waiting on Lukey to arrive to light it...

The old sailboat was cleaned, waxed and I even cleaned the sail.  The sail was so filthy that I had actually been contemplating buying a new one again!  Who knew I could safely clean it with a mild Clorox cleaner?  I laid the sail out on the lawn, sprayed it with the Clorox cleaner, let it soak in for a few minutes and then scrubbed it with a scrub brush on a stick.  I then rinsed it clean with the hose, turned it over, and started doing the same process on the opposite side.  I was shocked at how clean the sail turned out after that relatively easy cleaning!  

I had to run some new lines too.  A few of the older lines were frayed and deteriorating.  

She is looking pretty good again!

I don't think the sail has been this clean since I purchased it about nine years ago!

Since we experienced nothing but solid rainy weather over the past two weeks, the putting green was finally looking nice!  Even Lukey commented that it was looking good...

I have a side table that connects to one side of the outdoor kitchen.  I only install this table for larger groups in our backyard.  This is where we setup all the plates, utensils, and food.  I need to figure out a way to shield this table from the sun.  Having all the food sitting out under the hot sun is not a good idea.  That table was a nice addition though.  It frees up space on the countertops inside the outdoor kitchen where I am cooking. 

The flowers around the yard are starting to look really nice at this point.  Within about two or three weeks, they should be at peak for the season...

Although my health took a big hit and I had a bit of heat exhaustion, I managed to get the yard completely ready for guests and our annual barbeque.  By the time Friday evening arrived, Sheila and I were looking forward to our barbeque scheduled for the next day....

EDIT:  3 July 2023 - I forgot to mention that there was some work to do to get the playhouse ready for the grandkids too.  After the long winter, the playhouse is usually pretty dirty and even a little moldy in spots.  Sheila spent an hour or so cleaning and vacuuming the playhouse after I spent an hour or two working on the three homemade light fixtures.

The light bulbs in these light fixtures were very, very dim (almost completely darkened) so, because there was some light coming from these fixtures, I thought that perhaps the wiring connections were loose or corroded.  I took apart two of the fixtures and found no problems.  I took apart the junction box and found no problems.  I took apart the switch and outlet and found no problems.  The lights were still very, very dim and hardly illuminating at all.  

Then it occurred to me that perhaps the LED light bulbs had a problem.  I went looking for another bulb to try.  I found one bulb...  screwed it into one of the light fixtures...  we had bright light again!  I guess the driver inside each of the LED bulbs went bad.  I had one spare bulb to use but I had to order two new bulbs.  Fortunately, those new bulbs arrived in the mail on the day before the barbeque. 

We now have bright light in the playhouse again!