Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 5:00 a.m. in "The City."

I got up around 3:00, but then I decided to watch an old episode of The Untouchables, starring Robert Stack. Is that redundant, when I say old, as those episodes date to the 1960s?

At any rate, that's why my blog is being published after 4:30 a.m. instead of after 3:00 a.m.

I was thinking earlier that my blog may, in fact, be like Cervantes descriptions in his novel Don Quixote, wherein his would-be knight, Don Quixote, laments that his efforts are like, "Tilting at windmills." In the English parlance of the early 1600s, the term tilting referred to jousting, a tournament between two knights to prove their skills, one on one, or mano-a-mano. At the risk of being too obvious, a windmill has many blades or lances/swords, a stand-in for the lances or swords carried by knight errant in Cervantes' day.

But once again, I digress, as what's important is baseball.

Yesterday, my beloved, 62 - 29, 1st place in the AL East Red Sox, dispatched the 25 - 64, last place in the AL Central Royals, 7 - 4. In addition, the Red Sox received news that five of their players, Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Craig Kimbrel, Mitch Moreland, and Chris Sale were all named to the American League All-Star squad. In addition, Andrew Benintendi has a shot at being the sixth Red Sox player to be named. Given their best in baseball record, the Sox' players deserve the nod. The Sox and the 40 - 51, last place in-the AL West Texas Rangers, play tonight in Fenway @ 7:10 p.m. EDT.

Speaking of All-Star caliber players, the 51 - 36, 2nd in the NL Central Cubs, placed three players on the National League All-Star squad, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, and Jon Lester. Both Baez and Contreras are first-time nominees.

The Cubs took 10 innings yesterday to defeat the Reds. It required a bases-loaded walk to Ian Happ in the bottom of the 10th inning to seal the win, 6 - 5, following another come from behind nine innings of baseball. The Cubs head to San Francisco tonight to play the 47 - 45 4th place n the NL West Giants tonight @ 9:45 p.m. EDT.

The 40 - 52, 3rd place in the AL Central Tigers, couldn't produce any runs for starting and losing pitcher, Michael Fulmer yesterday and the Tigers lost to the 40 - 51, last place in the AL West, TX Rangers, 0 - 3. The Tigers travel to Tampa Bay, FL tonight to play the 45 - 44, 3rd place in the AL East Rays, tonight @ 7:10 p.m. EDT.

The 45 - 43, 5th in the MWL East, West Michigan White Caps, had their own oops, as they fell hard to the 7th place in the MWL East Lake County, OH Captains, 1 - 7. The Caps and the Captains play again tonight @ 7:00 p.m.

Back here at the manse, I decided that yesterday was a good day to use some of that grind that I had made the day before. I used my new grinder on my Kitchen Aid™ stand-mixer that Mary bought for me, and ground up the smaller of the loaves that I pictured yesterday. I then proceeded to make one of the sausage recipes from that cookbook I had received from Adam and Steph. Like Chef McDonald noted in his preface, I had to adapt the recipe to make use of the ingredients I had on hand, but the results tasted excellent. I should have chronicled my progress in pictures along the way, but I was busy in the kitchen and so all I have are pictures of the sausages as they emerged from the steamer and as Mary heated them prior to our lunch.

Let me also say that the aromas from the cooking process made us both hungry, so we had to eat some sausages for both lunch and dinner. They were indeed great and definitely a keeper. However, while Mary enjoys chopping, I can take it or leave it, so I'll leave future chopping to her. Here is the abbreviated photo-chronicle of my efforts.

A double wrap process, wax-paper on the inside and aluminum foil on the outside before streaming for one-hour..

Although still warm from the steamer, a little browning crisped up the outside nicely before putting the sausages on the buns.

Yesterday's high temperature was 77° with lower relative humidity. That made walking with the fur-children much more comfortable. The sunny skies and lower relative humidity forecast from the NWS will be repeated today with a high temperature of 78°. As the week progresses, the high-temperature forecast is for temperatures in the lower 80s, with only Friday's forecast calling for a chance of T-storms. We have a current temperature of 77°. The sun will rise today @ 6:14 a.m. and set later tonight @ 9:25 p.m. EDT. Probably a long-winded way of saying that I'll be watering the vast lawns and gardens of the PE for the foreseeable future.

By the by, there has been an Air Quality Alert, issued by the NWS for much of West, MI today, including our own Ottawa County. Elevated ozone levels and elevated levels of air-pollutants, will make breathing difficult for people with breathing problems. People are urged to avoid activities such as lawn mowing, refueling cars or using charcoal lighter fluid. Instead, car-pooling or riding your bike to work or when running errands are suggested to keep the ozone/pollution levels down. Since I use a push-style lawnmower to mow the vast lawns, I will do my part.

Otherwise, we have to make a stop at the carpet store sometime this week to select our replacement carpet and get that on the ordering and installation schedule. Mary has indexing to do and I have some indoor and outdoor chores on my schedule. I find that when I break down my indoor/outdoor chores to a more manageable interval, things are less stressful. Ciao.