With a mulch, mulch here, and an oink, oink there

Today Dear Husband and I planned to help the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy plant flowers up in Butler, PA, an hour from Pittsburgh. Alas, the starttime on the website was incorrect, and we were straggling this morning, so we showed up 1.5 hours late--just in time to spend an hour toting and spreading mulch. It turned out to be a planting with the Butler AM Rotary Club, and Clint, the one-man welcoming committee, confessed that he had also mistaken the start time. He was friendly and persistent, and managed to extract most of our life histories in between buckets. Reportedly this is sort of a rough area of town, so the garden really livens up the traffic patterns. Although as more than one person asked, why do they have to choose to annuals every year, when perennials would be mulch less work?

Afterward we went to a friend's house to clean up. The four of us carpooled over to a new BBQ place, When Pigs Fly. What a hidden gem! A little divey but the food is totally worth it. Locally owned, with plenty of eating space inside and out, all decorated with flying pigs. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and a radio under the umbrella at a picnic table outside. (After the owner warned us that the table without an umbrella was right under a nest of poopy birds!) The kitchen was fast, and the portions were generous. DH polished off a whole half-rack of juicy ribs, while the rest of us ate pulled pork and brisket sandwiches stuffed into hotdog buns. Neither the pineapple jalapeno nor hot sauces was particularly spice. We tried four different sides: collard greens, candied yams, potato salad, and macaroni salad. If I had had any more room, I wanted to taste the mac and cheese. Apparently they do catering and take-out, as well as sell sodas and walking tacos to the kids getting out of school up the hill. I left them an excellent review on Yelp and hope they prosper.

On the way back south DH and I stopped for ice cream at Hammer's, just like last time we drove to Butler, although we didn't bother trying to ask for a discount this time. We had a quiet afternoon and evening after getting home, the hard labor, heat, and so much food pretty much killing our desires to be productive, practice, go to the grocery store, or even cook, so we settled for take-out from the Middle Eastern restaurant down the street and hanging out with Rosie. Good thing there are still two more days this weekend yo get all those things done.