Busy and Lazy

Man April was a busy month for me. I was at the house for all of one weekend that month. And once I was gone for 6 days straight. So what was I doing. I'll cover part of it in other posts. But for now I'll ramble about these.


The first weekend I went to Atlanta on Friday evening with some people from work. I was a late replacement for someone else. I work on Campus and they work off Campus, so we don't normally mix much. I think I fit in pretty well and might have just extended my friend pool. We went to see Jeff Dunham the comedian. Many of you have watched him. Let em tell you right now I haven't laughed that much since my Dad and I went to see Jeff Foxworthy. I suggest you watch Jeff Dunham on YouTube if you haven't seen his act. My back was sore the next day from laughing. It was his second show of the evening. He came out a little drunk, asked for some Jack D., and then had us rolling for almost 2 hours. I think he came up with some new material on stage, and If he was truthful he said it was one of the weirdest shows he'd done in a long time. I judge that to be a success.

I got home at 3:30 AM and got up at 7:45 so I could drive to see my family. Yeah I took a nap later that afternoon, but it was so worth it.

The next weekend I had accepted the invitation of a friend to come to a mountain cabin the father of a friend of his owned. Man that was a confusing sentence, and I knew what I was trying to say. Anyway here's a picture of it.


Actually my friend described it as a lodge rather than a cabin. I tell you what that is a nice place right there. Central heat and air, a wrap around porch, 5 or so bedrooms with real honest to God beds. It was wonderful. We got up there and we made pulled pork BBQ and fried chicken and hot dogs and hamburgers throughout the weekend. Mmmm Fried Chicken. I sat out on the porch, when it wasn't chilly, and read the Benjamin Franklin book I've been trying to finish. When it was chilly I sat inside and basked in the sun coming through the windows or glanced out at the mountains while I relaxed reading. I haven't had a chance to do that in such a lovely place in a long time. I included some pictures below of the view from the porch.

But that wasn't the best part. I also got to do something else. We went skeet shooting. That's the first time I've ever gone. I probably put a total of about 110 rounds through the old double barrel. I still don't have a name for it yet. I'll have to ask her again. Anyway, You know what. I 60+ year old 12 ga double barrel hurts when you shoot 100+ rounds. I imagine it tripled if not quadrupled the number of rounds I've put through it. Though I didn't think I did very well, 31% maybe, For a first time at skeet I had a hell of a lot of fun. Plus I think I was getting better near the end. But the things it did to my shoulder. My entire Pectoral was sore the next day. And later in the week the whole area was bruised. I took a picture for posterity, but I'm not posting hairy man-nipple here. Damn that was fun though. Maybe I can do it again sometime.

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Dang it’s late

So it’s getting late in the year man. I’m not ready for it to be this late. Thought I have been enjoying the pomegranates coming back in season. I love those things. So I’ve eaten about a dozen of them so far. Then a friend of mine pointed out that the world’s most perfect processed food had made its reappearance for the season. And friggin’ Thanksgiving is next week. Ug. Where has all the time gone? Now I have to get going on running over my leaves with the riding mower. Too many things to do.

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Drink Naming

For several months, I’ve been enjoying a version of the screwdriver I created. I had been trying to think of a good name the whole time. Well the screwdriver recipe is as follows:

3 oz vodka (from the freezer of course) I like Frïs (mild), Tanqueray Sterling (nice flavor), and Ketel One (peppery)

1 oz quality tangerine juice

4 oz quality orange juice

Feel free to adjust the vodka portion to taste.

So I’ve been drinking these for several months. At first I had to squeeze my own tangerine juice. Just recently my grocery store started to carry tangerine juice. Anyway I was talking with some friends before lunch today and the name came to me. It’s an Africanized Screwdriver. In order to understand that one, just look at the origin of the tangerine name and a certain insect’s history of hybridization

Now back to finishing my Africanized Screwdriver.

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Sunday Picking

I picked some tomatoes on Sunday Morning. I also picked Saturday morning, but this is by far the largest tomato harvest I have had or will have this year. I supplied the requisite Dr. Pepper can for scale. All the ones on the ground are Brandywine, with the basket containing Better Boy and Century.


This is the biggest Brandywine of the bunch. It was so massive it bruised itself due to it's own weight.


This is not the largest harvest of Roma tomatoes I have gotten, but the harvests look to be tapering off from now on.


This is one of the two Pomegranate seedlings my Dad brought me.


Other than that, there's not much to talk about.

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I don't think I've posted too many pics recently. Well i haven't posted that much at all. Anyway i thought I would put something up. Here is a pic of one of my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles I have anchoring the walkpath to the driveway. They seem to be doing alright considering the late frost and dry hot summer. It's just starting to bloom.


This is the second Brandywine tomato I picked from the vines. That is indeed my hand and that is a pile of Romas i picked in one day from my 4 vines. I gave the Brandywine to one of the guys at work. I've got more coming in now. For some reason the Better Boys have been more susceptible to blossom end rot. I'll have to research and maybe test the soil for next year.


In case you thought it was an optical illusion, this is the same tomato from the side. The scary thing is that this isn't the biggest tomato on the vines.


I'm still getting okra and I've had a few ears of corn come in. Some of the ears are small due to the hot dry weather and my tendency to not thin the ranks enough. But all in all it's not too bad for a first year try.

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Saturday

A few interesting things happened Saturday. For one thing the continuation of the rain storms at some point during the day continued. We got some rain in the evening. I’ve been really happy that I haven’t had to water the garden in the past several days. Watering different parts of it daily was getting to be quite a chore. Now however, the grass is starting to grow. Well you can’t have everything.

I picked okra early in the morning, since I had neglected to pick it Friday. My parents went to Commerce, GA Friday and stopped by my house that morning on the trip. They picked up something I had to exchange for my Dad and a little okra as well. I had way too much for myself to be able to prepare and freeze, so they took it. As a surprise they left something in its place. They left me some corn from my Dad’s garden, and 2 small pomegranate sproutlings they got from a friend’s yard. Now I have them in pots waiting on them to get a little bigger before I decide where to put them. I’m thinking it’ll have to be in the sunnier and drier parts of the yard. Maybe in front of the garden.

I did the requisite dish cleaning and such after some breakfast and a little TV watching. I went outside to receive my self prescribed dose of ultraviolet radiation. It’s my way of fighting the kickin’ farmer’s tan I was building up in the early spring. While outside I heard something moving around and looked up from my book. Lo and behold, what may have been a Gray fox went trotting across the back yard. I’ve been looking up information about them. The animal seemed a little tall and the muzzle was a little long and thick for a Gray fox, so it may have been something else. In fact it looked a little like a young Grey wolf, leading me to believe it may have merely been a wild dog. I’m not sure, but the scat that appeared in the front yard a week ago resembles descriptions of fox scat on the web, and I have seen several dead foxes on the side of the road over the past year. I’ll keep my eyes open and see if I can get a picture if I ever see it again.

I came back in showered and decided I was bored, so I went to see a movie. I freely admit I went to see “Evan Almighty.” I enjoyed the first movie, so I figured why not. As for the review, I give it a big meh. It was ok. Rent it if you want to see it. No need to go to a theater and pay those prices. In the end it’s a sequel that doesn’t live up to its original.

I came home made some dinner and roasted about 3 dozen little Roma tomatoes. I’m trying to make a sauce so I can freeze it for later. Then I decided to do something I haven’t done in many months. I took my blender out to make a “Purple Pomelator,” that’s a “Purple Nurple” with some pomegranate juice in there. Anyway I put the mixin’s inside and the ice and fired up the blender. I heard the normal grinding of the ice and what not and then it went WHEEEEEEEEEE. I wasn’t sure what had happened. I lifted the jar off the motor and my worst fear had happened. The danged gear on the top of the motor housing had shattered. It was ruined. I had always considered that to be my greatest concern as a point of failure, and those fears bore out. Well it did last for over 5 glorious years and lots of ice and frozen beverages. I’m going to see if I can find a way to replace the gear. I hate for a piece of hard plastic to kill an otherwise fantastic piece of equipment. Anyway, so Sunday I took my trusty 20% off coupon to BB&B to get a new one. Well BB&B doesn’t sell that model anymore. They sell a new model that has a design change that specifically fixes the component that failed on my blender. The only problem is that it comes with a polycarbonate jar rather than a glass one. Polycarbonate costs less to make and ship, but it is much noisier when you start throwing ice around inside of it. So I broke down, used the coupon, and bought the blender. It works quite nicely, but it is at least twice as loud as my old one. But I haven’t given up yet. I’m going to look for a way to revive my onyx jewel. Hopefully I can.

Update: I have just placed an order for 2 blender couplings for my little black baby. They should arrive in a couple of weeks. From forum that I have read I now need to make a special wrench to hold the shaft while I take the busted one off. I like a challenge.

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Horrid Discovery

I made a truly horrid discovery this evening. I made French fries in my Fry Daddy the other day. I used the leftover oil to perform an experiment. I chopped and breaded some of my garden okra and drenched it in the hot oil of the Fry Daddy. That is when I made the horrid discovery. It makes pretty decent fried okra. Not great, but decent. I really need something with adjustable temperature control and experimentation with oils in order to make it great. Right now my standard oil is canola for saturated fat, smoke point, and flavor purposes. The horrid part is that it was way easier than pan frying, but that also diminishes the taste somewhat. Even though it wasn't quite like Mom makes, it's good enough to make a fried okra lover like myself contemplate making it every day. Add to that what looks to be an ample supply of okra coming from my garden, which seriously looks like it is going to be outrageous, and you have a recipe for making me fat. I must summon my willpower. That and I need to find time to prepare the okra for freezing.

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