Food n' Stuff

Seems like when the weather starts to turn bad, my thoughts turn to enough calories to survive.  My mother was an OK cook and her idea of a great meal was anything she could cook in one pan.  Chili, beans and her pork chops cooked in Spanish rice come to mind quickly.  I do remember that for some reason Mom liked to cook waffles for Sunder evening meal.  Had she cooked up ham or chicken to go with those waffles, I might have been aboard that idea.  To this day I really don't like waffles.  I see the shows on TV where people get chicken and waffles but I would probably not eat the waffles.

The most memorable meals would generally be had at Erma and Curly Fruits house when they lived in Susank, KS on the Shell Oil lease.  In the fall, we would go up there and several of Curly's friends would come out and we would hunt fields the men had scouted out during the summer and early fall.   It was nothing for 5 or 10 friends get their limit and a lot of the birds were just given to my Grandmother.  Curly would skin the pheasants rather than pick feathers.  Erma would cut them up and put them in a pan to soak in salt water.  Erma would take the cut up pieces and bake them for a while at a fairly low temperature.  After they cooled off a little, she would put them in flour and then fry the birds.   I can remember being at grandma's house and the middle of the table would be covered with bones after we managed to eat ourselves silly.  None of that one bird per family crap.  At least once a year or so, grandmother would drag out her big old pot and we would get a shrimp boil that had similar results.  I swear the Government had to have asked her to file an environmental impact report after one of those meals.

I am not sure if it was the riding on the tractor or shoveling snow but my back is kind of sore.  To make matters worse, yesterday I was headed down the hill and made a snow devil about halfway down the hill.  It was about 40 degrees and slippery.  I call it a snow devil because I didn't laugh and make a perfect imprint in the snow as I went down.  In fact, I'm fairly certain that "Oh Shit" was what I said and am thankful that there was still about 6 inches of snow left when I fell.  All my back and neck is stiff this morning.  I threw some chopped corn out the back door for the little birds but the deer down the hill can just eat bark.

We are under a snow storm warning today and they say it could bring us up to a foot of snow.  When a warm front from the south meets a big old Northern cold front in the spring we generally catch at least one big storm.  This looks like number 2 in about a week.  Most of the time if it snows there is clear ground within a week or so.  This time not so much.  Oh well, I have the Styrofoam dog house built over the tractor and the heater in place  so I can make short work of whatever falls.

MUD Pushing Snow on his tractor

MUD