Around 1:45 AM on Wednesday last week my daughter came quietly into my bedroom. I was not asleep, nor was her father. The wind was raging outside and rain was pelting the bedroom windows. We'd been under a tornado watch since about 3:00 PM the day before.
"Mom," she said, "I just had the weirdest thing happen. My ears felt like they were going to burst a couple of minutes ago. I think there's got to be a tornado close by."
Eight minutes later I received a text message from a member of our Church asking if I had a cell phone number for yet another church member who lived fairly close to her and her parents. Over the course of the next hour we texted back and forth checking on various people and their safety.
Later, after daylight, we began assessing things in the area. Schools were closed due to lack of power. Huge trees were down everywhere--though not in our little neighborhood. My daughter left for her college classes 30 miles away and called every few minutes to report on the damage she saw on both sides of the highway.
We called and checked on various people throughout the parish that we know, checking to see if they were okay. The damage at my friend's parents' home was the loss of about 7 large trees--no damage to their house or vehicles. They were without power, however. The people she asked about having a cell phone number for had lost a huge oak tree that blocked their driveway--it was uprooted and laying the length of their front yard and knocked down their two peach trees, another huge oak tree was down on the other side of their property close to their garden. Just up the road from them another friend had two large trees down, one barely scraping the roof on the back of her house.
Others we know that have a small home had huge trees literally blocking them inside as trees fell very unnaturally all around the house without leaving a scratch on it. Everyone in our community and the communities around us are in awe of the destruction that spared most every house they fell close to. Some did have more serious damage, but nothing was completely devastated as the poor people in Alabama and other places have been.
It seems that--according to the evidence in the trees--and the experience of the folks around us (we've had a few tornadoes around us here over the years) there must have been a number of tornadoes going on at the same time. Several people I've talked with said it probably only lasted about 10 seconds when the twister(s) were on their property doing the damage they did.
Many people were without power for several days, but graciously the weather cooled and it was reasonably comfortable, compared to the heat we'd been experiencing prior to the wild storm on Tuesday night/Wednesday wee hours of the morning. We all feel really blessed that the damage was so limited overall to the loss of trees.
I thought our peach tree (which was loaded with peaches for the first time ever) would lose a ton of peaches to the howling winds that night, but when I surveyed things in the morning light--there were no peaches on the ground! That truly astonished me.
Since then, I have picked peaches and picked peaches and picked peaches and given them away to several friends and neighbors. And this evening, on just one branch, I counted nearly 100 more to go! These are NOT large peaches--just delicious peaches! This is the same peach tree that I've mentioned a time or three . . . the one that has been known to begin blossoming on Halloween! I DID NOT expect to have more than a handful of peaches this year because of the roller coaster ride the temperatures/weather has taken since the tree began blossoming in the winter. It would be in the 70's and then drop down into the teens. I don't know how/why it managed to do so much this year, but I am grateful! Except that we've lost two main branches--they broke under the weight of the peaches! I don't think I've ever seen a peach tree with "clusters" of peaches before, but this one has many, many clusters of peaches. Beats anything I've ever seen!
When I'm not suffering with a migraine, I'll try to post some pictures of the peach tree/peaches and some of the uprooted, and twisted off trees around here. But, I'll tell you now--the pictures do not do justice to the scope of the destruction.
Still, I know that we are tremendously blessed to have only the destruction we've had around here when you compare it to so much of the rest of the country. My heart and prayers go out to all those who have lost so very much more!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
I'm Shaking My Head
It is 8:00 PM. It is also 82 degrees. And we haven't had rain of any consequence in weeks. We check the weather channel and other sources and eagerly anticipate the various percentages of rain possibilities per the prognostications each week. :( But, the April showers have taken residence up the country from us--sometimes, apparently in the form of snow, ice and hail, unfortunately. It amazes me that what is usually a very wet spring month for us is anything but.
82 degrees at 8:00 PM. Unbelievable. For April. This is not June. Or did I just forget to turn the calendar over???
82 degrees at 8:00 PM. Unbelievable. For April. This is not June. Or did I just forget to turn the calendar over???
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Disaster Missed, and Other Ramblings
Sunday I was browning a post roast when it slipped from my cooking fork and splashed hot oil in my face. Ouch. And. Really OUCH, again. I first got cold water on my fingers and applied them to the area around my eyes--where it burned the worst. But I didn't want to ruin my pot roast, so I slid the pot it was in off the front burner to the back. Then I grabbed my small rice bag from the freezer and put it on my face. So essentially I was blind to do much else. The cold bag was ever so welcomed as immediate relief but can't see with bag covering eyes! Fortunately, and blessedly I had not been splashed in the eyes with the hot oil! I am so grateful.
Now, I've been spattered with popping grease from frying bacon and tons of other foods in a frying pan or otherwise, but never like this particular incident. I hollered for my daughter to please come take over the roast cooking operation. She was alarmed when I explained what had happened and demanded that I let her see the damage--which I knew wasn't serious, it just hurt like burns do! She told me to wash the grease off so it wouldn't continue to burn. (It wasn't, but I was a dutiful Mom and washed--very gently-- around my eyes and patted my face dry and immediately went back to assuaging my discomfort with the cold rice bag.)
The damage upon later assessment was very minor and mostly around the outer edge of my right eye, less so under my left and one small blister under my nose. (Wasn't able to get the rice bag over my nose while covering my eyes and frankly didn't feel the burn there until much later.) I'm pretty confident that the cold rice bag inhibited the blistering around my eyes that could have occurred--like under my nose--without its application!
I will ever be grateful no hot oil got into my eyes! (Do you think OSHA will now require me to wear safety eye gear while cooking? Just kidding!)
I have been cooking now for . . . let's see . . . about 53 years without a disaster of this kind, though like I mentioned earlier I've been popped with hot grease/oil on many occasions. The worst cooking disaster I can remember in all those years, however, was when I was canning fresh green beans from our garden some years ago. A friend and I were co-oping our time and efforts in helping each other with the project. Because we had several batches to process I got a little impatient and forced the pressure cooker lid off prematurely and got a very nasty steam burn on my fingers of one hand. Burns are the pits.
I learned after another burn incident with a soldiering iron years before the pressure cooker incident that plunging your hand into a cup of ice water--and mostly keeping it there--numbs the pain and halts the burn. Yes. The ice water hurts, too. You have to decide which hurt is greater or lesser. I choose (and chose) the lesser of two evils, for me anyway, and that was: keep the hand IN the ice water. Numb from cold was more tolerable than hurt from burning.
Now on to more pleasant things. When finished cooking, the post roast--involved in the near disaster--was WONDERFUL! It was delicious, tender and wasn't burned up because of my mishap. I cooked carrots and onions with it and added mashed potatoes, gravy and corn to the menu and we all seemed to enjoy it quite well.
Last night I took the remaining pound of roast and made an Italian roast beef stew. I sauteed onions, garlic and sweet red bell pepper then added a jar of tomato basil spaghetti sauce, a can of beef consume, a can of sliced mushrooms, the leftover beef roast gravy, the leftover beef cut into small cubes, some salt, and oregano and let it simmer. We served it with spaghetti noodles and the leftover corn. It was pretty good, if I do say so!
Saturday, we had about 8 pounds of chicken breasts (boneless/skinless) to grill--which I did with the very last of the propane in the tank. (I did have another tank on hand--mostly because I wasn't sure there was enough in the one to finish the job.) Now we ate some of the grilled chicken with our great salad of greens and fresh tomatoes with mozerella cheese chuncks and cibatta bread. It was all good. But the side benefit(s): of grilling all that chicken at once
Now, I've been spattered with popping grease from frying bacon and tons of other foods in a frying pan or otherwise, but never like this particular incident. I hollered for my daughter to please come take over the roast cooking operation. She was alarmed when I explained what had happened and demanded that I let her see the damage--which I knew wasn't serious, it just hurt like burns do! She told me to wash the grease off so it wouldn't continue to burn. (It wasn't, but I was a dutiful Mom and washed--very gently-- around my eyes and patted my face dry and immediately went back to assuaging my discomfort with the cold rice bag.)
The damage upon later assessment was very minor and mostly around the outer edge of my right eye, less so under my left and one small blister under my nose. (Wasn't able to get the rice bag over my nose while covering my eyes and frankly didn't feel the burn there until much later.) I'm pretty confident that the cold rice bag inhibited the blistering around my eyes that could have occurred--like under my nose--without its application!
I will ever be grateful no hot oil got into my eyes! (Do you think OSHA will now require me to wear safety eye gear while cooking? Just kidding!)
I have been cooking now for . . . let's see . . . about 53 years without a disaster of this kind, though like I mentioned earlier I've been popped with hot grease/oil on many occasions. The worst cooking disaster I can remember in all those years, however, was when I was canning fresh green beans from our garden some years ago. A friend and I were co-oping our time and efforts in helping each other with the project. Because we had several batches to process I got a little impatient and forced the pressure cooker lid off prematurely and got a very nasty steam burn on my fingers of one hand. Burns are the pits.
I learned after another burn incident with a soldiering iron years before the pressure cooker incident that plunging your hand into a cup of ice water--and mostly keeping it there--numbs the pain and halts the burn. Yes. The ice water hurts, too. You have to decide which hurt is greater or lesser. I choose (and chose) the lesser of two evils, for me anyway, and that was: keep the hand IN the ice water. Numb from cold was more tolerable than hurt from burning.
Now on to more pleasant things. When finished cooking, the post roast--involved in the near disaster--was WONDERFUL! It was delicious, tender and wasn't burned up because of my mishap. I cooked carrots and onions with it and added mashed potatoes, gravy and corn to the menu and we all seemed to enjoy it quite well.
Last night I took the remaining pound of roast and made an Italian roast beef stew. I sauteed onions, garlic and sweet red bell pepper then added a jar of tomato basil spaghetti sauce, a can of beef consume, a can of sliced mushrooms, the leftover beef roast gravy, the leftover beef cut into small cubes, some salt, and oregano and let it simmer. We served it with spaghetti noodles and the leftover corn. It was pretty good, if I do say so!
Saturday, we had about 8 pounds of chicken breasts (boneless/skinless) to grill--which I did with the very last of the propane in the tank. (I did have another tank on hand--mostly because I wasn't sure there was enough in the one to finish the job.) Now we ate some of the grilled chicken with our great salad of greens and fresh tomatoes with mozerella cheese chuncks and cibatta bread. It was all good. But the side benefit(s): of grilling all that chicken at once
- only had to clean/fire-up the grill once
- we now have 5 freezer bags of grilled chicken to use whenever we need to put a meal together quickly--and we've already anticipated more of those than we have grilled chicken to put into them!
- thawing raw chicken and then having to cook it is NOT gonna be necessary
- its much cheaper than buying pre-grilled frozen, or rotisserie chicken
- we're happy with this arrangement!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Fire Ants--The Bane of Southerners
For those of you who have lived or currently live in the "Deep South" of the USofA know what I'm talking about. Fire ants are insidious, well organized, demonic creatures that dig exceptionally deep tunnels in terra firma, and protect their queens like nobodies business. You simply CANNOT eradicate them. You might kill a few thousand here and there. You might encourage them to move their surface entrances from one place to another, but you CANNOT induce them to leave you alone.
If you till up a garden, they will exercise willful disregard for your hard work and joyfully pop up another entrance or three from which they will plunder whatever plants you place there for your own consumption. And, just out of pure meanness, they will attack you with vengeance if you try to eliminate them--AGAIN--from your premises.
And, after a good rain they gleefully pop up jillions of new hills--their surface entrances. They work non-stop. I've seen cow pastures after a rain with hundreds of new fire ant hills. I certainly wouldn't want to be the cattle in those pastures!!!! And, we've had some "hills" that border our back patio that we've poisoned over and over for years. Those particular entrances will be dormant for long periods of time--months and even a few years. Then, bingo! After a good rain, we'll see they've moved back in to create havoc for us once again.
Now when I said they will attack you a minute ago, I mean a full-blown military attack. The soldier ants in the group--all female, I hate to say--will pour out of the nest and literally cover your feet, or whatever is closest and begin to bite and urinate into that bite. (Yes. A lovely thought.) That's what makes the bitten site feel "on fire"! It is very painful and festers in a short time. For some it is literally deadly--even one bite--if a person is allergic to their "sting".
I remember some years ago when we lived north of Houston, Texas. Our garden was great. Raised beds for intense use of a small space. It had begun to rain, and I ran out to shut off the water hose that was trying to keep the plants from burning up--since we'd been without rain for an extended period. In my haste I didn't watch where I was stepping. I felt a sting and looked down to discover both my feet were swarming with fire ants. Thank Heaven I had on shoes and socks and NOT flipflops!!! I did quite a dance in the rain that day, stomping and yelling and stomping wildly around the yard to disengage as many of the vile insects as possible before chucking said shoes/socks and running inside to view the destruction to my ankles, etc. I remember brushing off what I could of the little monsters before they carted me, piece by piece, down into the infernal pit of their deepest tunnel to feed their hordes of fiendish little sisters, and perhaps a few drone brothers, along with their super fat, egg-laying machine we designate as "queen."
I didn't escape unscathed. I had several bites around my ankles. Those kinds of bites have lingered on my feet and elsewhere for weeks, even with popping the festered spot and applying a good antibiotic salve to quell the mess. They itch like all get-out, too. I have had scars on my feet from some particularly vicious bites for over a year.
With all that vitriolic-ness spewing from my thoughts, I have to admit that ants are quite incredible creatures. (Doesn't mean I like fire ants anyway.) Last Saturday, in preparation for my husband tilling up the garden, I lifted up all the paving stones we had placed there last spring between the vegetable rows to clear the way for his tiller. As I lifted two or three stones, I squealed like a little girl and ran. Guess what I found underneath those stones? Uh huh! Fire ants and a lot of their eggs and tunnels. They immediately went into action. And, yes! I did the fire ant stomp once again and got out of their way. It didn't take them long to go into hyper-drive and cart those little embryos out of harms way. In just minutes there was not a little white egg to be seen. Then I doused them with a healthy (for us) sprinkling of Sevin dust before my mate was tilling away without disturbance. A little later I found a stray ant or two doin' their thing. One made it to my chest, close to my pacemaker and the other got me on the back of my neck. I still have a hard knot on the back of my neck, but I managed to dislodge the one on my chest before much damage was done.
Oh, and another thing I found rather interesting: Under the second row of paving stones I discovered more ant tunnels and ants, but these were the tiny little black ants we used to find in our kitchen--the ones that love to get into sugar and oil. I was really surprised to find them such extremely close neighbors to the fire ants. Do you suppose they have some kind of symbiotic relationship? I don't know if that's such a good thing. It disturbs me to think about it.
If you till up a garden, they will exercise willful disregard for your hard work and joyfully pop up another entrance or three from which they will plunder whatever plants you place there for your own consumption. And, just out of pure meanness, they will attack you with vengeance if you try to eliminate them--AGAIN--from your premises.
And, after a good rain they gleefully pop up jillions of new hills--their surface entrances. They work non-stop. I've seen cow pastures after a rain with hundreds of new fire ant hills. I certainly wouldn't want to be the cattle in those pastures!!!! And, we've had some "hills" that border our back patio that we've poisoned over and over for years. Those particular entrances will be dormant for long periods of time--months and even a few years. Then, bingo! After a good rain, we'll see they've moved back in to create havoc for us once again.
Now when I said they will attack you a minute ago, I mean a full-blown military attack. The soldier ants in the group--all female, I hate to say--will pour out of the nest and literally cover your feet, or whatever is closest and begin to bite and urinate into that bite. (Yes. A lovely thought.) That's what makes the bitten site feel "on fire"! It is very painful and festers in a short time. For some it is literally deadly--even one bite--if a person is allergic to their "sting".
I remember some years ago when we lived north of Houston, Texas. Our garden was great. Raised beds for intense use of a small space. It had begun to rain, and I ran out to shut off the water hose that was trying to keep the plants from burning up--since we'd been without rain for an extended period. In my haste I didn't watch where I was stepping. I felt a sting and looked down to discover both my feet were swarming with fire ants. Thank Heaven I had on shoes and socks and NOT flipflops!!! I did quite a dance in the rain that day, stomping and yelling and stomping wildly around the yard to disengage as many of the vile insects as possible before chucking said shoes/socks and running inside to view the destruction to my ankles, etc. I remember brushing off what I could of the little monsters before they carted me, piece by piece, down into the infernal pit of their deepest tunnel to feed their hordes of fiendish little sisters, and perhaps a few drone brothers, along with their super fat, egg-laying machine we designate as "queen."
I didn't escape unscathed. I had several bites around my ankles. Those kinds of bites have lingered on my feet and elsewhere for weeks, even with popping the festered spot and applying a good antibiotic salve to quell the mess. They itch like all get-out, too. I have had scars on my feet from some particularly vicious bites for over a year.
With all that vitriolic-ness spewing from my thoughts, I have to admit that ants are quite incredible creatures. (Doesn't mean I like fire ants anyway.) Last Saturday, in preparation for my husband tilling up the garden, I lifted up all the paving stones we had placed there last spring between the vegetable rows to clear the way for his tiller. As I lifted two or three stones, I squealed like a little girl and ran. Guess what I found underneath those stones? Uh huh! Fire ants and a lot of their eggs and tunnels. They immediately went into action. And, yes! I did the fire ant stomp once again and got out of their way. It didn't take them long to go into hyper-drive and cart those little embryos out of harms way. In just minutes there was not a little white egg to be seen. Then I doused them with a healthy (for us) sprinkling of Sevin dust before my mate was tilling away without disturbance. A little later I found a stray ant or two doin' their thing. One made it to my chest, close to my pacemaker and the other got me on the back of my neck. I still have a hard knot on the back of my neck, but I managed to dislodge the one on my chest before much damage was done.
Oh, and another thing I found rather interesting: Under the second row of paving stones I discovered more ant tunnels and ants, but these were the tiny little black ants we used to find in our kitchen--the ones that love to get into sugar and oil. I was really surprised to find them such extremely close neighbors to the fire ants. Do you suppose they have some kind of symbiotic relationship? I don't know if that's such a good thing. It disturbs me to think about it.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
They're Evil!
Well, maybe NOT evil altogether . . . I'm talking Rice Krispie Treats here. I don't make them very often because, well, I'm addicted to them. I can handle my addiction pretty well, too. As long as I'm not within 50 yards of homemade rice krispie treats that are made with extra butter and marshmallows.
Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll . . . today I needed to spend some special time--just grandma and Blue Eyes time--with the 5 year-old grandson. The one who LOVES to cook and help in the kitchen. I was toying with the idea of making the Evil Things after finding an extra bag of mini-marshmallows and seeing that we had two large boxes of rice krispies as well. But, I thought . . . I'm considering buying a bathing suit for the first time in about 20 years. And even though I lost a bunch of weight and went down a size or two a while back--and even though, or especially because the scales have recently started intimating that some of the previously lost weight is beginning to sneak back into residence where it's most unwanted and unnecessary, I'll be strong and NOT muddle things up by making the Evil Things!
I was feeling pretty good about that very positive decision to be strong and unyielding to the terrific temptation tantalizing as it was . . . UNTIL . . . my daughter said something to the effect of: "You know when you were thinking of what you could do with Blue Eyes today after school? You could let him help you make Rice Krispie Treats, couldn't you?" Dang!!!! When someone else has the same idea I do, I kind of figure it's a positive thing.
Well, it was, for my precious grandson who's been having a bit of a rough go with a variety of challenges lately, so he needed something fun and positive to do. It seemed that he had a great time helping me through all the steps of making those blasted treats.
I have to admit I regret every bite I've enjoyed so far. I just try to NOT look down at my bulging middle that will look pretty ridiculous in some of those bathing suits I've contemplated purchasing in the near future.
Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll . . . today I needed to spend some special time--just grandma and Blue Eyes time--with the 5 year-old grandson. The one who LOVES to cook and help in the kitchen. I was toying with the idea of making the Evil Things after finding an extra bag of mini-marshmallows and seeing that we had two large boxes of rice krispies as well. But, I thought . . . I'm considering buying a bathing suit for the first time in about 20 years. And even though I lost a bunch of weight and went down a size or two a while back--and even though, or especially because the scales have recently started intimating that some of the previously lost weight is beginning to sneak back into residence where it's most unwanted and unnecessary, I'll be strong and NOT muddle things up by making the Evil Things!
I was feeling pretty good about that very positive decision to be strong and unyielding to the terrific temptation tantalizing as it was . . . UNTIL . . . my daughter said something to the effect of: "You know when you were thinking of what you could do with Blue Eyes today after school? You could let him help you make Rice Krispie Treats, couldn't you?" Dang!!!! When someone else has the same idea I do, I kind of figure it's a positive thing.
Well, it was, for my precious grandson who's been having a bit of a rough go with a variety of challenges lately, so he needed something fun and positive to do. It seemed that he had a great time helping me through all the steps of making those blasted treats.
I have to admit I regret every bite I've enjoyed so far. I just try to NOT look down at my bulging middle that will look pretty ridiculous in some of those bathing suits I've contemplated purchasing in the near future.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Fort Jesup, Louisiana
Our family went to Fort Jesup this past Saturday. It was a beautiful day to be outside. This fort is now part of the Louisiana State Park system as a State Historic Site. There are a couple of others that I know about in the area: Los Adaes, a Spanish fort built in 1700s (and at one time the capitol of Texas), and Fort St. Jean Baptiste, a French fort built in 1716. I have visited each of them at least once and found them very interesting. I can't help but love history.
Borrowing from one of the brochures (published by the State of Louisiana, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Office of State Parks) I picked up last weekend I'll quote some of the data therein:
"When the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 1803 failed to clearly define the western boundary of Louisiana, which was also the western border of the country at that time, the United Stated claimed eastern Texas and Spain claimed western Louisiana. The ensuing dispute gave rise to the 'Neutral Ground,' an area where the laws of neither nation were enforced. Soldiers and settlers were kept out and rouges of various stripes ruled the region. After the territorial boundary was finally fixed at the Sabine River by the Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819, the United States built Fort Jesup in 1822."
According to the information I have on hand and what we were told this past Saturday when the family went for "Settler's Day, there is only one original building still on site--the kitchen/mess hall. (I think about 80 buildings made up the fort in its prime.) There was a young lady (in period costume) actually cooking inside that kitchen on an open fire while explaining the chores of feeding the soldiers at that time. She was very informative in explaining how it all was done. The cook would feed the men in groups of 25 at a time, which sounded like the cook would have been working several hours just for breakfast and then several more for the noon meal and, well, supper? (Please see pictures 4 and 5 below that show a little girl holding a lizard she was thrilled with catching in the woodpile next to the kitchen steps.) I wasn't able to stay through the whole discourse because: a. the smoke was getting to me, and b. the grandkids were running amok. Or actually, Little Britches was pretty much running amok and I needed to catch him and ride herd on him.
The reconstructed Officers Quarters (pictures above) was built sometime after 1961, I think. According to the same brochure quoted above, "This building was reconstructed with the assistance of historians from the Army Quartermaster General's Office and the National Trust for Historic Preservation." (It reminds me very much of a similar building in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, that I saw about 35 years ago.)
I love history, and since I was raised as a Army brat, it has more interest for me. The fort was abandoned in 1846, but for a time it was the western-most US military post in the country.
Some of what we saw while at the Fort:
Borrowing from one of the brochures (published by the State of Louisiana, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Office of State Parks) I picked up last weekend I'll quote some of the data therein:
"When the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 1803 failed to clearly define the western boundary of Louisiana, which was also the western border of the country at that time, the United Stated claimed eastern Texas and Spain claimed western Louisiana. The ensuing dispute gave rise to the 'Neutral Ground,' an area where the laws of neither nation were enforced. Soldiers and settlers were kept out and rouges of various stripes ruled the region. After the territorial boundary was finally fixed at the Sabine River by the Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819, the United States built Fort Jesup in 1822."
According to the information I have on hand and what we were told this past Saturday when the family went for "Settler's Day, there is only one original building still on site--the kitchen/mess hall. (I think about 80 buildings made up the fort in its prime.) There was a young lady (in period costume) actually cooking inside that kitchen on an open fire while explaining the chores of feeding the soldiers at that time. She was very informative in explaining how it all was done. The cook would feed the men in groups of 25 at a time, which sounded like the cook would have been working several hours just for breakfast and then several more for the noon meal and, well, supper? (Please see pictures 4 and 5 below that show a little girl holding a lizard she was thrilled with catching in the woodpile next to the kitchen steps.) I wasn't able to stay through the whole discourse because: a. the smoke was getting to me, and b. the grandkids were running amok. Or actually, Little Britches was pretty much running amok and I needed to catch him and ride herd on him.
The reconstructed Officers Quarters (pictures above) was built sometime after 1961, I think. According to the same brochure quoted above, "This building was reconstructed with the assistance of historians from the Army Quartermaster General's Office and the National Trust for Historic Preservation." (It reminds me very much of a similar building in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, that I saw about 35 years ago.)
I love history, and since I was raised as a Army brat, it has more interest for me. The fort was abandoned in 1846, but for a time it was the western-most US military post in the country.
Some of what we saw while at the Fort:
The back steps of the kitchen are backdrop for the display of wildlife captured by Miss Noodle.
She found keeping the hoop rolling was not as easy as she first thought, but did catch on pretty well.
Little Britches inspecting some old plows. We talked about hitching mules to pull the plows, but I don't think he caught the concept!
Some period tools.
This guy in costume demonstrated how they started fires with flint. It was really cool to see it done!
The young lady in black shirt is my daughter. The guy demonstrating this old black powder rifle and she used to work at the same grocery store once long ago . . . He's wearing a period Army uniform.
Blue Eyes was quite excited to try out the stocks. We did try to explain how they really weren't all that fun for folks who actually were punished in those contraptions.
These guys demonstrated black powder guns in action! I know the young man in the Army uniform said he actually hunts with his own gun of that old vintage--though not an antique.
The grandkids want to return to Fort Jesup. I think we bigger kids do, too! Not to mention visiting the other two historical sites mentioned above!
Today--Pecan Pie and Scrambled Eggs for Breakfast
Not me!!!! But, yes. My daughter who just celebrated another birthday yesterday, who "won" a pecan pie at our Relief Society Birthday party (Relief Society was founded on 17 March 1842, actually for the women of the Church), decided that since she had a mid-term test this morning and needed extra "brain power", and since she informed me that brains are fueled only by sugar (I suppose you could look it up if you/re so inclined) she indulged herself with scrambled eggs and pecan pie for breakfast. "Mom, this pie is DELICIOUS! I'm so glad I won this last night!" As it was her birthday yesterday, I'm sure it was only right that she "win" the big prize.
I should have taken her picture as she ate, but I was in need of some brain fuel myself, so I can't share her smile of satisfaction as she consumed the treasured prize.
If I were going to eat pie for breakfast--and don't think that I haven't!--it would most definitely be apple pie for me. Or as it was once upon a time, Litzas Pizza's Canadian Bacon and Mushroom pizza pie. (That was what it was called back in olden times. Pizza Pie.) Cold. Yep. Cold. It was so good I think I walked a mile, since I didn't own a vehicle, to buy a large pizza so I could eat leftovers it was so good! (I was living alone in Salt Lake City shortly after graduating from high school and walked everywhere! I was in much better shape then than now, too!)
Any way, IF you were to eat pie for breakfast, what kind of pie would you eat?
I should have taken her picture as she ate, but I was in need of some brain fuel myself, so I can't share her smile of satisfaction as she consumed the treasured prize.
If I were going to eat pie for breakfast--and don't think that I haven't!--it would most definitely be apple pie for me. Or as it was once upon a time, Litzas Pizza's Canadian Bacon and Mushroom pizza pie. (That was what it was called back in olden times. Pizza Pie.) Cold. Yep. Cold. It was so good I think I walked a mile, since I didn't own a vehicle, to buy a large pizza so I could eat leftovers it was so good! (I was living alone in Salt Lake City shortly after graduating from high school and walked everywhere! I was in much better shape then than now, too!)
Any way, IF you were to eat pie for breakfast, what kind of pie would you eat?
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