USMB Coffee Shop IV

[Foxfyre]

Just had crock pot beef stew with made from scratch biscuits.......... It was really, really bad for us but it was really, really good.......

We're having left over bbq ribs and meat balls. Also not all that good for us but really really good.

 

[Big Black Dog]

I had SOS for supper tonight. All of you military folks will know what that is. Mrs. BBD made it for me. Love it. Somehow SOS got some bad press along the way...

 

[gallantwarrior]

I'm winding up a few days with my SIL. He had a couple of days off between schools (military) and came up here. He's spent some time with his mother, but he was (diplomatically) pleased to come up to the cabin and hang out, shoot rifles, play cribbage, and...well, drink a bit of filtered water. I'll be taking him with me to work tonight for a "ride along" until it is time to drop him off to catch his flight South. I have gained some greater understanding of how modern soldiers view their jobs and their world. The SIL even got along with my partner. They aren't that much different, they just never took the time to communicate before.
Winter is here in full force. We had our first snowfall last week and it's been a tittybitnipply outside. I'm currently trying to convince myself that I really do need to drag my butt outside and get the chores done. Oh, well, there is no one else, is there.
Best to all of you, special thoughts for Ollie.

Maybe Alaska is in for a fairly normal winter this year? I'm afraid we in the southwest are not as it is just not cooling down this year like it is supposed to.

Define "normal"? So far, relatively little snow but the temps are pretty much normal. Since the partner is able to spend lots more time in Willow, we are testing to see whether our theory about using the propane heater to keep the place above freezing and using the wood burner to heat it up to livable temps will work.

 

[Ringel05]

I had SOS for supper tonight. All of you military folks will know what that is. Mrs. BBD made it for me. Love it. Somehow SOS got some bad press along the way...

Chipped or creamed beef? I prefer the creamed style it's not as salty.

 

[Big Black Dog]

Mrs. BBD made it with creamed beef. Good stuff. I like it both ways though.

 

[Foxfyre]

Mrs. BBD made it with creamed beef. Good stuff. I like it both ways though.

I've never been in tjhe service--Hombre has--but I'm one of the folks on the planet who really likes creamed beef. So it sounds good to me.

 

[Foxfyre]

Good night darlinks. I really do love you guys. Wondering where Mr. and Mrs. Gracie are tonight.

And we continue to pray and/or send good vibes and/or keep vigil for:

Harper (Save's granddaughter),
Pogo’s friend Pat and special comfort for Pogo,
Freedombecki and Becki’s hubby,
GW's daughter, her friend Sachendra, and Sachendra's husband Bob and son Gary.
Noomi!!!
Nosmo's mom,
Ernie's stop smoking project,
Sherry’s Mom,
Rod, GW's partner,
The Ringels in difficult transition,
Kat, Mr. Kat and Kat's mom,
Boedicca's Dad,
Foxfyre's friend Dana and Aunt Betty,
Imperius,
Gracie and Mr. Gracie in a difficult transition,
Mrs. O and SFC Ollie,
All of us and those we care about who are looking for work,

And the light is left on for Alan, Noomi, Freedombecki, Oddball, Spoonman, and all the others who we miss and hope to return.

 

[Kat]

Good night darlinks. I really do love you guys. Wondering where Mr. and Mrs. Gracie are tonight.

And we continue to pray and/or send good vibes and/or keep vigil for:

Harper (Save's granddaughter),
Pogo’s friend Pat and special comfort for Pogo,
Freedombecki and Becki’s hubby,
GW's daughter, her friend Sachendra, and Sachendra's husband Bob and son Gary.
Noomi!!!
Nosmo's mom,
Ernie's stop smoking project,
Sherry’s Mom,
Rod, GW's partner,
The Ringels in difficult transition,
Kat, Mr. Kat and Kat's mom,
Boedicca's Dad,
Foxfyre's friend Dana and Aunt Betty,
Imperius,
Gracie and Mr. Gracie in a difficult transition,
Mrs. O and SFC Ollie,
All of us and those we care about who are looking for work,

And the light is left on for Alan, Noomi, Freedombecki, Oddball, Spoonman, and all the others who we miss and hope to return.

Love that!

 

[Ernie S.]

4:10 AM and I'm an hour or 2 from going to bed. Halloween party Saturday, and once again, yours truly has been entrusted with 40 pounds of Boston butt. It went into the smoker at 2 PM and came out just after 3 AM and has been in the oven for about an hour. It should be closing in on an internal temperature of 195 about 5:30

.
Once it has, I get to pull it apart and package it so it can rest a day

 

[SixFoot]

So far as USMB is concerned, I believe that we need this Coffee Shop more than ever. I've been on this board since the end of August 2009. There have been a couple of midterm elections as well as a Presidential election since then. I always enjoyed engaging in a good, civil debate with others. But this year I see the posts and topics out there they way a glistening turd circles a toilet bowl as it is flushed away. The more vile, juvenile, obnoxious and boorish some folks are, the more they're celebrated.

But here in the Coffee Shop, one has the opportunity to have stimulating conversations and a gracious exchange of ideas. Granted, our conversations are not as weighty as a Presidential election, but elections isn't the stuff life is made of. Recipes and household tips and how our families are getting along, or not getting along. That is the stuff of actual life.

We humans are naturally social beings. We are not solitary like badgers or sharks. We need to be with our own kind and interact with them. That's how we learn and get a shot at experiencing things we might not otherwise get to experience.

I'm doing all this navel gazing after trying in vain to make some points out there on the wide wild world of USMB. This post is just a way of taking a break, putting my feet up and relaxing. I'm thankful that I can get away with telling a few stories, reading even more and never ever being called a vile name due to my politics.

Foxy, Good call! Creating this thread was like crafting a lifeboat big enough and seaworthy enough to save souls in peril on the sea of the 2016 Presidential election!

I dream of a world where everyone stays the hell off my lawn...

 

[Ernie S.]

6:30 AM. It's in the fridge and damn! It's delicious!

 

[OldLady]

Squirrels!?! They are thick as Donald Trump's hair in Thompson Park! Daisy has been having the runs of a lifetime, chasing the Brown and Black squirrels back up into the trees where they belong! The Great White Hunter snaps a bead on a squirrel or a chipmunk and as they say at the Pittsburgh Penguins games, "Katy! Bar the door!"

She gets the squirrel up the tree then she dances on her hind legs around the base of the trunk. Meanwhile, Rocky is scampering around the trunk, but only three feet off the ground. He hangs there, spiraling around the tree trunk chattering away like a gossip in a beauty parlor.

Where I went to school, Columbus, Ohio the campus was clogged with students and gray squirrels. My brother went to Kent State University where all the campus squirrels are black. Here they are light brown with a gold or white belly. The residents of the building my office is located have been feeding a squirrel out on the lawn. The damn thing I said the size of a loaf of bread!

I had a garden apartment once in a city neighborhood with LOTS of gray squirrels. I bought the bestest anti-squirrel bird feeder available, with a weight-sensitive perch. Heavy birds and critters like squirrels would close the opening if they got on the perch. So the squirrels figured out they could climb up the side of the house and bat the feeder back and forth so seed would spill onto the ground.
My next move was to offer squirrels their own goodies in hopes they'd leave the bird feeder alone. I hung a squirrel feeder in a tree as far from the feeder as possible and put dried corn cobs on it. For a day or two, it had plenty of traffic while squirrels nibbled the corn off the cob. Then I watched as a squirrel dragged the entire cob across the road, spike and all. Finally,
I just bought extra bird seed.

LOL. Ditto for us up on the mountain. It was just simpler.

You aren't in Great Britain are you? I once watched a mini documentary of a British lady who was committed to devising a way to feed the birds and foil the squirrel. She built one after another elaborate systems that would deter the squirrel for a few hours, but sooner or later he would figure it out. I think in the animal kingdom they must be among the more brilliant of creatures.

We do get pretty zany about feeding the birds, don't we? My mom had it in her head that she only wanted to feed the little birds. She'd be rapping on the window and shooing off blue jays and doves. Only wanted the chickadees and wrens.
We don't seem to have a lot of grey squirrels around my house. Something must be eating them.

I still remember the year I set up a bird feeding station for ravens and eagles. I put the bones and offal from a moose I shot out in the front yard. We had hours of entertainment watching the birds feed...oh, wait...Alaska is different. Sowwy!

Not different at all. Moose and eagles and hawks share our space here, too. Did the eagles share? I was recently surprised to see two eagles eating a dead critter that had been hit on the side of the road. It occurred to me I'd never seen two feeding together. Maybe one was a juvenile.

 

[OldLady]

So far as USMB is concerned, I believe that we need this Coffee Shop more than ever. I've been on this board since the end of August 2009. There have been a couple of midterm elections as well as a Presidential election since then. I always enjoyed engaging in a good, civil debate with others. But this year I see the posts and topics out there they way a glistening turd circles a toilet bowl as it is flushed away. The more vile, juvenile, obnoxious and boorish some folks are, the more they're celebrated.

But here in the Coffee Shop, one has the opportunity to have stimulating conversations and a gracious exchange of ideas. Granted, our conversations are not as weighty as a Presidential election, but elections isn't the stuff life is made of. Recipes and household tips and how our families are getting along, or not getting along. That is the stuff of actual life.

We humans are naturally social beings. We are not solitary like badgers or sharks. We need to be with our own kind and interact with them. That's how we learn and get a shot at experiencing things we might not otherwise get to experience.

I'm doing all this navel gazing after trying in vain to make some points out there on the wide wild world of USMB. This post is just a way of taking a break, putting my feet up and relaxing. I'm thankful that I can get away with telling a few stories, reading even more and never ever being called a vile name due to my politics.

Foxy, Good call! Creating this thread was like crafting a lifeboat big enough and seaworthy enough to save souls in peril on the sea of the 2016 Presidential election!

I dream of a world where everyone stays the hell off my lawn...

Much more achievable than world peace....good for you!

 

[ChrisL]

 

[ChrisL]

6:30 AM. It's in the fridge and damn! It's delicious!

I'm so jealous of your butt!

 

[Ringel05]

By the way, those biscuits I made are the best I've ever made, the lightest and most flaky, the only two things I did different was not use a mix (like Bisquick or Pioneer Brand) and instead of shortening I used lard. Researching lard gives some mixed heath results but in most scientific studies it appears to be better for us than using shortening and lard is cheaper.

 

[blackhawk]

The it's Friday dance.

 

[Foxfyre]

Squirrels!?! They are thick as Donald Trump's hair in Thompson Park! Daisy has been having the runs of a lifetime, chasing the Brown and Black squirrels back up into the trees where they belong! The Great White Hunter snaps a bead on a squirrel or a chipmunk and as they say at the Pittsburgh Penguins games, "Katy! Bar the door!"

She gets the squirrel up the tree then she dances on her hind legs around the base of the trunk. Meanwhile, Rocky is scampering around the trunk, but only three feet off the ground. He hangs there, spiraling around the tree trunk chattering away like a gossip in a beauty parlor.

Where I went to school, Columbus, Ohio the campus was clogged with students and gray squirrels. My brother went to Kent State University where all the campus squirrels are black. Here they are light brown with a gold or white belly. The residents of the building my office is located have been feeding a squirrel out on the lawn. The damn thing I said the size of a loaf of bread!

I had a garden apartment once in a city neighborhood with LOTS of gray squirrels. I bought the bestest anti-squirrel bird feeder available, with a weight-sensitive perch. Heavy birds and critters like squirrels would close the opening if they got on the perch. So the squirrels figured out they could climb up the side of the house and bat the feeder back and forth so seed would spill onto the ground.
My next move was to offer squirrels their own goodies in hopes they'd leave the bird feeder alone. I hung a squirrel feeder in a tree as far from the feeder as possible and put dried corn cobs on it. For a day or two, it had plenty of traffic while squirrels nibbled the corn off the cob. Then I watched as a squirrel dragged the entire cob across the road, spike and all. Finally,
I just bought extra bird seed.

LOL. Ditto for us up on the mountain. It was just simpler.

You aren't in Great Britain are you? I once watched a mini documentary of a British lady who was committed to devising a way to feed the birds and foil the squirrel. She built one after another elaborate systems that would deter the squirrel for a few hours, but sooner or later he would figure it out. I think in the animal kingdom they must be among the more brilliant of creatures.

We do get pretty zany about feeding the birds, don't we? My mom had it in her head that she only wanted to feed the little birds. She'd be rapping on the window and shooing off blue jays and doves. Only wanted the chickadees and wrens.
We don't seem to have a lot of grey squirrels around my house. Something must be eating them.

I still remember the year I set up a bird feeding station for ravens and eagles. I put the bones and offal from a moose I shot out in the front yard. We had hours of entertainment watching the birds feed...oh, wait...Alaska is different. Sowwy!

Not different at all. Moose and eagles and hawks share our space here, too. Did the eagles share? I was recently surprised to see two eagles eating a dead critter that had been hit on the side of the road. It occurred to me I'd never seen two feeding together. Maybe one was a juvenile.

`I don't know. We had golden eagles up on the mountain and they traveled in inseparable pairs--I presume mates. They did not visit our feeders or suet stations though, at least I didn't see them if they did. But it was funny sometimes when we would not bother to go down the deck steps to the feeders, we would sometimes just put the crumbs and scraps on the back of the deck. We would have a pretty good collections of grosbeaks, jays, doves, etc. out there when the shadow of the golden eagle passed over the deck. And in unison all those birds flattened themselves on the deck for a bit--trying to become invisible to the hunters.

 

[Foxfyre]

By the way, those biscuits I made are the best I've ever made, the lightest and most flaky, the only two things I did different was not use a mix (like Bisquick or Pioneer Brand) and instead of shortening I used lard. Researching lard gives some mixed heath results but in most scientific studies it appears to be better for us than using shortening and lard is cheaper.

They sound wonderful. And yes, lard does things for baked goods that shortening just can't do.

 

[Foxfyre]

6:30 AM. It's in the fridge and damn! It's delicious!

I'm so jealous of your butt!

Hey Chris, before I got up this morning, Fox News was showing lots of photos of snow in Massachusetts. Did you get some of that?