Cappy & Pegody's World

BBQin' A Ham

2012-01-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

Peggy and I took a pork shoulder outa the freezer the other day. We injected it with a home- made marinade of butter, beer, Cajun seasoning, garlic juice and cane syrup. The next day Peg scored the skin while I mixed up a rub of one part Cajun seasoning and 2 parts light brown sugar.

We put it on the pit and smoked it for over 6 hours.

When it was done I tried to get it back into the house to take a pretty finished product picture, but I couldn't fend off the samplers, and a couple snitches got taken off from the pit to the kitchen.

Oh, and incase you are wondering it was every bit as yummy as it looks.

The One That Got Away But Didn't

2011-09-05T19:06:00.004-05:00

While at work last hitch, we pulled up and tied up next to one of our other company boats to stand by for dock space.The dock where we discharge the oil that we pick up, was occupied by a big river boat and he was gonna be there for awhile, so we settled in to wait him out and do some catfishin'. When I stepped out of the wheelhouse, a friend of mine on the other boat hollared at me, "Cap, I thought you said there was some nice catfish here??" "There is!", I replied, "ya just gotta know how to catch 'em", I taunted. "Give me some time to catch up my paperwork and I will show ya how it's done", I hollared. I had checked my GPS a few minutes ago and knew it said prime fishing time on a 'good day' was 2 hours away. As I sat there doing my paperwork and thawing out some chicken livers for bait, I worried that maybe I shouldna bragged so much or ribbed him so hard, but I figured either I'd strike out or catch something, and either way it would be fun. At 1 p.m., the appointed time, I stepped outa the galley door and headed for the stern with a bag of recently thawed bait. I had a handline wrapped around a Gatorade bottle, so I baited it up. The line is 120 lb tar-dippped nylon, and for weight I had 4-1and 1/4inch flange nuts. I baited the 2 #4 stainless steel hooks and let the line freefall into the water towards the bottom. It went down about 20 feet astern, about 20 feet deep 'til I felt it hit bottom. I sat on a 5 gallon bucket, held the line in my fingers and waited, and waited, and waited some more. After 15 minutes without a bite I was scared I had bragged too much, and after another 5 minutes I began to pray, "Lord", I said quietly, "I know Ya have a soft spot in Ya heart for fishermen. Heck, some of 'em were Ya own disciples. That joke Ya pulled on them the time Ya told them they were fishin' on the wrong side of the boat was priceless, Lord, I thought, and then that time Ya went walking out to them that night on the water, actin' like you were gonna walk right on by them had to be the best practical gag in recorded history. So I know Ya love fishermen and us salty ol' boat trash, too. Well, Ya heard me shoot my mouth off, Lord, and here I sit without a bite. Lord, I promise if I catch a good one I will never tell the story without mentioning that You helped, so pleeeese, Lord, how 'bout a fish so I don't have to take any crap from Terry (my friend on the other boat) cuz I'll never live it down." Well, I barely finished my lil prayer when the line jerked so hard it hurt my shoulder. The line started slowly slipping through my hand as I hollared, "Boys!It's a big one!" I only had like 2 feet of line left when I finally got him stopped fighting hard, but still, it was back and forth for a few minutes as I slowly hauled in the fish, hand over hand. By the angle of the line in the water, I could tell that he was coming up to the surface. When we all saw the size of him thrashing and twisting about 15 feet behind the boat, the whole crew of both boats were watching and hollaring and whooping as I struggled and got him to the boat. As the big fish twisted and thrashed, he wrapped the line around the center of him, and the other hook got caught on the line and wrapped around his middle, like a noose, and now I was really in a bind, trying to pull him in sideways. When I finally got the fish right up to the boat, both of us were tuckered out. Now I had a big problem. I couldn't reach far enough down to grab him, and because the line was around his middle, I couldn't pull him up by his head so's I could grab his jaw. He seemed to have gotten a second wind, so he started jerking around like a strong corkscrew, the crews were hollaring, I was leaning way over the edge of the boat, stretching, when something horrible happened! I had managed to get the noose off from around his middle, and started to lift him up, when the hook came out of his mouth and he was free! Completely unhooked. Pandemonium on both boats ensued as the fish just laid there on his back, panting and slowly floating away in the current. My quick-thinking relief captin grabbed the only thing handly, a deck brush, and managed to pull the fish back to the boat. My long-armed deck hand reached down and got one finger in the fish's gill and lifted him barely high enough, but his finger slipped loose, just as I grabbed the fish's bottom jaw and I held on for dear life. It was quite a struggle, but we managed to lift the fish up onto the boat.

After I caught my breath, I told the Lord, a hearty heartfelt "Thank You", then like any salty ol' sailor, I fillet'd that bad boy, threw his gizzard to the seagulls and invited him in to a fine meal with our crew. We kept his liver for bait and caught a bunch of "seacats" with it but das another 'tail'.

Goin' Bananas

2011-09-05T15:02:00.001-05:00

I got off the boat just in time for Tropical Storm Lee to rain on our parade. Here it is 5 days later and the sun is just beginin' to peep out through the clouds. Last hitch on da boat I kept tellin Peg how I really needed some down time; some "just sit back and chill" time. Well, be careful what ya ask for, 'cause after 5 days and over a foot of rain, I am about going bananas. I can only stand so much recliner time. When Lee finally decided to leave town, the sun was such a welcome sight, that I put on some Crocs and waded out into the yard to have a look around.

From the looks of the banana leaves, we aint wrapping anything in them to bbq any time soon. The wind tattered the leaves into ribbons. Not to worry though; this doesn't seem to hurt them and already new leaves are already shooting up and unfurling. We rescued a nice bunch of bananas that the wind had broken the palm that they were growing on. Peg tied them up on the patio and as they ripen I am already drooling at the thought of her wonderful 'nanner nut bread.

With all the rain, the yard feels like a sponge and looks like a jungle. I can hardly wait 'til it dries up so we can go out and play.

The 2011 Robin Family Annual Jambalaya

2011-08-27T22:32:00.001-05:00

Well, I've taken my sweet time to post about the Family Jambalaya that took place last month. My daughter, Sookie and her guy, David came down from Kentucky for the occasion, and we all had a wonderful time. It was her first family Jambalaya, and it was so nice to have her around to hug whenever I felt like it :-) David pitched in and helped Cappy prep the meat, while Sookie and I, (and then Cappy and David) chopped the veggies that go into the pot. Cappy had me make a pot of white beans to go with the jambalaya, as tradition holds, and I also made my Mom's bbq sauce for the Cajun sausage 'chunks' to swim around in, til they are fished out with toothpicks. I have to say thank you to Sookie and David and our buddy Smokin' Sam, or else Saturday I wouldn't have had anything that I could have to eat. Even with all the luscious foods around, I didn't dare eat anything because of this danged celiac business...grrrrr. So, thanks, guys!
Okay.... I put together three slideshow/videos and stuck them over on youtube, where they've been sitting for three weeks on "cappyandpegody's channel" with about 40 some of our other videos, but I'll try putting the three of these jambalaya videos directly here from the computer onto this blog post. HMMMmmmm....well, I see that I'm still not used to this new format on here, so the videos are all out of order. The first video you should see is now sitting on the bottom...last. The last video, number 3...the Pool Party is sitting here at the top. The middle video, is the middle. It's up to you as to how you want to view them. (pant pant pant)

We got to see a lot of Cappy's family again this year, although there were quite a few missing in action. And they were indeed missed. Ah well, maybe next year. We really did enjoy getting to "hug their necks", as Cappy says, of the ones who were there. I visited with Cousin Cindy's son, Alex, talking about football...New Orleans Saints, of course, and (wow!) right away, I realized I was in way over my head talking to that guy...he could be a sports commentator. He rapidly quotes stats and drafts and...and....and...whoa, I felt like a real dummy, but learned a lot, too! We love dat guy! I got to hold Kolbe, Alex and Lindsey's beautiful baby for about 45 minutes or so, and hadn't realized how much out of practice I'd gotten. I was thrilled when Mary brought him in from the heat outside and handed him to me, but I soon realized his nuck-nuck wasn't satisfying him, no matter what I tried. I breathed in the sweet new baby smell, relishing what a dear little baby boy he is, while bouncing him and rocking him; I just wanted his Mommy and Dad to be able to have a little fun outside visiting family and cooling off in the pool. Wouldn't you know it...just about the time Cappy had the jambalaya all cooked and being plated, poor Kolbe decided he'd had enough of this out of practice grandma and started loudly demanding his mother. She had just gotten the food on her plate and didn't even get a chance to take one bite. Ahhh, yessss...I remember that scenario all too well myself, having had five little ones of my own. I sure miss cuddling babies, and enjoyed holding precious little Kolbe. You can see from the pictures what an adorable little guy he is. When they named him, they hadn't realized that a great grandfather had that same name, but the spelling was different; Colby. There are only two people in the United States with the name spelled Kolbe like our little Sweetie.
I had to laugh about Uncle LeRoy, who had on this particular straw hat, with the price tags still dangling from the back of it. He said he was not trying to imitate Minnie Pearl, but rather was leaving it on, so's to be able to take it back to the store the next day. It was a great running gag all weekend. I thought that it must be pretty darned expensive for him to have to wear it, then return it...but still couldn't fathom that being the story...not for real. Finally, late in the day, I sneaked a peek at the price on that fluttering tag, thinking it would be some HUGE $....then about fell over laughing my butt off when I saw it was only $10!!!! I LOVE that guy! Cappy's uncles remind me of my uncles; they are too much fun.
Uncle Maurice and Aunt Margaret's home, as you can see is very lovely, and we all appreciated their warm hospitality. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes that everyone is not aware of, to host such a big 'to do' like this. Cappy and I are very grateful for all their hard work.
When I made the videos...and any time I make slideshows and/or videos, I like matching the words of the songs to the pictures, if at all possible and love making 'sight gags'. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them for yall.

Cappy's Black Iron Pot Jambalaya

2011-08-01T16:00:00.001-05:00

Folks are always asking for my recipe for my big pot of Cajun-style jambalaya. So, here is a recipe and a few pictures and instructions. Hope this helps.

Recipe:
      Griods
30 lbs of cubed Boston butt pork roast
1-12 cup Cajun seasoning
1/2 cup hot sauce (to taste)
3 Tablespoons Worstershire
1 12oz. beer
            SEASONING
15 lbs of Cajun smoked sausage, sliced
15 lbs of yellow onions, coarsely chopped
6 large bell peppers, chopped
6 bunches of green onion greens, chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped parsley
6 lbs of small button fresh mushrooms (optional, but highly recommended)
15 lbs. of Mahatma long grain rice

                                         Preperation Instructions
Get your Boston butt pork roast thawed out. Peggy and I are always looking for a sale, and our "foodie" friends swap information about sales for this versatile cut of meat. Our friend, "Smokin' Sam" called me on the boat and told me about a big sale just in time for our family reunion.

We cube the pork into slightly larger than bite size pieces. (It shrinks some in the cooking.)

We then mix in the Cajun seasoning, Worstershire, hot sause and beer. Mix thoroughly by hand, and store away to marinate. We put it in a big zip-lock bag and parked in in an ice chest overnight.

These are the "Griods". Then we chop the onions coarsly. I cut onions in half then chop 3 or 4 cuts vertically and horizontally across the onion halves. Slice our sausage into 1/4 inch slices. We do it with a knife, but a meat-slicer makes quick work of this part. We chop and prepare the bell peppers, green onions and parsley, bagging them seperately in zip lock bags and parking them in ice chests. Then we wash our mushrooms, saving the smaller ones whole, and cut the bigger ones in half. The idea is that, the folks who love mushrooms can easily see them in the pot, while people who dislike them, can avoid them while serving themselves and can conveniently discard them if the find any on their plate. This is a great way to make everyone happy.

When we plan on serving around midday, we do all the prep work the night before. The Griods go in one ice chest, the onions and sausage in another, and the greens and "mushies" (mushrooms) in yet another. The whole project is organized in stages, making the whole process easier and well coordinated. If ya cooking for an evening meal, this can all be done by starting in the morning. The prep work, or sous "cheffing" is always a family event and lots of people like to help. It can be an event in itself, and we often have a chopping "party".

COOKING
In a 20 gallon well-greased old black iron pot, dump in your marinated griods.

Enlist the help of an ol' uncle or two, and have them help you cook the griods down until well browned. If it starts to dry out or stick, you may need to deglaze the pot on occasion with water, stock, or the beer ya got in your hand, to keep them from burning, but the pork usually releases enough juices to do the job.

Once the griods have browned over medium heat, remove them from the pot.

Dump in the sausage and onions from the second ice chest into the pot. Stir this over medium heat until the onions are browned and begin to break up.

Once the onions and sausage have "browned down", put the pork chunks, all the veggies and a gallon of water back into the pot. Once this has come back to a hard simmer, cover the pot, then cook for a half hour, stirring occasionally. We skim any grease off the top during this stage, greatly reducing the "heart burn factor". In this picture, you can see some grease collecting towards the top of the mixture. During the 30 -45 minutes that we simmered this, we removed a half gallon of rich, seasoned pork fat from the top of the gravy. Me and my family stood around thinking about how in the old days those drippings would have wound up in a lard bucket on grandma's ole stove and used in all sort of wonderful dishes. It was with many a heavy (high cholesterol'd) hearts that we poured this golden elixer in the trash.

The next step is to add 2 gallons of water and bring the pot to a boil. Once boiling, ya pour in the 15 lbs of rice and cook, stirring often for 5 minutes. (Make sure ya "stay with it"!)

After the rice has boiled for 5 minutes, ya firmly apply the pot lid, turn the fire off and post a guard to make sure no one opens the lid until ya return. (Very important!) Feel free to go take a break for 45 minutes and have a few beers. Inform the guards that anyone that tried lifting the lid on the jambalaya pot runs the risk of assault with the big stainless steel stirring paddle. Once the rice mixture has steamed on its own inside the pot for 45 minutes, remove the lid then dig the paddle deep into the jambalaya, bringing the contents up from the bottom and gently stir in the gravy on top til the whole mixture is consistant. Wait another 5 or 10 minutes til every one has gotten a good whiff and began salivating, then turn them loose on the pot.

We took the lid off at 2 p.m. and by 5 p.m. the pot was empty. Feel free to give it a try and I'm wishing ya the best of luck. Please post us a comment and let us know what ya think, and how yours came out. We will gladly answer any questions and help anyway we can.

Don't Bite More Than You Can Swallow

2011-07-27T16:49:00.005-05:00

I was sittin' on da boat when I noticed a seagull trying to swallow a rather large fish he had plucked out of our wheelwash. I grabbed my camera and got this picture of him struggling with it.

I was surprised when an Egret suddenly swooped into the picture and stole the fish from the seagull.

I watched him struggle with the fish for awhile to get it into swallowing position. Swallowing it wrong is bad news for a birdie. The fins open up and scratch their way down. After some time he finally managed to choke it down.

You can tell by the lump in his throat that it was almost too big for him to swallow. Wonder who was next in line to try; a pelican maybe?

Wild Canaries

2011-07-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

When I was young, I used to see these little yellow birds all over the western Atchafalaya Basin where I grew up. My Grandpa and Dad usta call them wild Canaries. It was a joy to see them flitting through the bushes cheeping at us on early morning fishing trips. It was only much later in life when I learned that they were finches. Nowdays, I see them often in the morning on the boat, in the early morning, while drinking coffee and waiting on the regular morning radio call from the office. This little fella happened to hop into range of my zoom lens (thankfully, before the camera fell hard down onto the deck and broke). These little guys will be, forever in my mind, wild canaries, despite what some learned college professor may say. I can still hear my grandfather whistling little cheeps at them, and them returning the calls as we fished along. A truly golden memory.

A Fish "Tail"

2011-07-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

It was a long, strange ten-week hitch. My relief captain got promoted to captain of another boat and that left us short-handed. My pilot "pulled" 6 weeks and moved into the relief captain's hitch and position. They didn't have anyone to take the pilot slot so I rode over 'til they found someone. I wish I had pictures of the several 5 gallon buckets full of catfish we caught, to show yall, but my camera broke and I didn't get their picture. I wish I had a picture of the monster that got away, but it broke the 80 lb test nylon line we were using, before I could get a picture of his bucket-sized mouth. I wish I could tell yall what a fight this 20 + lb fish (in the picture with some five gallon buckets) gave us on our jug-line, but I can't on accounta da dock man caught it and gave it to us. What I can tell ya about this fish, though, is his flesh filled 3 gallon zip lock bags and it took us a couple weeks to eat him.

Here is part of him after being dipped in my spicy mustard, egg wash, rolled in corn flour and deep fried. Served up River Cajun style with a pot of white beans and rice to keep him company. We also got a redfish that I filleted out and made a sauce piquant with him. Sorry no pictures of that one, as we got him after my camera took an unexpected trip to the deck without me. Well, I'm finally home again and look forwards to playing with Peg for a couple weeks. Next hitch I'll be heading out with a new and better camera. Maybe I can keep this camera from jumping off the dash board and bouncing down the stairs outa the wheelhouse. I'm already shuttering in anticipation of the fishy tales I'll be bringin' back home next time.

Crawfish Bisque, Thank You Very Much.

2011-06-22T17:34:00.004-05:00

Crawfish Bisque. I almost feel as though I have to pinch myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected that an huge pot of it would be sitting in our kitchen, (especially with Cappy away on the boat). I've heard about this mysterious 'dish of the gods', this specialty, labor-of-love-to-make-it pot of wonderous elixer, for years. I've smelled it a couple of times next door at our dear Miss Annie's house. It was bad enough to sit and bathe in the warm tantalizing cloud of it cooking in Miss Annie's kitchen, where she had taken hours and hours to prepare it. She was unaware that it felt like a cruel cut, but she had me bring a dish of it home for Cappy. As Cappy loves to say, "I was drooling so much, I was about drowning in my own spit". I never cry about such occurances any more. I'm used to it. I guess I'm used to it. I kind of file it away in a mental lock box; the fact that I can't have anything that special, being a celiac. Usually, people who are wheat and gluten intollerant find a way to make some kind of substitute or redo the whole recipe. Well, I know that it's very, VERY labor intensive, so who in their right mind, (so I thought), would invest so much time making a big vat of it, because it would have to be some kind of experiment, and who knows how it would turn out in the end after all their efforts? Well, I should have known. Cappy and I keep asking ourselves, over and over, "What in the world did we ever do to be blessed by God with such sweet, dear, loving, giving friends like Sam and Louise??" About a month or so ago they had mentioned that they might give it a try. Now this is is silly, but I about started bawling right there. Even now, ...what a wimp I must be...well, ANYhow. Even tho' they had mentioned it, mentally, I dismissed it, because, as I said, I know from having heard, how expensive and labor intensive it is. See, I say a lot of stuff, but a lot of times, I just don't follow up. A few days ago, they sent me an email asking me about corn flour. Well, that Sam is always cooking up something over there. He has a nice garden, a smokehouse and a pioneer spirit, so I asked him what he was going to cook. I'm telling you, when he said, "Crawfish Bisque", I almost fell out of this very chair I'm sitting in. Surely they weren't going to be cooking any that I could have. Well, (BAW!...I love those guys) yesterday Louise called and asked if I'd like some crawfish bisque. I think I hung up our phone and didn't leave it dangling before I ran out the door to drive across town. I dragged my video camera along and made this video for yall.

Can you believe they went to all the trouble making this, just because of me? It's hard enough to make it the regular way. When I told Cappy how many stuffed crawfish they had given me (...well...us, cuz Louise told me on my way out their door, to, "make sure and save some for Cappy") he was shocked. He said, "that's costly, a lot of hard work, and they were very generous!" Boy, when I sat down to have my dinner last night, didn't I feel like I was somebody. I said Grace and thanked God for our amazing friends....oh, and for the crawfish bisque, too, of course :-9

P.S. When this Blogger changed their format on here, it's kind of hard getting used to it, and thus, has kinda cramped my style. I say this just in case any of our usual readers have noticed and wondered, "Whaaaaa??"

Just Another Any Other Day

2011-06-16T21:33:00.009-05:00

Darn that Cesar Millan guy, that "Dog Whisperer". I try being a good Mom to these dogs. All the other dogs I've ever had appreciated that fact. ONE of the dogs we have now does, too, but ONE of them is a smart-aleck Brat, who trots to the beat of another drummer. When he was a puppy we sent this brat to obedience school. The only reason they let him "graduate" was because we had paid the $80. They weren't fooling anybody; we all know why they "passed" him. "No chow left behind" and apparently no Bichon Frise, either. He won't mind; he never does, but Cappy loves that SparkyBear is a free-thinker and has a free-spirit. He loves that The Brat, as EVERYbody calls him, is a brat. He is smart, I'll give him that. The other day his brother, MarkyBear, the obedient "child" was on his usual quest of tracking down squirrels. Since his successful surgery, he's recovered and has taken to running everywhere he goes, which makes his zeal for squirrel hunting a whole lot more fun. I forget why, but I wanted to get him to come to the house, so I tried whistling the way Cappy does. I'm not good at whistling. SparkyBear was already inside, sitting there watching me whistle. I talk to them all they time and they know a lot of words. "Whistle" is one of them. I told Sparky, "See, I'm trying to whistle". I should have just given up and gone out and hollared for Mark, but I kept trying every way that I knew, to pucker and make a loud shrill sound, with the brat probably thinking, "boy, you don't know anything". Leastwise that seemed to be the look on his face. I heard one of those Mocking Birds, that love to sit anywhere in the yard slightly above MarkyBear and taunt him. So, besides squirrels, Mark will bark and "chase" the birds to safer heights. So, I managed to make loud chirping noises and away came MarkyBear, running toward the house to answer my poor imitation of a Mocking Bird. I looked down at SparkyBear and said, "See, I did a bird whistle". He got it...he knows both those words...his ears went up, he jumped up and started doing his biggest dog "laugh". He thought it was funny. (Come on, you've heard how dogs laugh, right?) Well, that story might have been lost on you, but anyway, I've tried everything that I know of, to make him understand how to be well-behaved. It's never gone well. That's why, amongst other things, I resorted to watching "The Dog Whisperer". I needed to learn a few new tricks. I tried a lot of stuff on the Brat and none of them worked. When he's really mad, for instance,....trying to think about why he's been mad in the past. When he does get mad, tho', he's got a bad temper. Not often, but it happens. So, once when he was really upset about something and growling; showing me who was boss when his Dad is away, out on the boat. I said, "Oh no you aren't! Here ya go, Mister", I grabbed him, laid him down on his back and held him there, waiting for him to finally give up that deep breath of resignation, as I'd seen Cesar do dozens of times. I knew he had to wait for quite awhile sometimes before those dogs would 'give up'. I waited and waited. My arms were getting tired. He just laid there rigid, glaring up at me and sometimes growling. I tried talking to him soothingly. I said, "I'm getting tired, here, you've gotta give up; I'm the boss, not you....honey". "Grrrrrr". "Okayyyyy, just relax and Mommy will let you up." "Grrrrr". So I wait. And wait. And wait some more and wait lots more...twenty minutes, by the clock. He started to doze, but he'd wake up and growl some more. Finally, after half an hour, I gave up. The brat had won and he knew it. He still thinks he's the boss of me, I guess.

Another thing I learned on "Dog Whisperer" that does...kinda/sorta does work. It works for SparkyBear and MarkyBear, but it's mostly the Brat who pulls this. I learned that if a dog gets ahold of something very important that you don't want him to have, you can bargain with him. "Trade" it for something he likes, like a treat. When he drops your valuable item, give him his 'treat'. It works! Of course, the Brat won't drop what he has until I drop what I have for him. He insists, "You first".

Ok, so now he's got another number up his sleeve. He peruses the house looking for things I've left laying around, or which he can jump up and reach. Anything like that, he considers fair game. He gets this mischievious look on his furry face, and stands ready to run away with it, if I start after him for it. If I yell, "HEY! You're not supposed to have that!!!", he either runs under the bed with it, where I can't get him or out the back door with it. He usually pulls this when I'm otherwise occupied, like writing or cooking, etc. Sighhh...it's just easier and quicker to give in. Once I left my art box open and he thought he'd hit the mother lode. I was in the kitchen, hands all goopy, when he trotted out one of my special gold paint markers. (YOW!) "Ok...ok..."as sweetly as I could, so he wouldn't know the value of what he had, I asked, "You wanna trade for a treat??" He took a couple cautious steps forward, kinda biting it. (I envisioned gold paint gushing everywhere, even into his mouth, and I don't know if it's toxic...not more vet bills!) I rushed and grabbed dog treats, "Here...HERE ya go!!" all as merrily as I could fake it. And it worked again. MarkyBear, the good boy, always lumbers by at that point and asks where his treat is. So he gets a treat, too. I resumed whatever it was I was deeply engrossed in before, when a few minutes later SparkyBear appeared with that devilish attitude and a red plastic puff paint bottle in his mouth. "What??? Where are you getting these things?!" Then, too late, I remembered I had left the darned art box on the futon, opened. While he and Mark were snarking down their second treat, I put the box high up in the cupboard over the computer desk.

I have to keep the bathroom waste basket up on the back of the toilet because if it's left on the floor, as in normal homes, he'll ferret through that, shredding empty cardboard toilet paper rolls or tissues...whatever. Always wanting to 'trade', of course. He used to bring me whole pieces of paper or cards that he'd found. Now, I have to be extra careful, because of late, he'll come into the computer room, for example, looking like a bunny with big white buck teeth, which is, in reality, a shred of white paper hanging out of his mouth, ready-to-run bratty attitude, 'asking', "What can I get for this?" I always think, "I know what I'd like to give you for that", but being a NICE dog Mom, and knowing better, I just sigh, and ask him if he wants to 'trade', which is the whole deal anyhow. Somehow he's figured that by shredding the whole card or paper, he's got more currency to 'deal' or bargain with. Horrible dog. HORRIBLE dog, I tell him. Whenever I see or, now I listen to hear if he's shredding anything, I run to make a quick trade, because it might be something important that I've foolishly left down. ONE treat for that. I've learned to always honor their deals, tho', thinking that it's the right thing to do. How do I stop now and go back to finding pencils or pens shredded, or a credit card snatched while I'm cleaning out my purse? (which Cappy sez never happens...cleaning out my purse :-P) Or who knows what kind of calamity would happen? So whenever he comes in with something and that look that says, "What can I get for this", it's a quick treat, period, so I can have some kind of quick resolution and it makes the dogs happy; whatever. Well, now I know I'm in trouble; I'm in over my head. Yesterday The Brat came in the house with a blade of grass hanging out of his mouth. Now the whole world is his oyster. "Trumped" by a dawg.

Water Works

2011-06-05T11:45:00.003-05:00

Well, all seems calm, all seems bright. It's strange, tho'; our town hasn't had rain in two months! Usually, we're 'makin' bayous; rain, rain, rain. One day last week, the radar even showed that we were getting some "per-sipper-tay-shun", but we didn't even get one drop. I don't understand it. Our lawn still needs mowing once a week or so, but I have to water the garden or it dries out. I'm getting some nice green beans, okra, a few cukes and assorted peppers, not to mention strawberries. From the last few posts, you know that the Mississippi River, right near us, is pretty full. Yesterday there were flood warnings right across the river from us. I know it's high, but I'm told, by Cappy, that the other side of the river's banks are lower than ours, so that if the banks were to overflow, it would be on the other side first, and not ours. I haven't heard anything more, but, to me, from that report, it almost sounded as though water was, indeed going over the banks.(but I doubt it)-----The other day Louise and I went for a ride and saw for ourselves, the Bonnet Carre` Spillway full of water that's been diverted from the River just before it gets to New Orleans, to keep the City from flooding. I was surprised to see how high the water was rushing and swirling around the tall trees. Like with the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge, the idea is to have an unihabited area for the very purpose of, in case of potential flooding, that the water could be siphoned off the Mississippi River, so to speak and have a place to go. In the case of the Bonnet Carre` Spillway, the water is rushing into the big Lake Pontchartrain. Because of the extreme drought conditions here in South Louisiana, the water table has been very low, so that when the water was released into the flood plain north of Baton Rouge, instead of the terrible flooding predicted by the national news media, the water came back up to where it normally would have been, if we'd had the rain that we ususally get. No tragic harm done. The spillways did a great job. Mission accomplished.-----Even though so much water has been diverted from the River, it's still very high. I can't even fathom how much damage would have been done, had they not opened the spillways. The other day Louise and I made another trip, but this time it was to take a few supplies to Cappy, who is still way down at the bottom of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans. Usually the water is low, so that only the top masts of the ships can be seen, because they are nestled down between the levees. Now, with the water being so high, the ships can be seen in entirety, as they skim along on top of the very high and fast flowing rush and look as though they could come steaming right over the top of the levees and on down onto the road to 'greet' us.
----Well, we did get greeted when we got the "Chevy to the levee" and brought a bunch of goodies to Cappy and his crew, who were out there on the water, "doin' their job".

Weight and Sea, Buttercup

2011-05-22T15:51:00.022-05:00

So far all's well...so far. Drove my Chevy to the Levee (last week), but the levee was dry. And yesterday some people musta been drinkin' whiskey and rye sayin' "This'll be the day that I die". May 21, 2011, when there was no "end of the world" earthquake or "The Rapture". I'm sure it will happen sometime, but not yesterday. So. What a week, izzall I can say. I guess we should all just keep on keepin' on...what other choice do we have? Live EACH day like it's the last. Yesterday, I thought to myself, if this was indeed my last day, what should I be doing? And I sez to myself; "nothing different than any other day". I love the Lord and try to live and enjoy every single day he's given me, and continue the running conversation I have with Him most all day long, as usual. One thing I need to change, tho', is how I take care of the 'temple' he's given me to 'ride around in' in this world. Leastwise that's how I look at it. Ever since I was burned and temporarily died when I was four years old, I'm more keenly aware that my spirit is not my body. My spirit recognized Jesus, when I died, and was swept up into His presence. My body was left lying in the hospital bed. At some point, I'll relate the whole experience, but not just now. It was....well, more than amazing, but then He said I had to come back. A tale I can hardly ever tell without puddling up.-----And now, as I look at the 'vessel'...the container for my soul til That Day that I get to go back to be with Him, ...as I look at how badly I've taken care of it, I get very disgusted with myself. I know I'm not the only one with this problem. Indulgence; neglect. The bane of our society. I've tried and tried and given up and given up. I dunno, I think I'll try again. It's a lot of weight to try to shed in my sedentary life over here. Yesterday Louise came over and I got on my Wii. We had a nice visit, and I'm hoping she'll come over again, so we can play on the silly thing. I do great when Cappy's on the boat, but when he comes home....and I don't why, but all bets are off. We just have way too much fun doing other things, and that usually includes ...like...the BEST food ever. We both love to cook for each other. We are in the midst of a duck showdown. I went first. (It was so-so) He 'goes' next time he's off the boat. We're usually 'on the road' too, where food is included. We went to Breaux Bridge with Sam and Louise to the Crawfish Festival...again FOOD! But we sure love those people.

Cappy and I can't even drive down the road without something distracting us...he hollars something about butter. Huh? "STOP da truck." Out in the middle of nowhere I stop to see what butter we're onto now. "Look! The buttercups are in bloom". I forgot; we go through this most every year. There along the bayou is a patch of pink flowers. I always mention that buttercups are YELLOWWWWWwwwww, to which he always says, while hopping out of the SUV, "...down here they are pink...or white sometimes". He parades through the middle of the patch, picks one, sticks his nose down into it, and smiles, "See?? I like butter, and dat's why dey call 'em buttercups down here in South Louisiana". I always love that adventure, and can't wait to see what else he'll have in store for us when he's back home. Right now he's wayyy down at the bottom of the Mississippi and has to go out into the open water. It's been so very windy down this way of late, which has caused a lot of navigational problems. Now the high water inside the levees, farther up the Mississippi River have caused problems with barges breaking loose, but the flood water hasn't troubled Cappy's boat. It's the wind that's been his problem. When the wind picks up like it has this past week, going out away from land into the open water with a towboat and barge can be a dangerous proposition. ...But I know Cappy knows what he's doing. He looks out for his crew. Oh...and by the way, Cappy's tankerman, Dana's mother just passed away yesterday. Cappy quickly got to a location where Dana could get off the boat, to get back to California to make arrangements. These sailors...and Dana is an ex-Marine...but still, these guys might be burley and tough, but when it comes to losing a mother, ...well, ...please keep Dana in your prayers. ----------So, I guess that's all the news that's fit to print, so they say. (I'm not so sure about this post, tho'...) We'll also take your prayers about the River's situation. My sister asks why I haven't left yet. Well, for now it's all just a matter of ...re-read the Title,... but in other words :-)

I'm Still Not Out of the WOULD's

2011-05-16T14:25:00.032-05:00

Every morning I wake and wonder if that point in the levee is going to hold. I wonder what's going on under the water. The River is rushing so fast; is the bank eroding in the depths below? Cappy and I have discussed this at length, much to his exasperation. Despite all his best efforts, unfortunately, he can't make me believe all is well. I still feel 'in harm's way'. If all is going according to the Corps of Engineers' plans, I asked Cappy why am I still thinking that the "V" is vulnerable to erosion. He sez I'm always having "ditzy thoughts". He must know me after all these years. I keep thinking, in my 'ditzy' pondering, about that very sharp point which the high flood water has to make, and right at the sharpest point it's got to be at it's fastest and most powerful. Not sure what the science of this is, but it's something I think I inately understand. So, again, I wonder what's going on that can't be seen from the surface. And how long can it hold? It's expected to be rushing like that for a couple more weeks.--- And thus, I'm still unsure about what I want to do, if anything. I was thinking it would be nice to take advantage of the situation and go visit Sookie, high and dry in Kentucky. We've had a lot of family members and friends who have graduated this year and Cappy has always been very generous, which is the right thing to do. We still have a ton of medical bills for MarkyBear. All this makes it financially impractical for me to take the dawgs and go 'tra-la-lahing' off across the country dropping money all along the way at gas stations and hotels or campgrounds.--- I thought well, maybe I would like to, instead, find a campground on high ground close by.--- To get a better perspective of what the Mississippi River is actually doing over there in our back yard, so to speak, yesterday I thought I would take the dogs and go take a few pictures of the situation. The news 'talking heads' on television have been saying for everyone not to drive on the levees, and to stay off them. Where we live, as I drove along on River Road, I saw so many people hither and yon up there, I thought, "Well, maybe the authorities wouldn't mind if I did a quick peek with the video camera. So up I went,(walked) then today I made a (SHORT, shakey) video and put it on youtube. (I'm having FITS with our video makers since we got the new computer...it put my voice on, that I took off, it put words in the wrong places after I meticulously edited it and it all looked good, so I sent it to youtube, where it's a MESS. I'm not sure, yet, how to delete my own videos on there...sighhh) I would take the time right now to try to redo it, but I'm not gonna. So here that mess is anyhow: http://www.youtube.com/user/cappyandpegody then, once at youtube, click on "Swollen Mississippi" video (the awful one...sorry). ----I was on the phone with Cappy at the time telling him about the view, from up the River. He's way down at the bottom of the River just now. On the news, too, they warned everybody that there were a lot of snakes and alligators around because of the high water, and to really watch out for them. When I got on top of the levee, I was stunned to see a gathering of people playing in the water! I didn't notice one of the big red dogs dragging something out of the River, until I was home looking at the videos. What in the heck did that dog carry out of the water? The people aren't even paying attention! And there were kids in the water! I shook my head and went back down to the SUV, where the dogs were sticking their heads out the windows watching. As I got in to leave, I noticed a man standing in back of us, apparently writing down our license plate number. I wasn't on the levee, but at the bottom of one of the access roads. I got out and asked him about it. He said that he was supposed to report license plate numbers to the authorites. (oh oh.) He asked me my name and where I was from. This is such a close knit community, that everyone is related somehow, and there are only a handful of names in our town. When I told him my last name, he asked, suspiciously, (I have a Yankee 'accent' remember) "You're from here, ehhhhh?" See, our name is not from around here. I told him that we live across the street from Jude and Sonia, and immediately, he knew I was ok. Like everyone in our town, everybody knows and deeply respects them. I apologized for being on the levee, and told him that I was taking pictures for our blog, where we write about 'everything South Louisisana'. He was a very nice gentleman, doing a good civic duty for our community. I wonder how many times he had to come out of his house on that Sunday...day of rest, trudge across the road and tell people not to stop there or go up on the levee. I did tell him about the people up there swimming. He was astonished. "Swimming??!" I shook his hand, got in the SUV, Cappy still in my earphone, and pulled out, with Mr. Jasper heading up the levee to take care of the situation. As I only just got down the road, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a sheriff's car coming around the bend and pulled into the spot I had vacated only moments before. Cappy said, "Tuck in your tail and just keep on going, Peg". Well, I like that they are all on the ball over there by the levee. It's a little more reassuring. Here I'm worried and I don't live right across the road from the River like Mr. Jasper does. Bless his heart for volunteering like that. I'll bet by the time he and that sheriff were finished with those people, they got out of there for sure. ---So. As my Mom would say, "Here we sit in silent bliss....", 'butsept', I'm not so silent. When I looked at the River, it didn't seem to be as high as in 2008, but then I couldn't actually get to the same site, without fear of getting in trouble for real this time. If that "V" broke right at the point, people I care about would be in danger before I would. If that happened, the river would empty itself right here...why would it be compelled to complete the bend, if it could escape the levee right there? That 'V' is farther away than I had first said. Another thing Mom used to say when frustrated was, "coulda, woulda, shoulda".--- I watered the garden tonight, will pick beans tomorrow, I've got important papers "up" and ready to go. I guess Cappy's right, I do think "ditzy thoughts" more than I care to admit. I just want to be ready to do the right thing whatever happens, or if nothing happens. I feel so badly for those people over in the Achafalaya River Basin, who aren't uncertain about what's about to happen. They need our prayers.

But I still dont' know what to do. Don't you just hate indecision? As for our area, I hope all will be well. Knock would.

Mississippi Rising; Can We Dodge This Bullet?

2011-05-13T11:50:00.010-05:00

I don't know; I just don't know.
This picture was taken in 2008. Notice that if the water had gone all the way on top of the levee, how far above the houses and road (and cars) it would be? What looks like the River, is actually not the River...the River is about a quarter or half a mile off to the left. Where you see water now, is usually a nice grassy little valley. What is considered "flood stage" is when the water goes past it's banks and then sits next to the levee, like in this picture. Then all it has to do is rise and rise, foot by foot, creeping up and threatening to overflow if something isn't done.
That year, they opened the Bonnet Carre' Spillway, which helped. Today, the water is sitting just as high (much higher today); they've opened the same spillway, but it hasn't helped, because the real flood is still some ways north of Baton Rouge. The flood waters aren't even here yet, and are expected to be a whole lot worse than this. This levee just might overflow, and most likely will, if they don't open the Morganza Spillway, just north of Baton Rouge.
I see on television, places like the Weather Channel, that they are saying that many thousands of acres will be flooded if they open that spillway. The Achafalaya River Basin with it's levee system was built for just that purpose. Way back in the day, they built the levees all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and made the people who lived there move. They didn't want anyone living there because whenever they opened the Morganza Spillway, that's where the water was supposed to go on it's way to the Gulf. It's never been used for that purpose, tho'. It's only been opened once, and that was to help balance some water level at some other place. (I've heard conflicting stories about this; however.)If they opened this spillway now, it would be the first time for any flood to go down it.
Since there has never been a very bad flood, people have gotten complacent and have built or planted inside the levees. Camps and 'squatter' homes. Yep, they'd get inundated for sure, most likely. But this year, the water volume is so extremely high, that the water would not only fill the 23 mile wide and (I don't know how long...from north of Baton Rouge, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico) Achafalaya flood plain, but the water would also overflow even those levees, and take on towns and villages, not to mention farm land.
What to do, what to do? As I said, the real flood water is not even here and already the levee system below the Baton Rouge to New Orleans is being stressed and is 'leaking'. Here in South Louisiana, we've been suffering a drought. Rain has gone to the north of us. The soil is dry deep down.
I remember one time in Rochester, NY when there was a drought situation. No-one thought much about it, til the Spring rains came and the Genensee River rose. The high water hit the dry river banks and a big section collapsed, taking part of Scottsville Road with it.
Where this picture, above, was taken, the 'point' is not only "pointing" to those houses sitting in the shadow of the levee, but also toward our town, an half a mile away. Whenever the Huge mass of flood water comes roaring down the river, and hits this dried out, and thus weakened levee "arrow", it just might give way. It's Cappy's opinion that all will be well, and I sure hope he's right. Me, I'm not so sure. Do I bite the bullet, wait and see, or "get the heck outa Dodge"?

Country Livin'

2011-05-09T14:49:00.009-05:00

Half the town thinks I'm crazy when I do this, but every once in awhile I feel like sawing wood. Sure, I could fire up a chain saw, but I like doing it manually and breaking a good honest sweat. This morning I cranked up my outdoor speakers and went to sawing. My friend, Smokin' Sam, had dropped off a truckload of old wood and fencing that he didn't need. Well, instead of him carryin' it to the dump, I told him to drop it here and I'd turn it into firewood. While sawing to some good Cajun music, one of my neighbors, "Turkey Neck", rolled up on his 4-wheeler and made the same ole statement, "Meh, Cap, you workin' way too hard!" He sat on his 4-wheeler drinkin' a beer while I dripped sweat off'n ma nose and we visited awhile.

He offered me a beer, but I said it was too early for me. When he looked at me kinda funny, I explained that I had a lot to do and when I'm hot I drink 'em too fast. We chatted a bit, talkin' "country boy" stuff, I gave him a strawberry fresh from the vine, and we compared green bean stories. He is pickin' his beans now; we gonna start pickin' tomorrow. Before he left, he handed me a some homemade alligator sausage, deer sausage, and 2 big Cajun smoked andouille sausages. I am truly blessed to live in a small town. Neighbors see ya workin and come over, offer to help (by offering a chain saw) and bring over a basket full of homemade sausage. Das what Country livin' is all about :-)

Cappy's 5-Gallon Bucket Tip

2011-05-05T12:59:00.005-05:00

Dang near every country boy I know has a bunch of 5 gallon buckets around. These versatile pails have much too many uses to list here, and anyone could come up with 20 or so without even thinking hard. They always wind up stacked up one inside the other in a big pile in a shed or barn somewhere and stick together so tightly that it takes all your strength, determination and profanity to pry them apart again. Well, here's a great little tip that solves that problem while still allowing ya to stack them up for storage. Take a piece of nylon twine and tie the end to one side of the bucket handle. I use some tar-dipped nylon catfishin' string I always have around the house, but any good strong twine will do.Let the string hang down in the bucket. Place another bucket in the bucket on top of the string. Adjust the length of the string so that the top bucket fits in just to where it's handle is touching the second ring of the bucket, and tie it off.Once the string is tied, you can push the handle of the top bucket under the ring on the bottom bucket and that locks the buckets together.Once hooked together they stay together well and never get stuck. All ya have to do is lift the handle of the top bucket and they slide right apart. The string keeps them from getting stuck together.
You can easily stack and carry many buckets as ya want that way. They hook together by their handles.
If you need more than one bucket just lift the handle of the bottom bucket ya want and they will lift easily from the top of the stack.
This bucket tip will solve ya lots of stuck buckets and save ya space in storing them. When using the bucket alls ya gotta do is flop the string to the out side of the bucket. This sure makes this country boy's life easier.

Your Tax Dollars

2011-05-04T09:17:00.006-05:00

I know I said this before, but for the life of me I don't understand why it ain't being addressed. Every time I push into the bank waiting for the Industrial locks in New Orleans, I see the pretty pastel, new houses being built in the Lower Ninth Ward. It's a pretty site, sitting behind their new improved multi-hundred million dollar protection wall along the levee, built by the Corps of Engineers. They are so proud of this new, better, taller, sturdier wall, that they keep it clean and graffiti free. Or, maybe the reason the graffiti is quickly painted over is because most of it points out their glaring mistake. So I ask ya how much safer should the citizens feel, knowing that the mighty Corps of Engineers tied this very expensive project into the ole shabby short wall that failed them in the past? This is where the seawall failed during Hurricane Katrina that let all that water in and flooded the Lower Ninth Ward, and all those people were killed. Notice how the new wall angles sharply down to the old, much shorter, structure. I ask ya how much safer should they feel now??

Easter Sunday

2011-05-04T09:06:00.006-05:00

This year I was on the boat for Easter, but still, Peggy managed to bring me and my crew each an Easter bunny and a couple candies. I arranged it with Peggy to get them aboard and hidden without the crew knowing. Come Easter morning, like little kids, they were thrilled to find their Easter candy all neatly decked out on the galley table. They were also surprised to see that mine, sitting up there in the wheelhouse, was already missing its ears. If ya gotta be away from home for the holidays, I feel ya should make the best of it wherever you are. Thank God for my sweet wife who always manages to help me make the crew's day a little bit better.

Plum Cobbler

2011-05-03T09:58:00.005-05:00

Remember the plums we canned a few posts ago? Last night Peggy whipped up a cobbler with them.With a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream it made a wonderful dessert. The fact that we had canned the plums ourself only made it more satisfying. It was so good, in fact, Peggy had a bowl of it for breakfast. Why not? It was probably healthier than most of the breakfast cereals they have out now. (I opted for a link of Smokin' Sam's deer sausage. Savin' my dessert for dessert!)

"Aunt Mary" @ Country Inn Kennels

2011-05-02T11:04:00.023-05:00

Feb. 26, 2011

Dear "Aunt Mary"

We thought we should let you know that MarkyBear is in intensive care again at Laplace. His pancreas and liver have been acting up again. He's been in the hospital since Wed., but he went to the dr. on Tuesday, when they admitted him immediately. Tests show a 'suspicious lesion' on his pancreas and adrenal gland, but the mass in his liver hasn't changed or grown. This morning the dr called and said that he finally ate someting and we are hoping he doesn't throw it up. If he keeps it down, he can start taking his meds by mouth and hopefully come home to recuperate until such time when they can 'go in', find out what's going on inside and FIX it.

Since we know that you love him, too, we thought you should know so you could help us pray him well.

Sincerely,

Cappy and Peggy

(& SparkyBear the Brat as EVERYBODY calls him :-)

Feb.26, 2011

Aww Marky. Please know you are in my prayers. I know you will be back on your feet soon Big Guy. You are such a precious soul..Tell Mom & Dad to keep me updated.....

Your Loving Friend

Aunt Mary

March 3, 2011

Dear Aunt Mary,

I am home now, but still not feeling all the way 'good'. My Mom said I have to go back and see the dr. tomorrow for a 'check-up' but you and I both know that means somebody is going to stick that 'thing' in my butt again...I HATE when they do that. My Mom said if you wanted to , you could go read about me here: http://cappyandpegody.blogspot.com/2011/03/before-rest-of-story.htm.

She won't read it to me cuz she said she doesn't want me to worry. What does it say??? izzit something bad? She already cut my food way back to practically NOTHING, I think. I don't know of anything that could be worse than that...except that "thermometer" in my butt.

I love you Aunt Mary, and SparkyBear peed in Mommie's house again right by our Dad's chair, so don't love him, ok?

Your GOOD dog friend,

MarkyBear

March 3, 2011

Awwww my poor Marky. You are in my prayers and I know you will be fine. You are such a great fella and you have the kindest heart I know. I read your update on Mom's blog. It doesn't sound too too bad, but don't be sneaking anything into your stomach. Mom knows best. Tell that brother of yours he needs to be the man in the house for awhile til you can take over again. And that means NO MORE peeing on the floor.

Love you Big Guy...

Aunt Mary

April 1, 2011

Dear Aunt Mary,

Boy, I've had a rough time since I came to see you the last time. I had to go back to the vet two times, but the last time they made me go to sleep and when I woke up, my belly hurt so BAD. And they made me stay for too many days there. My Daddy was out on the big boat, but my Mommy came to see me every day and rubbed my back and told me I was a good boy about a hundred times. I was kind of scared. Well, I'm home now and my Daddy was home, too. Then they made me go to back to the vet...oh NO! But my Daddy stayed with me while the vet took some "staples" off my tummy. My Daddy said he counted 34 of them. They hurt. I hollared one time for my Mommy, but she said she had to go out to the other room for that happening to me.. When the vet was done taking out those bad things, Mommy came back in and the vet told her I was all well now. Mommy cried when the vet said I got no cancer or nothing bad now. It was all because some 'bee-nine' thing was in my tummy a long time.

Now I can RUN and play and I'm so happy!!! I'm sorry I bited SparkyBear's ear at the vet when he was bozzering me. He had to get his ear stitched. It was when I was still sick tho'. The only thing wrong now is, Mommy and Daddy aren't feeding me a lot. And I like a lot. But I sure like running now.

Well, I miss you and I thought you musta worried about me. Now YOU stay well, so when SparkyBear and I come to stay with you, I can show you how good I can run, ok?

I love you Aunt Mary,

Your GOOD dog

MarkyBear

And SparkyBear took my Mom's pen.

April 1, 2011

Dear My Darling Marky,

I'm so glad you got the bee-nine out. I can't wait to see you run and jump about. Ask Mom to send me a pic of your new slim self when she gets time. Don't worry too much about biting brother. I know you didn't mean it. There's times I'd like to bite him myself, but he does try hard not to be a brat. Some of us are just born that way. I've been busy with projects here to make you more comfortable when you come and visit. Show these pics to Mom.. I hate bugs and am in the process of screening in the whole patio. What what a job.

Stay safe and much love you to.

Aunt Mary

May 2, 2011

Dear Aunt Mary,

I am feeling so good now! Peoples prayers works don't they? Know what happened now? Two bad things by my yard. My friend, Shadow, who used to come see me every day 'til she got a collar like SparkyBear and I got so we can't go out of our yard...well, her other dog, Cocoa...who was BIG and HUGE and brown got sick and died. He barked at me everyday. Aunt Mary, do you think he's in heaven? And the other bad thing is squirrels again in my yard eating my Dad's and Mom's plums out of the tree. I tried, I tried, I tried running as fast as I could to stop them, but they always run up the phone pole and go back across't the street. They make me so mad. I'm sorry the news is so terrible from here today, but I thought you should know. My Mom said to tell you two things, too. Well, she said to tell you to look at this: http://cappyandpegody.blogspot.com/
(Oh and SparkyBear can't hardly keep up with me, cuz I wear him out.) And the other thing...well, she only said it to me, "NOW WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP WITH YOU DOGS HOGGING THE BED???" I think Brats are supposed to sleep out in the kitchen on the floor so Mommie and I can have more room and for Daddy, too. Right?

For when we come to visit, give me the best room, ok? Because I love you. And it looks nice

Your GOOD dog, MarkyBear Robin

A Sunny Sunday Afternoon

2011-05-02T09:08:00.007-05:00

Peggy and I were gettin' ready to go berry pickin' when the phone rang. It was our good friends Sam and Louise asking us if we wanted to go over and eat crawfish with them. Well, needless to say the berry picking got postponed. We grabbed an ice chest with a few beers and a lil watermelon we had cooling it's heels in there, and set sail for Smokin' Sam's playhouse. The crawfish were spicy and delicious. I ate 2 pans like this full and Peggy finished her panful too. Not bad for a Yankee-turned-Cajun. :-) We don't call him "Smokin' Sam" for nothing. Note the thick black coating on the inside of his smoke house? Well it aint paint; it's thousands of hours of smoke that cured that box. I keep telling him when he finally wears it out we need to grind the box up and sell it for potpourri. We could call it "Ode de Smokehouse" and make a fortune. Their son Stan, was down from Alaska, and we had a wonderful evening visiting, and enjoying the beautiful Spring weather. Stan's friends from town stopped by to visit. The little melon we brought was a welcome treat after the spicy crawfish. It was sweet and got a roaring approval from Sam. Thank God that Peggy and I are blessed with friends like these. The fact that they boil a mean pot of crawfish don't hurt either.
:-D

Plum Delicious

2011-04-30T23:50:00.008-05:00

Even though I got off the boat a couple weeks past perfect plum pickin' time, me and my pretty Peggy picked, peeled, pitted and prepared pans of plums for preserving. (Phew, my fingers got tangled up typing that. ) There weren't a lot of plums left, but we decided we'd can what little we could rescue.

The dogs were around helping as well. I managed to save these plums from the squirrels and birds.
It's pretty labor intensive peeling and pitting them, but me and Peggy make a good team. I peel them then put them in a bowl with some lemon juice to keep them fresh.

Peggy uses her sharp fingernails to remove the seeds and inner membrane.
We covered the plums with water, added a few pounds of sugar and left them in the fridge over night to macerate (who said i don't know a few big words).
We let them simmer for an hour this evening, added some sure gel and canned them up. These loquat plums are great canned; either jellied like these or in a syrup like ya would can peaches. We love them over ice cream or short cakes etc.

As I write this post I hear the occasional "tink" of the jars sealing out in the kitchen. It's music to this chubby Cajun's ears. Sorry we didn't include a recipe, but we have made jelly enough to where we just kinda 'winged' it. Fruit and lemon juice, sugar and Sure gel are all we use and we have canning down to a streamlined, almost effortless chore. Thas another post though. :-)

Stir Crazy

2011-04-19T13:38:00.009-05:00

I have to admit that after 3 weeks of Cappy being away on the boat, and if I haven't had much human contact in all that time, I start to get a little batty. Even the dogs seem bored. Sometimes, just to get a rise out of them I'll do something silly to see their reaction. Now, SparkyBear 'started it' the first year we brought him home. He'd start this 'stalking' business, creeping slowly toward us, catlike, like this video of a bichon stalking a squirrel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cftg6udthp4 Well, he'd stalk us, so we'd stalk him right back. We called it "Showdown at the O.K. Corall". If he was sitting quietly on the couch, I'd stalk toward him and he'd watch me warily, then jump off and run after me barking and being silly. One time while Cappy was sitting on the couch with his back toward me, and SparkyBear was sitting on the other end, I wondered if this crazy dog would 'protect' his Dad if I pretended to be sneaking up behind him menacingly. As far as Cappy knew, I was in another part of the house. He was sitting there peacefully watching television when all of a sudden, for no reason at all, SparkyBear leaped onto him from the far side of the couch, growling and barking insanely...(I was nowhere to be seen). I heard him say, "Sparky! What's wrong with you? It's okay, boy...calmmm down", while I was in the other room quietly giggling. Mean huh? I actually got away with it for years. For years. But, I'd only do it occasionally. Maybe once each time Cappy was off the boat relaxing on the couch with his dog, watching television. I'd tell myself I was doing it just to check and make sure the dog would always 'protect' his Dad; ( even from his own "Mother"). It was always the same. Out of 'nowhere' SparkyBear would 'flip out' make a mad dash across the couch, up the length of his lap, into Cappy's face, snarling and frothing wildly (trying to get at me, but Cappy didn't know that ). It's a wonder that dog still loves, me, but he does. He's always got to be wherever I am, snuggled up next to me. (Maybe he just wants to keep a close eye on me.)
Well, I finally got caught when Cappy turned quickly one time and spotted me. He said, "Oh thank God, it's been you doing it all these years. I thought we had a psychotic dog on our hands, but I didn't want to let you know about it , 'cuz he's so good most of the time. I didn't want you to think anything bad about him". Now I was ashamed of myself. I don't do that anymore. But we all still 'stalk' each other...the dog versus, the human.
There's a new wrinkle tho'. Something of late that I don't understand. I'm pretty sure Cappy's not behind it. He doesn't pull stunts, like I do. He is totally against pranks. This is entirely the Brat dog's doing. All of a sudden he's decided he doesn't like spoons. Spoons. (?) Why?? The other night I forgot about it and was sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching The Big Bang Theory (so funny!!!) Occasionally, between laughs, out of the 'corner of my ear' I'd notice SparkyBear growling a low, deep growl. At one point, he even lunged toward the bowl in my lap, barking like crazy. It scared the heck out of me. I said, "SparkyBear! What's wrong with you???", then I spied the spoon in my hand. Please tell me I'm not the only person who eats popcorn with a spoon. Man! I hope he doesn't pull this kind of thing very often. I told Cappy about it and he didn't have much to say. He's probably thinking, "Payback is a 'bitch'", which would be true, except for the fact SparkyBear is a male.

A Wacky Springtime Poem I Wrote About 15 yrs. Ago

2011-04-01T20:21:00.005-05:00

Petal Pushers

Skate in cinders

Run in water

Pansy's keep your eyelids up.

Backstroke far away from home on amber waves of buttercups.

e.e. cummings come and play inside my head on hardwood floors.

Dancing Daisy

My how crazy

Peace the keeper

More More More.

Chicago, Chicago, a #@%! of a Town...(IMHO)

2011-03-31T15:15:00.023-05:00

My traveling buddy, Louise, and I were bundled up in our leather coats on the City of New Orleans train, while we waited, with anticipation, to actually pull into Chicago. It would be the first time for either of us. (This would be the first leg of our trip to Rochester, NY where my daughter, Sookie was going to have surgery.) Initially, when I ordered the tickets online, I had thought that we'd have to be running though the halls of the train depot in Chicago, looking for our connection, because the schedule said we would arrive there at 9 a.m. and leave for Rochester at 9:30. That didn't leave us much time. I remembered when Cappy and I only had a 20 minute plane connection in Atlanta, which we almost didn't make because we had to run way across the terminal, go down an elevator and catch a subway to where our plane was to depart. Well, I knew Louise and I were about to be in trouble with all our luggage in tow. I had dreaded it until, while making sure I had my phone, and reading glasses and ticket all ready , I noticed that the ticket printout actually said we wouldn't leave for Rochester until 9:30 P.M.! What??? A 12 hour layover??? Big difference. Thinking about it, tho', I rationalized that it might not be too bad. If the Chicago train station was anything like the nice big fancy airport terminals, we could have a fun day, snooping though the stores, take in a leisurely breakfast, lunch and supper. And wouldn't it be great if they even had a movie theatre, like a mall? It was Chicago...anything was possible. --------Getting closer to the Big City, the vista out our train window was beautiful. The ground was white and the sun was glistening off it.The morning was bright and sunny, and the sky was a beautiful clear blue. All this decried the reports of bad weather which had been forcasted over the staticky intercom. Who cared? We were ready for it. All we had to do was go from the train right into the station; how bad could that be? We'd hurry, too, to make sure of it. Coming into town now, we began to see the cityscape, but I wondered about the personality of the place. During the trainride, our conversation had wound around many topics. Since we were headed north, Louise asked me if I ever really missed living up there. I answered, "Some places, yes, some places no...but I do NOT like the cold...I don't miss that at all", then, being in a pensive mood, on this slow, relaxing trip, I had elaborated. I told her about the small town named Wellsville, NY where we had lived for a time, which I also did not miss. It seems as though sometimes the whole spririt of a place can seem dismal and miserable most the time. From my first day there, people seemed to be on guard or have a chip on their shoulder. For example, if someone wanted to pull out of a parking lot, it's common practice to let the person drive out ahead of us to get into traffic...it could've been any one of us needing that courtesy. But not in Wellsville...oh noooo. If anyone looks like they want to pull out, instead of letting them in, other drivers, glare at them, clutch their steering wheels as tightly as though it were their most prized possession, and keep within an hairsbreath behind the car in front of them, inching, inching ever closer, to make sure the 'interloper' gets the idea that they are NOT getting in line, no matter what! In Rochester, NY and South Louisiana, it's "come on in, friend" and "thank you, buddy" hand-waves exchanged. In Wellsville, the first time I had ever darkened the doorway to the Sears store, the lady working the only cash register behind the only counter, was talking on the phone. Ok. She continued talking at length about nothing concerning the store, but rather some kind of trashy gossip. Ok. I cleared my throat. She turned her back to me and whispered something then without turning around, reached around and hung up the phone, then walked a couple of paces away from me, picked up a bottle of soda and drank, her back still toward me, set it down and stood there ignoring me. I insisted on being polite, seeing as it was my first time there, so I said, "Excuse me..." She whirled around and growled, "What do you want???" I was dumb-founded. Since it was the only place I had to do business to get the Toughskin jeans for my kids, I went back to the store on several occasions, and every single time she was rude for no apparant reason, no matter how hard I tried being pleasant to her. Louise asked, "How can people be like that???" I said, "I don't know, but I could sit her all day and tell you about other people in that town who behaved just that way constantly. The town if full of 'em". She said, "Well, I just can't imagine seeing anybody act rude like that". (famous last words) I told her about Rochester, NY having been voted as one of the friendliest cities in the USA in years past, and that it seemed true enough to me. Also, Rochester is a pretty city. It's called the "Flower City", and although the seasons only let them 'light it up' for a brief time with gorgeous flowers and shrubbery, they do an outstanding job. It's a nice place to visit and a nice place to live. ....And New Orleans has a look about it; the architecture is so cohesive and welcoming. It's just a fun place to visit...obviously. To quote Meryl Streep in the Devil Wears Prada, "Everybody wants to be us". And New York City has a feeling about it, with it's busyness and business, etc. etc. etc. Seems as though every big city is about something. So, there I sat looking out the window wondering what the personality of Chicago would be like on our short visit.------- Presently, traveling through the suburbs of Chicago I was amazed by all the unusual building styles for miles and miles. Then we came farther into the city where there were the tall, plain urban developements...the projects. Wow! There were a lot of them. The structures almost resembled kennels or crates stacked one on top of another. I felt badly for the people who lived there. People...human beings trapped there. But then, what with the political 'stuff' going on of late, my mind went to thinking about how a 'community organizer' could easily persuade these captives, how to vote, by promising them everything, with fabulous words instilling 'pride' and loyalty, but giving them not enough to move up and out. And thus, they are 'kept' "workers" and voters. It happened in New Orleans, and actually, the Big Easy is not really that big; it's just the fame of the Crescent City that makes it seem larger than life. So, maybe my negative thoughts about the politics of Chicago cast a pall over my initial perception of the place. Instead of enjoying the quirky architectures, I was taken aback by the 'clutter' of the looks of one collection of structures having one very unique style juxtaposed against another cluster of entirely different and strange building style. To me, looking over the city, as far as I could see, I was struck with the thought that I was looking at a 'collide-oh-scope'. A collage of designs...an hodge podge. At the same time, I was ashamed that I was feeling so judgemental. Maybe a little more sleep might have helped my mood; however, for no apparent reason, though, I was getting the same wariness that I had while being in Wellsville, and here we hadn't even set foot off the train.------- Now, in the heart of the city, the train started to slow down. Then we stopped. We sat for quite awhile, gazing at some black striped somber looking apartment buildings, then slowly started backing up. We backed for what seemed like a very, very long time, then we began to back into what we thought was the train station. It was dark in there with thick metal pillars everywhere and railroad tracks alongside ours, with wide sidewalks separating them. We kept backing and backing, and it almost felt as though we were actually backing downhill at a slight angle. Back and back we went, down and down into that huge dimly lit cavern. I know I have a vivid imagination, so while we were waiting for the train to finally stop, I began to amuse myself by imagining, like a little kid, that this was really a cave and that the thick metal beams holding the place up were, in fact, taking on the look of stalagmites and stalactites, and at any minute we should start to see little puffs of smoke and flames coming up out of the floor of the cave. Wait! Just then we did start to see puffs of smoke coming up out of the ground here and there! For real! Then, coming back to reality, I surmised that the extreme cold that had been predicted for Chicago that morning, (29 degrees below zero) was causing some of the steam from random vents in the floor of the station, to condense, creating plumes of vapor. But still...were we ever going to get to that train depot located somewhere in the bowels of the earth? Back and back we went, slowly, slowly. It had to end sometime. But, it became ever darker, more cavelike and more spooky. Everyone on the train was quiet, too. -------Then suddenly we were stopped and everyone spilled into the aisle with luggage and loud chatter. I was thinking about joining the fracas, when Louise suggested we wait for everybody else to get out. Good idea. It had been hard enough to get up the stairs with all our heavy luggage; getting down, thinking about it, didn't seem as though it were going to be much easier. I was wondering how one particular lady was doing. Earlier that morning the train had made several stops along the way. As Louise and I were calmly sitting there looking out the window, we could hear somebody moaning down in the stairwell, "Oh Lawd Jesus...Lawd Jesus, hep me...please...". Then the familiar bumping on the walls and heavy panting and wheezing sounds came wafting up the stairs. Some poor soul was trying to make her way up the stairs in much the same way as Louise and I had when we had boarded. I peered down into the narrow stairway and spied an heavy, older lady sprawled up over several of the small stairs, one arm extended upward with a suitcase clenched in hand, and below her, hanging heavlily from her other arm was another suitcase or baggage of some sort. I took the suitcase nearest me, and positioned myself so she could take ahold of my elbow and, together, we could drag her and her luggage up the stairs. The poor dear. We pulled her stuff to a nearby seat, where she wearily plopped down into it. I kept one eye on her for awhile to make sure she was alright. A few other women, some with small chidren, had problems getting up those darned stairs as well, so it almost became a game; something to do, helping them with their luggage so they could get their footing. It made me feel kind of useful. But now, looking around, everybody seemed to be moving along just great, all lined up in the aisle and making their way down the stairs with no problem at all. Even the lady I was worrying about had enlisted the help of a sturdy-looking man to portage her bags. She looked much refreshed and ready to face the world. Now that made me feel good. That is, until the end of the line appeared and I knew it was time for Louise and me to start unloading and 'get a hustle on', too. We hurridly assembled our 'upstairs suitcases', purses and assorted "accoutrement" and managed to squeeze them down the stairs, where we picked up our other two suitcases. We determined that those two unattended parcels had made the trip unmolested, depite our irrational, (perhaps, though, rational) fears. We could feel the cold air filling the car. Quickly wrapping my scarf around my face, and winding the strap of my food thermos box around the handle of my suitcase again, I guessed I was ready to follow Louise out and on to our next adventure. The train porter was, miraculously, still standing outside the door waiting to help us down out of the train. He took Louise's luggage first, then helped her down. He took my suitcases and set them on the concrete. The instant they touched down, my thermal "wheat and gluten-free lunch box" came loose and hit the pavement with a sickening "thunk". Louise was already "hot-footing" it down the sidewalk, so I put the thought out of my mind that the sound I had just heard may have been the glass quart jar of my smoked hen and andouille gumbo, which I was bringing to my son, Thom. I rewrapped the strap of the troublesome food carrier onto the suitcase handle again, pulled my hat down on my head better, tried re-tying the scarf back over my face because in all the fumbling with the suitcases and everything, it had come undone. I could already feel the searing cold air stinging my nose. It was bad enough that I still hadn't found my gloves, but I was going to try to make the trip to the station before my fingers froze...if I could. Finally, I got underway and set off in the direction Louise was headed. Wow, this dark place seemed deserted now...quiet, eerie,...and it was freezing cold...did we mention that? Bitter...BITTERLY cold.------- Sooo...where was this station? How far did we have to walk this time? Apparently the "Jeep/golf cart" kinda thingy carrying the "snooty" sleeper car people had already whizzed by, ferrying them quickly into the warm terminal. Both of my suitcases were rolling smartly behind me, but my hands were begining to be so cold that they were stinging. Louise had a duffle bag with wheels on it, but her other heavy bag, (and another light one) had to be carried. She acted as though the one wasn't that heavy. She wasn't complaining too much, but she had slowed her pace considerably and her walk became more like a stagger. I caught up with her and together we meandered back and forth between the pillars, trying to make a bee-line to wherever we should be going. Again, the walk seemed unnessarily long and cruel, especially because it was to terribly cold, and there was no-one to help us. Way up ahead, perhaps a couple of hundred feet, we saw some activity and a few more lights. By the time we got there, we were chilled to the bone, our teeth were chattering and, personally, I "didn't know which end was up"; I was numb with cold. There were some glass enclosures with signs that read, "Ticketed passengers". Surely this wasn't the fabulous Chicago train station I had envisioned. The glass enclosure looked as though it held no warmth there. I opted not to enter there; I just wanted to keep going until we actually got into the building where we could find some heat and more activity. Certainly the next opening would lead us into the main lobby. I guess it did. But we were lost. The place was very loud and crowded with people rushing everywere, and there we were, dazed and confused, not really knowing where we should be waiting for our departure that was scheduled for 12 hours from now. If this was the lobby, it wasn't all that big, from what I could see so far. Right away, I spotted the Information Desk and approached the frazzled-looking lady, who was trying to answer several people at the same time. I awaited my turn and asked her, "We are going on the train to Rochester, NY this evening. Where are we supposed to wait?" Answering the desk phone, she motioned with her right hand, behind her and said, "Back there". We started 'back there', but then were met with a wall, and two halls, one leading to the left and one to the right. One sign read, "North (...something)" and the other read, "South (...something)" The ladies room was directly under them. I asked Louise which way she thought the lady meant. We were headed north...? We were coming from the south...? We didn't want to be waiting all day in the wrong place. Louise said she thought we should go to the right. I second-guessed her and said that I wasn't sure...at all. I said, "I think I should go back and ask the lady again". I went back and asked, "Excuse me, but we aren't sure which way we are supposed to go, to the right or to the left to wait for our train to Rochester, NY, this evening." Answering her phone again, she just pointed in back of her with her thumb three hard times, and said to me in an annoyed tone, "...Back THERE!" and continued her business on the phone. I went back to Louise, who asked, "what did she say?" "She just pointed back here again". Spotting a female police officer, I went over and asked if she could help us find where we were supposed to wait. I know I had interrupted her, but still she took the time to help. She said, "Oh...come on with me, we'll find out", and away we headed back to the grouch at the Information Desk. I stopped her and said, "I don't want to bother that lady again, I've already asked her twice, but I'm still confused". So, she took me back to that intersection and we took a right. She 'flagged down' a big, tall, burley no-nonsense looking police officer who was hurridly coming our way. As he came up to us, he fixed his gaze on me, took hold of some kind of intercom on his collar and spoke gruffly into it saying, "Okay...we've got the perpetrator apprehended", then looked way down at me and tersely barked, "Alright, what's the problem? What's the problem??" I stammered, "Uh...Uh...I'm just wondering where we are supposed to wait for our train to Rochester, NY this evening..." He grabbed his collar mic again and said into it, "Cancel that!", then he said to the lady police officer, "Show her where the Information Desk is", and briskly walked away in the general direction of the information desk, with the female police officer in tow. I didn't know whether I was supposed to follow them or not, but I knew I wasn't going back to that Information Desk again, so I just went back to find Louise standing there by the Ladies Room, having watched the whole thing with curiousity. I said in mock seriousness, "Geepers, I almost just got arrested. I don't know why, but I somehow got mistaken for a criminal." We hadn't even been in Chicago for more than half an hour and I was already making trouble.-------- (to, of course, be continued...)

Making Cajun Green Onion Sausage

2011-03-25T17:49:00.005-05:00

Last night, knowing that we would be harvesting our shallots, (green onions) today we took a big twin-pack of Boston butt pork roast we had got on sale awhile back out of the freezer. After picking the shallots, we cut the pork into strips for grinding.

With our electric grinder it didn't take long to reduce the 2 roasts to 17 lbs of pork ground meat.

After cleaning the grinder with a couple pieces of Peggy's gluten-free bread (which we wouldn't recommend, because we learned that it got too gummy and stuck to the inside of the grinder, rather than cleaning it out, which is the purpose of running bread through it, in the first place), then we tackled cleaning the shallots for the sausage and storage in the freezer.

After measuring out our sausage ingredients, I mixed it up by hand,

measured it out, and bagged it up.

The dogs watched closely for scraps to fall as I bagged up the sausage.

This is the finished product waiting for the freezer. The sausage only cost us 1.35$/lb to make, counting the 'bone loss' and seasonings (The good Lord provided the shallots free of charge)

The best part is we saved 20 onions to replant and in a month or so we can do it again. Here is our simple recipe:

Cajun Green Onion Sausage

2 lbs of ground pork

2 Tablespoons of Cajun seasoning (we use our own but Tony Chacherie's would work)

2 teaspoons of granulated garlic

1/2 cup of chopped shallot greens

Making your own sausage is not only economical and fun, but you also get to control your ingredients and avoid fillers and chemicals and stuff that Peggy calls "ites".

The 2-bit Part

2011-03-19T12:21:00.013-05:00

When we bought our lil fancy ultra-lite state-of-the-art 18 foot camper a year ago, folks said we were crazy. Friends informed us that those things "weren't nuthin' but trouble!" " Big ole money pits" is all they are, we were told. Just like boats, a neighbor said. " Bottomless cash pits", he preached. "Wait a minute there Bud, ya do realize I'm Cappy right? I know boats. Heck, what do ya think that is on my driveway?", I asked, motioning towards our boat. "A out-board motor rack??" "Another thing", I argued, "I been camping since I was a kid. I camped in mosquito net hammocks, tents, pop-ups, pickup truck beds, etc. all my life. Just 'cause I ain't never had a trailor camper don't mean I don't know what I'm doing", I calmly replied(NOT).

Imagine my joy when Peggy and I set sail on a 3000 mile road trip last Fall. We camped our way all the way to New York State to spoil the grandchildren, watch the leaves fall, visit friends, and then camped our way back again with nary a camper problem. Oh, there were problems to be sure; problems with the SUV, but not the camper. It wouldn't be an adventure with some kind of problems, and I'm sure Peggy will tell the story eventually, but the camper performed flawlessly, and I couldn't wait to park it back in the yard and inform all those nay sayers how wrong they were about our lil camper; which I did, at length, several times.

This Spring we opened the slide-out and set up our camper on the driveway to use as a guest house for company passing through for a visit. I was a lil disappointed to find a puddle of water on the floor the next morning, but not too worried. I made a quick call to the service department of the camper place, and made sure I wouldn't void our warrenty by fixing the drip myself. The guy said, "no problem", so I opened the access panel under the mattress and exposed the plumbing. I quickly saw the problem; a fitting on the end of the main water supply hose was leaking. It was one of those crimped on fittings and was leaking at the crimp. I cut the fitting off the hose with my pocket knife, jumped in my Jeep and went to the local hardware store, fitting in hand, for a replacement fitting. Jimmy, my friend, at the hardware informed me that they didn't carry that type of fitting. "Ya gotta get that at a camper store" he said with a twinkle in his eye. The hose fitting had a 90 degree swivel fitting in it, ending in a water hose female fitting. He had plenty water hose replacement ends but none with a 90 degree bend in them. Still unperturbed, I figured 'what the heck'; might as well make an adventure out of it.

The next day Peggy and I loaded up and drove the thirty minutes to New Orleans to the camper place. We chatted up the guys there and visited for a while, and the parts guy GAVE us 2 replacement parts for FREE. He said, "No big deal; we will write them off as warrenty work". We left the place with me feeling kinda smug at a plan I made. Since we were all the way down there we went out to eat a Valentines Day dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The meal was good and we had a blast and went home laughing and singing like we do, feeling great that the camper part was free and we could write off the gas for the trip, in our minds, on our Valentine date, and all was well. That is until the next morning when I discovered I had the wrong parts! The parts the guy gave me were meant to fit over a tubing and what I had was a hose that was too thick for the fitting to fit over. When he had handed them to me the day before, I had just shoved them in my pocket and walked out, not noticing that what he gave me was some "outies" that fit over a tubing. What I needed was some "innies" that go in a hose. I gotta tell ya at this point I'm beginnin' to get a lil aggravated. This free 2-bit part was starting to get ma dander up. I went in, broke the news to Peggy and we decided to drive straight there and back again and get it over. This lil project was beginning to eat up some of my precious fishing and yard time with my playmate.

We rushed down to the camper place, explained the problem to the parts guy again, and traded our 2 free parts in for 2 more free parts; this time the right ones. We left feeling pretty good, making good time and finally getting something accomplished. By the time we were climbing up the "310 bridge" over the Mississippi river, headed home, we gave a big sigh of relief figuring, at last we had the worst behind us. Boy were we wrong. As we came down the bridge we heard a "thump", like a stone hit the side of the SUV. At the exit ramp Peggy noticed something didn't feel right, and knew right away it was a flat tire. When we pulled over onto the shoulder to look, I found the driver's side back tire ruined. "Not a problem", I thought. "I have changed many tires in my time and it aint much a chore", I told Peggy as I got out the jack and stuff from under the back seat. Imagine my surprise, anguish, embarrassment when I couldn't get the spare tire out from under the vehicle. I cranked the cable wench thingy to drop the tire and the cable unrolled all the way to the ground but the tire stayed in place. I pried, pulled, pried and cursed, shaking the whole SUV with my effort, but the tire wasn't budging. A nice young guy obviously on his way home from work stopped to lend a hand, but with both of our combined efforts we couldn't shake the tire loose. I was running out of options but not whooped yet, so I told Peggy to call AAA. We waited for about an hour for them to get to us, it being rush hour. The triple A guy named Desi, from Tony's Towing in Kenner, Louisisana couldn't get the spare tire down either, even with his best efforts. We wound up having to have the dang thing "flat-bedded" all the way back to our home town and unloaded it at the local tire place. Oh yeah, did I mention da dawgs were along on this adventure? We rode in the truck with the AAA guy, but the dogs had to ride up on the truck in our SUV. After dragging the thing into the stall in the garage of the tire store, our buddy there told us the folks at Trapp Chevy in Houma had put the spare tire in upside down and had wedged it up under the frame of the SUV. With a lot of professional tools and muscles, they finally got the spare tire pried loose and put on temporarily, and ordered a replacement tire. We went home exhausted. I had completely forgotten the camper parts in my pocket 'til the next day. After we picked up the new tire, I remembered the camper parts. After all that, I had the camper drip fixed in less time than it took me to type this sentence.

Lets recap: 2 round trips to New Orleans: $60. for gas, $60 for tow truck, $240 for tire and service, $35. meal and tip at the Chinese buffet, and a free 2- bit part. See, like I said campers aint money pits. SUV's well, das another story.

The Yard Looks Bad...

2011-03-02T16:02:00.029-05:00

Even tho' I'm in the midst of writing other stuffsus, Cappy wanted me to interject a small post about how our Spring garden is growing. To tell you the truth, I'm embarrassed to point out how nice the gardens look when the yard is a total mess. While we did want to let the clovers grow to see if we couldn't encourage a few honey bees to come by, in doing so we also encouraged a ton of weeds to join the clover in their frolic in the yard. Our regular lawn maintenance kiddo is hard at work in school and sports...and as good-looking as he is, probably busy fending off the girls, as well. So we think we'll give him a break, since this is his senior year, after all, and try to find somebody else, who is willing to put up with us and our crazy planting patterns. It's hard work in 90 - 100 degree heat of Summer to weed-wack all around the little fruit trees, and raised beds, then try to ride a lawn mower in and out between them. To make it fair, we'd probably have to pay anybody twice what he was getting for that rough job.

Presently, I've got our lawn mower trying to take a charge, but after such a long time between uses, the darned thing is most likely just plain, out-and-out dead. It's still got gas in the tank, but boy, it looks strange. After I give up on messing with the battery, I might try weed wacking a few of the most outlandish, prickery-looking lawn invaders. It's only 71 degrees out right now, but I'm telling you, this danged Yankee does NOT like going outside in the summer for any reason, except to get into the air-conditioned SUV and go shopping. Soooo, that being said, I'm going to have to find some poor sap to do what I don'twannado this Summer.

Oh wait. Now, wasn't this supposed to be a small post about the herb garden, etc.? YeahYeahYeah, they are doin' just great. The oregano survived the winter and finds it's way into my salads and sauces often. Looks like the dill is going to beat the cucumbers again, then go to seed before we get to pickle 'em together. The parsley is also going great guns, but the best part of this herb garden is our friend Sam's onions. I don't know how many times we've planted and planted and planted green onions and winded up with a hatful of dreams for our thanks. Sam came over, bringing a dozen or so of his, cut off the tops, which are now in our kitchen freezer ending up in and making for some of the most scrumptious dishes....but he replanted these bottoms and they are reachin' for the sky!!! Finally...BAW! We gonna have onions and onion greens...sob, sniffle. I don't know what we did to have such a great friend and his wife, but we thank God constantly for both of them. The next picture is of the asparagus! I ate three of them for lunch. Oh My goodness! I've never had fresh out of the ground asparagus.

They were so tender and crunchy and almost have a peanutbutter off-to-the-side taste to them. (?) They were WONDERFUL. Now I'm not sure if any of them will ever see the inside of our freezer, seeing as how only about three will appear each day...around lunch time.

The harsh frosts this winter took a lot of our strawberry plants, especially while I was up in western NY and couldn't be here to cover them. Still, we have a few plants left, sparse as they may be, but they have green strawberries on them. I wish I had a nickle for every time Cappy asks over the phone how the strawberries look today. I just know that since the lemon jelly was such a success, and that strawberry jam is his favorite, where his drooling thoughts lie.

Speaking of lemon jelly, the lemon tree is loaded with buds this year.

I see that the little "Yum Yum" nectarine tree has some flower buds and leaves on it already! Now all we need is bees!!! Please, Lord, bees.

There are a lot of birds around, which is wonderful for Spring. And SparkyBear found him a critter to try to intimidate, like he does every year. I dunno, I guess we'll call this one Lizzy, too, like we do all the lizards who set up shop by our back door scrounging around for mosquitoes.

Now, wait a minute...what is that, that I hear??? It's a lawn mower in our yard!!! I ran outside and what to my wondering eyes did appear??? It's our Matt...back to do the yard for the Spring, he said! Yow, I guess a young man's fancy doesn't always turn to thoughts of yardwork, but I'm glad they did today and that he hasn't forgotten about us. ( How could he really, LOL...we live kitty-corner across the street from him) And in the time I've taken to finish writing all this, he's about done with his job...so I now can say, "The yard looks great!"

Before the Rest of the Story...

2011-03-01T11:48:00.007-05:00

When MarkyBear was in the hospital last September, it was discovered that he has some kind of mass in one of the lobes of his liver. He was supposed to have gone back and had it 'looked' at again, but before that happened, I had to make two trips to western NY State, then we had company come down from NY for a week, so, of neccesity, poor ol' MarkyBear had to 'hang in there'. He was doing so well, acting like a puppy, running around the yard and playing with SparkyBear that I didn't call right away to make the appointment. But a week after all the hubbub with traveling and company passed, our boy ended up in doggie intensive care again. Thanks to Dr. Catherine Garon and her diligent staff at Riverlands Animal Hospital in LaPlace, LA, he pulled through. But... Dr. Catherine Garon, (about whom we like to say, is calling in the "Big Guns") did another ct scan this week and discovered what she calls a 'suspicious lesion' on his pancreas and one of his adrenal glands. She said the mass is still in his liver, but hasn't grown, and that the lesion and mass are unrelated. When I asked her if she suspected cancer, she said, "no", so that's good news. She does recommend an "abdominal exploratory".

Until that is scheduled, he is home now, and we are trying to keep him as pain free as possible. We appreciate everyone's kind comments and concern via emails, etc., not to mention your prayers which are very much coveted! We will keep you updated.

AND, if you happen to live in the area, we highly endorse this veterinarian hospital. Their webpage: http://www.riverlandsanimalhospital.com/index.html

Ridin' on The City of New Orleans

2011-02-21T17:09:00.060-05:00

(feel free to read as you listen to the song...the slideshow isn't much to look at)

Trains, planes or automobiles.
Buses were out of the question, due to an earlier nightmare ride from "Hayo" that my daughter, Sookie and I had taken across country one time, and ONE time only. It was enough for me. If was enough for both of us.
The trip I'm presently speaking of, tho', on the City of New Orleans Amtrak, was decided upon because my daughter, the afore mentioned, Sookie, was having some major surgery and I needed to get there in time for it. I opted out of driving, because this trip was practically on the heels of another trip Cappy and I had just taken to western NY, where we ended up racing home in marathon time, dragging our camper at 70 mph and more, just in time to get Cappy back on the boat, leaving me/us totally exhausted. Hmmmm...now that's another story.
So...this time NO automobiles and no airplanes...just because.
I didn't want to make the trip by myself, (Cappy being out on the boat) so I asked our friend, Louise if she'd like to take a nice train ride with me to Rochester, NY and visit some of my relatives that she'd never met while we were there for Sookie's operation. Well, she accused herself of not getting out much, and had described to me such a pleasant train trip she had taken awhile back with her son, so she said, "Sure". She was somewhat hesitant, tho', because of the major snow storms that were taking place up north of late, but I told her that there was no real worry, because I had driven in snow all my life and had even taught several people how to drive in it.
Although it was all on short notice, we both managed to pack everything we needed for cold, freezing weather. We each carried two carry-on type suitcases, each weighing maybe 25-30 lbs. We were surprised at how heavy sweaters and thermal underwear, scarves and mittens, extra pants, etc. could end up weighing. We were not deterred, however, because the nice brochures online said that there would be plenty of people who worked at all the train stations to help us. Besides our suitcases, we each had our bulging purses, and coincidentally, we both had mid-length black leather coats, draped over our arms, that we expected would keep us plenty warm, once we got up north. I had also packed my "little" 12"x 12"x 9" thermal picnic carrier full of the foods that I could have, that didn't contain wheat or gluten, plus a quart of my special smoked chicken and andouille gumbo for my son, Thom.
As a last minute 'buy', I spotted a couple of pairs of Ugg-type boots at Sears, on sale, dirt cheap. Louise and I both take the same size everything, and it just so happened that the last two pairs that fit us, were the colors we both like. Louise likes brown, and I like the black ones. She was rather dubious about the neccesity of fur lined boots, and said that she thought her black leather sneakers would do the trick, given she would wear several pairs of socks in them. I brought the boots anyhow.
While I was making the reservations online, I thought seriously about getting us a sleeper car, because it was "only" $95....about the price of an hotel room. But, Louise, bless her heart, convinced me otherwise, telling me how pleasant the train ride to South Carolina with her son had been, and how comfortable the seats were and how well they slept. I re-read the descriptions online of the plushy-sounding seats that reclined wayyyy back allowing for relaxation and comfort for the passengers who wanted to nap. I thought we could handle that for two nights "on the road". So we were set.
Thursday Jan. 20 was a warm sunny day in New Orleans when Louise's hubby, Sam, took us to the train station to catch the "Train they call the City of New Orleans" that would take us to Chicago; the first leg of our trip. Right away in the station, cornered like rats, we got spotted for the 'newbies' that we were, as a 'lady' detained us and asked if she could have some money "for a sandwich". Well, the poor thing. I told her that I'd love to buy her a sandwich, to come along to the Subway sandwich shop right there in the station and I'd get her one. Then she said, "I really wanted to get something from across the street...the street right there. See, what I really want is some beans and rice across the street, y'know?" Hmmmm. I said,"I'm sorry, but it's a Subway sandwich or nothing; we are getting ready to get on our train", to which she just wandered away toward the door opposite the "street right there", and at which point Louise pointed out that there next to the Subway shop was a place that sold beans and rice and other Cajun food. Sheesh, we weren't even "out of the chute", so to speak, and trouble was already peeking over our shoulder.A crowd gathered in the station near one of the doors that led to the tracks, so at the urging of the voice over the loudspeaker, we joined them, lugging and trying to jockey our four suitcases, purses, bags, slippery leather coats, un-capped bottles of water, and the required tickets, unscabbarded with much difficulty. With the all the aplomb of a mother hen trying to keep track of her chicks scattering everywhere, dragging luggage underfoot, as well, the ticket-taker managed to get everyone 'clicked' and sent out the door, group by group, down the tracks with the order to "go to the first yellow box". Louise and I looked at each other...what's a "yellow box"?? We looked at the crowd fast disappearing way down the line along the big silver train, seeing no yellow anything.
I had my purse over my neck and shoulder, raised the handles on my two suitcases so I could roll them on their neat little wheels down the cement, then I flung the long strap with my gluten-free food case around my neck, but nearly fell over sideways on top of it, it was so heavy! How did it get so heavy all of a sudden? I guess I had been carrying it in my hand before I had gotten the bottled water and tickets, etc. Undoing it from around my neck, I quickly tried to wrap it's belt around and around one of the handles on one of the suitcases, all the while trying to move the whole mess down the 'road' toward where we were supposed to get onto the train. Louise and I were pushing and dragging our loads, panting in the heat, and nobody was helping us, when a Jeep kinda looking thing whizzed by carrying a load of snooty-looking people and their luggage. On the side a sign read, "Sleeper car passengers". I kept juggling the unwieldly luggage 'til one of us, not sure who beat whom, to a yellow square painted on the ground. "Here??" we moaned. "Keep coming" someone further up the tracks called, as he stood almost as if at attention next to a yellow step-stool. We panted and hauled, and staggered with our jumble of stuff until we got to him and then stopped in relief to pant for a second, but he looked at the ticket, tossed our suitcases onto the train and said, "Ontheleftupthestairs!!" I crawled up the stairs to the pile of our luggage and was at once totally "blonde", with Louise struggling right behind me. I asked the guy, "Where did you say we were supposed to go?" "Ontheleftupthestairs" he repeated as he heaved more luggage on top of ours and helped other people into the cramped space. Louise said, "I think he said up the stairs". I said, "Well, yeah, ...we went up the stairs...". He hollared in "Go up the stairs...Up the stairs!" (Stairs...where???) I pulled my suitcases out of the pile and started to go toward a set of doors that were labeled, "reserved coach"...that's what our tickets said. A herd was forming behind us and somebody who knew the ropes said, "See to the right...go up those stairs!" I saw a little hole in the wall by the door to the train seats, so I leaned that way and saw two or three steps no more than 2 feet wide from side to side and the back wall of the inside of the train; nothing more. The crowd behind us was getting impatient now and insisted I get on up there. Okay. I lifted one suitcase ahead of me onto the second step...man! was it hefty and awkward now! It didn't want to sit nicely on the tiny step, while I twisted sideways to fetch the other behemoth trunk waiting on the floor behind me. Smart sets of little wheels on neither of them were doing a bit of good right now, but rather, in fact, made it more difficult to maneuver. The suitcase; the one sitting high and pretty, on that miserable little slat they called a stair, kept trying to roll off toward me onto my foot, while at the same time I was trying to lug...or even lift the load behind me, to get any of them up the 'stairs'. And all the while the thermal 'tote' weighing a ton, now, with it's despicable wheat and gluten-free food, and that fragile glass quart jar of thick brown gumbo had found it's way around my neck again, of neccesity, and was cutting off my breath and strangling me. I don't know what I must have sounded like from the upstairs section of the train; I was moaning and thumping and loudly gagging and retching in the hollows of that tiny stairwell. (Like how I used to tell my kids that scarey story of the 'monster' climbing the stairs to 'get' them.) I managed to round the corner, get up a couple more stairs, turn the corner and fumble and half climb up the last two or three stairs, where I collapsed onto a soft, blue seat. Amazingly enough, nobody else was in the whole upper car! Imagine that. I left the bags right there at the top of the stairs, with my arms still attatched. The relief was only momentary because Louise and others behind her were hollaring, "Keep it moving, keep it moving!!!" I said, "Uh-uh...I aint goin' nowhere. Our bags and I am staying right here". So, I shoved everything and me into the footspace of that blessed seat to wait out the herd. Louise rode the 'wave' of humanity a couple of seats down, then 'pulled in'. The poor thing; she'd had it as bad or worse than I had, but you don't see her here complaining. We made it, and that's all that counted at the moment. We wish someone had've warned us what to expect, that's all. I didn't know Amtrak had an upstairs. I hadn't seen anything about it online, nor was I even aware that I'd purchased a seat up there. Had I only known....sighhh.

Louise and I lightly 'discussed' where we might sit, but then she deferred to my, 'well, everything is right here, so I guess we might as well (shrug) sit here' choice.

I can't tell you how proud I was of my suitcase packing ability. My carry-on suitcases have zippers that allow for me to cram in more than should ever be crammed into them. The whole thing expands. Hmph, none of that baggage being "Checked" for me. I once read that someone remarked, "Luggage is either carry-on or lost". I liked that, and thus, it's always been 'carry-on' for me. As long as they aren't more than 50 lbs each, they don't have to be 'checked'. Well, now...these two little suitcases were about 30 lbs apiece. Nobody was around to help us, so I grunted and shakily lifted one up over my head, letting gravity pull it toward the open storage space above our seats. The opening was too narrow for my fatso expanded little bag to fit into it, no matter which way I turned it, or no matter how hard Louise and I tried pushing and shoving it; it was NOT going. And that meant the other one wasn't going into it, either. Together, we brought it back down and put if in front of my seat. She said that there was a place downstairs where we could store a couple of our suitcases, but they would be unattended. We guessed that we would have to do it. We each stored one. We parked them tightly together so they could "look out for each other", and randomly went to make sure all was well from time to time. Kids and others meandered up and down the stairs at all times of day and night, because the bathrooms were downstairs...of course they would be. On one of my trips, I noticed that someone's (not ours) suitcase zipper was left open by 'someone'. I would have done my civic duty to rezip it, but then thought better of it, seeing as how things had been going for us so far, and we hadn't even left the station. It would be just like me to be caught with somebody else's zipper in my hand. Well, you know what I mean.

--->(The slideshow's music would be good started here again, kinda softly...I'm just sayin'...) Finally, we were settled in and began looking forward to our nice relaxing, rolling train ride off into the night that one often dreams about. As we slowly wandered around back yards and alleys of New Orleans, on our way out, we saw that, to our dismay, much of the City is, indeed, still 'trashed' by Hurricane Katrina, five years later. We did see some new buildings going up here and there. That was good news. Usually, when Cappy and I go to New Orleans, we keep to well-touristed and trafficked areas. We have no reason to do anything other than just that. Seeing the back streets still in such disrepair just took me aback.

When we got to an area around the Louis Armstrong International Airport, surprisingly, we had to stop and wait on the tracks for the City of New Orleans' "sister" train to pass. It took about five minutes for the 'Sister of New Orleans' to cruise on by. Once we got going again, it was nice to drive by the beautiful swamps (yes, Louisiana's swamps are beautiful) and see them from different angles. While driving my SUV, I had never noticed train tracks running through any of the swamps before, or along the southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain, but there we were now, in a big-as-life, shiney silver...TWO storied Amtrak train, whooshing right along. It was surprising how many stops a train makes on it's journey. Many's the time we had to wait for another oncoming train to pass as we sat there; sometimes one on each side of our train, so close, that it seemed a fraction of an inch closer would bring all of their cars crashing right into the aisle of our train. (Made our hair stand on end.) Seems like we'd just get going at full speed, then have to grind slowly to a halt. And wait a little. We'd go through small towns, stop at the prettiest, freshly painted, old-fashioned little train depots right in the heart of everything, and people would get on, or off. How pleasant that became. We roamed through the woods were no houses or roads spoiled the view. Coming into some villages, apparently some folks living along the rails were unaware that people go by in trains and see the garbage that they dump over the banks in the weeds. I guess they think they are "junking" things out of sight, but we got a look at it. It was kind of like peeking into people's lives without them even knowing it.

The rocking of the rails was soothing and lulling; that is, until we had to walk to the bathroom or elsewhere. Oh. I forgot to tell you; the guy in the snack bar, or dining car...whichever...made the best announcement ever. In the finest Naw'lins style he welcomed everyone aboard, told us what he had in the way of refreshments, and said for us to come on down and see him. I wish I had, had a tape-recorder or something to get it all on here. He was tooooo cooool, and that kind of coool is only found in New Orleans, Yall. We were headed for Chicago, and we were "bringin' it wit us". Louise got up and went. Now that girl can get around. She explored the whole train, I think. She tried explaining to me where everything was, upstairs and downstairs, how many tens of car lengths to get where, but I wasn't 'getting it'. My first trip back down those dreaded stairs was about that...the car shifted and I about tripped and fell down the stairs. I hollared and grabbed the handrail in the nick of time and the wall of the car banged me upright...whew. Wobbledy-legged I tentatively took each stair the rest of the way down, hanging on for dear life, as we tilted left, then right, then left then....I walked along the downstairs hall like Frankenstein lumbered; arms spread out ahead of me, legs stiff, far apart, and taking one big clump of a footstep, then another. When I got to the bathroom, I clung to every wall I could get my paws onto. Now this might be "TMI", as they say, "too much information", but I'm going to tell it anyhow. When it comes to toilet seats, when it's only for a brief visit, this dame prefers to "hover". Hovering got my head banged several times on the wall in front of the potty as we lurched back and forth, and I almost got upended into the darned thing. I had to rethink, regroup and come up with a better strategy...and pronto. Regaling you with all of that would be "TMI". Everybody else seemed to have no problems walking along at what seemed a regular stride. I tried finding the elusive snack bar, about four cars forward, and a flight downstairs, as I thought Louise had described it. I got lost, lost, lost. I tried trudging along slowly and almost got thrown onto sleeping people, who were sitting placidly in their comfy seats, slung back for more relaxation. So then I'd tip-toe along, desperately grasping each seat back as I came to it, disturbing more than one person, who looked up to see what 'nimrod' had suddenly grabbed ahold of their chair, to which I'd smile apologically, release my grip, then, staggeringly, I'd go on to the next 'victim'. I told Louise that I was going to stretch my legs and would bring us each back a bottle of water. I was gone about an hour. I had found an older gentleman to talk with, whose name escapes me, but he is retired, and is part of the railroad commision. Because of his position with the agency, he travels the rails frequently and comes to our town often for Knights of Columbus meetings. He was even familiar with the railways and train stations in western NY ie, Olean, NY's old "Pennsy" station. Fascinating gentleman to talk with. ....but then I had the dreaded long trudge back to my seat. I opted, this time to try to 'run'...or at least walk as fast as I could, amongst the, by now, sleeping passengers, as it had gotten dark and kind of late. I "ran", I lurched, I careened, I stumbled, I SAID I was SORRY, and I eventually made it back to Louise, who knew I had run into somebody else to talk with...or to...or at.

Earlier in the day, as we had watched the scenes go by outside the window, I mentioned how the sky looked dark toward the north and that we might get some snow by the time we got to Memphis. Louise said, "I hope I get so see some snowflakes on this trip", to which I kind of chuckled, "Yeah, I think you just might". At dusk, as luck would have it, while she was up front somewhere in the train, we passed thru a 'mini blizzard' of sorts. But...she missed it. We did enjoy lights of any kind that night outside our window, golden, most of them, highlighting small towns, and big cities. The farther north we went, we did see some patches of snow on the ground, which made us feel more snug and cozy there in the darkened train car. We felt like giddy little girls giggling about silly little things on our trip out into the big old world. Finally, since everyone else had laid back and gone to sleep, we decided we should probably, too. A few people wandered the halls in the semi-darkness, but it didn't really affect our rest one way or the other. I had my feet parked on top of one of my suitcases, which made things somehow a little more comfortable, but I wish my seat would have gone down more in the back. It was a kind of sort of sitting/half lying down position. I had ferreted out my two favorite little pillows and tried to snuggle in for the rocking night. Unfortunately, Louise's seat didn't even go down as far as mine did; it stayed standing upright by about another 9 inches. She was having a rough time of it. I KNOW I should have been a more gracious hostess than I was and offer her my seat...(forgive me, Lord)...but I didn't. Mentally, I cursed those snooty people in the sleeper cars, who were probably already fast asleep, and thought, "Boy! Next time, that's gonna be us!!" Presently, the train stopped and picked up a couple more passengers, and amongst them: The Giant. (If you've read in this Blog of ours, you may remember reading about "The Giant". It's always been "The Giant's" goal to hinder any pleasureable occasion of ours...Cappy's and mine. "The Giant" can take most any form and almost always joins the party long after we had forgotten to expect it. For example; we go to a party or ballgame or movie...or anything early to get a good seat. Once the game or movie begins...and no-one has been sitting in the seat ahead of us, somebody HUGE comes and plops right down, completely FILLING our line of vision. Happens every time. By then all the good seats are taken. Or some kind of loud racket or constant interruption, ruining the whole thing...whose nose, maybe it happens to you, too... you get the picture. Soooo, here goes...) After awhile just as we were about to succumb to the rocking motion of the tracks and nap a bit, without fail, "The Giant" bumps and bangs up the stairs right next to our 'bed', slogging luggage and talking loudly on a cell phone, totally oblivious of all the sleeping passengers. And where does she sit?? Right behind us...it wouldn't be irony, if she hadn't. We could hear her laying out a picnic spread back there and our mouths began to water at the pungent smell of a fresh orange being peeled. Someone joined her and she began to tell them the story that we would hear over and over again, embellished and embroidered "six different ways to Sunday" over the next twelve hours. Apparently she was an highly educated school teacher on her way to Chicago, who had gotten into some kind of altercation with some poor sap, Willie, I think it was, who quickly learned the error of his ways and knuckled under, by the time she'd gotten through with him. Louise and I pounded our pillows, trying to get more comfortable, thinking eventually she'd quiet down back there and go to sleep like the rest of us were trying to do. But Noooooo....not "The Giant". She talked loudly on into the night until the person sitting next to her somehow fell asleep, or just stopped talking, anyhow. So, then, she got on her cell phone and proceeded to retell the same story, that anyone within earshot, was by now, familiar. It must have been around 1:30 in the morning when we got to sleep. Suddenly, there in the dark we were all startled awake by what I thought was my phone. I thought it had gone berserk because it was ringing so loudly that the interior walls were about to start peeling off...how embarrassing...I HATE that ringtone anyhow. I started fumbling for my purse to smash the despicable beast, when we heard "The Giant" sweetly answer her phone..it was her phone...and away we went with the same story, which, each time took at least 15 minutes to tell...but then with all the frippery and frills adorning the tale, it grew in length. And her phone continued to ring like that off and on all night long! We kept waiting for somebody to start complaining, but nobody did. I guess none of us were willing to 'take her on', given what she had done to poor ol' "Willie", there, who had unwittingly crossed her. I think I dozed for a few hours, but I'm not sure. Louise said she hadn't been able to. Come daylight, through the drone of "The Giant's" lastest version of the story, we heard a chirpy male voice announcing that anyone wanting to order breakfast needed to come make reservations in the dining car. We looked out the window onto a bright and shiney new day, and lo', there before us was a vast expanse of snow-covered beautiful flat land dotted with farms, miles apart. How breathtaking! A little while later the conductor broadcasted that we were coming into Champagne, Illinois. What a lovely town that was on this crisp, clear morning. Dining room customers, laden with white foam containers scrambled back to their seats and we smelled the food as they passed by. Louise and I decided that we'd wait until we got to Chicago to get our coffee. Instead, we each ate a wheat and gluten-free muffin from the thermal tote, and drank our bottled water to wash it down. The next town was "Kankakee, Illinois". Kankakee..Kankakee...what a fun name to say, we said. My phone rang, in a reasonable decible and when I answered it, it was Cappy, wondering how the trip was going, and if we had spent an enjoyable night together, then laughing, asked, "Are you and Miss Louise at each other's throats yet?" Since The Giant, just behind us, was silent, I was afraid she'd hear what I really thought of the whole experience last night, so I just mumbled to Cappy, "Uhhh....I'll tell you later". He said, "Awwwww...well, that's too bad; I guess it's not easy to expect that two people like you and Miss Louise wouldn't get along the whole time; I just thought it would take longer than this for yall to get tired of each other". I had to kind of chuckle, but I quietly repeated, "I'll tell you later". So we hung up. Now, Louise and I were fine. We were more than fine. We were still laughing and having a merry time, despite the lack of sleep.

About an half an hour before our arrival, the train announcer cautioned us that during the night, tempertures had plummeted and that Chicago was expecting the wind chill to make the weather that was about to "greet us", right outside those doors, to be "minus 29 degrees" (29 degrees below zero), so for us to 'prepare' for it. Before we actually saw any evidence that we were coming into town, we pulled on our leather coats, and gloves, (but mine were lost somewhere in one of the overstuffed suitcases) scarves and hats. As nice as the ride on City of New Orleans was, we were ready to embark on a new adventure in the City of Chicago!

Christmas On The Boat

2010-12-30T09:16:00.002-05:00

I got off the boat on December the 23rd this year, but you dont look like me and not make Christmas for your crew. I arranged for my sweet "Mrs. Cappy Clause" to get the guys each a present and stocking full of goodies. Like she does every year.
She out did her self with beautiful stockings, toys and gifts for each of them. This is a picture of our little Tree and the presents lined on the bench in the back of the wheelhouse. I called the guys out on da boat yesturday and they were very thankful for their stockings and gifts. I guess I don't look like Santa for nuttin :-)

Where to Begin....

2010-10-29T12:23:00.003-05:00

The Fall has always been our busy time. The time that the temperature starts going down from the oppressive heat of Summer, and Peggy and I start playing, road trippin', and just generally adventuring. Well, this Fall slipped by in a rush and winter came, and now with Christmas behind us we suddenly remembered we aint been blogging!! Oh NO!! Now we have this huge pile of stories, pictures and adventures to tell yall about and couldn't imagine how to get started again. It seemed a daunting task, but we decided: Oh! What the heck, and I dove in with this year's Christmas card for starters. All's I can say is: sorry we haven't been posting regulary. Now that things are slowing down a little and we actually sit at the computer every once in awhile, here we go again. I guess this is a good a place as any to begin anew, wishing you all had a very Merry Christmas.

Holmes Again, Holmes Again, Jiggety Jig

2010-09-21T14:05:00.010-05:00

Well, what to say now. Since I brought MarkyBear home and kept him on his meds, he's really bounced back almost to his old self...not quite...but feeling much, much better. He was scheduled for surgery tomorrow, but I took him to the vet yesterday for more bloodwork and let them know about the major upheaval that his immediate surgery would create. In three days Dan and his family are descending from western NY to visit for a week before Cappy gets home. This place is so very tiny and Mark, even when he's feeling super, does not like little kids. Dan and Jennifer have little kids. (I don't know why the kids in our neighborhood love picking on him, but they just love to do it, and for that he deems all children guilty.)

But it's NICE to have him home again for now. Last night around three a.m. the dogs heard a noise on the patio, and MarkyBear was out the door like a shot, LOUDLY"yelling" at whoever it was who had disturbed his Mom's sleep, (....!!!) then stayed to snoop all around his perimeter in the dark, investigating. (And so, I call him Sherlock Holmes to add to the list of his knick-names.) Not finding anyone, and having completed his investigation, he climbed back up the doggy bed-stairs, lumbered across the bed and flopped heavily next to me. Awwwww.
Well, Dr. Crawford said yesterday that his bloodwork showed good improvement, and that the mass might be an abcess from his gall bladder that the ton of antibiotics, etc are taking care of, but we just don't know. We do know that MarkyBear is not in pain now, so she said a couple of weeks wait should not make too much of a difference. So we are going to wait...and continue to pray for the best results.

Meanwhile during his stay in the doggie hospital, he couldn't get a bath, feeling as miserable and lost as he did, so yesterady his regular groomer, Jamie came to our house and gave him one in our tub, because the place she works does not allow for sick doggies to come get groomed. (I understand that policy.)

Soooo.... Now he feels even better...and will...until the little kids get here in a couple of days. Uhm...yeah, the continued prayers would be a good thing...thank you all for inquiring, by phone, email, here, Face Book, etc. You are too sweet!

Update on Poor MarkyBear

2010-09-10T21:57:00.004-05:00

MarkyBear, our bouncy, happy, chubby(!) dog; the much beloved warrior of our family is currently in doggie ICU with liver damage. We're not sure what he got into, but being the playful curious and forever hungry dog that he is, we're fairly certain he may have licked up some ant poison and insecticide that we were using to stop the invasion of a horde of red ants that were coming into the house from the recent heavy rains. Please think of our beloved 'friend', (who lights up our lives every time he comes bounding in through his dawgie door, all smiles) in your prayers, as Cappy and I worry, fret and pray for his recovery.

For those of you who don't know, he's the one with the big goofy grin on the right, with his pal, Rosco the "Peek".

We appreciate all the phone calls and emails, etc. asking about our boy. While doing an ultrasound to see whether or not he had pancreatitis and to have a good look at his organs, they learned that he does have fluid around his pancreas, for which I blamed myself...not watching his diet as closely as I thought I had been doing; however, if he hadn't gotten the ultrasound, they would not have also found...a 3" mass inside one of the lobes of his liver. He is scheduled for surgery next Wednesday to remove it. Because he finally began to eat a little, they were able to take him off IV's and send him home this last Wednesday until his surgery next week. He's home and still not feeling all that great. I knew he was in trouble last Friday when he wasn't eating, then when the "Oops" guy showed up, and he was just lying on the futon breathing hard, looked at Sparky like, "You'll have to git 'im on yer own this time"...then a little while later, I spied a miserable squirrel out the kitchen window eating one of our pecans, so I shrieked, "A ROTTEN squirrel guys!!" SparkyBear shot out the door, but MarkyBear just stayed glued to the futon panting hard in pain. That did it, I packed him up and rushed him to the vet...and now you know the rest of the story, ...until, the next rest of the story. We appreciate your continued prayers for our "Sweet boy". We'll also take prayers for the Brat, who needs to find a good doggie church. Since his brother has been ill, he's been looking for more attention and has found more darned ways to get into mischief. >:-\

Wandering Cajuns

2010-08-31T11:54:00.002-05:00

Going down the Intracoastal Canal just west of Lafitte, LA one morning, I spied what appeared to be a shrimp boat tow-lining a houseboat down the canal. I grabbed my camera, zoomed in on it and sure enough, this is what I saw. It turned out to be a pretty nice-looking, homemade houseboat, and a welcome addition to my collection of pictures.

If you look at the far right of the picture you will see an airboat full of tourists on a swamp cruise. They were doing the same thing I was, taking pictures, smiling and waving. Enjoying the beautiful bayou morning and the sights to be seen in the land that I love.

Another Adventure At Lowes

2010-08-25T10:56:00.002-05:00

Peggy and I went over to Houma, LA. yesterday running errands and stuff. While at Lowes, we ran into some folks we know, had a nice visit, checked on some stuff we need to order, and just browsed around the store. We love going around looking in the garden section and all the outdoor stuff. Looking and walking along, I barely noticed that a couple things jumped into the basket I was pushing down the aisles. When we decided to check out, I reached in the basket and put the 2(!) items Peggy had picked up on the counter. A new hummingbird feeder and a fly swatter. The nice young lady started checking us out while Peg dug in her purse for cash. As I stood there, I was suddenly struck with a thought, and das how some of my best B.S. lines are born; a sudden inspiration. As I waited, I had been chatting and exchanging pleasantries with the checkout gal, so with out missing a beat I straight-faced, calm-voiced told this tale:
"We can hardly wait to get home, we so excited!!" "Why?" she asked.
"I was surfing around on the web last night and I stumbled across a recipe for hummingbird gumbo". She looked up at that point somewhere between shocked and curious. I didn't skip a beat and continued, "yep, we gonna take this here feeder and hang it in a tree and stand real still behind the tree, when the hummingbirds come to drink, I'm gonna swat them with this here fly swatter, and in no time at all we gonna have hummingbird gumbo!"
1-hummingbird feeder-$11.00
1-flyswatter-$1.50
The expression on the face of the checkout gal; PRICELESS!! :-D

Udder-ly Refreshing

2010-08-23T14:49:00.004-05:00

In the blistering humid heat of a South Louisiana summer, every time we pass a cow pasture, half the herd is usually "coolin' it" in the water. This bunch seemed to enjoy the waves of the wake that our boat made as we passed by and they never flinched. They seem to take turns, some grazin' and some chillin' in their own swimmin' hole. They even have a flock of Egrets sittin' on their backs, on "fly biting" patrol. So eat ya hearts out you prairie cows, these bayou bovine know how to "pass a good time" and beat the heat down here in Cajun country.

A Whale Of A Mistake

2010-08-23T14:08:00.003-05:00

Last month at work we made half a dozen trips up and down the Mississippi River from New Orleans on down to below Venice, Louisiana. On every trip we kept passing by the HUGE ship, 'A Whale'. This ship is a specialized oil recovery vessel brought here to skim oil out of the Gulf. The mistake was that the ship is incapable of skimming oil that has been dispersed. The skimmers on board this massive vessel suck up too much water and can't seperate it out fast enough. Plus, the ship is so huge that it can't navigate quick enough to track down the narrow bands of oil that change with the currents and wind flow. The ship is currently anchored just north of Venice and has been for at least 5 weeks. It is fully crewed, 'cause we see the guys walking around on deck. The swabbies have a swinging scaffold hanging over the side and have been buffing and painting a stripe down the hull. It kinda makes ya wonder who is "footin' da bill" for this whale of a mistake don't it?

Symbolic Seagulls

2010-08-23T13:16:00.005-05:00

As most of yall know, I am a big fan of the TV show 'Deadliest Catch'. Last time I was home I watched a special as several of the boat captains paid tribute to their fallen comrade, Captain Phil Harris. Guys who work on boats are a close knit bunch, and I have seen over the years several different ways guys honor lost friends. I was touched by the crew of the Wizard as Captain Keith rang 8 bells and the crew slid a full crab pot over the side, in honor of their lost friend. The crew of the Time Bandit had a more rousing send off by shooting off a bunch of fireworks and whooped and waved their hats in the air. This really put a tear in my eye; it's more fitting in my book. Cajuns do mourn the loss of a friend but we always finish up by celebrating the person's life.The last tribute on the show showed Sig, the captain of the Northwestern, making a moving statement about a lone seagull that had perched on the bow of his boat. His thought was that the seagull was the spirit of the departed had come to say goodbye. This kinda struck me funny and I thought about it all month at work. Seagulls are fun to watch and all, but a seagull as the spirit of a lost sailor?? GIVE ME A BREAK!!

If seagulls are symbolic, I wonder who this squawkin', struttin' crappin' bunch represents. Certainly no friends of mine. :-)

Pop Rouge Ice Cream

2010-07-18T15:06:00.007-05:00

I am not certain if it was 'cause it's hot summer, or if I was feeling nostalgic after Mom's passing, or feeling inspired by cousin Suzy's blog post on ice cream ( http://kitchenbouquet.blogspot.com/ ), or a combination of the three, but I decided to resurrect this childhood favorite: "Pop rouge Ice-cream". Right off the bat, we hadda do a strawberry tasting to determine which current strawberry- flavored soda met our two requirements. #1. They had to be gluten-free, and #2. have that burn ya throat strong flavor of ole fashioned pop. It was fun having a soda tasting, full of giggling, tasting and retasting for comparison and judging contest, punctuated with burps of contentment, complete with an accidental shower of warm soda, until we decided to use Welch's strwawberry POP for the "P" in this simple recipe from my youth.

When I was a kid, this ice cream went with us on most all of the picnic/car trips/ bank fishing kinda outings we went on. Often, we would all load up in the car and go on a family outing. More often than not, packed in the trunk of the family car, along with picnic supplies and fishing, or crawfishing, or kite flying, etc. gear, was our ole hand-crank ice cream churn. The most oft-made product of our churning was this very simple sherbert: Pop Rouge ice cream. The reason it was most often made is, not only is it delicious, but very simple and reaquires no preparation. We usta just dump the ingredients into the churn and start cranking. The way Mom taught us to remember the simple recipe is, she used this simple saying: "E.P. C. 1. 2. 3." I guess properly written, the recipe would be:

1. 12 oz. can of Evaporated milk

2. 12 oz. bottles of strawberry soda ("POP")

3. 14 oz cans of Condensed milk

Then churn, using the "churn, rest, repeat" method 'til ya get this:

I am not sure that these pictures does this simple, delicious ice-cream justice. It tastes like a hug from my Mom, and a childhoor memory come to life. I think I better serve up another dish to make sure we got it right.

The Flamingo Gag 2.0

2010-07-18T13:42:00.005-05:00

Ok, for those of you who don't know of, or remember our "Flamingo Gag", I include this link that I dug outa da archives of our blog to jog ya memories. After ya are refreshed in your memory of just how tacky Peg and I can be, return here for this year's version. http://cappyandpegody.blogspot.com/2009/04/flamingo-gag.html
Well, here we are in 2010, and not much has changed. Our beloved neighbor's yard is still the pristine, highly manicured carpet it always is, looking 'postcard perfect', like a "wish you were here in sunny South Louisiana" tourist thing in the local plantation gift shop.

Our yard, on the other hand .... well.... just isn't. Ours more resembles the slightly unkept, tacky, tall weeds merrily waving at everybody, messy, verging on totally unkept kinda place that would star in a trailor trash weekly, if'n there was that sorta thing. Our philosophy is: if it is green and grows, let it. Being "foodies", we plant mostly stuff that bears fruit, and when the hurricanes lean stuff over, we leave it that way figgurin' its God's way of adding a rakish angle to our unkept mess.

Well, after last year's gag, imagine the horn-blowing, yelling, hooting, good-natured laughing commotion that occured last night when they got home to see this glowing pink mess Peg and I had put right across the street from their kitchen window.

This morning's view from their window will change soon, and the flamingo is destined to be a traveling companion with us in our camper. We plan to use him as a sign post of sorts, to let folks know which trailor in da campground is ours, just in case the tacky party lights we are gonna have lit on da canopy, are hard to see from the road.

Looking at it from da flamingo's point of view, it's pretty obvious he don't belong there anyways.

Nature At Work

2010-07-15T16:40:00.010-05:00

Last hitch I noticed what appeared to be Purple Martins, edit(they turn out to be cliff sparrows) darting back and forth from a 'mud flat' to the concrete platform which was behind us. I grabbed my camera, walked to the back deck and was able to take these pictures of these hard working birds, before my lens fogged up.

I had never noticed Martins (cliff sparrows) in the wild before and wasn't aware they built mud nests like that, but Darby, the boat's mate, said he had seen a special television show about them nesting like that under the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. They were fascinating to watch, to be sure.

While we were still tied up at that location, just after sunset as it was getting dark, my tankerman stepped out for a smoke and almost stepped on a coon who was exploring our deck for goodies. I couldn't tell who scared who the most, but they both screamed and ran in opposite directions. Every night after that while we were there, we had to put all our garbage in the engine room and 'dog' the doors closed. The heat from the engine room didn't help with the smell any, but it sure beat having to pick it back up again after this character had his way with it.

I was sitting in the wheelhouse when I saw this fella trying to sneak aboard, so I opened the door and hollered at him, and he beat a hasty retreat under the platform.

I am sure he is the reason the Martins were not nesting under there, but instead they were under the much higher living quarter platform behind me. Their nests were located where the coons couldn't reach them.

While "standing by" for the locks on the River one morning, a squawking commotion caught my attention. It turned out that a seagull had a pretty good sized fish in his mouth and was being chased around by twenty or so of his loud, screeching bretheren. They kited around for awhile 'til finally the gull eluded the chase and landed on our barge.

He struggled in vain to swallow the fish for awhile when outa nowhere swoops a Greater Egret; pounces down and snatches the prize from the frustrated seagull.

Even though the Egret was larger than the Gull, it took him awhile to swallow the breakfast treat as well.

You can see in this picture that it took the fish awhile to travel down the Egret's long and normally slender neck.

As long as I been working on boats ya would think I'd get tired of stuff like this, but I am my Father's son. He instilled in me a great joy and appreciation of nature, and I never tire of seeing it when I'm at work.

Cappy's Mom

2010-07-14T09:14:00.008-05:00

This has been the longest time in the history of our blog between posts. I am sure our regular readers are wondering whas up, so here's da story.

After I had been on the boat a couple weeks, halfway through my hitch, I started getting phone calls from my sisters concerning our mother. As the days went by, the calls got more concerned and tearful, and I began to fear I wouldn't make it in to tell her "bye". When I got off'n da boat last Thursday, Peg picked me up and we drove straight to her. We held her hand, told her we loved her, kissed her face and prayed for her all evening 'til we just couldn't anymore. We both had only, like 4 hours of sleep, and we tearfully told Mom "bye" and we told her if we didn't see her tomorrow we would see her in Heaven. She passed away peacefully the next morning. The girls told me that they thought she had just been waiting for me.

Her funeral was Monday, and I am sure you understand why it took 'til now to post this. Mom was a stay-at-home kind of person, almost reclusive by nature, so it really surprised me at the folks who showed up at the service. My best friend, David explained it to me from his perspective. Growing up as a teenager my house was always "the" place to be. After school there was always a bunch of us hanging out listening to music and they all loved my mom. She was a true renaissance kinda gal. Amazing cook, baker. She was a very good guitar picker and always had the lil AM radio going in the kitchen. It always amazed my friends that mom knew, and would sing along with all the songs we listened to. She was a talented seamstress. I remember girls in school commenting on the shirt I was wearing and not believing me when I said she made it. This often caused them to gather round and fondle the shirt inspecting the seams and stuff and being impressed. I loved those shirts:-) Mom sent Daddy to work at least once a week with some kind of goodies for the guys he worked with. Cookies, candies, pie's and cakes, etc. My dad has been gone for 15 years, but still some of those folks he worked with showed up, and many more as well. It seems that my stay-at-home kinda shy mother touched a great many hearts in her quiet way. That is a wonderful comforting thought to help me mourn my loss and celebrate her life. Grief takes time to heal, but have no fear; we will be back to our normal happy selves soon and are already planning several blog-worthy adventures. So das where we been, sending a wonderful woman to Heaven.

Deadliest Catch Captain Phil Harris' Jazz Funeral in New Orleans

2010-06-22T18:07:00.016-05:00

One of our favorite shows is Deadliest Catch. Even tho' the boat life that we see on this program is entirely different than Cappy's, still, he feels a kinship toward the men on these ships. They spend a lot of time away from home and their families, and it's not inconceivable that often,their lives might be in danger.

Watching the Deadliest Catch, we found ourselves liking, among others, the boat captain on the Cornelia Marie, Captain Phil Harris. He had his two sons, Josh and Jake on the crab-fishing boat with him, and thus, we got to see some fascinating relationship interplay with this group of men. It broke our hearts when last February, Captain Phil passed away.

Much to our shock and delight, we learned from the Deadliest Catch Forum, that Phil's Jazz funeral would be held in New Orleans! How could we not go, since Cappy was off the boat. We got up early on Wednesday, June 9, and headed for the French Quarter. It was beautiful, but typically HOT and sweaty. We walked along Frenchman Street til' we got to Phil's old hangout, the Blue Nile, where there was a lot of camera equipment set up, camera people, and throngs of fans like us. Then among the crowd, we began to spot members of the show's boat crew members wandering around visiting with folks. I was busy taking photos and videos...I kept being jostled, so forgive the shaky video that follows.

One of the members of the crew on the Northwestern, Edgar, walked up to Cappy and struck up a conversation. What a nice guy he is! We were strolling down the street with him toward where the parade/funeral procession would begin, so I asked him how it felt when they are out in the wide open ocean working hard, in solitude, then to come here to all this attention. He said, "Naw, we know we are great", to which we all laughed, then he continued, "No really, whenever we go back into port, everybody gathers all around us like this, so we know we must be kinda special"....but you know, he wasn't saying that in a boastful way, but almost humbled. He also said that no matter where they go, the conversation always ends up being about crabs, at which point one of the movie directors told him that he needed to get back to his group. At another point, he came back and had a nice visit with Cappy, who told him that if it wasn't for Coast Guard regulations,...the fact that he (Cappy) was shipping out the next day and could be tested for alcohol consumption, that he'd stay and have a beer with him. To which Edgar responded, "DANG!" or a sailor word to that equivilent. Oh, I tell ya, after the parade, Cappy was SORE tempted to go into the Blue Nile, where the boat crews were gathering, but he thought he'd better not. So, we came home, loaded with photos, videos and a better feeling, knowing that Ol' Phil had a wonderful send off. The rather lengthy video is over on youtube, fraught with flaws, and maybe a bit too long, but if you watch the whole thing, you may feel as though you were a part of Phil's Jazz Celebration, too. (There were a lot of professional people there and one of them quickly interviewed Cappy, so you might see him on the show...if not the little interview, then most likely in the crowd.) ...And now that we've met these men in the flesh, we are going to be worrying and praying a LOT for these guys out on the DEADLIEST Catch.

Try this link and you'll see the video of Phil's Jazz Funeral at the top of the list of all our other videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/cappyandpegody#g/u

Smokin' Sam

2010-06-06T22:27:00.007-05:00

Peg and I loaded up da SUV and headed to town to "make groceries". We made the trip to Thibodaux, La. and went to our favorite grocer, Rouse's. Rouse's grocery store is a upscale kinda place with a great wine and beer selection, fresh local meat and seafood, and some friendly helpful staff. With very few exceptions they are generally smilin', and act like they happy to see us. While there, I called my good friend Sam and asked him if he wanted us to pick him up some pork spare ribs which were on sale this weekend. Those of yall who know us, know how much we love BBQin' and we don't call Sam "Smokin' Sam" for nothin'.

The man has a smoke house in his shed and is the "go to" guy for smokey treats in town. We already had planned to pick up a couple big hens for him to smoke for us the next time he fired up his smoke box. When we got to Sam and Louise's house, Sam was just taking a pack of pork chops out of the smokehouse and we brought over some homemade pickles and, well...thas da way it is in the country. Exchanges were made and we left there with 6 smoked pork chops, 3 of which didn't make it home. The other three made a most excellent addition to a black eye pea dish, cooked in a black iron pot. Peg says these are the best pork chops ever. I say hers are. I wonder where dat leaves my batter fried Southern pork chops? She also says they are the best ever, too. I don't know if I'm playin' second fiddle to Sam's pork chops or not...I guess it's ok, tho'; they are very good.

This afternoon several big thunderstorms moved through the area, but between showers we fired up the Jeep and dashed back across town, over to Sam's and picked up the 2 hens Sam had smoked for us. He even threw in a bunch of his smoked ribs wrapped in tin foil for 'langiappe'. The other day while we were still sound asleep, we woke up and found a pail of cucumbers outside our back door that somehow had made it across town from Sam's garden. If I know my sweet Pegody the two hens will be starring in a gumbo pretty soon. Ican't hardly wait 'til next hitch and the "gumbo-ee" and "pickley" adventures she has planned for us.

Osprey Nest

2010-06-04T20:39:00.004-05:00

Last hitch I came across this Osprey Eagle nest in the Atchafalaya River Swamp. The pair of eagles perched way in the top of a lightnin'-struck cypress tree were 'changing watch'; (as always, click on the pictures to get a bigger, better view)

when one flew up, they visited for awhile then the other one flew off.

Kinda makes me think they were sitting on some eggs. If I pass that way again, I'll check on them and let yall know. There was a bigger bald eagle nest further down, but nobody was home. I sure hope they are ok, cause usually they use the same nest over and over. The Eagle population in the swamp seems alive and well. I saw several that day, so hopefully the empty nest was just temporarily vacant.

The One That Thankfully Got Away

2010-06-04T18:55:00.005-05:00

Our tankerman/deckhand let fly with a long cast, with crab for bait, trying to invite a big redfish to our gally supper table. Out of nowhere came a seagull swooping down pouncing on the bait.

There arose such a ruckus that Darby, the Mate, ran out of the gally to lend a hand. He is the guy in the picture. I grabbed my camera, ran to the back of the top deck and snapped these 2 pictures.

It was a flapping, squawking, hollering mess there for awhile, but we got him cut loose. The hook hadn't got him; he was just tangled in the line.

The gull floated there for a minute collecting it's birdy wits, I guess, then flew away with no difficulty. Soon as he got air-born, he was joined by several other gulls squawking loudly as they all flew away. Ya gotta wonder: Were they congratulating him on his escape, checking to make sure he was alright, or griping him out for being stupid enough to try to eat bait, or wondering in amazement how in da hell did he get away from hungry Cajuns who had a Ginsu knife.

The Oil Spill

2010-06-01T21:48:00.012-05:00

Lots of folks been askin' me 'bout da oil spill. Well, believe me, I could say plenty, and I may someday. It is just too painful to talk about now and, shucks, I aint no white-coated engineer anyways. I'm just a third generation "oil field trash". I got my opinions, sure, but they won't solve anything, so I'll just leave it at this.

I hope and pray that this picture don't put an end to the next two.

But I am very afraid that it will, for a very long time.

Bayou Teche Boat Trip

2010-05-31T13:28:00.008-05:00

We get to travel through some really pretty places at work. and those of you who regularly read us know how much I love prowling the back waters of my Beloved South Louisiana. Bayou Teche is one of the most beautiful "rural" bayous and a true jewel of the Bayous. The banks are clean and uncluttered of the derilects and trash that you normally see, and it is a wonderful ride following the curvy Bayou north from the Atchafalaya river.

I found all the bird houses around this Gazebo interesting, I guess the owners want to attract as many skeeter-eating purple martins as possible to their shady Bayou retreat.

Many of the homes on the Bayou actually float.

Here is a neat little cottage. These folks have a lifeboat hanging over their picket fence from some boat hooks. This is either a sign of quirky Bayou folk or paranoid ones prepared for a flood.

These folks are almost tacky enough to be us.

Wonder who these folks are gonna be pullin' for come football season? Maybe the fresh purple and gold paint on their boat house is a clue.

(Lord say da same): das me and Peg's retirement home. A motorized house boat that we could pack up da dawgs and go

prowlin the Bayous in.

The Bayou does have a few tight spots to navigate through. I put this little slideshow on youtube so yall could blow it up full stream and watch me make the Jennings bridge on the boat. Like it aint a tight enough squeeze, I decided to make it trickier and drive through while snapping pictures. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/cappyandpegody#P/u/1/gHs7upEsIzk

If ya think that was a tight squeeze, here is a slideshow of us going through the Berwick Locks. Look at the bottom right and click the icon and it will blow us full screen. That is my view from the wheelhouse. I hope yall enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cappyandpegody#p/u/O/ECkSdE-4eMM

Where Do you THINK It Is????

2010-05-23T13:06:00.027-05:00

When you haven't got much storage space, you have to come up with some "pretty" creative ideas. Since the only place to store the vacuum cleaner was to have it wedged alongside the futon in the computer/guest room. That's where it sat, hunkered in the corner looking all 'vacuum cleanery' and belligerent. Whenever one of us needed to use it, we had to put on ninja garb and go to battle getting it outa there.

I've seen some cool vaccum cleaner covers online and in magazines, but most of them looked too quaint for the very tacky Cappy and me. I would have sewn it myself, but my sewing machine was in the shop, and I haven't been in the sewing mood since I burned myself out at Christmas time....again. When I happened onto Hunky Dory Crafts online I knew I had found someone who 'understood' us. I called "Joan, the Bag Lady" herself, (very friendly, and nice) got to pick out our "Broomhilda's" dress and even what color her froggy skin would be. I was amazed that she got it made and sent to us in about three or five days, I forget which, but it was here before other things I had ordered online had arrived...and those people didn't have to custom make the merchandise I had ordered either, as Joan did. Wow! Her craftsmanship is excellant. She put a big ladybug button on the back of the dress, which always makes me smile when I see it, but what almost made me cry was that she had placed a silk butterfly on the back of one of the hands. Ms. Joan had no idea that, to us, butterflies symbolize Love.

Monarch butterflies were my Mom's favorite. Everybody always gave her necklaces with a butterfly on it. When she passed, we were all gathered at her gravesite, and although it was badly threatening to rain, as we stood together, mourning, out of nowhere a very large Monarch butterfly began closely circling low over her grave, then over the crowd, then slowly fluttered up, up, up out of our sight. We stood there staring skyward amazed and comforted.

A few years later, having met Cappy online shortly after losing my Mom, he searched all over New Orleans for hours and hours and hours until he found a special set of Mardis Gras beads for me, with Monarch butterflies on them. How sweet and dear of him. When he was way out in the middle of an huge bay, with no land in sight, he was in his wheelhouse with the doors open, catching some fresh breezes off the Gulf. He said that, (once again) out of nowhere, a very large Monarch butterfly fluttered in through the door and landed directly on his heart, and stayed there for some time. He said that it was the first time he had ever seen a butterfly so far out away from land, and the fact that it had landed right on his heart, had touched him somehow. He said that "from that, I knew that I could dare to let myself fall in love". He stood there almost breathlessly, he and his "passenger"/"messenger" silently keeping company, then after about a very long five minutes, it lightly flew away, as quickly as it had come. And since then, butterflies are always showing up in our life at unexpected times. I did have to laugh when, not long ago another one showed up. (Most all of you know that Cappy hates green when it's man-made...he of course loves it when it's in it's natural state, especially out where he works) He sent me a bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day. Although they were beautiful, in a clear colored vase (he's made sure about that) the card holder was a long stem of green plastic, which matches the greenware that I set out to catch the sun when he's on the boat and put away just before he gets home, but the holder itself, 'clutching' the most loving note from Cappy, was a butterfly! He had accidentally sent me a butterfly...he didn't know they were going to do that...but he had sent me a GREEN butterfly, much to his chagrin :-D

But I digress.

Our Broomhilda, here, arrived when Cappy was home, but, not realizing that I was taking the cleaner out to put the new cover on it, and then intending to put it in a place of prominance, instead, he found me struggling to get the vacuum cleaner out of it's 'place' and began helping me. The usual battle ensued and it got lodged in there like a vise, which caused a massive stuggle, beads of sweat and 'sailor language'. He said for me to NEVER, but N.E.V.E.R. put that vacuum cleaner back in there again, not knowing that, that was my original plan. "She" doesn't have to go back into the tight-squeeze of a corner, but can stand anywhere and look just great. And...once Cappy saw the end results he was quite taken with her. He said he never met a frog he didn't like, but when he got a look at the material her dress was made of, he was even more happy with "her". One of Cappy's favorite things to eat is frog's legs, but she aint got none under her skirt; maybe some other Cajun got to her first. Although she doesn't look all 'vacuum cleanery', she still does look kinda belligerent, doesn't she? Still, I think she's a 'sweet' addition to our home, even tho' the dogs don't like her right back.

In all sincerity, though, you should check out Joan A. Webb's website. She's got some of the most wonderfully unique handcrafted gifts and keepsake things that you'll ever find online.

http://www.hunkydorycrafts.com/ , her email is hunkydorycrafts@bellsouth.net and her phone number is (843) 764-3280

Just This Past Saturday

2010-05-18T02:57:00.013-05:00

I've always loved wedding receptions, but I've never seen anything like a New Orleans wedding reception, and WOW! was it FUN and LOUD! Although it rained torrents all day and the weather threatened all kinds of disasters, it didn't stop these 'unsinkable' New Orleans party-goers. As Cappy always asks me, "Do you know what a Cajun does when it rains???... He gets wet. So what. This is the Big Easy." People flip-flopped their way along the shiney wet stone sidewalks in the French Quarter under some of the most garish umbrellas you could imagine. And it just seemed right. As a matter of fact, Sonia had me paint a 'Second Line' umbrella for this very wedding occasion. I painted the one on the top...the male counterpart to the more delicate lady's umbrella on the bottom, (which I didn't paint).New Orleans is the only 'foreign' city in the United States, I'm told. And the place was lit up...the WHOLE town!!! I've never seen New Orleans so alive, even before Katrina. Every single street had masses of carefree tourists and the usual colorful folks who live there. I drove my young neighbor, Drew, home because he plum wore out, but his eyes about popped outa his head when I deliberately drove up along the perimeters of the French Quarter so he could see the sights. (nothing X or even R-rated, or else I wouldn't have taken him along that route) The usual silver, living 'statue' has even been updated, so that I wanted to stop and gawk at him myself, but kept moving...or tried moving. The traffic is StopStopStop, but for some reason the people never seem to mind; it's all a part of the experience.

Oh...I never did mention whose wedding reception I attended (it stormed so badly on the way to New Orleans, that I missed the wedding by minutes, having had to stop. I swore there were a couple of tornados in the mix.) :-( Our neighbors across the street, Judge Jude and Sonia's daughter, Abby married a young man named Tom, and they live over there in Naw-lins. It was Sooooo much fun, even tho it was dark and stormy out. A wonderful Saturday 'night'. Hope you enjoy the video as much as I enjoyed making it for "Yall" :-) It's also over on youtube where you can see it much bigger...cappyandpegody's channel.

Another Robin Goes Home

2010-05-14T15:31:00.020-05:00

We last wrote that Cappy's great-aunt Helen went to be with The Lord and her family on Mother's Day. Cappy has been inconsolible ever since. "Aunt Helen was the last of a generation. She was strong and always there; it's impossible to think that she's gone." She's the sister of his grandmother, one of whom Cappy lovingly referred to as "the old chickens". He says they were a fiesty lot, always 'up' to something, laughing, gossiping, playing booray, just full of life. They were such a joy to him and to all of the family. We only heard that she was in the hospital the day before Mothers's Day, and passed the next morning. So quickly. So suddenly. Cappy said it didn't surprise him one bit, because Aunt Helen was a strong woman and it was just like her not to complain and to just 'tough it out'.
I visited with her grandson, Brennan, who said he was grateful that he'd gotten to spend that last day with her. Even tho's she'd apparently had pancreatic cancer, no one was aware of it, that she hadn't been in pain at all, even til the end. In fact, Brennan said that, that last day while he visited her in the hospital she noticed his sadness and asked, with concern in her voice, "What's wrong, baby?" She, even then, was more worried about him.He said she was the most loving, caring grandmother he could imagine.
I didn't know her for very long, but I kinda got the idea that in her prime she was kinda fiesty, like my own grandmother. Cappy loves to tell about how she was kind of a tough cookie. She was a school cafeteria cook, who had to stand on her feet all day, work hard and wasn't about to put up with any nonsense from bratty kids; and who could blame her. Her daughter Carolyn laughingly told me that the other kitchen workers said, "We can always tell when Helen is here", because instead of gently pushing the chairs back in under the tables, Aunt Helen would slam them. I say any way she had at her disposal to intimidate misbehaving kids without actually coralling them by the the scruff of the neck was well done :-D
Unfortunatly, because of the long hours of work, her knees began to bother her so badly that Cappy said "her legs were bowed so much that they looked like parentheses." After suffering for years, when she was seventy years old, she decided to have both of her knees replaced. Cappy, shocked, said, "Aunt Helen, you are going to have major surgery like that at your age?" She lambasted him right back with, "What do you mean my age??? " She went ahead and had the surgery and to his delight, she was "dancin' around like nothin' had ever been wrong with her after that; she's one tough ol' gal".
And of course, being a professional cook, you know her food was something pretty special. Cappy said that one of the most delicious things he could remember was 'leftover jelly'. He said, Aunt Helen, not being one to waste anything, would save all the leftover juices, when they were serving canned fruit at school. Normally all the juice would be poured down the sink afterward. Instead, she, her sister and Aunt Gussie would then make it into jelly. Sometimes they would blend all the different fruit juices into one, so the taste would vary, but he said that no matter how it turned out, it was always out of this world! (She'll probably be serving it to folks in Heaven then.)
Brennan got to spend a lot of time at his grandparents house, especially when there was an LSU game going on. While Brennan's parents were season ticket holders, he'd spend the day with Grandpa Nick and his "MawMaw" listening to the game on the radio. I know he had more fun there than he ever would have in the actual stadium, for he said so himself, and let Aunt Helen know on her last day on earth, that those hours around the radio were some of the best times of his whole life.
During the service for Aunt Helen, I was struck by one thing that the priest said during his homily. He mentioned that when people are ill, they are 'living on borrowed time', but then he said, "In actuality, since the time that each of us has, has only been lent to us by God, we are all living on borrowed time; we only have it for a short while. I found that to be inspiring and comforting. Aunt Helen spent 87 years of her time here on earth loving her family and friends, and then last Sunday on Mothers' Day, The Lord thought it was the perfect day to come and lead her Home to be with the rest of those who are already there waiting for her.
I absolutely love this song, which was sung at Aunt Helen's funeral. I always 'see' those who are leaving us with different eyes when I hear it. I know it's what He said to Aunt Helen, and what will be said to me and to each one of us during our time of Going Home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vMYP4uJAqY&feature=related
And now she's not one of the Robin Family "ol' chickens"; Aunt Helen is now once again a Spring Chicken, and you know she's using those new knees of hers to kneel in the Presence of her Lord!

Going Home For Mothers' Day

2010-05-09T14:15:00.014-05:00

A Card for you, from us: http://www.bluemountain.com/view.pd?i=231907467&m=6065&rr=y&source=bma999

Not a day goes by that I don't miss my Mom. Even after a dozen years, it still seems like I could rush to call and ask her a quick question about something important, or not so important. But she's not here, and I'm left to myself with the sudden shock and realization again, that's she's gone from me; forever. But she was only just here wasn't she? And Mothers' Day is another day lost that I could have told her how much I love her, would love to kiss her forehead and get another warm hug to last a lifetime.

I hope my children all know how much I love them. They call me often to share whatever is going on in their lives and we always tell each other, "bye, I LOVE YOU!!!" Today my daughter, "Lady Jennifer" (aka "Sookie") sent me these beautiful lavendar roses. She hates purple, but she knows I love it, so she sent them to me With the purple vase. Also included is some very fancy Mother's Bouquet floral tea in silk bags! Oh my goodness; it's chamomile, rose, cornflowers, orange rind and orange flavor. So lavishly delicious. But I'm drinking it out of the Betty Boop I Don't Do Mornings coffee mug Cappy got me for Mothers' day (along with a matching oversized sleep t-shirt :-) I'm glad teenagers grow up and become best friends with us. She wrote on the card, "I hope you have a great day. I Love You Mom With all my heart. Hugs and KissesXOXOX, Love Jennifer"

I got a wonderful call from my son Dan and his wife, Jen this afternoon. LOLLING...when they woke up this morning, there was a layer of snow everywhere! I said, "I don't even wanna tell ya..." (I've got the doors and windows thrown open with fresh Spring breezes wafting in.) Chasie, is doing so MUCH better on his wheat and gluten & casein free diet and thus talking sentences and feeling like a regular little boy. They are expecting baby Emily sometime in July.

My son, Joe sent this bouquet of "Hugs and Kisses" in a GREEN vase (sorry Cappy), with a bonus box of...CHOCOLATES!!! :-D Now the boy can write poems. I'm so proud of him for that. Some time you just might have to indulge me if I go to printing them out here. The poem he wrote for me came along with the flowers from him and his family goes:

"There's no one else who does it,

Quite the way you do...

You know it isn't only what you say,

It's what you do!

For all you do...for all you do...

These buds are for you!

Happy Mother's Day"

Hey! He didn't lift this from a beer commercial did he?? :-P

I haven't heard from Thom yet, but expect he will be calling soon. Presently, he's in the middle of a lot of changes in his life, but is happily looking forward. It's taken him quite awhile to get over the loss of Diana, the mother of his daughter, Cierra. He's doing pretty good, tho'.

No matter how old a gal is, she's some mother's daughter. Sadly, this morning Cappy's dear great-aunt Helen went Home to spend Mothers' Day with her Mom, to tell her how much she loves her, to kiss her forehead and get another warm hug to last a lifetime...and an eternity.

If It Was a Snake It Woulda Bit Me

2010-05-08T21:24:00.027-05:00

Or it coulda anyhow, cuz it was a snake!!! And this is what he looked like, to me!

Earlier in the day I was outside chatting with Cappy on the phone and pulling weeds in the garden, listening to the birds chirping, and over the tall fence, the quiet hum of Miss Annie, our lovely neighbor could be heard visiting with some guests. As I reached over Pourkey the Pig (our watering can) for something, I spied a large lizard scurry by just as something brushed the underside of my wrist. I shrieked, thinking a snake had got me. I don't have a clue as to why I thought it might be a snake, because right in my line of vision had been the lizard. I became aware of the sudden silence from across the fence, and fearing that I had startled Miss Annie and her guest, I quickly started laughing and explaining loudly to Cappy (he had been startled, too) about why I had yelled and followed it up with, "Silly me".

I guess when it comes to reptiles I get 'creeped out' too easily. I remember when I first moved down here, I had spied an HUGE snake peeking out of a concrete hole near the patio. He just sat there motionless, looking at me...he was HUGE, I tell you, for a snake. I had almost stepped on him...screamed and started flailing my arms..."Snake!!!!" I wasn't used to these great big South Louisiana SNAKES!!! He was slimey, green skinned and warty. It took another day for that to to sink in...warty??? The next day I looked him up and saw that he was a toad or frog who had set up shop under the concrete and was just sitting there with his head out his 'window' waiting for his lunch time 'customers', I suppose. Still, I wasn't used to smart aleck frogs like that, either. Every time I had to go into his territory, I'd step gingerly. If he hadda been a snake he might have bitten me.

I did occasionally see a couple of garter snakes around the patio, but kept one eye on 'em as I did whatever it was I was doing. I didn't bother with them, and hoped they ate mosquitoes.

I've laughed at the Bill Dance youtube video, where this avid fisherman filmed his show, talking all know-it-all like and had a big snake fall into his boat. (The link won't post here, but type in the youtube search screen Bill Dance+snake...you'll find it.)

Other than that, I haven't given snakes much of a thought lately until last year, when what they think was a cotton mouth snake killed the dog right in the neighbor's yard behind our house. That's the dog they kept a no-barking collar on. Poor dog couldn't let anybody know he was in distress. He was a nice big dog, too. Sonia had come across the street to let us know about it, and to tell us to keep an eye out for this kind of snake. Well, that was last year.

About an hour ago, "the boys"...SparkyBear and MarkyBear started barking like crazy outside near the back door....came in and tried "telling me" that 'Timmy had fallen down the well again" or something. They insisted I go out. I ignored them, because I was in here in the computer room looking for an ecard to put on the Blog here, for Mothers' Day tomorrow. The card I was looking at was some kind of interactive dealy, where I had to be looking down in the deep weeds for flowers or things to click so that whatever I found would pop up and bloom or activate...I was concentrating so hard, but the dogs wouldn't let me finish, so I just up and followed them out to see what the ruckus was all about. Apparently they had another cat or a bunny trapped in the flowerbed way down in the weeds. At one point they actually jumped into the flowerbed in hot pursuit...I couldn't see a thing...it was dark out. Then they ran around to the back flowerbed which is connected to the side bed. Sparky insisted he had it near the cedar bush, while Mark was 'yelling' that he had it right by the back door. They were both about frothing at the mouth, they were so frantic. Mark kept nipping at something and jumping back, so I went in and got a flashlight. I shined it into the tall snakeplant, right onto a BIG Gray SNAKE!!!! I started screaming again, yelling for the dogs to get into the house...NOW!! The phone started ringing so I answered it, still shrieking and hollaring for the dogs to GET IN THE HOUSE...NOW!!! It was Cappy, who heard all the commotion and became immediately concerned. "Calm down, Peg...ya gotta calm down and tell me what's going on!!! Breathhhhh...take a deep breath and tell me". Well, by then I was a mess....a total mess. He said it wouldn't bite unless it was cornered and coiled. I wailed, "It IS...BOTH". I managed to get us all into the house, and the door slammed, without us getting bitten. Cappy asked what it looked like so I told him it was about two inches thick and it was gray and scaled, kinda looking like a car tire. He said it could be a cotton mouth, by the sounds of it, so I came in and Googled "South Louisiana cotton mouth". A big picture of the beast I had just seen right by the back door, jumped right out at me on our computer screen....I screamed, "There it IS!!!" Cappy, on the phone, "Didn't you close the door????How did he get in????" I was in full panic mode, thinking that outside there in the dark he might have moved and hidden again, only to come out some other night to 'surprise' us/bite us, or sneak in the dog door at while we were all asleep. I mean, you hear all kinds of things, like snakes coming up outa the toilet....OH GADS!!!!!!!!!!! Cappy couldn't mollify me, so he called Sam. Sam and his son, Stan came right over and after chasing the slithery villain through the flowerbeds, GOT 'im. My heroes. He was about three feet long til they cut him into about three pieces and laid him out on the lawn near the front of the house. Where he still is. The super heroes fled before I could properly thank them...I was shaking and shuddering so badly that I could hardly talk, which made Sam laugh at the silly sight of me. Sighhh. Thank God for friends who will drop what they are doing and run across town to rescue a friend. Pictures Sam and of Louise and their son, Stan...she didn't come out tonight...smart girl!

Now Cappy tells me I'm going to have to put on my big girl panties and go out with a shovel and carry the dead rascal to the garbage can and dump him in.

Actually, tomorrow is Sunday...Sundays are the days that some of the younger neighbor kids love to come and pick at our dogs. Today a group of them rode up on bikes and four wheelers, stopped at our driveway and hollared for them to come out. MarkyBear does NOT like little children and lets them know it, much to their delight, because as much of a show as he puts on, they know he can't get them. I've found candy and "stuff" that they've thrown for the dogs strewn along the yard and driveway. I can hardly wait to see the looks on their faces when they spy the Mothers' Day "treat" we have waiting for them.

Now, the dogs had to potty a few minutes ago. I didn't see any snake, dead or alive, in one long piece or three shorter pieces. Uh oh...hmmmm.

Oh, but Sam said that the snake is not a cotton mouth, but a black water snake. What's a water snake doing in our dry flowerbed?? I hope he doesn't have 'kin' out there lurking in the weeds. If I was up to it right now, I'd 'google' cotton mouth snakes and black water snakes to compare and contrast their appearances, not to make that mistake again. But I just can't...I'm still shuddering thinking about it. Silly me.

But This is What Cappy Really Meant

2010-05-03T12:37:00.021-05:00

In the last post when Cappy said, "Home is where you park it" he was thinking that it would be a good slogan to have painted on our new camper trailer. We just might do that.

In years past Cappy has had old used pop-up campers, but I couldn't manage to handle all the hard cranking and everything else unfamiliar that came along with their use, especially when I was thinking about quickly taking off in case of hurricanes or other such emergencies.

From reading a lot of past posts, you must know by now 'how I am'. Can't you just imagine me fighting with crusty, old nuts and bolts, cranking away with the lug wrench jamming at every turn...if I could get it to turn, having to lie down in the dirt to struggle with rusted support poles, trying to force them into their settings, or frantically running around all four sides of the thing, fumbling while folding the collapsible sides down, pinching my little fingers...I'd want to beat the whole thing up with it's own tire iron. And I don't care what Cappy sez, SparkyBear is NO help :-P

So, we opted for a small camper that's no longer than our boat at home. I've been learning how to back the 19 foot boat....pretty well...not perfectly yet...but like uh said, "pretty well". I went online and researched for quite a few months til I found what I thought I might be able to handle in the way of campers. It was still totally up to Cappy as to whether he thought it was a good little camper or not, so he checked out these links and said, we should go check one out in person. http://www.cruiserrv.com/fun-finder-x.php

The company highly recommended Bent's RV RendezVous over in Metairie, which is really New Orleans...to us anyhow. Well, Cappy just loved the camper. He crawled on, under, around and through the whole thing inspecting everything and wanted to buy it on the spot. The people who run the place are the greatest. Our salesman, Randy Trainor, has a neat sense of humor and treated Cappy and me as grandly as though we were dressed to the nines and coming in to purchase one of their luxury buses; and not dressed 'like us' and coming in to buy one of their littlest camper trailers. Everybody was just great and we had a lot of fun. Although, when we went to pick it up, we had to spend some time doing paperwork, getting insurance, etc. the time was filled with getting to know some of these folks, like Floyd Pitcher, the finance manager, who is a dog lover like us. We recognized a kindred spirit right away. He and his family have adopted/rescued a couple of Boston Terriers, "Frankie" & "Buster" and an English Bulldog named "Bully", who I'd like to meet, myself. He proudly showed us pictures of them on the Mississippi Boston Terrier Rescue link http://mbtr.org/ It's amazing how many quiet heroes live among us. These dogs look so cute and loveable that I'd like to get them all together to socialize with our "brats". Boy, what a nice guy.

Then they had Paul, their head mechanic, although we know he was busy, but he took a lot of time showing us all the minutia about how the thing works, and tips they had learned over the years about how to make life easier for us, so that we don't have to 'reinvent the wheel' by learning on our own, making a lot of aggravating and maybe costly mistakes. He made it sound easy to understand, even for me. PLUS....a BIG thing for me....IF I should be anywhere and find myself in trouble, I can call him for help!!! (He might find hisself sorry that he offered that service.)

They gave us a $50. gift certificate to spend in their supply store. There were a few neccesary things we had to pick up, but then one of the things Cappy insists is important to camping is strings of party lights...pink flamingos and light houses, which he scooped right up in his big paws, saying, "AlRIGHTy then!"

Randy said that the whole business is family operated, and it shows in their pride of how competently their company is run, with knowledge of their fine products, with nice people who work there in every department, and who treat their customers with a genuine warmness and caring respect.

I'll betcha when we either "hit the LOTT-tree", as Cappy calls it, or get rich sellin' our book, that when we go sashayin' in Bent's RV RendezVous over there in Met'rie to buy the biggest RV they've got, we'll still be treated the same wonderful way...even tho' we'll still be dressed 'like us' and we'll still be our "delightfully tacky" Cappy and Pegody selves.

Cappy Sez "Home is where you park it"

2010-05-02T19:20:00.004-05:00

He was home and we parked 'it' everywhere. We parked 'it' in the SUV for hours on end traveling from the minute he got home. One place we hardly parked 'it' was HOME.
When I picked him up from the boat, we got home, changed into our 'work' clothes and headed for Lowe's to pick up lumber for our new little gardens. It seems as though we were always somewhere doing something.
We traveled to eastern Tennessee to visit a 'ramp festival', we got in Tinker Bayl and went to pick blackberries, we went to New Orleans and bought a new little travel camper, to Thibodaux a myriad of times for other projects, a new freezer and once for a bale of hay!
Well, now after about three or four miserable months, I'm finally getting a lot of blessed SLEEP. I'm not sitting up on the couch all night (or most nights anyhow, now) to try to catch some elusive ZZZZZZ's, because of my "new kitchen cabinet" neck injury, and not seeing things through a gray haze of fatigue. That being said, I think I'm inclined to catch you all up on where we've been parking 'it'. Where we've been, at least for the last two weeks. The place(s) is Hither and Yon, where we met LOTS of very, VERY nice people who made us feel right at home with them. Photos and stories to follow.

This Year's Spring Garden

2010-04-26T23:34:00.009-05:00

While Peggy cleaned, bagged, sliced and prepared 22 lbs of carrots for the freezer, I started spading and raking our square foot garden for the Spring planting. Our neighbor, Ramsey stopped by, so his dog Rosco could visit with our bratty Bichons; they are very welcome guests, the both of 'em. We visited while I shoveled and then I "Tom Sawyer'd" Ramsey into putting those big "guns" of his to work toting garden soil to add to the garden. Every 2 or 3 years we add some good Miracle Grow garden soil to kinda perk up our garden. The rest of the time we just sprinkle on some 13-13-13 and a sack or 2 of cow manure and keep planting. Our lil garden goes year round so we gotta keep the soil rich for all the goodies we grow.

Besides our garden 'big' garden, we have 3-4ftx4ft planter boxes. Two of which we put in last week , the day I got off the boat. The one farthest away in this picture is Peg's herb garden. The tall flowering stuff is dill weed and she also has horseradish, parsley, green onions, and oregano. The new box in the middle will be asparagus, and the closest one is a strawberry patch. They are all under Spring "construction".

In this next Picture Peggy and I were "stringing our gardens" for their planting. In the Square foot gardening system that we use, we make a grid with string to help us plant evenly. An added advantage to the string is that kitties don't like it and refrain from using our garden for gigantic litter boxes.

Then we planted everything in the grids according to our plan. In this picture I am planting okra in the middle of the garden, as photographer Peggy plants bush green beans along the outer edge.

With the 'big' garden planted, we went on to plant the asparagus ferns. Peggy untangled them from the bundle they came in while me and my ever-present garden helper planted them.

Any time I'm doing anything in the yard good ole Sparky Bear is always underfoot willing to lend a paw , or tongue to encourage ya along. He is definitely our outside helper dog. From gardening to BBQin', to just chillin' on the patio or around the fire-pit, Sparky is always on the scene.

Well, once it was all said and done, I must say our lil gardens look pretty good. It's a very rewarding hobby. Peggy and I always excidedly await the gardens growing and giggle with delight as each thing succeeds, and we fret and worry 'til they do. We gotta stay on our toes, too, now that we have turned our Forum friend David onto this garden technique. Now that he is gardening away, it keeps us on our toes to try to keep up with him. It seems the student has now become the master.

You will notice in the earlier pictures that our chubby pup MarkyBear was absent. Yard work aint his forte. He is more a couch potato preferring the air conditioner, to the sunny yard, but once I had showered and settled down into my recliner, then my lil chubby buddy was more than happy to join his ole pop in a rest and a beer.

If ya aint never seen a dog smile just look up. After the first sip of my beer I am smilin' too.

Harvesting Our Carrots

2010-04-22T15:52:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday morning Peggy was busy in the house, so me and my garden helper Sparky went out to harvest our winter carrot crop.

What Sparky lacks in actually helping, he makes up for with enthusiasm. Whenever Peggy and I are doing something you can be sure he is in the area ready to lend a paw, or tongue of encouragement.

In no time at all we had picked, topped and trimmed over 20 lbs of sweet fresh carrots. Not too bad for a 16 square foot patch of our lil square foot garden.

The Shipyard Blues

2010-04-19T21:24:00.010-05:00

Part of workin' on a boat is spending time on shipyard. It aint fun being parked in a big ole dusty parking lot, but there is a scientific principle called entropy. The meaning of entropy is that over time things fall apart, no kiddin' look it up. Well, the boat I run is 30 years old and occasionally entropy slaps the ole gal in the stern. The shipyard is a busy place bustling with workers kicking up dust clouds as they scurry around. It was good to see my tax dollars going to a good cause; watching the Coast Guard boats being refit. This first picture is of the 'Pelican' being put back in the water after her 5 year refit. It was kinda funny watching a half dozen shipyard workers armed with water hoses trying to kill the dust while they painted her. In this next picture you can see one of the shipyard workers carrying her new name boards to her.

Below, here she sits in the water being stocked up with supplies by a gang of "swabbies". This is the view from my galley door and I must admit the sight of those 2, fifty-caliber machine guns on her bow pointed toward my boat door was lil unsettling.

The shipyard no sooner had the "Pelican" back in the water, when they snatched up the "Sturgeon" and placed her on blocks for refitting. If I gotta pay all that tax money outa my check I don't mind seeing it going for a very good cause.

This shipyard uses a boat lift to pick up the boats and set them on blocks. Here it is seen carrying a barge that is 180 feet long by 40 feet wide.

You will note the tires are really squatted down as the lift carrys this 180 foot supply boat.

With all this activity swirling around me, you may wonder why I titled this post the Shipyard Blues. In this last picture you can see the stairs that led 30 stairs from the bottom deck of my boat to the ground. When on dry dock, you can't use the toilet you have on the boat, 'cause they don't want the sewage tank to pump itself out onto the heads of the shipyard workers below. So, it's 30 stairs to parking lot level from the bottom deck of my boat, and then a quarter mile to the building that houses the public bathroom, and the building is their barge assembly warehouse, and it's 350 feet long and you guessed it; the bathroom is wayyy on the far side of the warehouse.

AND YES DAS WHY I CALLED IT DA BLUESSS :-)

The Claiborne Avenue Bridge

2010-04-19T08:36:00.004-05:00

On the afternoon of March 24, 2010 I was taking a nap as my relief captain Charles was taking the boat from Lake Pontchartrain towards the Mississippi River. He woke me up saying that he was stopping in a fleet and catching some lines on a barge (tying up to them) because someone had just driven their car off of the Claiborne Bridge into the River, so they were not allowing any water traffic in the area while rescue crews and other emergency watercraft were working; a usual practice in these circumstances. The blue bridge in the first picture is the Florida Avenue bridge, and it's in the closed position. The Claiborne bridge can be seen in the next picture, still open to marine traffic. The part that goes across way up top is actually the road bed of the bridge. These two bridges are called lift bridges since the road span (the part that cars drive over) "lifts" straight up. The Claiborne bridge had been in that position for a couple weeks while crews worked to repair the approach ramps to the bridge. If you look close you can see the construction equipment still parked on the approach ramp. After waiting, tied up at the fleet all day and night, we found out the next day that a man drove at a high rate of speed narrowly missing construction workers, and equipment and launched his car off the ramp. Charles said when a boat captain first reported that a car had come sailing off the bridge the lock masters didn't believe him. The car sank so fast that it was out of sight in seconds.

I took the picture above when they raised the Florida Av. bridge to allow a small Corps of Engineers boat to pass through and go to the accident sight. The Corps survey boat was equipped with very high tech sonar and bottom charting equipment. It is usually used to check dredging progress and requirements on the river bottom, so the Coast Guard asked them to find the car for them. With their powerful side-scanning sonar, they found the vehicle on the bottom of the canal in minutes. The next morning the M/V Trey Paul tugboat brought a crane barge to the scene and they pulled the car from the canal.

If ya click on the next picture to blow it up you can just make out the crane in position over the wreck, through the beams of the Florida Avenue bridge.

It was after 6 p.m. on the 25th before they allowed us to proceed through the bridges and on towards the River. We found out later that the guy in the car was said to be depressed on accounta the economy and fear of losing his job. Speakin' for ma self, I can't imagine life getting so depressing dat I'd go "waahoooing" ofn a bridge. 'Course das just me and I am a very lucky happy Cappy.

We Have a CHANNEL??

2010-04-13T23:58:00.003-05:00

This week is chocked full of family birthdays. Yesterday was Cappy's neice, Blythe's birthday, and today was her Mom's (Cappy's sister, Maria's) birthday. Today was also granddaughter Ashley's birthday. AND Thursday is granddaughter, Destiny's birthday. Hmmm...I hope I didn't forget anybody else.
Behind the scenes I've been trying to get some painting done because this is the perfect weather for it....before it gets HOT. The dawgs are going tomorrow to get their summer cuts, the day before their 'Dad' gets off the boat. He said he's not going to let me 'lollygag' in bed in the morning, like I have been (my sleep is still all broken and shredded like coleslaw cabbage...sigh...waaaah waaaaah waaaaah), which doesn't make for a very perky Pegody.
Cappy has plans for putting in another couple of square foot gardens in which we will plant asparagus and strawberries. The dogs love asparagus so much that we might have to put up netting to keep them out of the garden...seriously. Silly dawgs. I'm sure our dogs aren't the only ones who love raw salads, but it sure sounds weird to me.
Well, this is just a quick post, but I'm wondering if yall know about our cappyandpegody 'channel' over on youtube, where we have about 30 some videos. I'll put the link and hope it's going to work for you...if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/user/cappyandpegody#g/u
Cappy should be posting soon to let us know of this past month's adventures.

A Pain in the Neck

2010-03-31T13:34:00.003-05:00

Well, I s'pose I should let yall know why I haven't been posting of late. Cappy calls it the new cabinet syndrome. Last August, I knelt down to pick up some shredded papers that the dawgs had delightfully made out of something or other, and when I stood up, I bashed the crown of my head smack onto the edge of the cupboard that's built in just over the kitchen wastebasket. I almost knocked myself out, seeing stars and wondered how I was still standing. I guess I have a hard head anyhow; when Cappy and I were in a car accident about 8 years ago, while the truck was rolling over and over, on the last roll, I broke out the side window with my head. I didn't lose consciousness at all, even tho' they had to use the jaws of life to cut me out of the truck. My Mom used to call me bull-headed because I can be stubborn, I guess, but mayhaps the term isn't all that off base, given the circumstances.
Sooo, when I had conked my head last summer, it bothered my neck some. I got over it. But, a couple of months ago, I banged my head on another low shelf in the bathroom, but this time I heard a definite crunch in my neck and it's been bothering me ever since. When I'm standing up, it's fairly ok, but when I'm exhausted and lie down to take a nap or try to sleep at night, that's when all 'hayo' breaks loose, so I get up, sit up straight on the couch and try sleeping that way. I went to the dr. and got an anti-inflamatory, after a standing ex-ray, and he said it was just a touch of arthritis. (I thought I should have been lying down to show him what happens when I do that; to get a more accurate ex-ray of the injury, but he said nope.) I'm still having problems sleeping, and thus not feeling as though I could do this blog any justice by anything I posted.
In the interim, Cappy's cousin Suzy has a blog where she writes wonderful thoughts and recipes and has gorgeous photos. She's amazingly talented in so many ways. She loves to cook and garden, so the name of her blog is Kitchen Bouquet. She has a gazillion readers and subscribers. Here is her link, if you are interested. http://kitchenbouquet.blogspot.com/
I know you'll love it. I just hope you don't get so hooked on cousin Suzy that you forget about us! (:-p) You can always get the link at the top of our blog that will let you know when we post anything new.
Meanwhile, I'm goina contact that dr. to see what else we can do. Mebbe a pair of longer legs. Or higher shelves....but right now I keep hearing that darned Randy Newman song running through my head about 'Short People'.
While I'm 'getting my head back on straight', I'm not gonna let this get me down; I'm going to keep looking up...for SO many reasons.

This Years Boudin Making Gang

2010-03-17T00:09:00.008-05:00

Me and a bunch of friends got together and made a bunch of boudin and hog head cheese and had a great day having fun.I have made the title of this post the link to a slideshow/video we put on youtube for your enjoyment. Just click on the title to watch it. It was a great day enjoying some cajun traditions. Hope ya enjoy the show.

The "Come Back Inn"

2010-03-12T22:29:00.005-05:00

Our good friends Sam and Louise stopped by this afternoon to visit, and like most wonderful adventures, next thing we knew, we were sitting in one of me and Peg's favorite lil diners called the 'Come Back Inn'. It's one of those lil 'come as you are' neighborhood diner places, with a distinctive South Louisiana flair. The kinda place ya order, pay and wait for ya number to be called, while sipping on huge glasses of serve ya-self sodas or tea and cold local beers. Sam and I perused the menu while the Girls tanked up their glasses with tea and rootbeer.

I had a wonderful hamburger po-boy in crispy, chewy french bread, Peggy had a huge grilled chicken salad, Louise had a cup of seafood gumbo and friend shrimp and catfish, and Sam decided on the fried soft-shelled crab.
Fried soft shelled rab is one of those things that look like if ya don't watch it, it could crawl off ya plate. They fry the whole crab, legs and all.The beer was cold, the food was good, and as we left, Sam remarked to the waitress, "Don't worry, we will come back in." We were treated to a wonderful sunset drive over the swamp on the way home. A perfect ending to a wonderful spur-of-the-moment afternoon outing. Thank God for friends like Sam and Louise; good friends to laugh with, and who are usually always ready to join in our hair-brained adventures.

Smoke Balls Part Deux

2010-03-10T22:19:00.005-05:00

Several years ago I got Peg a "hi-def" video camera for Christmas. We weren't sure how to use it when we took it outa da box, so we went outside, and just for the sake of filmin' somethin', Peg filmed me rollin' some smoke balls down the driveway. We took our film inside, loaded it onto the computer and watched it. Yep, the camera worked, and it took as good a picture as it could of the subject it was pointed at. So now what??? We decided to try signing up for Youtube so we could make lil videos to share with you, our readers, family etc. Well, here it is 2 years later and that silly video of me chucking smoke balls is by far our most popular video......... go figure. Since then, we have worked hard trying to make slideshows and blend videos, and none of our best efforts get the views that first very amatuerish attempt that we made with a camera fresh outa da wrapping paper. With this in mind we decided to do it again this Christmas. Because of getting the new computer up and runnin', it's taken me awhile to actually post about it, but here it is, months later, smoke ball video fans, click and we hope ya enjoy. It's just me being ma ole self playing with fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS9u8QCDzkI

A Fish Story: The One That Almost Got Away.

2010-03-05T21:47:00.028-05:00

(photo of a typical alligator garfish)

When I was a kid, I had this 12 ft. wooden pirouge-style boat that my Paw-paw made for me outa plywood scraps and stuff he had laying around. He always was a packrat with piles of wood, etc. etc. leaning up against his shed. The boat was a sickly bright green, slathered with paint that was left over in old paint buckets he had rescued from the oil field where he worked. I think the 47 coats of paint, which he periodically spread on it, is what held it together and kept the li'l boat almost dry inside. I wish I knew how many miles I paddled that thing around the bayous 'til it finally got trashed when I was about 12 years old. (another story) Anyways, this time of the year we usta wait 'til we saw the big "gars" rolling on top of the water in the bay by the house. When we did, I'd paddle out and throw some lines. We used some willow logs 'bout 2 inches in diameter by 2-3 feet long for floats. We tied a fishing line to one end of the 'logs' and a li'l bright colored cloth to the other end, so it was easy to see. The line had a big brass swivel snap with a loop on it, and the line went down into the water about five feet deep. Typically, we baited with pumpkin seed shad, or dead shiners. (We kept shiners, but that's another story.) When a gar would take the bait, the loop would tighten around his top jaw, and as he tried to swim away, the log would stand up, waving the bright 'flag' (cloth) behind him. I'd be sitting in the shade, watching the dozen or so lines, 'logs' and flags that we had all set up, and when one would try to swim off, I'd paddle out, get him, bring him back near shore. I'd pull his head in over the side of the boat, give him a whack with a li'l pipe I had for that purpose, then drag him in onto a bed of moss I had picked fresh and was all ready for him, in da boat. The moss was a disposable lining, if ya will, to protect the horrid green bottom of my boat from becoming encrusted with bloody fish slime...made cleanup a lot easier, too.

Now a couple of years earlier, one lazy Summer afternoon when I was only about ten years old, I sat up on a long branch of my favorite big live oak tree, that leaned way out over the bayou and was practicing on the first harmonica I ever had, and watching the logs bobbing on the bay. Paw-paw was heading for the fish table with his fish cleaning knives in a big dishpan. As he passed by, he hollared at me, "T-Ray! Pay attention!! One of yo logs just took off heading' down da bayou!" I looked up from my cheap, banana-shaped souvenier Six Flags harmonica and sure enough, there was one of my logs, moving so fast it was leaving a wake as it sped down the bayou. I ran down the tree, jumped in da boat and paddled after it in hot pursuit. The fish went deep around the big bend of the bayou almost out of sight, so I 'cut the point', padding furiously, took a short-cut through the swamp and came out into the bayou again, just ahead of him. My short-cut set me up so I could snatch the log as it came sailing by and throw it over the stern of my little boat. I had a notch carved in the stern of my boat where the string always fit. With the log in the boat, and the string in the notch up there in the stern, I could tow the bigger fish along as I paddled back to the fish cleaning table, where Paw-paw was cleanin' the other fish and waitin' on me. It was a good plan and it had always worked before.

Well, this time when I snatched da log outa da water, threw it in the boat behind me and notched the line, (a practiced manuver, all done in one smooth, quick flip) but the line snapped tight with a hard jerk, and instead of me pulling him, there I went being towed backwards down the bayou by the fish! I knew he would tire eventually, so I didn't fight him; I let him take me for a ride. Finally, about a mile later, we slowed to a stop, so I grabbed a paddle and started rowing and easing my way back home. The big gar let me tow him back, only occasionally tugging me back down the bayou a little ways. Eventually, I made it all the way back around the bend, with the fish grudgingly following along, and started approaching the bank, where Paw-paw was waiting. I got to within 5 ft or so of the landing when the fish got the idea he didn't wanna be dragged to the bank and bagan thrashing mightly and pulling my boat, with me in it, back out into the deep water. That was the first time I had seen his massive tail and it plum scared da bajezzes outa me! I hollared at Paw-paw, telling him da fish won't let me get to the bank. By now my shoulders hurt and I was drenched head to toe with sweat, and fishing wasn't fun anymore.

There we were, locked in a tug-of-war, and what with me and Paw-paw hollaring at each other, we soon drew a small crowd of neighbors and a couple of fishers, who happened by. They all stood on the bank shoutin', "Come on boy, paddle!!" while I struggled to tow the fish in. I'd get close to the bank and the ol' boys would lean out, trying to grab the bow of the boat, but just as their fingers would reach the boat, the fish would drag me back out into the deep. This went on for quite some time, until Paw-paw got impatient and waded in after me. He latched one of his big ol' burly hands on the bow of my little boat, leaned way back and dragged me, the boat, the fish...the whole lah-lah up onto the bank. I was wore out, but da fish was caught. He was right at 6 feet long, and had to weigh over a hundred lbs. It was 20 years later before I ever saw the likes of that fish again, but das another story. (and just so ya know, while this aint me, I wanted ya to know that I wasn't exaggeratin' about the size they can get to.)

One Fine Day

2010-03-05T20:54:00.003-05:00

I was east bound in the intracoastal waterway one morning, approaching the town of Larose, LA, when I was blessed to witness this beautiful sunrise. It filled me with such a joy that I wanted to share my thoughts with a kindred spirit, so I called my friend, Skip. Skip is a fellow nature lover and we had a nice visit that morning and a rambling conversation. He mentioned a recent trip he'd had to Grand Isle, LA and commented on all the pelicans he had seen. Imagine my surprise when later that day while waiting for the Harvey locks, this pelican landed on the barge.

I watched him as he waddled towards the stern of the barge,

where he was met by a friend. They sat there for quite a while just like kindred spirits themselves, before flying off, just adding to the magic of an already good day.

It came as no surprise to me that the day would end with this beautiful sunset over the city of New Orleans. It was the only fitting end to one fine day.

Just For You.

2010-02-14T14:58:00.012-05:00

http://www.bluemountain.com/view.pd?i=226899510&m=6065&rr=y&source=bma999

You may have surmised that despite my not having blogged since the Super Bowl win, and despite the usual problems with this new computer, you have been on our minds. We hope today is filled with joy and happiness of loved ones. We'll be writing again soon, but until then, click on the link for the ecard we are sending YOU. It's our warm 'day of hearts' hug.
Cappy and Pegody...(and of course, the 'brats', who are not fond of my birthday helium balloons, now wandering the house, untethered 'who' lightly hover and float from room to room 'following' them.)

We About to Meet WHO Dat

2010-02-07T17:05:00.011-05:00

The question is: Who is it who says they are going to beat the Saints?
Now Cher, da REAL queshun iz, "WHO dat say dey gawn beat doze SAINTZ??!!"
Step right up and tell us! If you dare.
Oh, dem Sai'z been beat down ovah da yee-yahs, but dey aint been kept down. An dey aint gwan be kept down nee-thah!
And let me tell you this; even if they did happen not to win the Super Bowl, they are still winners!!
Dey iz owah hometown gladiators...dey give us sumthin' to be proud about, sumthin to cheer about, when aint been nothin' else to cheer 'bout 'round hee-yuh.
(Lord... I hope have the PC correct New Orleans accent down...I'm trying.)
Watchin' dish yee-uhs games, jumpin' to my feet, yellin':
"Are dey our gladiators, or WHAT?!! Are dey our Gladiators, or WHAT??!
Dey may get down, but help each other back up, are dey our GLADIATORS, or What...HEY!!"
Either way, tonight, our Saints home team will ride back into town, our heros.
And I just can't help liking a team, who call themselves the Saints, who, for a change, try to LIVE like Saints.
No wonder disheer, dey got dis far. Doze boyz done been blessed.

After the Game!!! : NOBODY SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DAH SAINTS!!!
Here at home, I was watching the game, with Cappy in my ear, the whole time. He had to drive the boat and couldn't actually watch the game, but listened to it over the Saints Radio Station. Whenever we scored a touchdown, outside was heard, here in our neighborhood an HUGE firework. As soon as it was evident that we had won...EVERYbody was out of their houses, yelling and shouting, some folks sporting those famous "Mardis Gras" umbrellas festooned with black and gold streamers, fireworks of bright shiny GOLD shooting up into the dark BLACK sky, some accompanied by whistles. Tonight history was made for the New Orleans Saints. It was the first time they had ever even been to a Super Bowl, and now, the first time (obviously) that they ever won it. Someone from one of the other teams that 'we' played said, "It's not just the New Orleans Saints that we have to play...we have to play their fans". I say it's no longer LOSE-ee-anna, but back to bein' the BIG Lou-EASY-anna.
Last night the City elected a new mayor...one that Cappy and I think New Orleans has needed for a very LONG time. (we are NOT fond of his sister, Mary, at all, tho'. ) We noticed Mitch Landrieu way back after Katrina, that this man should have been in charge. He's a go-getter, a guy who gets things done. He won by an HUGE landslide. We have high hopes for the New Orleans area. Tonight in our area, there is no color barrier, and everybody's spirits and hopes and heads are held a little bit higher. We give thanks to God for this, and say to our Saints, "Bless you boyz!!!"
Out on the boat Cappy is saying, that after 43 years of cheering on the Saints, some years actually wearing a paper sack over his head, like many of the dyed-in-the-wool fans around him...when they were counted as perennial losers and labeled "the AINTS", tonight the Saints finally went 'thundering' in. Now I axe you....WHO dat???!!!

A Chocolatey Blast From The Past

2010-01-30T13:34:00.001-05:00

Only a kid from South Louisiana could understand my Joy to discover that this old childhood favorite had returned to it's original recipe. The Elmer's candy company, like everyone else from around here, had suffered from the hurricanes. In the process of "coming back", for some reason, they changed their recipe of this glorious little Easter candy. It broke my heart. It just wasn't the same; it tasted of wax, and was not as creamy and flavorful. Not the way I remembered it at all! Peggy and I went to the store last night and they had a box of individual Elmer's candy on display; kinda early for Easter, and even tho' Peggy was dubious, I went ahead and got a few of them. She reminded me how broken-hearted I had been last year and said because of that "waxy thing" they had become, I'd probably be disappointed again this year. I just couldn't wait to get home to try one, so even before Peggy had the SUV started, I opened one. As soon as I opened the wrapper, the wonderful familiar smell of the old days immediately wafted though the vehicle. As I bit into it, the beloved chocolate candy of my youth flooded my mouth. Da Real Deal had returned! If you folks from other parts of the country are not familiar with the Elmer's Candy company, I strongly recommend ya give 'em a try. Here is the link to my childhood, all time favorite chocolate company. Leave us a comment and let us know what ya think. For the first time in years, I'm looking forwards to the Easter Bunny again:-)

www.elmercandyjrchocolatier.com

A Semi-Tropical Environment

2010-01-29T13:09:00.003-05:00

Here lies this year's crop of lemons. May they compost in peace. I paused in silent prayer asking for better luck this year.

As I dumped the lemons into the compost heap I can't help but wish things had been different. Last hitch I got home a couple weeks before Christmas and one of the first things I noticed when we pulled in the driveway was the "lemon monster". Thats how we lovingly refer to our Meyers lemon tree. The tree is short and very wide. It's branches hang to the ground and it is tilted at a rackish angle from hurricanes gone past, and loaded with big juicy lemons. This tree makes lemons almost year around and in the winter when the bumper crop comes in we pick a wheelbarrow full of these wonderful lemons. Peg and I excitedly discussed plans for lemon jelly, Pepper jelly, honey lemon jelly, lemon curd, etc. but realized it would have to wait until next time I was off the boat. After all, this was our Christmas filled with the hustle and bustle of the Season. The UPS guy like to wore the drive way out, with daily loads of presents; some for us and some mail order for our family and friends. We were way too busy packing and wrapping and mailing, etc. for jelly making, so we decided to let the lemons hang on the tree 'til I would get home next hitch to harvest and preserve. We have waited as late as February in the past to harvest them. We had no way of knowing we were in for a record breaking cold front (Global warming my A**!!!). The lemons froze and the tree was seriously damaged. When I got home the mushy rotting lemons were only fit for composting, so Peg and I buried about half of them in the compost heap and left the rest under the tree to compost there.

Here in da background ya can see all that's left of our glorious 'lemon monster'. All we can do is fertilize and wait and pray it will recover.

Ya see the problem with a semi-tropical climate is the semi part. That tree was 9 years old and had never froze. It had gotten way too big for Peggy to throw towels over it, in case of a freeze, as she showed in an earlier post. I guess this is why the ole timers say citrus trees will break your heart. On a good note though, the Grapefruit, being bigger than the lemons, didn't freeze and are sweet and delicious as always. Hmmmm wonder what we can turn them into? :-)

Pelicans In The Wheelwash

2010-01-28T23:42:00.005-05:00

While at work I took a bunch of pictures of white pelicans and seagulls following us in our wheelwash. Please forgive me, too lazy to make a slideshow, I just dumped the pictures onto Photobucket, and if you love wildlife like I do, please click the title of this post and enjoy the show.

Pain-in-the-Butt

2010-01-27T19:55:00.010-05:00

How do you read the bottom line of this sign? I guess I was tired or something, because the first thing I thought the sign said was...or sounded like was "heinie or hiney" shots. It took me a minute to figure out what it was really about, but I couldn't leave it at that, so we drove around the block so we could get this picture. For some reason, and I can't think of why, it made me remember a story about my Mom and sister, Lori. My Mom's car was having some problems, so she pulled it into a station to have it worked on while they waited and happened to have a good view of the mechanic. Lori buried her face in a comic book, while Mom continued watching the progress on her car. Under her breath Mom said, "Wow, he must have had some very serious surgery on his back". Lori, peered around her book to see how Mom would know something like that and asked, "How do you know??" Mom replied, "Well, gee, just look at that big scar on his back". Lori asked, "What scar??" Mom looked at Lori and asked, "Do you need your eyes examined? That big dark red gash right there on his back...it looks like a recent operation to me; it's still so dark red and angry looking". Lori slammed her comic book down in her lap and said, disgusted, "MOM." Mom asked, "What?" Lori shook her head at her mother and harshly whispered, "That's not his operation, that's his butt crack!" (Lori talks like that :-p) Mom took another good look and sure enough, that's what it was. She was so embarrassed that she sat there the rest of the time trying hard not to look at the guy's "operation" and trying to surpress loud laughs, but giggling so hard that she was in tears. And thereafter whether it be a plumber, mechanic, electrician, or anybody hapless enough to squat in front of Mom or us, it's always, "Oh migosh, their operation is showing!"
Maybe it's that we've been in a medical frame of mind of late because I just learned I have to go get one of those darned colonoscopy thingys done that Cappy had taken last year. I guess they put you to sleep for it now, but I had one done and was awake!!! It was awful. Maybe that's what I was thinking about.
More IMPORTANTLY, our good friend, Sam, has been in the hospital for the last week with a BAD infection in his arm. Because we love him so much, we've also given him a pain in the butt by pestering him, and asking nosy and annoying questions, as if he didn't have enough to worry about. (Cappy and I can be like that sometimes, darn it) But the good news is, is that he got out of the hospital today! He's going to be fine and before we know it, he'll be smoking up his neighborhood again with all kinds of wonderful things in his smoker. Soooo he's out, he's freeee. No more operations, no more open gowns in the back, no more shots. (I wonder if they gave him one of those HINI shots....nope, am NOT goina ask. And his arm was all bandaged, too, because of the surgery, but we aren't gonna ask to see his operation either. We're just going to let the poor man finish recouperating in peace.)