BBQ'd Redfish

When I bring Redfish home from the boat I usually fillet them off the bone leaving the skin and scales on them.  This is a Cajun trick. (this picture shows one scale side up, two scale side down, for those folks who aren't familiar with good fish or how to cook them. It's pretty obvious to those of us who do.)

By keeping the scales on like this, the flaky flesh holds together and allows ya to put them on the BBQ pit.

Seasoned with our own blend of Cajun Spice we park them on a smokey pit for 15 minutes.

While Pourkey the Pig stands guard, we melt a stick of butter a shot of lemon juice a Tablespoon of Cajun seasoning and half a beer in a pot on the stove. (In the house I told Peg, "Take a sticka budder, a good Tablespoon of our spice, 'bout an ounce of lemon juice and a couple ounces a beer...put 'em in that small pan and heat it some. It's got to get to know itself".) 

 

The fish basted with the spicy butter sauce are then covered for another 15 minutes re-basted til done. (Don't forget, down here in Cajun country, it's against the law to fire up the pit and not include sausage :-P)

 

Combine this amazing smokey spicy fish with a pale sweet tater and some of Peg's killer coleslaw and ya got a meal fit for a king.

Too bad yall weren't here or this woulda been your plate.  Don't worry though it didn't go to waste.

Louisiana State Fair 2012

  Cappy was sitting at his laptop, drinking coffee, perusing nothing in particular the other morning, when he came across the news that the Baton Rouge State Fair was going on and that they had a jelly judging contest that day...PLUS, if you were going to compete, you could get into the Fair for free. Well, being the kind of people we are, he said, "Les GO!" And with that, we were off. We would have gone to the Fair, just to go to the Fair, my never having been to a State Fair ever, anywhere, but almost as a joke and a get-in-free kind of joke, we grabbed a jar of our Lemon Jelly on the way out the door.
   First thing, Cappy made sure I had my cotton candy, then meandering around, we found sausage-on-a-stick, sausage with onions and bell peppers, and really GOOD (and HUGE) turkey drum sticks for our lunch and supper, all the while on foot.

We saw some pretty funny sights of course.

 Cappy broke about six balloons in a row and won me a teddy bear! We rode on some rides and Cappy took some great shots of the Fair from atop the ferris wheel.

As it was getting dark, as we munched on our turkey drum sticks, we sat and watched an assembly of some of the coolest musicians: Lousiana Hall of Fame members. They were truly amazing!!! They said to come back the next day, as they were going to be there again...one guy was going to be operating the rides and one guy was going to be working the ring toss...not really, but that's what they said.

 At the end of the day, come to find out, our  Lemon Jelly "contestant", that we had brought along as a joke, and had gotten us in free, actually won First Place while we weren't looking! It was just one of those spur of the moment fun-filled days that turned out to be a winner in every sense of the word...Yeah!   

Our New Look

For years now (since back in 2005) We have had the same plain brown blog.  Blogger has been wanting us to upgrade for some time, so today I took the plunge.  At first we didn't like it, but we are kinda resistant to change be nature.  Anyways this is it.  The ads are not nearly as bad as we thought, 'cause Google picks the ones that kinda apply to what we write.  Who knows, we may be able to retire and blog for a livin. 'Somehow I doubt it though, because so far we have made $3. in 6 months of having ads.  Not enough to keep us in beans.

Unwanted Company

We had unwanted company the other night when a coon snuck aboard from the dock where we were tied up for the night.

The scoundrel found a bag of garbage on the back of the boat that was accidentally left out that night and he tore it to pieces.  The next morning we found garbage all over the back deck.

To add insult to injury that raccoon didn't even wipe it's paws before crossing back across our barge.  

Lucky Gator

I ran upstairs to the wheelhouse to do some paperwork while we were tied up in the marsh yesterday, and spied a gray "smudge" across the pass.

I grabbed my camera and zoomed in on it and sure enough it was a gator about 8 ft long sunning himself on the bank.  I don't know how he survived gator hunting season which just ended, but I'm glad he did and it was good to see him enjoying this beautiful Fall day here in the Delta.

It's sights like these that keep me loving my job and appreciating the beauty of all God's creations.

Wild Hogs

Well, I finally decided to get internet service for my laptop on the tugboat.  Now I can post stuff almost as it happens.  So here goes my first attempt.

While traveling down Main Pass, off the Mississippi River, yesterday evening, we scared up a herd of wild hogs.  I've been seeing on the news a lot lately about pork shortage and bacon prices tripling in the future.  It sure don't look like a problem down in the delta though.  Judging by this herd of wild pork chops, looks like there is plenty pork to go around; ya just gotta scare it up.

The Labor of Our Fruits

 

Although Cappy was home for two whole weeks, the only thing I remember for certain that we got accomplished was eight batches of lemon jelly and lemon pepper jelly (four each). I say we because I was here, behind the scenes "helping". Cappy did the lion's share as will become evident, one'st you see the slideshow I made about the whole ordeal. ....Oh RATS! I've tried and tried and tried and tried to get that slideshow to upload on this new formatted blog post for nuttin'. Now I'm going to have to ask you to click on the youtube link to see the danged thing. It's not that long, and it's our video "channel", Cappy's and mine, so yall should be safe clicking on it. Nobody that we know of has had any problems, but I know there are folks who say they not gonna click on any links. Here ya go:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7wkbQ_cQLg&list=UUe6CkaSkPG0EXROyp-xQkjw&index=1&feature=plcp

And...I've still got a lot of new stories, especially about the great people we met on our travels this Summer. Lots of wacky stuff going on around here, too, like the baby alligator hatchling I found in my kitchen sink (!!!?) the other day. Alrighty then :-) 

Hurricane Issac 2012

I was working on a video/slideshow about riding out the storm. It's too long to put on youtube prolly; 'bout 45 minutes long. I wanted to take off and run away, as usual, but stayed. Thank God for our friends, Sam and Louise. The dogs and I stayed with them 'during'. Because somebody else was 'in the house', I slept like a baby during the worst of it Tuesday night.
  The next couple of days the roads were closed due to power lines being down, so I had to stay longer than I would have liked and the dogs (BAD dogs) wore out our welcome, I think. The BRAT got out of the bedroom during the night where we were staying and peed everywhere in the house and left a 'pile' behind their computer chair. Sam gets up early and didn't the Brat bark at the man in his own house....BAD dog. I didn't know any of this til hours later when I got up and went about cleaning it all up. Only thing; the Clorox wipes makes it look like the pee is still there, Louise and I noticed. And, I had put those denim, velcro belly pads, which I call "pajamas" on them and they somehow don't work at all on these guys.
   Waiting for the electricity to come back on was awful...just awful. The hot, thick stagnent air kept sweat from evaporating off our over-heated skin. I feel so bad for people who, still today, a week later, have no electric or A/C. And not to mention those who have lost everything in the floods and have to suffer in the heat as well.
 I think (my own uneducated opinion) that a lot of the flooding was from some of the water they pumped out of New Orleans's "bowl" with the new high wall all around it. The new pumping system can draw water out, put it into Lake Pontchartrain, at the rate of an olympic sized swimming pool per five seconds. It ran for days and nights. The wind pushed all that water to the west into LaPlace and other towns around the lake. They had to do it. The yearly Decadence festival was going to be taking place that weekend in New Orleans. Don't know what that is? Google it.
   Yeah, I'm down about the whole thing around here. It seems that 'the man' would have his act together by now. It seems as though whenever another hurricane blows through, they have to reinvent the wheel all over again, as to how to deal with things; especially basic services for the people who live here. 
  It is a beautiful place, South Louisiana. No matter how nice, tho', the resiliant folks have learned long ago that they either have to do it themselves and help each other, or it aint gonna get done right...or done right away, anyhow.
  I've been listening to one of our local favorite singer/songwriters, Marcia Ball. (She's the gal ridin' her piano stool 'side-saddle'.) This song just suits me right now. I don't know why.
 http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=marcia+ball%2bfool+in+love&view=detail&mid=4D31DB572F0542B1C2044D31DB572F0542B1C204&first=0&qpvt=marcia+ball%2bfool+in+love   

But Before All That...

Well, I've been working on another slideshow/video and fomenting on 'the rest of the story' about our trip. Yall may have lost interest by now, cuz it's taken me so long to 'get on with it'. I've been messing with the idea of making my own music for the slideshows, too, on the keyboard Cappy had gotten me for Christmas a few years ago. Just as I'm about to start working on all of that, I have to brush it all off the desk in anticipation for this Hurricane, Isaac, which is barreling it's way toward New Orleans. Somehow, we all instinctively knew that it would cast it's eye this way. So now I've got to spend a lot of time battening down the hatches and getting ready for it. Sighhh. Just so ya know. All prayers are welcome.  

On the Road AGAIN

We felt like we were riding by the seat of our pants a lot of the time, despite all the road maps, road signs and the GPS on our trip north to Nova Scotia. We sailed right along, planning on skirting Boston, as we had New York City, but, once again, we fell off the interstate and ended up in Peabody, Massachusetts. I have to mention this for my son, Joe, who likes to remember his business trip there once and learned that you don't pronounce Peabody, like Peabody. You pronounce it like "Peebuh-dee" and you say it fast. Now whenever we can't decide how to pronounce a word, like tomato or tomah-to...something like that there, no matter what word it is, one of us declares, it's pronounced, "Peebuh-dee"...and that's the definitive answer now for any word. A foreign dignitary's name, a strange road name, anything we have trouble with...it's pronounced, "Peebud-ee" and leave it at that. So since we were meandering about Peabody, trying to find our way back onto the interstate and hadn't had breakfast, it being around 11 a.m., we went to a CVS and loaded up on trail mix, "chay-ter chips", bottled water and lemonade, and also we found a  nice dark brown Massachusetts souvenier t-shirt for Cappy. He got to hear the "Bah-ston" accent, too. On the street we saw some old guys, who looked like they had just stepped off the cover of a book that held stories of sailors who had sailed the high seas for half a century and had barely lived to tell their tales. If we hadn't been in a hurry to get into Canada, Cappy would have loved to have stopped and talked with them, but alas, we kept going.
  And we made good time, the weather being sunny and nice. In Portland, Maine, around three o'clock in the afternoon, we stopped and had supper at the Foreside Tavern. I forgot what we had, but I know mussels were part of 'da deal'. I'd never had them before. I guess they were pretty good, but I am still thinking I'm not a big fan of them. Cappy said they were great. Take it from him, tho' and not me, because he knows seafood a lot better than I do. (I just hate finding sand in the food in my mouth, no matter how tasty the food is, spoilsport that I am.)
  On the road again, Cappy and I were thrilled at the good time we were making. Famous last words. If I thought the bad storm that we got under while going around New York City was bad, it was nothing much compared to what we got hit with going up through Maine, toward Bangor and on up. Oh. My. Gosh. It was bad. Bad. Plus, our soft, although new South Louisiana tires weren't equipped to ride fast in those sloshy conditions. Not being able to see the white lines on the side of the road even with the windshield wipers going as fast as they could, other drivers put their emergency lights flashing away, so we turned ours on, too. A couple of  times we had to pull off the highway along with a herd of traffic to wait til we all could see anything so we could pull out onto the road and try again. We heard later in the motel that we had somehow missed being in a tornado, and I don't doubt it one bit. Actually, we didn't get to that motel til way after midnight, because although the speed limit had been 75mph, I could only do about 40mph at the most in that constant torrent. If I tried speeding it up, we would start to hydroplane. It felt like the back of the SUV was lifting up and going off to the left into the passing lane. Scarey stuff. It was interesting, tho' once it got dark enough for the lights to reflect off things on the side of the road, to see deer crossing signs, but more fun was the moose crossing signs. We were very far north now, with towns very far apart. Actually, we never did get to see a moose during our whole trip, but the moose signs were enough to satisfy. (I have only ever seen one real moose in the wild while driving along the New York State Thruway headed toward Syracuse years ago.)
  But hours earlier, before we had gotten to that motel, there on the road, since it was getting so late now, we decided that, we really should try hard to find a place to stay. Good luck with that. It was another thirty miles or so to the border and we didn't know if we'd even find a hotel or anything once we did get into Canada. Exits were few and far between, and we were still slogging along around 30-40 miles an hour in the dark heavy rain. We got off at one exit and saw a motel sign right near, so we drove into the dimly lit parking lot. Immediately I got a creepy feeling; a "Bates Motel" feeling. The place was dark green and spread itself, down along the big, darkened  empty, gravel parking lot, like a tentacle, with it's pale yellow peeling window panes faintly glowing in the dark. The place looked like it had been built in the 1800's. There was a small group of people, drinks in hand, standing around an open door halfway down, with motorcycles parked right up tight to the well-worn long wooden porch. My Cappy was all enthused. He said, "Hey, they look like they may be our kind of people". What I wanna know is: when did I get so uppity? When did I get so snooty? I like people...I really do. I try fitting in. These guys...I dunno. They looked like Hell's Angels to me, but then maybe I was just jaded by the dismal night we'd been having. Cappy is a way better judge of character than I am, so if he said they were nice people, then I'm sure they were, but I didn't want to stay there. Cappy  got out and went to talk with them, looking for the owner of the place to open a room for us. (I don't wanna stay here,  don't wanna stay here, I don't wanna drive another thirty miles in this bad weather, but I really don't wanna stay here.) Everybody tried helping Cappy rouse the owner. They banged on doors, they pounded on doors, they tried calling, they tried  yelling, they tried their phones. I sat there peering at the whole blurry scene through the rain on the windshield. Cappy finally came back and said, "No....we can't get the owner, so looks like we'll have to keep going".  I sighed, "Oh, that's a shame", and I meant it, even though I was relieved,  because we'd have to drive somemore in the wind and rain; wherever it would take us for the night. I'll bet the place was nice, despite my misgivings, too.
  On we went into the night, listening to some really stupid public radio CD's I had gotten for the trip. By then we were the only vehicle on the dark, lonely road. At long length,  we got to the town of Houlton, just south of the border, found the greatest motel, Ivey's Motor Lodge, which is obviously family owned, meticulously clean, sweet little homey touches in the room (and in the morning a wonderful dining room with free breakfast and they only charged $83 for the room and breakfast). It was such a clean place, that I even walked around in my sock feet! And that's really saying something. But when we first got there that night, we were drenched to the bone by the time we got all our stuff dragged through the rain, into the motel. We watched the weather channel and the local weather said there was flooding right in the town of Houlton and all along where we had driven that night. No kidding.  Then we got the best sleep ever with the wind and rain beating on the motel room windows.  In the morning we 'gassed up' and made a bee-line for the border. The weather was still kind of raining, but not as hard as last night, still I had a difficult time with our tires, getting up to speed. I was lucky to be able to do 50 mph, let alone the posted 75 mph. (Yow! 75 mph) We had everything on the dashboard all ready for the border crossing folks.  Our passports, our special car insurance to be able to drive in Canada, and my special driving license to be able to do the same. They let us right in, no problem. It was still drizzling, so as we pulled back onto the road, I was wondering how fast I'd have to drive on the interstate in Canada when I spotted the speed limit sign, "110"....whaaaa? Here I couldn't even do 75, how in the heck am I going to do 110?? Cappy said, "No, Peg, it's kilometers, not miles per hour". That was still kinda fast for the conditions.  We decided to get some literature about Canada and maybe a couple of maps at the Tourist Information Center. (They give all that away free.) Also, they love to talk to people who are traveling and give them lots of advice and updates. Sooo, we drove into the infomation place as soon as we got into Canada. What a very nice group of young, helpful ladies who work there! I can't emphasize that enough. We were having so much fun visiting with them, we had to remind ourselves that we had an agenda to get to our destination before nightfall, over in Nova Scotia, and drag ourselves out of there. So away we went again. They also gave us a laminated conversion chart to be able to tell how fast we were supposed to go, weights and measures, etc.  Whew, so I didn't have to go 110 mph, but 68 mph instead. I did what I had to do until it stopped raining, then we did the 110 klodhoppers per hour, as they came to be called (in Peebud-ee). 

Tell ya what. How 'bout I make you a slideshow with pictures that whizzed by as we were doing our "ROAD TRIP" thing.      Okay, I was trying to upload the video here, but it's going to take too long and I've got other stuff to do, so I'm just putting the link to our youtube channel. Hope you don't mind. (some people don't like clicking on links in general) Anyhow, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILpqyxocIHU&list=UUe6CkaSkPG0EXROyp-xQkjw&index=1&feature=plcp