7.16.2019

The Birthday of the Greatest Country...The United States of America. So we BBQ'd !!

    The morning of the fourth of July, I stepped outside with a cup of coffee, yawned, stretched and immediately turned around and went back in for the camera.  One of my Daddy's favorite flowers was in full bloom and beautiful.

These double blossom spotted tiger lilies are an amazing testament to how wonderful my wife is.  Several years ago they came up in conversation and I mentioned how hard they were to find.  About a month later the bulbs came in the mail. I was amazed, and they continue to bless our yard, year after year  in spite of our shoddy gardening practices.
  But, since it was "the fourth" I figured I might as well do like the rest of the country and fire up our rusty ol' bbq pit. 

   I've been seeing lots of folks talking 'bout stuffing jalapenos  and grilling them, so I thought we would give them a try.  We took six peppers from our garden, split them in half and dug the seeds out, but leaving the white inner veins for added heat.  We stuffed them with some Rouses fresh Cajun sausage, then rolled them in shredded cheese and wrapped them in Wright's thick bacon. They didn't come out all perfect and fancy, but I thought they looked good sitting on the pit cozied up with a couple slabs of ribs.
The ribs were rubbed with a li'l  worcestershire sauce and our own special blend of Cajun seasoning mix. 
   I closed 'everybody' in pit for an hour and a half...3 beers length of time.

   Then, I checked the internal temp of the ribs saw they were over 170F, so I pulled everybody out, and let them rest for another beer or so.

   Like I said before, the peppers were not all that pretty, but they were crispy, a nice light smokiness and Peg and I thought they were very tasty. Problem was, is that they disappeared too soon...six of 'em disappeared that night, and the other six were gone by noon the next day. 
We had an amazing holiday meal and later that night we enjoyed the neighbors' fireworks from sitting in our yard. BeauxBear "celebrated" by hiding under the bed. Well, at least he had enjoyed the meal earlier.
We humbly thank God for this beautiful country that He has given us. We hope you all had a joyful, thankful, prayerful, and plateful Fourth of July, 2019 as well.

7.04.2019

Dreaming of Getting a Good Night's Sleep


Well…mebbe it’s because, for some reason lately, that we’ve been sleep-deprived that we haven’t posted much of late. Just plain tired and behind the eight-ball, is what I’m sayin’.
    Seems like Peggy’s been sleepin’ good. It’s obvious to me, that she is. I know she’s sleepin’, cuz she dreams, and I know she’s dreamin’…or she better be dreamin’ is all I can say, and I have my reasons why, too.
   I’ve been awakened by finger tips lightly dancing all over the top of my bald head. I’ve been “polka-dotted” with a finger on the side of my face, which, of course, woke me up. One time I worried about whether or not she had hurt her hand when I got walloped while I was sleeping and she was supposedly sleeping and never knew a thing about it, until I asked her in the morning if her hand hurt. Nope—THEN she was worried about me; I don’t think she worried when I was getting walloped...good thing it was just the one smack.
    Sometimes I really worry about what’s going on in her dreams, like for instance, when I’m deeeeeeep in blessed sleep and am suddenly awakened by somebody screeching directly into my ear, “Heyyyy!!!” or “AAAAHHHHHH!!!” My heart starts racing because I don’t know what’s going on in our room! My “fight-or-flight” has kicked on, I throw the covers back, ready to jump outa bed and do battle with…I hear soft snoring. Sound asleep she is, after scaring me and da dawg awake. He must be used to it by now, cuz he doesn’t even break a bark anymore about it. I open my nook to read a little bit to calm my nerves and try to get back to sleep.
  Dat dawg would have trouble going back to sleep if he about had his nose nearly screwed off while he was sound asleep. Peg sez she was dreaming that she was reaching wayyy over to turn off a light switch, and it didn’t wanna turn. So, she pinched it harder--gonna make it twist. She only stopped when I grabbed her hand off my C-Pap face mask.    If I knew what to expect in her nighttime assaults, I might be like the dawg…no big deal, but she comes up with new “ideas” every night.
   One night she accused me of being “Joe” somebody, so she started smacking him around, yelling at him to, “Knock it off, Joe”. Boy, I’m glad I’m not Joe.
    I don’t know who the guy was who got on the bad side of her in her sleep at a crowded skating rink one morning, in the middle of the night. This weaselly little guy was knocking people off their skates, and a little girl almost got hurt, so Peg reached hard and grabbed him by his shirt. She started yelling, “I got him! I got him!” The guy tried getting away and started yelling back, “Let go, let go Peg! You’ve grabbed a handful of my skin!” And it hurt, too…a little bit.
   She meets all kinds of people in her sleep. Some of them must be complete idiots. She had to keep informing one of them in no uncertain terms—and loudly, that what they were holding in their hand, “It’s a towel…it’s a TOWEL…listen to me, it. is. a. TOWEL!!!”
    The night the bear got in, though, was pretty disturbing, momentarily. It happened just after I had staggered to the bathroom around, I guess
it musta been around 3 a.m. Here I am in the middle of my business when she starts screaming, “It’s a bear…it’s a BEAR!!!” I’m on the other side of the house, on the toilet. Now why…or how, or what in the hell would a bear be doing breaking into our house at this time of night and I’d heard no windows break or wood splintering. Sighhh…so, just this time I decided to let the bear get ‘er. She was sleeping…she wouldn’t know I let the bear get ‘er.
   I don’t know what happened, but by the time I wobbled back to bed, she musta had him subdued, cuz she was sound asleep. Probably snatched his nose off something. Maybe scared him by barking like a dog, but I didn’t hear her bark like BeauxBear and I did one night. She said she was in the driveway and BeauxBear was running for the front door, followed by a pack of coyotes. He made it into the house, so to scare off the coyotes, she started kicking at them and barking like she was a bigger dog than they were. Well, all her barking and kicking not only scared off the pack, but it woke her up, too.
None of us, neither BeauxBear or I could breathe there for a second. She slowly pulled her foot back in under the blankets and laid there all quiet. Finally, I just hadda ask, “What was that?” A simple question.
 She whispered(?) “Oh, did I talk in my sleep again?”
  “Nooo,” I answered, “You barked…like ‘ROOOF WOOOF-WOOF!!! scared the HELL outa me an’ Beaux…he jumped about a foot off the bed an’ scratched my leg when ‘e landed! I couldn't figure out for the life of me what YOU would be barking at. 3:30 in the morning--that's the dogs job.” 
   Now, there’s a lot more stories about Peg’s nightlife, but I’ll just leave it here, I guess. Now, I try not to wake her up unless she’s got a really bad dream goin’ on that I think is really scaring her, so I wake her up before she gets ta going too bad, where one of us…meanin’ me, (or “Joe”) might get hurt. I do have to say, I think I did “Joe” or whoever a favor the other night, tho’. It was pitch black in the room, I was sound asleep and was awakened by a very DEEP, LOUD moaning, “MUH-AH-HAH-HAHHH!!!” I woke up with a start, squinting to see anything, “this can’t be good,” I thought, “who’s in here…is somebody in here? Should I grab my rifle?” Oh wait…Wait a second…getting my bearings, I remembered that Peg does do a very, very deep voice sometimes. Letting out a slow breath, I gave Peg’s arm a little shake, “Wake up, Peg, you’re dreaming.” 
    I kinda felt sorry for whoever was her victim in there tonight. Getting a “muh-ah-hah-hah” could be very bad for them. I figure I’m their hero tonight, saving them like I did. I hope they got some sleep outa da deal, anyhow. As for me an' my dawg,..well, I don't know about him, but I’m sleepin’ with one eye open.