Blather
Cooking for Guys
Live to Camp
Camp to Live
Poetry
and Other Lies
Rusty Nail – Praise & Treats
It has been an unseasonably dry winter. Up until Friday, when it started to snow. It has been snowing all weekend. Sunday morning it cleared, revealing a sparkling winter wonderland. With no pressing need to go anywhere, most people elected to stay home, off the...
BBQ Sauce
I made this sauce for the rabbits at the last Bunny BBQ. I cut up and brined the rabbits for 9 hours, then rinsed and boiled them for 10 minutes. They were painted with BBQ sauce and frozen until the day before the party. I thawed them Friday, and put the meat in...
Moussaka
The Food Stamp Gourmet by Wm. Brown has been out of print for years, but you can still find it on-line at a reasonable price. I have had my copy since the seventies; it contains some of my favorite recipes. Every so often, I pull it out and choose one of them....
Moussaka Hand Pie
I made moussaka for dinner last night and had some left-over filling. Today I got out the pie-irons and made moussaka hand pies for lunch. Forcing the Greek pita bread into the buttered pie irons, I spooned some tomato paste over the pita, I filled it with the...
Grandma Wade’s Mince Meat
Grandma Wade used to make mince meat pies for the holidays. She shared the recipe with Mom,and this delightfully sweet pie has been a treasured memory of mine for decades. The recipe is pretty labor intensive and contains your entire annual dietary allowance of fat in...
Battery Bank
I don’t know if I have a charging problem or just a weak battery, but lately I have been having trouble starting the bike. Not all the time; in fact, very rarely, but always when the weather is miserable, and I am trying to get home. It happened again yesterday. I had...
A February Excursion
This story first appeared in International Sidecar Traveller #29 December, 2016 It’s been a cold winter, with temperatures in the single digits. Storm after storm has swept in from the ocean, dumping rain and snow across the Pacific Northwest. We've had some...
Why I Am Not A Cat Person
It was one of those spells we get in January; a couple of weeks of clear, dry weather with the temperatures stuck in the teens. I had seen an ad in the paper for a BMW powered reverse trike up in The Dalles. I envisioned something like a Morgan. Two wheels in front,...
January Rain
Five to five and the last patients have left the office. The doctors are finishing their dictation; the office staff have locked the doors, turned off the lights and gone home. I clean the surgical instruments and shut off the machines, flipping the breaker on the...
New Years Solo Camp with Dogs
December 31, 2018 Sunset 4:33 PM January 1, 2019 Moonrise 3:28 AM, waning crescent Sunrise 7:49 AM I found myself at loose ends for New Year's Eve. Amy was in California visiting relatives and both my brothers were busy. I had to work that morning, but I had...
Naughty Nuts and Bolts, a Creative Talents Unleashed anthology, available from Amazon
Three of my poems - Yes, You Are, Animal Nature, and Last Night I Heard Your Voice - appear in Naughty Nuts and Bolts, a Creative Talents Unleashed anthology, available from amazon.com, to be released February 14, 2019 VW "The theme of this anthology, is ......
Twice Savored
This story first appeared in the Lit Select anthology Love Slave: Sizzle Vol.5 March 2016 Ralph walked across the lobby to the phone, then hesitated, turned to walk away but stopped again after a few steps. Ralph was nervous. He and Clarice hadn't spoken for years....
Words
No matter how close you think you are to a person, there are things you can never say to them, neither truth nor fiction, not in earnest and certainly never in jest. Words can be a knife or more often, a cudgel. I knew that, but somehow chose to ignore it. I find...
Mortality Waits
In the ominous gloom of predawn, behind and somewhere above the henhouse, an owl poses the question: “Who? Who, who?” Inside, the hens shuffle restlessly, murmuring their fears and discontent, unhappy to be awakened before sunup,...
I Got Burned
When I look at photos of you from your youth, I laugh and say:"I got burned!"You do know I am just kidding?You were beautiful when we metand you are beautiful now.When I look at you I still see the beautiful woman I first met, all those...