FISHING BUDDY - E6B - GILL NET - ROOTED ROCK CUSTOM WOOD PRODUCTS

Fishing Buddy

----------------------

E6B Flight computer

 True Virgins Make Dull Companions

True course plus/minus Variation = Magnetic course plus/minus Deviation = Compass course. Apply wind direction/speed for compass heading. 

Anybody remember or use one of these? 

Never needs a battery yet will help you navigate around the world if you in-put the correct information. 

I wonder if this is even taught anymore?

---------------

A visual treat on our daybreak walks.

---------------

Salmon hitting the nets.

-------------

Home-made utility trailer

Vashon Island weekend race.

--------------

ROOTED ROCK CUSTOM WOOD PRODUCTS

Check out this site. Refreshing young kid woodworking and videos that are simple, short, spot on, and fun to watch.

-------------------

Runs like a top. 

---------------

Winter in east Texas appears to be what we expected when we moved down from the north. Cold nights, cool breezes and warm days. Planting season just around the corner. 

Appreciate the visit this week.

2022

I want to be here when the last grain of sand drops. Then instantly flip the hour glass so there is time and no one noticed.  

 

LEAVING KEY WEST - PYREX COOKING - STATES DOUBLING DOWN

"Leaving Key West at 05:00 with 12 knots of wind on the nose."

SV Air Speed.

.........................

Zucchini/onion/egg breakfast pancake. "Free food" from our dieting point of view. Fried in a smidgeon of bacon grease and butter. The fun part here is the flipping technique.

...................

PYREX STOCK POT

Her says that "they" do not make these anymore. Have to find them in some net market place and, quite often, the shipping is the same price as the used pot. She found this one nearby for a quick pick up drive and reasonable money. Appears to be brand new.

That same day this pot produced first small batch of chicken broth from chicken breasts.  Twenty six degrees here in east Texas and it is time to "get our soups on!!"

These are great cooking pots. This one will live on the stove top as part of everyday kitchen wear and be used most often for making broth soups.  

Two chicken breasts, skin on/bone in. Ninety minutes on simmer and ninety minutes setting off. Two quarts of chicken broth for soups and chicken meat for dieting eats.

One quart of broth makes two full bowls of chicken soup for lunch. Her wanted some spinach in hers, and mine above was simple shredded chicken, green onion and a splash of soy sauce. Quick comfort food on a cold Texas day. 

We are looking for another similar amber Pyrex pot that is rectangular/oval with lid to be used for oven baking/reheating meals. Refrigerator to stovetop to oven to cooling and returning to refrigerator/ then repeat, all doable in same pot is appealing. Smaller Pyrex also on the list that can be reheated in the microwave directly from the fridge. We left all of this type of cooking ware behind when we moved and miss the function and simplicity.

If you do not have a couple of these kinds of cookware, consider picking up a roasting pan and a soup pot. Some good deals still exist just for the shopping. If taken care of, they will last the rest of your life. 

.....................

TAKE A 5 MINUTE RIDE WITH TRAVIS.  Up Mt. Washington. My bet is you will take the whole trip up the mountain with him . 

....................
 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE. An hour but the photography and story are magnificent. Maybe watch later when time permits. 

......................

WASHINGTON STATE STRIKE FORCE

W 246-100-040,

Lived in this beautiful state for 55 years. Many friends still there. I think about them often, but more so this week. How the people react to this will be tell tale and worthy of watching. Eastern Washington vs. Western Washington? Stay tuned.

--------------- 

California wants to double the taxes on the peeps living and working in that state.

How many folks from these two states are now packing up and getting the hell out?

-----------------

Found this video on The Feral Irishman mid week. I think a must watch even though much of the terminology is foreign, at least to me. Maybe just watch and listen. 

-----------------

Worthy of your time to read. A quickie. Will any of this ever play into your life or those close to you? 

-----------------

Onion sets are already out at local feed stores. Time now to plant seeds if only I had that small green house I have been talking about. Regardless, time to start prepping the raised gardens. 

Stories of shortage around the country and from a few friends up in NH. On this day here in east Texas most all is still available. Many local small stores and markets have different supply chains and quite often are fat with basics. 

Interstates still full of truckers trucking and trains rumbling and whistling through the days and nights. Add to this local sales in some local stores this weekend. Up to 25% off everything. One time only so must take advantage!!

Winter passed through yesterday leaving a trace of rain snow. Cold winds brought feel like temperatures into the teens this weekend. February is the winter month here. Not sure that I can save the lemon trees. Cats are fat and complain of the cold as they head back into their warm beds. 

Keep planning and stocking up. Help others. Make time to share with family and friends. Good human interaction and a few laughs. Keep it alive.

Thanks for the visit. I appreciate.

MAD WORLD - PETER BUKA - METALLIC CAT - BOSTON PORK BUTT BONE IN - FOR THE GREATER GOOD

"And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world"

MAD WORLD  Peter Buka Cover   Volume up and enjoy.

MAD WORLD  Janet Devlin Cover

MORE PETER BUKA 

 -----------------------------------------------------------

METALLIC CAT    For Yellowstone fans. The horse in the stall, last episode S4? 

Notice loose reins with riders one hand on horses mane and other hand on saddle horn.

...........................

OLD FAMILY PHOTOS

I have a folder on my desk top this week labeled misc. I am finding photos my mother kept and in her passing years ago, I put many of her saved photo over the years into large folders. This week I am finding in those folders, photographs I have taken and photos others have taken. They range over a long period of years. 

These photos bring stories to the surface and many have caused me pause. Time in life now to ponder, wonder and reflect. 

So, some photos and stories, none of which are connected other than all have passed through my life. They are fresh in my memory early this new year.

Mom when she was young.

Guessing this was taken in the early 1930's.

From my mother to my father, written on the back of the photo above.

“Your one and only. (I hope) Love me and remember me. 

 X X X X & more.”

“If I had a million, I'd give you half. You are my people. I love you.”

I must admit, that in all of my years, I never knew that mother was "a looker." All of my years she was mom and mother. I saw her age naturally and get old. 

But now in the scanning and looking back of family photos do I see the beauty in her that surely caught my dad's eye. There are so many photos (before me) while they were dating and in their young married lives that depicts their love for each other; their youth.

I wish I knew the history behind the above photo. My mother would have loved telling me of stories of this day and era, had I only asked.

Good size Bristol Bay salmon and a good days catch. 

My father in the early 1940's salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska. He told me that he earned a penny a fish and after 4 months of being gone from his "Dora", would return home with around $1100 after expenses. Just a little more money than the average yearly salary earned in those days.

Two men fishing crew and sail boat in Bristol Bay, early 1940's.  Gillnets hand fed over board and then hand pulled onto the boat. Photo most likely taken by my father in the boat he was fishing in. 

.............

SEE THE BIRDS?

 

Zoomed in.

Photo from iPhone and taken a year ago by Mrs. neighbor.

.....................

Pork roast taking us into the new year. A Boston Pork Butt (bone in). Fat side up, salt and pepper only, a drizzle of olive oil and splash of chicken broth on the bottom of the Pyrex dish. Covered in foil and oven cooked 7 hours at 250 degrees F.   

This photo taken day 3 dinner. Flavor from the first serving and only improved. Inexpensive cut of meet. The last leftovers turned into pulled pork with BBQ sauce on a toasted bun. 

Diets now. This meal is all legal with a small portion of potato. Salads and so forth till 30 pounds are gone. I do not miss the sweets, but the pasta, rice and bread. Now just memories. 

.....................

PHOTOS FROM SV AIRSPEED 

Leaving Miami for Key Largo. Water ways look busy.

Sun Set

.........................

Project(ing) a new work bench with table-saw built-in. Will share. 

Freezing weather comes and goes. Rain also. Lemon trees stressing and the cats prefer to sleep much of these cold days away snugged in their beds. 

Thanks for the visit. Will leave you with this which is FOR THE GREATER GOOD! 

2022 YOUME THEAFTER - STUMPED

End of the year sun set.

The bottom has fallen out of the warm and comfortable December past. Warm days with comfortable breezes have given way to twenty degrees this morning and the need to turn on the fireplace. The new year is here and East Texas weather has started it few weeks of winter. I will get to wear my “Winter is Coming” coat a few times through February.

This new year was brought in with a “bang.” Her and I, of course, slept through it, briefly awakening to the noises of local celebration. We talk every year of joining the noisemaking and hoopla. But early bedtime always wins and there is no desire to get up when the mind and body are in full tilt rest mode. If the local celebrations were at 04:00 in the morning, we would be up and happily join in. But that is not the case nor practice.

Medium to heavy “plinking noises” ushered in this year. Maybe full magazines with folks celebrating one round at a time. No rapid fire, just deliberate single round actions lasting all of 5 minutes. Missions compete.

I thought a “happy new year” to myself, rolled over and completed one of the best nights' sleep in weeks.

The holidays are now officially over. I think many folks are as happy that all this has come and gone and “normal days are here again.”

I was not sure at this time last year about anything. And that represented the bottom rung on the ladder. I wondered about Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year.

This morning, a year later, I am stumped. I do not know how else to describe the difficulty of writing weekly without stirring the same pot of swirling worldwide stew. Rabbit holes everywhere. And who wants to read muttering hemming hawing unfinished thinking aches pains, another pot of soup on the cook and you better be ready for what is coming?

I choose to wallow awhile.

.............

We had the talk earlier that morning. We agreed to behave. 

There was to be no digging in the mud hole. 

No sooner had we come to that understanding did she return with a smile on her face. Happy and in need of hose/soap washing. 

When I started laughing, she began to shake with happiness too.

She was a good ole girl. I sure do miss her. 

Maybe a good roll in the mud to clean out some cobwebs this new year, but do not expect photos.

Thanks for the visit. 

CHRISTMAS 2021 GOD BLESS - TOYBOX HANDMADE GIFT - NOT MISSING SNOW

 

Light through our east Texas front room window earlier this week.

Photo above from the North Pole of Texas.

What the pillow says!!

...................

Little Drummer Boy from   for King & country

..................

Christmas Eve day. Three presents still to wrap and it is just her and me for the evening and Christmas Day tomorrow. Her sister was diagnosed with strep throat just hours before she was due to board a plane up near the caprock in the panhandle. Best laid plans for many months - poof!!

But sister is on the mend and doing fine. That is much more important and a wonderful gift in and of itself. We can visit at the push of a button and the visit is now pushed back to early in the coming year. Life so often gets in the way. 

Son sent pictures yesterday of a Christmas present he recently finished for the son of a good friend of his. A toy box for all of boy's baseball equipment and collections of other toys. An oil finish is applied making it easy to repair some of the dings and dents this box will endure over the years. 

His work is impeccable with absolute attention to detail in the build. The kid has skills. This is not something you can find on the net. This is a homemade gift from the heart. Good things me thinks! 

He said he made this from scraps of wood left over from other projects and some pieces warped and bent; all needing TLC from a craftsman's hands. 

How would you like to receive a handmade gift like this? My bet is you would keep and cherish it for life. 

High 70's today and forecasted to be 80 tomorrow. Joints do not ache and her is talking of weed-eating around the sidewalk today. Imagine that. And no, we do not miss the snow below. Memories are just fine. 

Thanks for the visits this year. A very Merry Christmas to you and yours, God Bless and have a Happy New Year. 

A WEEK OF NEW EATS - BEAR CREEK SMOKEHOUSE - FIRST BOAT BUILD - HERBY K's

SEASONED STRING BEANS-RED POTATOES-ONION-SMOKED SAUSAGE

Another new recipe shared. I followed this site for some guidance. 

Quick, easy, great use of leftovers and open to individual likes. A few drops of hot sauce, in the broth above, added flavor.

BEAR CREEK SMOKEHOUSE

Fat chickens greeted us on the deck picnic tables.

Classic Jeep

Texas Longhorn. First close up look for me.

We took a trip the day these photos were taken to Herby-K's seafood restaurant in Shreveport, LA. Two hours to the minute driving the back roads through Gilmer and Marshall Texas and arriving just off of I-20 at this bucket list eatery. Miles and miles of never-ending back roads of homes and farms linked along the entire trip.

Folks already in line and we were early enough to get one of the 4 booths just inside the door. There were more tables out back and on the patio. 

Her jumped on soft shell crab and I opted for butter-fly shrimp with a side of two Louisiana fried oysters as a test taste. The seafood gumbo was different from gumbo I have eaten in the past. The broth was thinner, the bowl was to the brim with shrimp, crab and crawfish. But it was not what I expected. Very good yes and I would have licked the bottom of the soup bowl for the last drop. Just different for me. My bet is that gumbo well represented local Louisiana gumbo.

But next time, and there will be a next time, it will the a large order of fried oysters. Noticeable salty. Fried in corn meal the way it should be done. Every corn meal fish or dinner out of fried sea food here has not been good in my opinion. For me. Too much caked on corn meal. 

There are two types of fried oysters. Excellent or garbage. No in-between. Herby-K's seafood restaurant lives up to the recommendations we were given to go there for sea food. 

Add to this the normal comings and goings of local customers picking up armloads of take out, folks chatting each other up in booths nearby or the natural atmosphere of home-cooking is all well worth a day's outing. 

............

CLAM DIGGING at Ocean Shores. Mom was counting our razor clam limits before we left the beach. One clam over the limit was costly in fines. 

SALINE SOLUTION

My first boat build.

........................

Found this on The Daily Time Waster. 

Times of our lives. Enjoy here.

........................

My first car. 1956 Chevrolet, 2 door post, 289 cu in with 2 bbl carburetor and three on the column. I had worked and saved since I was 12 years old. 

I often wonder if kids these days will ever know the exhilaration and fun of cars of this era. Probably not. 

........................

DO WE MISS WINTER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE?

Pictures and stories from our friends up north are just fine now. But, "no," we do not miss the cold, snowy bone-soaking cold and all that comes with the long winter months.

Cold this publishing morning, though, here in east Texas. Thirty-three degrees. Temperatures forecasted to be in the 70's with plenty of sunshine this coming week. Fireplace is on and most all of our Christmas gifts have been delivered or mailed. 

Enjoying the comings and goings of neighbors and long relaxed visiting about much of nothing. Cooking some new shared recipes and I am still trying to learn how to make perfect rice. I know the procedures, but have not yet mastered this simple side dish. I refuse to get a rice cooker. 

I appreciate the visit this week. Have a very merry and blessed Christmas.

 

FAMILY HISTORY PHOTOGRAPHY - KITCHEN FULL OF COOKIES

 3 Methods of Transport

A postcard from my father salmon fishing in Alaska to my mother living in Raymond, Washington. Marked June, 1937. It read: "Hoping you are ok. Please write often. Say hello to Boo Boo." I believe they were dating at this time in their lives.

Another post card exchanged from my mom and dad. What a beautiful city and represents my memories of my days I often visited that city. So much change. 

The information on the back reads, "Seattle, the principle seaport on Puget Sound, is one of the busiest cities in the Northwest. Fishing, manufacturing and lumbering are the chief industries," The post card was, "Made in the U.S.A. by E.C. Kropp Co."

.................

I found this pass while going through a box of old family records. This is the ship my father worked on and mom was invited to see the launch. The U.SS. Pursuit. Click on some of the photos and history of that ship.

Times have changed, huh?

..............

Young Leroy or Bobby. From my aunt's box of left over photos and family papers. Left to my mother after my aunt passed. A small box of her family photos. On the back of this photo is printed "Lusterlite Finish Will Never Fade." I zoomed in on this photo but did not try to clean or enhance. A hundred year old photo and still looks great. 

I do not know what to do with the small handful of photos. All friends way back when. "Aunty" never had children and those branches of the family tree are long gone, but I cannot toss them away. Will use new rubber bands and re-package in the old box and set with all other history.

One common thread through out all of these old black and white photos are the girls and guys next to their cars. The automobile and the young took to the freedom and mobility coming out of The Depression. 

Automobiles and young ladies are still center pieces in many of today's photos in all of our family histories. 

Go ahead and stand on the hood and front fender of your Dodge Charger with a friend on your shoulders. Send me that photo to share. 

....................

KITCHEN FULL OF COOKIES

This past week was a kitchen full of cookies, granola and Chex Mix batches and her measuring, mixing and baking. Me? Waiting patiently for any small "mistake cookie" not worthy of gifting. 

Thanks for the visit this week.