Here's one from one of my favorite blogspots, dandyland muse:

There were three moles going along one after the other in their tunnel to have breakfast - Daddy mole, Mama mole and Baby mole. Daddy mole said, "I smell coffee!" Mama mole said, "I smell bisquits!" And Baby mole said, "I smell molasses!" (teehee)

Poke Sallat

Here's an interesting article I ran across for those lovers of "poke sallat". Some of us were talking at lunch the other day and got me to wondering what the medicinal or tonic properties of eating poke sallat were? Here is one feller's opinion as listed on Old Sparkey's Forum on southern paddler.com:

http://www.neilbank.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6809

New Fast Food

I always like to share when I find something that is cheap, tasty AND easy to make. Before I worked at camp, I wasn't a big fan of instant mashed potatoes. But while cooking at camp, Ray perfected the art of making them. He increases the milk and decreases the water for one thing, while cutting back a little on the liquid period. And of course he uses real butter. (I never said they were a diet food!) Anyway, the new product I discovered is Sun-Dried Tomato Instant mashed potatoes. They have a great flavor with little chewy bites of tangy sun-dried tomatoes in them. They are also so easy to make even a....okay, even I could make them!

Well, it must be January in Kentuckiana. There's snow on the ground, the temperature would have to warm up to freezing, and I have been in the house for four days straight! I was back to work for 1 1/2 days before the snow came. Before that, I had been off for two weeks on Christmas break! Can you say "CABIN FEVER"? Well, at least we did get some things done around the house. I have uploaded some pictures of our projects as well as some random stuff. We built a headboard out of an old solid oak door that we bought at the Habitat Restore for $10. If you have never been to a Restore you have got to go! We find some really cool stuff there that has come out of the houses in Old Louisville. When you have a 100 year old house, it comes in mighty handy. The headboard was fun...we just added some 2x4s, molding, and paint, and voila!
The other project was this neat little bird feeder made out of glass vases, bowls and saucers. Just Goop them together. I am a huge believer in the power of GOOP! This slips over a post hammered into the ground in your yard. We'll see how it fares after the birds in one of the other pictures gets through with it!! In that picture the birds are actually eating the dogs' food out of their doghouse...brazen hussies! There were about a hundred more watching and waiting their turn from the powerlines!
Hope you enjoy the pictures...keep warm and keep happy!

New plant shelf over the sink

Headboard

The Birds...spooky!

Birrrrrrd

It is so cold that Edgar is even shivering!

Bunde the Invisible

Headboard closeup

Garden Feeder

Community

As I sit here on, what started as a quiet Saturday morning, I am reflecting on how drastically our times have changed since I was growing up.

I live in a neighborhood of older homes in Louisville, Kentucky. It is much like the neighborhood in Springfield, Missouri that I grew up in. It is a mixture of blue collar workers, single 30 somethings, couples just starting out and some retired folks sprinkled in the mix. Generally, a quiet neighborhood on a street without through traffic.

Suddenly, my peaceful Saturday morning repose is startled by yelling in the street. I am surprised by the response this brings in me. For a moment, I am tense, all systems alert at a danger that might be passing by. The dogs go crazy barking adding to my angst. I tiptoe to the window to sneak a peek at what mayhem might be happening in my front yard. It is a group of four teenagers walking down the middle of the street talking loudly to each other, cussing, shaking their fists in the air. They look threatening. They are today's youth. They look like a street gang, although they don't dress any differently from many of the youth I see here. They have tattoos, they are only in their teens and they have tattoos. They have body piercings. They have stretched their earlobes to accommodate large metal rings. They will look this way when they are in their 80's.

Now I reflect on the youth of my day...the 1970's. We had self-expression, we were rebels in our own right.(I pierced my ears, for Pete's sake, we also used terms like "for Pete's sake" and who the heck is Pete, anyway?) But we also had a little thing called "respect". If there was a group of teenagers walking down the street yelling and cussing, they were something to be worried about. It just didn't happen. I'm not saying that we never cut loose and were loud and obnoxious, but it wasn't in broad daylight in the middle of the street where all of the neighbors could see who we are! They would have been on the phone to our parents before we could have made it to the end of the block. And maybe therein lies the problem. I know my neighbors on each side of me but I don't know anyone else on the street. These kids could live on my street and I wouldn't know it. We have lost some of our feeling of community. I have often thought about having a "get to know your neighbor" party in the front yard on a Friday evening but my fear is, would anyone come? Does anyone really want to know their neighbor?

So, I guess we, as a community, have created these kids. They have no fear of repercussions for their actions. Is it self-expression gone wild, or just apathy on the part of the parents. I often wonder how my child would have turned out had she been raised in this environment. It's something to think about...

Dandylandmuse Blogspot

http://dandylandmuse.blogspot.com/2009/07/haystack-tango.html

Very interesting blogspot I stumbled on to...really love his writings. Here is a sample:

Haystack Tango:

Anyone who loves grazing animals
Loves haystacks. In the white glare of midday
They cast humped shade on the glowing emerald
Of the fields, densities of time spent thatching this way
And that, combed like a giant’s shag, stacked by forkfuls
To the searing sky, straw flake dust
Shimmers gold in a cloud, grasshoppers whir, buzz, and unfold
pied wings as they
Leap into flight. One’s picked off in a mockingbird sweep.
I’m mesmerized by haystacks ~ leaned back
Under an oak
With a dipper of spring water. I let the coolness
Pour down my throat
As I swallow.

Some hay in a barn, once the work is done –
Sometimes men sprawl on it
And talk quietly. I remember.

The hay, we watch it grow. Spring it’s an
Enlivening of color barely emerging – soon long, full
Of water and soft, easy to bruise – too much of it
Isn’t good for cows to eat ~ they gorge and scour.
By summer the stems are long enough to
Wave when they bend, the breeze undulates them.
When it’s just in bloom, or nearly, that’s the time to cut it.
That’s right. The energy is at its peak just then – you watch
It close and if the weather’s good and your timing too,
The haystacks will be perfect. On a twinkling midsummer eve,
Shakespeare’s Bottom would rhapsodize on sweet hay like this, viewing the orange
Orb of the full moonshine rise in a sky of black tree shapes and aqua ~
Wouldn’t that be something?

Lovers may discover it ~ A gypsy lilypad floating in a meadow
of nocturnal fiddlers. Fingers linger on a zipper, the hay's perfume, and
nearby there’s even an owl, thrumming a steady soft round note.
Who doesn’t love this sort of haystack,
even if it feels itchy later, gazing into the infinity
of pinprickly stars in silence?

In the winter you walk by them, crusted with snow,
Just as twilight sets their straw aglow
And it reminds you of the tumbled hair.
And you go back, growing warmer as you go
Deeper into the evening. What I wouldn’t give to hold
You again.

Posted by Dan Dutton