Good dog stuff

Loss of leg doesn't stop hunting dog - Yahoo! News

My dog was also disabled, with a terribly deformed front right leg from a bad break. It did NOT stop her in any way...in fact, on long hikes when she was still more active, people would marvel at her tenacity and her spirit. She was so special like that.

Dogs that get a second chance don't waste it. Neither do smart people...

Just a thought.

Fall Recipe: Chicken Apple Cheddar Bake

ONE huge boneless chicken breast
2 T. Sour Cream
2 T. minced garlic
one red apple, peeled, sliced, cored
3/4 cup cheddar cheese shredded or sliced
Ritz-like crackers (saltines will NOT work!!)
Sugar to taste
Thyme, Salt and pepper to taste
Baking pan prep spray


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Take 9" glass pie pan, spray with pan baking spray, and distribute the sour cream all across the bottom.

Slice the chicken breast length-wise, creating two or three half- to quarter-inch thick pieces of chicken breast. Lie the chicken across the bottom of the pie pan.

Smear the minced garlic on top of the chicken, then sprinkle two or three pinches of Thyme, then salt and pepper as desired.

Sprinkle the apple slices generously with sugar. Then place the slices on top of the chicken, covering all.

Take the cheddar cheese and cover the top of the apples.

Crumble the crackers and cover the entire top of the dish until everything is completely covered and possibly buried beneath a half-inch of cracker crumbles.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until crackers are brownish and you can hear bubbling of the chicken broth. Remember how thinly the chicken is sliced...it should cook quickly.

Remove from oven and let sit for five to ten minutes. Serves two delightfully, with cornbread and carrots as a great addition for a perfect fall meal!

I made this for lunch today after eating something similar at Cracker Barrel earlier this month; adding the garlic added a whole new flavor dimension to the recipe. I think mine is pretty good. It's important if you are going to substitute crackers that you use a cracker that is fairly oily, like a Ritz, or a Sociable, or something very much like those. I think even Cheez-Its would be a good substitute.

Barns

Byron Crawford: Barns open their doors for close-up tours

I have a thing for barns. When we go driving around, we inevitably pass by an ancient wooden structure, weather-beaten, doors open, and you can see the tobacco hanging from the rafters. Or the hay piled in the corner. Or the ancient tractor sitting, useless.

I don't know why I love barns so much. They're like mystery spots. They can be really dirty, or really clean. They can be really old, or new and metal (for the record, I am into the OLD barns).

I've been wanting to get barn pictures with the tobacco for a couple of weeks now; I may try to get out at the end of this week and get some. It is sort of tough, though, because all barns are on someone's property. And that can be hazardous out in the country, just trespassing to go and look into a barn. There are many barns that are solitary in fields, though, and are not guarded or locked...so I may have to get my pictures by that route--driving far enough out to the country and going to find a desolate barn.

Or I guess I could join the afore-linked bus tour...but I'll be going to Berea for a giant art festival on the same day, so that's out. I'm not into bus extravaganzas, anyway.

There is something about barns...*sigh*...I really love them. I hope to own one someday.

Speaking of those Tie-Dye Tees...

My sister, after reading my recent post, found an old Polaroid photo of herself modeling one of my parking lot Dead Show tees. Notice the old black block graphic, the generic dye job. It's very typical of the gray market/parking lot stuff in the 80s.

I do not remember this particular shirt; but seeing it is comforting. I think it's a skeleton hiking in the mountains.

My sister is really cute. Funny...she's still really cute, but she doesn't look the same as she did, at all!

THE WAR

THE WAR | PBS

I just finished watching "The War" on PBS--another Ken Burns documentary. Once again, just like after watching "The Civil War," I am altered somehow by knowing more about World War II.

It's not that I know nothing about the war, and it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. My uncle Claude survived the invasion of the Philippines, only to be peppered with shrapnel by a grenade and listed as missing in action for several months. His finger was deformed from the event, and as a little girl I would ask him, "What happened to your finger?" He would always laugh, then say, "Well, I sucked on it too much as a baby." I believed him for a while, until I was old enough to know better. Then he told me about the grenade, but nothing else. Not being MIA, not the fighting, not the Philippines, nothing. Else. Period.

I had another Uncle at Pearl Harbor. Not talked about much, really. Same with my husband's uncle, also at Pearl Harbor, then later a bomber pilot over Dresden. No one talked about The War. And I guess it's that overwhelming decency of the people who had to do this horrible stuff that they wouldn't want you to know how terrible it was...that you living your happy American life was what they wanted, what they fought for, and was perhaps the best repayment for the misery and loss of those years.

I have a flag, sturdy cotton, with 48 stars. I bought it at a garage sale in 1994 I think. The woman I bought it from told me it flew over a ship in the Pacific Theatre during The War, but didn't know much else. I was proud to own it. I hung it out on my little house in Kansas during all the holidays. After two years of this, it became faded on one side, and I stopped hanging it outside. It is folded into a tight triangle in my closet right now.

I treasured it before, but now I love it so much more. It has suddenly taken on another dimension that it never had before. I'm so grateful for my ridiculous American life, and the freedom I've had to pursue happiness, and even catch it at times. The world came so close to total evil, and the people that fought it off, that gave so much to hold out for good against horrible suffering, fought under a flag with 48 stars.

I won't pretend the world is much better at this point, nor will I think any less of the sacrifice of American lives going on right now (because life matters and war is not always necessary), but what I am, what I have in this world can only be attributed to the veterans of The Second World War.

If someone had told me two years ago...

...that I would be wearing a choir robe again, I could not have figured out how that might happen.

Well it happened.

Isn't the picture ridiculous?

Enjoy.