It's not that easy, eating greens

It’s not that easy, eating greens.
Seems they taste of nasty, bitter things...
When it seems we’d rather have sugary dreams...
Like Twinkies...or salted crunchies...
Or something much more tastier than that.


It’s not that easy, eating greens
Seems they lay there like limp ‘n’ ordinary things...
When we’d sooner something warm and bloody...
That yesterday...
Was eating greens itself on its own comfy-cozy patch.

I'm not a fan of greens. Never have been. Mustard, poke, turnip, spinach, doesn't matter the origin. The way into my heart does not pass through a plate of boiled-lifeless weeds drowning in pot liquor.

Hard times come to Texas, however. As in days gone by...the Great Depression of my parents and grandparents generations...the day is coming and now is when the true survivors will think again about what is food and how to make it delicious and nutritious. Consider, Children, the not-so-lowly wild lettuce.

Wild lettuce (Lactuca serriola), taller plant center,
surrounded by henbit. Lactuca easily mistaken
for dandelion.

Think you have dandelions running riot across your yard? Seems to me a trifle early, but then I'm the world's worst at keeping records from year to year. Besides, that pesky plant you think is a dandelion just might be wild or prickly lettuce.

Yes, I got fooled! Collected a tubful from the backyard, cleaned off the plants (leaves and roots) and let 'em soak in plain water over night. Did a simple (raw) taste test and later sauteed a mess of the greens with chopped onions in a couple tablespoons of bacon fat. Even AnniePie pronounced them "GOOD!"

In the course of continuing study, I discovered that what I had collected and believed to be dandelions were, in fact, prickly lettuce! And don't let that "prickly" part there put you off; we're not talking prickly pear class of prickly by any stretch.

Lactuca has a rap for tasting bitter, but I did not find it overly so in young, fresh leaves. Raw leaves taste something akin to lettuce. Mind, I did soak mine overnight in a bath of plain water. Same for the root, which is quite fibrous and chewy. The root tastes mildly astringent but not a lot of any flavor to my taste. I'll report further after I have enough of the roasted and ground root to play with.

Y'all come back now, hear?

OVERTURE! CURTAIN! LIGHTS!

I owe Mrs. Miller one pair of shorts. She let me talk her out of them, and all I can add is, Thank the Lord for small favors!

They are..were...a yellow, girlie, summery pair of shorts she made some years back, and neither one of us can recall the last time she wore them. So she gave them up for the sake of the arts here in River City. The show is The Fantasticks, opening tonight, 8pm, for the paying people on the Dinner Stage down at Backdoor.

And a HUGE THANK YOU to all who came out last night for our Press Release, Friends & Family opening. That first time in front of a breathing audience really points out the sweet and sour spots! Like in the second act when Socrates and Lodevigo manhandle Matt off stage while lustily singing a quick homage to West Side Story. Helluva place for a laugh break!

This is my fourth show at Backdoor? The first, I believe, that Mrs. Miller hasn't been up in the tech booth to run lights and sound. She's always been so good at lighting me up! Last night she got to see the show for the first time like any regular person, and I think she got a kick out of it. I know I did, but I surely miss not having her on my crew!

Fantasticks will run for a couple more weekends, at least, so get your reservations in now to see what became of AnniePie's britches!!

Save your work!

Save your work, Children. Save your work!

We just dumped nearly a page of monologue and stage directions for our entrance into The Fantasticks... right after the Fathers’ It Depends On What You Pay number.

Six days out from final Press Rehearsal, and I’m still stumbling over lines.

So, I thought, write out the entire scene, complete with lines, stage movements and timing in as much detail, and in as few words as possible. The exercise helps me set my scenes internally, like dropping into extreme slow motion ...

Anyway, I was a good half page or better into it when my steam-powered laptop burped and swallowed it all! What untold labors are farted off by old men because old machines ate their homework?

We will have the lines AND the blocking AND the timing down pat come 8 pm Friday, Jan. 27 when we open the show at Backdoor Theatre’s Dinner Stage. Come see us!

Save your work, Children! Early and often!

The Age of Dinosaurs Has Expired!

President of these United States, Barack Obama yesterday thumbed his nose at Big Oil on the Keystone XL deal.

You may recall the other day one of Big Oil’s biggest talking suits told President Obama that if he rejected the pipeline permit, there would be hell to pay politically; that the full shock and awe of Big Oil Bucks would be targeted against the President’s re-election.

Good Lord knows I’m no fan of Corporate Greed in general nor Big Oil in particular, but I am a huge fan of a President who stands up to the neighborhood bullies.

Paula Deen! Paula Deen! Paula DEEN!!!

ROAD-READY, TAGGED & STICKERED! 1995 Chevrolet Corsica, Asking $600. If interested, leave your contact info in the "Comments" box.

[Vehicle pictured is NOT the car offered]

Journey well, Miss James!

1-202-456-1111

That's the telephone number to leave a comment at the White House on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, D.C. Somehow, it never dawned on me before today that I could call the President of the United States to tell him what's on my mind. Now, I carry his phone number in my cell phone's contacts list.

If you follow my Facebook page, you may have noticed yesterday that I publicly thanked President Obama for rejecting the permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the heartland of America. I did not merely agree with his decision, I stood up and cheered (1) for him doing the right thing for Americans and (2) for telling Big Oil to shove their political threats up their pipelines!

In the clear light of a new day...today...that somehow did not seem like enough, especially when you consider how much flak he is going to catch. So it seemed appropriate to look up the White House number and personally call to thank the President for his decision.

All things considered, I was surprised to be on hold for a mere 20 minutes or so...time enough to write up this posting and go to the White House website to fire off an email. The volunteer who took my call was very friendly, graciously taking down my 'Thank You' for action to stop Keystone XL.

"Let me be sure I've got this correctly," she said, soft laughter in her grandmotherly voice. "You want to thank him FOR rejecting the pipeline permit, right?"

I confirmed, laughing with her.

"Just wanted to be sure I got that in the appropriate column!" she added.

No doubt that other column is somewhat longer. So do me a favor, would you? If you, too, applaud the President for rejecting Keystone XL, call him up and say so!!

Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a night in the woods!

The Vegas trip is off; seems straight gran’mas get audiences with Princess Maura J well ahead of mere Great Grandpas.... A new staging—by God Himself, rumor has it--of the old Fantasticks! opens two weeks from tonight at the Backdoor. I’ve got the Old Actor role and get to beat on Jesus.... The Big River City Home Show closes out February.... The Drafty Olde Craft Shoppe’s (DOCS) show pieces are too many hours short of being ready; and I’ve scarcely begun stripping Maura’s Cradle.... Then this old man trips up, taking out TV cable and internet connection in one fell swoop. Had to survive on FB with only a cell phone mere days before this post's deadline!

Children, this old man needs an extended weekender to hook up with his Higher Power! We are scheming for Caprock Canyons but could make do with Arrowhead in a pinch, given what Mamma always said about beggars not being chosers. We did manage to spend most of yesterday in the backyard--this writer's lifetime first camping site--playing Domestic Handyman, and I'm pretty sure I caught a spark. What is needed, though, is full blown, healing fire!

I don't mind telling you, this 2012 American Consumerism Lifestyle is damn near more than this old man can ride. Nor am I alone in sometimes feeling overwhelmed; thank you, Jesus! Sister blogger Peggy Browning the other day wrote about how her old job was killing her, not so slowly and ever so surely. Personally, this old man is fully prepared to turn in his pass and go home. But that's not my call to make, is it? We are, after all, meant to dance for as long as the music plays, are we not?

Henry David Thoreau said it best: In Wilderness is the preservation of the World. My earliest living memory of camping is my sister and I spreading a blanket between our twin beds for a tent to protect us from Ol' Griz, a four-foot-tall stuffed bear. Dear Old Dad never tired of telling how I brought both myself and cousin Frank Ed tumbling assholes over elbows down the side of Mount Scott. I suppose post traumatic stress syndrome wiped that incident from my memory.

One of these days again...soon, I pray. Meanwhile, back at the cabin.... Y'all come back now, hear?

Las Vegas road trip

Playing around with Google Maps the other day, I discovered this cool 3D feature that allows you to sit at your computer monitor and do a virtual flyover of any route of your choosing. This function is in beta testing stage as of this writing and kind of reminiscent of those early flight simulator games. Only this time you aren't bothered with controlling the damn plane!

Our first great granddaughter Maura J. is expected in Las Vegas about mid March, and I'm restoring an old rocking cradle for her down at the shop. What better excuse for an extended road trip than delivering Great Granny Annie and a cradle to Sin City, right? So I decided to road test Google Maps (GM) 3D while screwing up enough courage to buy a realistic-looking pellet pistol and knock over a bank for the real deal come March.

Right out of the driveway GM shows its old bug of being directionally challenged. Rather than directing me east on Speedway to Holliday to connect with the freeway, GM sends me west to Harrison--totally ignoring Brook--then to Kell, then east (crossing Brook!) to the freeway to take the long way 'round! Still, less than a minute after exiting our driveway, we are blissfully highballing west past Iowa Park and probably needing to pee already!

Photographic imagery for this project, in part, comes from the Texas Orthoimagery Program and Image USDA Farm Service Agency, at least for most areas within Texas. The view appears to be roughly from about 10,000 feet, but the drive can be paused at any point to sweep down for a closer view of particular points of interest. Iowa Park not being one, we proceed.

The effects of drought are clearly visible all across the landscape. Nearly everything below is brown to grayish brown with scarce patches of green showing near ponds, streams and irrigated patches. The bed of the Red River is a gashing scar of dirty white salts deposits.

Less than ten minutes in and we're crossing into New Mexico. The ground below begins to show the firsts signs of buckling and uplift. In truth what we're seeing here is the last vestigial remnants of the Rocky Mountains' tail bones, I suspect. We're soon flying past Albuquerque, and it's fairly easy to see how today's I-40 is following old trails and wagon roads through cuts and passes in the mountains.

Less than half an hour into the trip, and we're parked on a corner in Winslow, AZ. Must not be the right corner, though, as there is nary a flatbed Ford in sight.

The images are copyrighted by Google 2011, but there's no way of knowing precisely how old they are nor when they were taken. Wheeler Peak outside of Flagstaff, for example, bears no snow whatsoever. In fact, no snow shows until just east of Kingman, Az, on some unknown peak off to the south.

Inside an hour we're parked at S.Las Vegas Boulevard and E. Flamingo Road, staring at the biggest freakin' fountain we've ever seen before! I swear, the Rat Pack wouldn't know the place, and just where in this crazy town is my granddaughter, anyway?

Not nearly as satisfying as a for real road trip but an interesting diversion nonetheless. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go shopping for a gun.


 



    

The write stuff...

I finally broke down and cleaned out the cat box. The cat strolled over, glared into the box and gave me that look that says, "What did you do with my shit, man!?!"

Running dangerously low on orange juice and 'cold medicine'. Could be a long, nasty weekend of HACK writing in the making...

Water, Gas, Electricity. Funds are available to pay two, but not all three. Which one gets cut?

Sure could use a little good news today...

When it comes to TV news magazines, nobody does it better than CBS SUNDAY MORNING for this writer's money. I've been a fan since the old days of Charles Kuralt and his ramblings On The Road. This morning, the first Sunday morning of 2012, was no exception. But just because you may 'like' a particular program or whatever, doesn't mean the object of your affection won't ever piss you off.

I tuned in late, the 2011 year end review was already in progress. End of U.S. troop occupation of Iraq...Joplin, MO...earthquakes and tsunami in Japan.... I felt my good mood evaporating. All the top news stories from 2011 involved tragedy or scandal. How the hell are we to carry hope in our hearts and minds into a fresh, new year with a seemingly endless laundry list of what went wrong in the year before? On this day, of all days, why not kick start the new year with a little good news ?

Love, they say, is where you find it, and I'm sure Charles would agree. The same can be said for news. With that in mind, I am joining forces with my own AnniePie in a pledge she initiated this morning on her delightfully quirky Facebook page. Mrs. Miller has pledged to post and re-post good news and only good news stories. No more political squabbling, no celebrity brat-assing, no focus on the bad things that happen to all good people to one degree or another. My AnniePie has pledged to be that change she wants to see in the world by seeking out and celebrating the good tidings that should bring great joy to all of us.

I, for one, stand up and applaud her for that.

Running on empty

Hi. My Name is Jim, and I am a Low-T.

Low testosterone is defined as less than 300 nanograms per deciliter of blood. The symptoms of low testosterone include low sex drive, erectile dysfunction, mood problems, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. Of all men with below-normal testosterone levels, about one-half to two-thirds report symptoms. ~ Low Testosterone Explained: How Do You Know When Levels Are Too Low?

 The effects of testosterone decline came calling and took up residence some three or four years ago, best I recall. "Well, shit," I remarked to Self and to Self only, because real men don't talk about this shit to anyone else, right? "More of the Joys of Aging!"

I recently posted on Facebook "Getting older isn't a sin; becoming lazier is." That's pretty much what Low-T feels like to me, personally--slowly, inexorably sinking deeper and deeper into slothful laziness. The desire to do remains strong, but the get-up-and-get-to-it stays down for a terminal nap! The energy just flat ain't there, so in the words of Jackson Browne, it's like running on empty.

The knee-jerk response to Low-T is like so many other medical/health/physical issues, namely, "There's a shot (or a pill or a patch) for that!" Just motor down to your local Low-T drive-through and get the tank topped off. Turns out that's about a hundred dollars a pop with the need to be popped every couple of weeks. A hundred bucks, maybe once, I could save up for just to feel "normal" again. But $200 to $300 a month for life without medical insurance (assuming medical would cover it) is out of the question. We simply do not have sufficient income to cover the cost.

So it remains how to carry on, doing what needs to get done both at home and in the shop feeling chronically tired all the do-dah day?

*****

Speaking of running to empty... Yesterday was the perfect day to mow for the last time this season and put the old John Deere down for a winter nap. Wasn't much to mow; mostly the backyard and perhaps a light trim to knock down the henbit in front. Surely what little gas there was in the tank would be sufficient to keep the neighbors' gripes to a minimum and empty the tank, too.

Got the backyard decent and the mower was still roaring. Took a sweet tea moment, topped off the bird feeding stations, gazed at a cloud or two and the mower engine is still roaring. Heaved a heavy sigh and pushed the mower to the front yard. I figured the machine would give up the gas before I could cover the entire front, and yet that damn motor kept right on roaring! I was at the point of eyeing the neighbor's WAY overgrown front lawn (the house is empty now) when the machine mercifully sucked down the last drop.

Thank you, Jesus! 

Rockin'-chair moments

Back in the day when this journal began, it was intended as a couple of old friends passin’ ‘round the good times and a decent screw-top bottle of wine out on the porch. Preferably the back porch as we expected there’d be bits best not exposed to the street. Let's face it. Until old men's bladders get larger or their prostates get smaller, not every urge is worth the trek into the house when the backside of a shed is so much handier.

When did we launch this journal, anyone recall? Had to be back in the River Bend days, as the journal also was conceived as observation and comment on and from Nature, a legitimate excuse for rockin' on the back porch and/or taking up camping once again. Hence the name Rolling Plains Journal. A quick glance  down the archives shows the first post in August of '08.

Sometimes you need to look at where you started to figure out where you are and which way you wanna go.  What better time than New Year's Eve--the 2011 version now some four and a half hours old as I write-- for such reflections?

I first caught the writing virus back in 1958 in Mrs. Johnson's 3rd grade class at E. 35th Street Elementary School, Kansas City. Have I ever said how much this small-town Texas boy loathed Kansas City? The afternoon before a book report was due I had yet to pick out a book, much less read the damn thing. The thinnest volume to be found among the stacks of 10-year-old approved tomes in the school library was The Old Man and the Sea. We were up all night...literally... a flashlight-under-the-covers and coffee-on-the-
hotplate kind of “all night”. By the crack of dawn "Write like Hemmingway" stood alone atop my bucket list.

Writing the "Great American Novel" fell to the wayside some decades back, but the infection to put words on paper lingers on and on. That urge seems to gnaw more persistently now that we've reconnected with the grandkids and with the first great granddaughter Maura J. due inside of three months. So it is we have dusted off the neglected journal and resolved yet again to maintain and publish in a more timely manner, shall we say?

It's all good, this New Year's Eve falling on a Saturday as it does. May go down to the Drafty Ol' Craft Shop a little while this morning to work on Maura’s new old cradle. Last report, Maura J. is expected about March 16, spookily near that Ides of March of which Mr. Shakespeare warned. Not that I'm looking for any devil's child. But knowing Maura's mamma and grandma and great grandma and great-great grandma as I do, the girl is bound to have spunk.

End of December or no, the back lot wants mowin' and Beano has left any number of dried blessings scattered across the patio deck that needs tending to as well. With an afternoon high temperature reachin' near 70 degrees, will be a good day for yard chores.

No big plans for tonight. Don’t let on to AnniePie but I suspect my boot-scootin’ days are done. Oh, I still like the music; it’s the steppin’ out that’s sorely lacking. City's finally gonna shoot off the 4th of July and Labor Day fireworks tonight that were put off because of severe drought conditions. I imagine we'll take a pass on that, too.

My old runnin’ buddy Dean and his honey might drop by. More motivation to clean the rough edges off the backyard. Deano and I keep dreaming up a campfire under a sky full of stars, but I suspect our backyard is about as close as we will get any time soon. Badly as we hate to admit it, old bones and cold, hard ground don't go together all that well. The "theme" for the evening, New Year’s Eve 2011, is straight out of John Denver's Poems, Prayers and Promises:
“...lie there by the fire 
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around”

And if it proves to be just me and Mrs. Miller tonight, well, that’s fine...not to mention dandy. This year’s closing weekend is a good time to kick back and think about where we’ve been, where we are and which way to head from here.

Thanks for droppin' by. Y'all come back now, hear?

The Stars at Night....

...certainly aren't what they were on those long summer nights over on Elm Street.  Not that I have any notion of what the Texas night sky looked like over River City back when Hank Williams died, for that is stretching the old long-term memory about as far as these few remaining brain cells can take.  Back along that track, I do remember the one old lone street light; naked bulb hanging beneath a rippled metal shade that was dark green on top and white underneath.  It cast a kind of eerie yellowish light, scarcely bright enough to cast a shadow of its own pole.  With such wimpy excuses for lighting back then, the cloudless night skies had to be lousy with stars!

Mr. Beano--bad ass Beano who had a fit and went after Bob cat and got us both tossed out to The Cave--and I sat out from dusk to straight up dark last night.  First time since Annie and I moved onto this place last December that I've just sat out to watch and listen to the night settle in.  No, the mosquitoes aren't bad.  One of the few-and-far-between positive side effects of a drought!

The stars, on the other hand, are pitiful!  Just pitiful!

The fault, of course, lies not with the stars but with our way of doing urban communal living.  We so fill the night with our artificial lights that the natural lights of the sky are a wash.  None but the biggest and brightest get through, and our old familiar constellations are losing points.  Mankind's first stories are written in those myriad points of light.

 Stargazers who also are into Facebook might want to check out Star and Sky. 



 

Renovating the One-room Schoolhouse

At first glance the door seems bare-boned and sparse, something like a middle American refrigerator door with sundry notes, reminders and yesterdays' art projects neatly posted. Could this really be the front door to "America's largest classroom"?

The largest, most unpronounceable, acronyms in American media--PBS, WGBH, WNET, KET--have combined resources with the National Archives,  the Library of Congress, NPR, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Education to produce and launch  PBS LearningMedia, a free service for all teachers, students and families nationwide.

“As America’s largest classroom, PBS and our local stations are helping to re-imagine classroom learning and are partnering with our producers and teachers to engage students to accelerate academic achievement,” said Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO. “PBS LearningMedia is a key part of the solution to one of the nation’s biggest challenges – improving student progress to build our future workforce.”

My Mom began her formal education in a one-room schoolhouse on the Rolling Plains, and to this day she is one of the smartest women I know.  PBS LearningMedia today provides something akin to the solid integration of that old one-room schoolhouse in a truly global environment.  This is one giant step toward accessible, quality education for every boy, girl and undeclared in this country today.  And who knows, we so-called grown-ups might learn something from it, too, considering what Sesame Street did to and for us!

I cracked open that door to take a peek inside.  Check out what  Wynton Marsalis and his band are telling the kids about "collective improvisation".

It gets a little nuts.....

Urban, or backyard, camping, that is. Goodness knows, the last time I tried camping in the backyard John Kennedy was President. I probably showed my kids, Melissa and Brian, how to do it once; but those two were practically born in tents and raised to gather firewood, so I saw no need to stick around and coach.

Come to think about it, this whole family camping thing started because of those kids. When Joy and I had any time off from work, we rarely had money to Go or to Do anything more than a pack of wieners and a state park. Luckily, a lot of our friends at the time were ex-, unreformed Boy Scouts. Funny, sometimes, how traditions get born.

Now come Melissa's kids, Michael and Diana, 21 years since leaving Texas; and all of a sudden, it seemed, this Old Man was backyard camping again and kick-starting the Memorial Day bash without so much of the former debauchery.

Although I didn't know it at the time, preparation for this coming weekend began over last Mothers' Day weekend with a simple act of cleaning out an old garden shed; but that's another story, being told on my other blog, Miller's Cave. Consequently, some three weeks on, I've got this guy pictured above, an eastern fox squirrel, dining just outside our tent door!

Squirrels have been around for some 40 million years or better, back to the dawn of mammals. Biologists with nothing better to do break squirrels in general into 50 or so genera with about 280 species. Texas is home to two of the three species of tree squirrels, the fox (seen here) and the gray, the fox squirrel being the most commonly seen in backyards across much of the Rolling Plains.

Clearly, at least one eastern tree squirrel who roams the tree top canopy of Brook Village has a taste for black oiled sunflower seeds!

I nearly walked into this guy yesterday, and he scarcely glanced up from stuffing his cheeks. Nor did he show any concern when I stepped into the cave for my camera. Not until I was close enough to literally reach out and touch did he reluctantly take all the seeds he could carry and scamper some feet higher into the branches.

Memorial Day Weekend Campout

Lord, if ever a people needed a Memorial Day break, it's gotta be the good folks across the Midwest who have endured through weather gone wild. We will be at The Home, camping out in the comfort of our own backyard, listening to great music, probably making a few burnt offerings on the grill and sending up smoke for comfort and healing for whosoever may be hurting for whatever cause at this time.

Arlo Guthrie had his Thanksgiving Day Massacre; we had our Memorial Day Weekend Campout. Through the 1970s and '80s, we'd pack up the women, children and dogs and head out to Lake Arrowhead State Park or Hippie Holler, LBJ Grasslands or the Wichita Mountains for three or four days of burning too much meat and drinking to excess. Back then it wasn't too difficult to camp away from crowds, and we always knew of several select sites within reasonable distance of River City.

Since that time, campers have moved on, others have passed on and all the old spots have been discovered by RVers and other creatures who haven't the slightest notion what camping is about. Add aging to the mix, and it's not hard to understand why and how the MDWC fell to the wayside.

Until now. With all the tragedy that has roared across our heartland, the continuing conflicts on foreign sands putting American men and women in harms way plus a grand reunion with long lost Grandkids, we thought it was time to revamp and revise a grand old tradition.

Friends, family, followers and anyone else with nothing better to do or nowhere else to go, join us in camping out wherever you are and sharing your Memorial Day Weekend on our Facebook page, Miller's Cave.

Bourbon balls found!

While cleaning in places that don’t get cleaned enough, I found a scrap of paper with a recipe for bourbon balls scrawled on it. Now, in a perfect world this bit of history would be all but undecipherable, layered with stain upon stain and brittle as grandma’s old bones; the ink a mere whisper of my very own Mamaw’s schooled penmanship. Ah, venerable ancient relic!

Truth be told, Cordie Ellen’s chicken scratch on paper was the Devil’s own chore to make out. I know, I scored countless headaches translating her love letters to W.P. into something that resembled late 19th, early 20th century Southern American English. And while Cordie fully appreciated a good bourbon...ONE good bourbon...with eggnog...on Christmas Eve...she wasn’t likely to go wasting good whiskey on a cookie. So no way this was Mamaw Saunders’ recipe. I had written it myself some three or four years ago.

Annie & I had come off the road, maybe a year earlier, I guess. Coming back to River City wasn’t exactly our first choice. More like our only choice. Times were hard, living in a poorly restored garage and both working at jobs we would have been happier without. Now throw in Christmas bearing down on us, and you’ve pretty well got the scene.

What better time for.....wait for it......BOURBON BALLS!!!

I had eaten bourbon balls. I had never made bourbon balls. Didn’t have the foggiest notion what, exactly, went into them other than the obvious. So off I went to the library’s free computer lab to consult the Oracle, Yahoo. Turned out good bourbon balls are much simpler than I had imagined.

We both pronounced that first, basic batch as surprisingly good. A little tweaking of a component here and a measure there, and the second batch did not disappoint, either. Annie took the third batch to work with her, and came home empty save requests for the recipe.

“Tell ‘em it’s a closely-guarded family secret that goes all the way back to the Great Depression,” I told her.

“They’ll just want to know what a bourbon ball recipe has to do with a big hole in the ground,” Annie said.

“Well, tell ‘em this recipe goes to my grave with me, just as I promised my Dear Old Grandmother.”

I was going to give the recipe to a few of Annie’s select acquaintances, the few who came close to being actual friends, anyway. But the scribbled recipe got tossed into a drawer and otherwise buried until and mostly forgotten.

Until today.

Humbly presented here, dear reader, for your approval, one free recipe for bourbon balls, pretty much as I scribbled it, lo, not so many years ago.

Combine 1 c v.waffer crumbs, 1 c pecans, 1 c con sugar, 2 Tblsp cocoa powder.
Blend 1/4c Jack, 1 Tblsp + 1-1/2 tsp lt cn syrup.
Stir Jack mix into dry blend.
Cover & chill, hours
Form balls & roll in con. sugar
Store in air-tight cont. in fridge
Roll in con. sugar

That second and final roll in the confectioners’ sugar is to be done just before passing these puppies around. Oh, no need to wait for the holidays.

When it rains....

"Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, said the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." ~ Malachi 3:10

Lord, what I wouldn't have given for Google back when I thought I would make a preacher! Plug in a pinch like "...pour you out a blessing..." into search, and up pops about 3.9 million hits before you've finished typing! Ever mindful of Rev. Debbie's admonition against using quotations overly much in my writings, I do so here because this snippet above woke me this morning, and all because of an old foundling trowel on my front porch.

Yesterday was a day, wasn't it! We actually got some rain on the Rolling Plains, just about enough to wet the bottom of my rain gauge, one of Annie's old cake pans I left lying out. The rolling thunder and the lightning streaking the southeastern sky was more than excuse enough to duck into the cave and enjoy the show. I was settled, too, just inside the open door when it dawned on me to set the rain buckets out! You see, it's those little things ~ like putting out the rain buckets to catch runoff ~ one loses with lack of practice, and we have not had a good soakin' rain here goin' on nine months.

So we set all the yard buckets we had under the cave's eaves, then dashed to the house to enlist several of Annie's old plastic mixing bowls and a soup pot to collect runoff from the back porch. Got to dump three of the smaller bowls into the soup pot before it was all done and came away with nearly five gallons of water reserve for Annie's growing gardens.

For all the fun of playing in the rain, Annie was quick to remind that we had actual Old People chores to tend to; little things like delivering the rent check for another month's stay at The Home. By the time we had tacked on getting a bite to eat, it was near dark when we returned.

Lying on the front porch beside Annie's boot garden was this beautiful old trowel, heavy and well formed to fit the hand, an old school tool you can't find in today's cut rate mega markets. Some person or persons unknown clearly had come by while we were out and left this offering on our porch. But who?

Doesn't really matter who although the answer was found on Annie's cell phone much later last night. What does matter is a simple, beautiful act of paying it forward, neighbor-to-neighbor, without being asked and without expectation of return.

Thanks, Peggy!!! Your going on the Zucchini List!

Deadlines and old age

What’s with missing deadlines in my old age?

Ya know, when you practice at something for 60 years, you might reasonably expect to be at the top of your game. So why is it, sitting here on the front porch of The Golden Years, I catch myself in rookie mistakes. Hell, not even mistakes, for mistakes implies the poopertrator acted in ignorance. I’ve held deadlines to be sacred since those salad days on The Rider Roundup. I can thank Mother Mac for that; the old bat drilled the fundamentals into us like a freaking’ jar head top kick minus the language, bless her heart!

Okay, thumbnail version; I put two days into building this dirt cheap mud hole in our shrub jungle, rigged up a waterfall base and trickle hose (Texas is in a record, Class Five Excessive Red Flag Flying killer of a drought, in case you did not get the memo, and the water police have eyes everywhere), stuck a self-contained solar LED lamp at its base and called it AnniePie Millers’ Mothers’ Day Garden; a fun little project that kept my now fully retired butt outside and from under foot when not actively seeking gainful employment outside The Home, don’ cha know. On or about that same time, I set a deadline to publish the next issue of this journal no later than Mom Day midnight, thinking to write a wrap up piece on Mothers' Day at Miller's Cave. You see, while Annie got a new garden out of the deal, I renovated our 8 X 12 shed into a man cave, but that's another story.

The two of you who follow this rag already know I busted deadline. Friends, the last time I recall that happening was the wee hours of April 11, 1979, when we failed to make the first early edition. There was a night!

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that I quit thinking of myself as a newspaperman when the Tribune-Chief was sold out from under me. Use it or lose it NEVER takes a day off! For the rest of it, I’ve just got to face up and fess up to the immovable truth. I am old.

I am old. I have reached the age my grandfather was when I was born; and I am here to tell you, children, that old Hardshell Baptist deacon, Wiley Preston Saunders, came into this world old and just proceeded to get better at it! Of course, he rarely hobbled himself with deadlines, choosing rather to approach his chores d'rectly ("JREC-lee", adverb, to get around to doing something when one is damned good and ready).

Invasion of the Russian Tomatoes!

Early Mothers' Day morning I'm cruising the garden section at that mega-mart everyone seems to love to hate. Freshly unemployed with much more time than money, I had launched an addition to our backyard for Annie for Mothers' Day two days before. The project was all but finished--including a fully-functioning, low maintenance, conservative-water-using water feature--and I was on one of those rare solo scouting trips, looking for finishing touches. When what to my wandering eyes should appear but a tag I certainly did not expect to see in this establishment, HEIRLOOM TOMATO!

This writer hardly expected to ever use Wal*Mart and heirloom tomato positively in the same sentence; but there it was, tucked away amid all the usual hybrid suspects. A healthy enough looking little specimen, considering where it was living, and claiming to be an old-world variety called Black Krim from Russia. Its parent supplier is an Alabama outfit called Bonnie Plants.

I have seen Bonnie's products before in Lowe's. Plants are packaged in biodegradable pots made from recycled materials, so you just plant the thing pot and all. I like that. I also like that Bonnie is bringing their products into places like Wal*Mart. Oh! If you have one of them smart phones that can read QR codes, Bonnie's plant data tags has that covered as well.

Worth a shot at three bucks! The Black Krim is billed as a chocolate beefsteak, the "chocolate" referencing its dark brownish color, from the Ukraine. Well let you know how it shakes out in a couple of months.

Also worth three bucks to check out is this self-contained, solar-powered LED landscape lamp by Westinghouse, and also available at Wal*Mart. I took one to try, installing it at the base of Annie's new water feature. It does not put out a mass of light; more like a friendly glow. I like that these can be picked up as single units and placed wherever without any need for wiring. How well they hold up to life on the Rolling Plains remains to be seen.

Man, is it getting hot out here, or is it just me!?!

Kites return to the Falls

Every spring Anniepie and I look forward to the return of certain friends who mark the season and who, kind of like old mesquite trees budding out, let us know spring is settling in. Scissor-tailed flycatchers, Oklahoma's state bird, arrived some weeks ago; a trifle early this year by our reckoning--I really need to keep better notes and records--but others testify the scissor-tails were about on schedule. We spotted our first a couple Sundays ago out by Lake Wichita Park, and I have since seen them in all parts of the Falls, including one in that big old pecan tree across the street from our house.

Last evening a couple hours shy of sunset, Anniepie and I were camping out in the backyard, toasting Willie Nelson's 79th with a couple of margaritas. The winds finally had laid down to near calm, and the temperature under a pale blue, cloudless sky couldn't have been any more perfect. The seed feeders weren't getting many callers save the occasional dove, mainly because Mr. Beano Miller kept chasing after his lime green squeaky ball ever time Annie would toss it.

I happened to glance up from the dog games and spotted what I took to be a chimney swift at first. On second look, though, the bird was larger than a swift, soaring higher than I had first estimated. As my 62-year-old tri-focaled eyes adjusted to the range, I spotted another bird riding air currents at the extreme limit of unaided vision, hardly more than a speck, yet faintly recognizable. Nudging Anniepie, I pointed to the nearer bird.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Oh my god, I think so!"

Of course, about that time the bird's flight took it below the tree line, so I broke for the house to fetch the glasses. Before I returned to the yard, however, Anniepie had confirmed the Mississippi kites had returned to the Falls.

Mississippi kite, Ictinia mississippiensis, second cousin to our own bald and golden eagles, is a hawk-sized raptor dressed in shades of gray and elegantly graceful on the wing. I mean, this bird literally does "dance the sky on laughter silvered wings" so beautiful it can make a grown man get cinders in his eyes when there's not a fire within two counties. These guys spend the winter in South America. Why on Earth they return each spring to hatch and raise their young in Wichita Falls is beyond me, but I'm certainly thrilled that they do.

So Annie and I were both grovin' on our first kite sighting of the fledgling spring, watching a couple sky dance at about 10,000 feet, when another pair swooshed past us directly overhead at treetop level! I mean we heard the air whispering through their flight feathers!

"I guess they wanted to make sure we knew they were back," I said.

The literature will tell you that kites feed on insects. I'm here to tell you I watched a pair of them tag-team after a white-winged dove that only escaped by plunging into a dense cedar tree. Others swear they also will take smaller stick and disc golfers who do not keep an eye out overhead while on their rounds.

Final count right at sundown was at least a dozen birds at one time soaring over Brook Village in one of the most magnificent air displays any two-legged critter should ever hope to witness.

Thank you, Lord!