other dog

Up to 80% now for Sunday.

Yeah we have Dollar General stores all over the place, and a Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. But I like them myself, nothing wrong with going into Family Dollar and buying a bottle of ketchup or mustard for half what it costs at Kroger. Seen one bottle of mustard you've seen them all as far as I'm concerned. Dollar General even sells refrigerated and frozen food items now, beer, pretty much whatever you want.

Yeah, I've got Rain-X on the windshield though, just in case.

...but now I doubt if we'll be going to another parade on Sunday anyway, or if they'll even have it. They're saying there's a 70% chance of rain Sunday, high in the 40's, and I have no wipers and no heat.

No, it's a plastic wreath from the Dollar Store. I think all that stuff came from the Dollar Store. We pulled over after the parade though and took all of it off anyway, then crammed it all in the side box so we can put it back on this Sunday.

Speaking of that- The last time we drove the truck around the loop here we came up to a house on Spring Grove Road where there's usually people in the yard, and we blow the horn for the kids. This time there was what I thought was a dead chicken laying in the road there. I moved over to the left to go around it, and it got up and started towards the house, which is on the left. And the "dead chicken" was a little white fuzzy dog. It has been laying in the road licking his...whatever 🤣 and it ran right in front of us! But the brakes work pretty good, we missed the little fella.

Yes indeed! As soon as I mentioned your name they said "oh, pardon me sir, we're really sorry for any inconvenience that you may have suffered. Right this way, please". And then they escorted us to our designated spot, where they had drinks and sammiches for us. Meanwhile, in the real world they already had the right lane of rt.60 closed when we got there about 12:30. The parade entry numbers were on a flag beside the road. But we went past our number to the NAPA store, like we were told to do. And the guy at NAPA told us to go back and park beside our number. So we went back up the road, turned around, then came back to our spot. Not a big deal at all, but that was exactly what I was trying to find out in the first place when we were told to "be at NAPA at 1pm".

Nice!

I didn't either at first, I just happened to notice the latches one day. The one on the driver side opened pretty easy, took a little WD-40 before the passenger side one opened easy.

The seats are strapped in, and their harness' are strapped to the seats. I drilled a hole on both sides of the sleeper near the back down into the storage area. Then I put an eye bolt on each side and ran a 1" ratchet strap through the seats and hooked it to the eye bolts. They ride really good in it, Roman seems to like it better than riding in the pickup. The kids were the best part, I heard several yell "puppies!" when they spotted the dogs. They were way more impressed with the "puppies" than the truck! And Mack would bark right in my ear periodically, it was a lot of fun. We're going to another Christmas Parade in Pamplin Sunday. That one is a lot closer, but it's supposed to be a lot colder too. Weather was great yesterday, got up to the upper 60s.

So we took the big green International that runs now down to Cumberland, my home town, to a Christmas Parade today. Thing runs like a clock now, no issues. We took all three dogs, they did great too. We heard kids yelling "puppies!" all along the route.

Yes, I remember him. Still Facebook friends.

This guy put some crackhead in a choke hold on the subway because he was was ranting and raving and threatening people. The guy later died, and they charged the guy who subdued him with manslaughter. You're probably thinking of Bernard Goetz, who shot several thugs on the subway when they tried to rob him. They charged him with having an illegal firearm, and at least one of the scumbag thugs that he shot sued him for shooting and paralyzing him, even though he was going to mug him.

...and the jury is still out on the subway hero case. It should have taken them about 12 seconds to find him "not guilty". 😡

Wow- after saying that he was not going to pardon hunter, sleepy Joe just pardoned him for everything he ever thought about doing. Hard to believe a democrat would lie about something like that. Meanwhile, the hero veteran who put the deranged nut case in a choke hold when he went berserk is on trial for manslaughter. I hope he's found not guilty and they put a statue of him and Bernard Goetz in the middle of the town square. Bernard is another hero who got in a lot of trouble for taking out some low life scumbags on the subway, in case anybody has forgotten.

"Big Mike"😂

Congratulations!

Yes, that's what it's called. People from Virginia argue that it originated in Brunswick, VA. and Georgians say it originated in Brunswick, GA. I don't care where it originated, it's really delicious either way. Watch your mail box, I found a stamp.

That stew has a gallon of diced tomatoes and a gallon of crushed tomatoes in it. And everything was cooked in chicken broth, no water. I even drained the liquid from the cans of vegetables, except for the corn. I always pour the liquid in from the corn, for no good reason, I just do.

Dinty Moore doesn't know his a$$ from his elbow, I guarantee mine's is better than his🤣. It has beef and chicken in it, along with diced tomatoes, green beans, corn, butter beans, peas, potatoes, onions, and carrots. I would have put more beef in it, but Zina said "that's plenty". I say you can't have too much, I agree with what Jeff Moore (no relation to Dinty) said- "I want a piece of beast in every bite". It's really good though, I'm going to mail you a bowl of it if I can find a stamp.

Oh, I forgot why I didn't get around to brining the turkey. I made a 7 1/2 gallon pot of stew Tuesday. I canned some so Vicki from Florida can take some back to Florida with her. Oh, Vicki from Florida is here this week. We've been going to Vicki from Florida's the last several years for Thanksgiving and the big car show, the Turkey Run in Daytona. Hated to miss it, but we have a cone-head dog with an injured eye, and we have to take her back to the vet Monday or Tuesday. We made all the stew to give most of it away to family and friends, and I hope to make another one before Christmas. It came out really good this time too. Making stew is a pretty big deal around these parts. The first one I made for a fundraiser, many years ago, sold for $4 a quart. Now the going rate is $10 a quart.

I was going to brine ours too but I just didn't get around to it. But I did sort of "dry brine" it. I bought some kind of Cajun seasoning one time that was in the discount bin. I never used it because it was too salty for anything. It was saltier than salt. So I coated the turkey with it yesterday morning and wrapped it up and left it for a few hours, then I wiped off as much of it as I could and put the regular rub on it and in it. The salt draws the moisture out of the skin, so it'll crispify when it cooks. Worked great, the turkey wasn't dry at all and the skin was crispy. And ever since I smoked the first turkey many years ago I've never cooked one any other way, it's that good.

Yessir, we put some hay in the barn when I was a kid that was a bit too green. You could actually see steam coming out of the barn. I guess it was steam and not smoke anyway, but I'm not sure. We unstacked all of it and put tobacco sticks in between all the bales so air could get to it and it eventually dried. We had plenty of tobacco sticks because we raised dark tobacco too.