A Care Package From Mr. Barbecue

The Bride returned from a trip to North Carolina, seeing family, with a Care Package for me! There will be good eats on my trip next week! My favorite Carolina Barbecue place! If I ration myself, this will last almost a year.

 

Thanks for visiting.

Keeping House & Ladder Lady

Two weeks ago I posted that I had a long hard week of it while our new countertops were being installed. Readers will remember that a plumbing leak did damage to the wood floors at that time. I had a week to recover and enjoy a Forest Service, Passport In Time project in New Mexico and returned a week ago. This past week was consumed by the flooring contractor sanding and re-finishing the wood floor and then after he was done the carpet cleaner came to do the carpets in the house.

The floor guy took two days to do his stuff and during that time the kitchen was off limits. I managed to put a few food items in the small bar refrigerator in the basement and that took care of breakfast and lunch for me. The Bride and The Emmer picked up eats for breakfast and lunch at their respective work places. Dinner was at the local Ruby Tuesday’s.

The worst part of having the floor re-done was the smell that permeated the entire house after the first, sealer coat was applied to the floor at the end of the first day. It was a heavy solvent smell that gave me a headache even with the windows open. Had I known how bad the smell was going to be I might have made arrangements to sleep in the RV that night. Fortunately, on the second day the water based finish coats were installed and that neutralized the smell. The floor guy finished up late Tuesday and the carpet cleaners weren’t scheduled until Friday so I had two days “off”.

My Forest Service project last week caused me to start thinking about getting a better metal detector. The one I used for the project, I bought about 5 years ago and while it’s an OK machine, it is definitely an entry level model. I was thinking about upgrading to a more sophisticated machine. There happens to be a store that sells metal detectors in Golden, CO, about 30 miles from here so first thing Thursday morning, I headed there to check things out. This store was a real big boy toy store and by the time I left, I had a brand new White’s MXT with me.

Thurdsay afternoon I took it for a spin at a local park that I had detected before with my old detector. I had found a few coins with the old detector but it was tough going and for every coin I found, I dug up 5-6 pop tops or other assorted trash. The new detector was amazing. Within one hour I had dug up 13 coins and very few pieces of trash. Yesterday afternoon I went back to the same park and spent a half hour detecting before the rain chased me away. In that time I found another four coins. I’m looking forward to getting to some older sites now and finding some interesting old stuff!

Thursday was also furniture moving day in preparation for the carpet cleaner. As I was moving the furniture around I thought about how nice it would be to be finished with all of this “house work” and getting back to normal. I think “normal” has been postponed because when the carpet guy did his thing on Friday he told me that the two year old carpet was in need of re-stretching. When we had the carpet installed two years ago they made it a point to point out that their guarantee covered any re-stretching needed during the life of the carpet….I guess they knew they weren’t going to do the job properly to start with. So after my trip next week volunteering for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, I guess more “house work” will be on the schedule.

In a few minutes The Bride and I will be leaving to pick up Ladder Lady at the airport. She will stay with us for a few days and then she and The Bride are going to California to visit with our daughter, Cajenn. When they return, The Emmer will accompany Ladder Lady back to North Carolina and visit with here there for a week before returning to the Denver area.

Thanks for visiting.

Merry Barbecue!!!

The Bride arrived back home from her trip to North Carolina Monday morning at about 2am. She was supposed to land at the Denver airport at about 10pm on Sunday night but because of the snow storm on the East Coast, her flight was delayed. It was delayed not because of the weather at the airport but because not enough service personnel could make it in to work at Dulles airport to keep the planes flying on-time. In spite of the weather and delays she had a good time with her mother and I got a special gift out of the trip too!

Long time readers will remember that I have an affinity, a yen, a sweet tooth as it were for barbeque. Not just any barbecue mind you but the best barbecue in the land…..North Carolina pork barbecue. Not Texas cow and ketchup not grilled yard bird but honest to God North Carolina chopped pork barbecue. One of my favorite places to get a barbecue fix…when I’m in the area, is Mr. Barbecue in Winston-Salem, NC. I have been going to this fantastic little barbecue place for over 30 years now but it’s been about two years since my last visit and I’ve got to admit that I have thought of that barbecue more than once in that time.

To paraphrase a saying, “if his-self can’t go to the barbecue, bring the barbecue to his-self!” and that’s exactly what The Bride did. The Bride, bless her little heart, put a whole barbecued pork leg, from Mr. Barbecue, in her luggage and brought it to me as a Christmas present. This is no little task as the pork leg is a bulky item and probably weighs 5 or 6 pounds. She had it frozen, wrapped in tin foil and then wrapped in a plastic bag. From experience I can tell you that a whole leg is by far the most efficient way to transport barbecue. Carrying it in a chopped state is way too bulky and reduces the amount of this culinary gold that will fit in a suitcase.

Since I prefer my barbecue chopped, my task this morning was to reduce the leg to chopped ‘cue. While the process is pretty simple, great care must be taken to ensure that nothing gets wasted. After all this manna from heaven doesn’t fall in Colorado very often!

The meat is carefully carved off the bones of the leg ensuring that nothing edible is left behind. In my case the bones are so clean that even ants refuse to waste their time foraging for a meal!

After the meat is stripped from the bones it’s chopped into the desired consistency. I prefer a variety of sizes to the chopped meat and chop it so there are small and medium sized pieces.

The barbecue is then packaged in quart sized freezer bags and stored away. Each freezer bag has enough of this redneck caviar to serve about four normal people or two and a half North Carolina barbecue aficionados.

I now have five quart sized bags of Mr. Barbecue, barbecue in my freezer just waiting to please my palate and stomach at the right moment. Life is good!

Thanks for visiting.

Not Feeling Like A Motherless Child Anymore!

My new Arctic Fox fifth wheel was delivered to the dealer in Colorado Springs on Friday so first thing yesterday morning I drove down there to look at it. Due to the Christmas holidays I won’t be able to actually take possession of it until the 29th. The outside has not been cleaned up yet from it’s trip from Oregon and it shows. Apparently it went through a pretty good snow storm in Wyoming and it looks pretty grungy but the dealer promised it would look perfect when I come to pick it up. The dealer has started his inspection and prep and during the initial inspection found that the kitchen faucet had a small leak. He was unable to fix it so he has ordered a new faucet from the factory.

One of the reasons I drove down there yesterday was to give the dealer the “capture plate” that must be installed on the pin box of the trailer before I can tow it with my SuperGlide hitch. After talking with the dealer for a while I spent about a half hour just sitting inside the trailer dreaming of the trips I will begin to take in it starting in February. I have managed to keep my enthusiasm in check up till now but now that it’s actually here I am “overflowing”!

I brought all of the manuals for the different appliances and features of the trailer home with me so my task today is to go through them and read them.

I spoke with The Bride this morning. They didn’t get as much snow and ice as was predicted but it’s still pretty dicey there. While we were talking I checked online for her flights….she flies from Greensboro, NC to Washington Dulles, to Denver. Both flights are still showing on-time but Washington Dulles is starting to report short delays. She will lay over in Washington Dulles for about four hours and leave there around 8pm so hopefully things will have cleared up by then.

Thanks for visiting.

Home Alone – Almost

The Bride left home at about 4am on Monday morning for a visit with her mother, Ladder Lady, in NC leaving The Emmer and I to fend for ourselves until Sunday. Fortunately over the last few years I have done enough cooking so that The Emmer and I will not starve. My repertoire is not anywhere close to as extensive as The Bride’s but it is enough to keep the two of us from wasting away.

I have received a report from The Bride that she arrived without incident and is enjoying the visit with her mother, brothers and their families. She also reports that she timed her trip perfectly to coincide with a potentially major snow storm in the area! This is what Weather Underground is forecasting for Saturday, when the storm finally moves out…

Saturday

Cloudy. Snow likely...mainly in the morning. Total snow accumulation of 10 to 14 inches possible. Ice accumulation around a trace. Cold with highs in the lower 30s. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 70 percent.

From having lived in the area for many years I can tell you that this is going to be a big deal. Even though she is in the western part of the state where they are a little more accustomed to snow, they still do not have the equipment to keep the roads clear for a storm of this magnitude. Add to that, the fact that most of the electricity is delivered by above ground lines and there is a distinct chance that they could lose power for a couple of days as well. The Brides visit may be a little longer than she anticipated.

On the RV front, my new trailer should be delivered to the dealer either today of tomorrow and the dealer says that they will have it ready for me by Tuesday. That however presents a scheduling problem related to another project I have been working on.

Over the last year or so I have become interested in becoming a member of the Elks fraternal organization. A few weeks ago I went to the local Elks Lodge and enquired about membership. Long story short, this Tuesday I will be going to the Lodge for an interview and indoctrination so I will have to postpone getting my new rig until after Christmas. It’s just a good thing that I’m retired because I don’t think I could manage my schedule and squeeze in some “working” as well.

Thanks for visiting.