One of my all-time favorite hikes was a midnight hike in this rainforest, as a part of a Woodbadge training … what was then the most advanced training for the trainers of Cub Scout leaders.
If you’ve never been, go experience the rain forest. It is a unique place in North America.
Hoh Rainfrest, Olympic National Park. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 8/29/14.
0:41 – Run on/Missouri Fanfare 1:44 – Missouri Waltz 3:15 – Tiger Rag 4:12 – Eye of the Tiger 5:34 – Give a Cheer 7:17 – Treasure by Bruno Mars (arr. by Matt Schmitz) 9:29 – Locked out of Heaven by Bruno Mars (arr. by Matt Schmitz) 11:52 – Marry You by Bruno Mars (arr. by Matt Schmitz) 15:20 – Mizzou Drumline 21:38 – Hey Baby 23:42 – Every True Son/Fight Tiger 25:15 – Old Missouri
Concert on the Quad
Francis Quadrangle, Columbia MO
August 24th, 2014
Yum! A thick and hearty dinner soup. Serve with hot bread.
Ingredients
1/2 pound bacon
1 medium onions
1 cup celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
7 Tbsp flour
6-7 medium red potatoes, diced medium chunky
4-5 ears fresh corn on the cob
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken broth
4 cups whole milk
1 cup cream
Instructions
Chop bacon and fry in soup pot til almost crisp. Add onion, celery and cook 3-4 minutes til translucent, add garlic and stir 1 minute. Add flour and stir 1-2 minutes. Add corn(sliced off cob), potatoes and barely cover with chicken broth. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add milk, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and simmer til bubbly. Check to see that potatoes are tender. Add cream and stir. If too thick add more milk. Sprinkle in thyme. Adjust salt, pepper or red pepper flakes to taste. To serve top with cheese and chopped raw onion. Crisp bacon sprinkled on top adds even more yum.
MrsMowry asked me to build a couple of bookcases for her new classroom (!). I was happy to oblige. It did make me wonder, though … how much longer will bookcases be something woodworkers build?
A pair of bookcases was my very first DIY project, back before “DIY” had entered the lexicon. Velda and I had set up our first apartment in Newhall, CA, while I went to grad school … and we were awash in albums (remember those?) and books. It was 1978.
I bought some pine and a sheet of 1/4″ ply – plus a Skil Saw and a carpenter’s square – and built 2 bookcases. Shelves were held in place with 1″ x 2″ cleats and 6 penny nails. Simple, clunky but effective. One bookcase was 3′ x 4′; the other was 4′ x 5′. Even then, I knew how to design a project to use all of a 4’x8′ sheet of ply.
The bookshelves moved with us to our first house, but didn’t make it to our second house. We demanded better … and bought them. I wasn’t really a woodworker back then.
My skill set – and my tools – have improved since that first set of bookcases. For MrsMowry’s commission, I used dadoes for the shelf joints, with the plywood screwed & glued into place. The edges got 1/2″ red oak trim, which was glued and then secured in place with my nail gun. My, how the times have changed.
Prior to this project, I had only made one bookcase since 1978. That got me to thinking. Will I ever build another one?
Woodworking projects, you see, reflect the times that the project lives in. Woodworkers used to make pie safes. CD Racks. Bread boxes. Today, not so much.
English teachers in junior high classrooms still need bookcases, apparently. But I wonder … for how much longer?
Painting by Little Girl & MrsMowry. I got to avoid the painting!
No, that’s not a spelling error on the bulletin board. MrsMowry has a Harry Potter theme going on.
Season chicken with garlic, salt and pepper. Pound to 1/2″ thick. Brown in olive oil for 3-4 minutes on each side, remove to cool slightly and then slice thin.
Cook fettuccine according to package directions.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat. Add garlic and stir for 1 minute. Sprinkle flour over butter garlic mixture, stir to cook lightly, add milk, sliced chicken and stir. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add cheese, and whisk quickly, heating through. Stir in parsley. Add cooked fettuccine.