Linda Lou's Kansas Farm Woman Cinnamon Rolls

Blogfaddah Harvey wanted this recipe. Don't nobody blame me if his, or hers, belly drags on the ground. These things are a once per year recipe.

Two tsp sugar, one half cup lukewarm water, one package yeast. any cook knows the drill, dissolve sugar in water, add yeast, dissolve. Let stand ten minutes.
Scald one and one half cups milk, add one half cup sugar and one half tsp salt. Cool.
Add two beaten eggs, , three cups all purpose flour, yeast mixture and three more cups flour.
Knead a little. (May need to add a little more flour)
Cover and let rise for twenty minutes.
Knead on lightly floured board until dough springs back when punched with finger.
Let rise until doubled, about an hour.
Roll out and spread with eight ounces of soft margarine or butter.
Add three cups brown sugar and eight tsp cinnamon.
Roll in long roll, cut in one inch slices. Twirl the slices into rolls. Place in nine by twelve by two inch cake pan.
Let rise until doubled.
Bake at 350 degrees F for twenty to twenty five minutes.
Flip out of pan.

Eat.

A Recipe For Army Wife, Toddler Mom

My pal Army Wife, Toddler Mom is asking for baked goods recipes, cookies, and suchlike.

We have a standby here that we try to never be without. It's her Grandma Hagen's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Linda Lou eats six of these cookies a day as a meal and has lost a WHOLE LOT of weight on this diet. Oddly this started before she retired and her diet consisted of six oatmeal raisin cookies and a Sonic double cheeseburger and tater tots each workday. I make no guarantee that anyone else will lose weight on this diet but it worked for her.

At any rate here is the recipe...Grandma Hagen's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies:

Two sticks margarine, the cheap stuff
Two Eggs
One cup sugar
Two cups flour (all purpose, not self rising)
One tsp baking soda
One tsp Cinnamon
One half tsp allspice
one half tsp nutmeg
Pinch salt (new salt, not an old salt like Harvey)
Two Cups quick oats
One cup cooked raisins (note cook raisins in a small pan with water. Bring to a rolling boil, turn off heat)
five tsp raisin juice. (Raisin juice is the the water the raisins boiled in.)

Soften margarine. Linda Lou puts the margarine on top of the stove, in the back where the over vent is. She has it unwrapped, in the mixer bowl. This is first, she does everything else while the oven preheats.

Blend in sugar and eggs.

Blend or sift flour, soda, spices and salt.

Add flour, oatmeal, raisins and juice.

Mix until the dough forms a ball. (If you don't have a mixer use a stout spoon, this dough is thick. Until we got a mixer I had one arm like Popeye)

Spoon onto lightly greased cookie sheet. (Linda Lou squirts the cookie sheet all over with Pam and then wipes the excess off with a clean paper towel.)

Bake at 350F for ten to twelve minutes.

Did I mention that Linda Lou lost a lot of weight eating six of these cookies a day?

Anvil Al Memorial Birthday Shoot

Saturday was another cowboy action shoot and also it was Anvil Al's Birthday. His wife and a couple of confederates cooked up a mountain of brisket and beans, potato salad and sundries to celebrate.

I think Anvil Al ought to have a birthday on the second Sunday and last Saturday of every month. I have no pictures of the actual eating, this is after all, a G rated Blog. Had y'all been there you would know why we have those bandannas around our necks.

The shooting was going along nicely, right up until I "missed the bucket", again. The residual damage from the stroke I had made the ring and little fingers of my right hand numb and weak. Those are the fingers I use most when reholstering a shootin' iron. Ooops! I was going along in my first clean stage of the shoot and then, all of a sudden there was a six shooter on the floor of the Sportin' House. Fortunately I only seem to drop the iron when reholstering so it's only a stage disqualification. Had the gun been loaded it would have been a match DQ.

Anyway I was my usual slow but semi-accurate self, shooting black powder and putting up clouds of gun smoke, the barbecue beans, later, added more smoke.

The smoothing out of my shotgun chambers helps a lot, without that stage DQ I would have been in the middle, someplace, insead of next to the last. It doesn't matter all that much where I place, I'm never going to be a champ at this. The champs have better nerves and reflexes than I do. Cowboy action is just plain fun, no matter where I place and the shooting is okay practice. So what if my main defense revolver is a double action? Shooting is shooting. Since most bad guys never practice, even at my worst I'm better than they are. Cowboy action has certainly helped my shotgun shooting, my buckshot loads don't kick near as much as those black powder cowboy action loads.

Anyhow, the weather was near-perfect, cool and cloudy in the morning, clear and warmer by the time the shoot was over. I like shooting black powder when it is cloudy and humid, it makes more smoke. It's harder to shoot fast, though, not only does the smoke hide the targets but the flame and sparks from the gun going' off is distracting. Instead of swinging to the next target and searching for the front sight I'm watching the flames.

Oh well, good company, good food and a pretty nice day.

The Return Of The Prodigal Puppy

Linda Lou and I were sleeping the sleep of the just, the sleep of only those with a good conscience when the phone rang. It was the vet's offices telling me that someone had found Eddie. Well, we dressed fast and headed out.and, sure enough, there he was, at a "resort" and marina about three miles off. Maybe a mile and a half as the crow flies, not being a crow I'm not positive. At any rate we drove among the house trailers and the feller that found him was outside with him. Eddie was glad to see us.

As soon as I opened the car door, Eddie jumped in. We both got a ton of puppy kisses and Ming The Merciless, peas be unto her, barked hysterically at Larry. Eddie is fine, skinny as a rail and covered in ticks. He's been eating his little head off and has had a bath with flea and tick soap.

It's too bad he wasn't found yesterday, he would have enjoyed the cooking of the turkey breast. He got a hunk of turkey today, though. I have decided to leave his food dish down all the time until Monday and let him get filled up good and then go back to the housebreaking routine.

You might guess that Linda Lou is really happy.

Who Knew She Is Muslim?

I am not sure what adjustments we are going to have to make in our household routine but we just discovered that Ming The Merciless is a Muslim dog. I guess I will have to write to "Ask_The_Ayatollah.com" or "Query_The_Q'ran".org" or somesuch to figure out what to do.

At any rate her Muslim background may explain why she bites my fingers when I give her a treat, she's so small that's the best she can do with her Jihad.

One might wonder how we discovered that Ming is Muslim, let me explain...
I was eating dinner and shaking rather more than usual and dropped some peas. Ming snatched them up before they had a chance to bounce or roll, ate every one and begged for more. This prooves she is Muslim, because..............

Peas Be Unto Her.

High Finance

I just saw on Drudge that Google stock is up to $500.00 a share. Now I don't understand much about finance, I barely understand lunch money. I am curious, though. I use Firefox and it has Google connections. It's free. I have a G-mail account. It's free. I regularly Google stuff on line when I want to figure out the answer to(mostly) unimportant questions. It's free. Okay, there are a few little ads that I never look at.

So, here is my question... Here is a business giving away it's product and services and each individual share is worth FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! What does a shareholder get? How in the world does a company that gives it's service away make a profit to the stockholders?

I don't understand, am I an idiot or do folks with disposable income just enjoy throwing it away?

Didn't we just go through this same thing at the end of the Clinton Administration with the bursting of the Great Dot Com Bubble?

Update: in comments my Pal, Teresa, who is pretty smart even if she's some kind of Yankee, says that Google makes bazillions of bucks from advertisors. Okay, I believe it but then I must ask, who reads the ads? I read some at first but quit because when they're ads claiming to have what I'm looking for I always managed to find it cheaper. So, I never read the ads.

Granted I might be just a little unusual but I'm certainly not unique. I don't know for sure but somebody, the advertisors or the stockholders will eventually get sc, um, oh well, I just hope they're all getting kissed.

New Blog!

Well, my pal Army Wife, Toddler Mom has a new kid, a blog-daughter. It's a good thing AWTM lives in Arkansas because this virtual daughter is already in her twenties.
Anyhow you can find KD over at her blog, The Life Of The Wife.

While we wait for his return we might all take turns worrying and praying so that KD can maybe take a two minute break every once in a while.

Duke Of Trousers

A while back I was looking over the classified ads on the SASS Wire, the cowboy action bulletin board, and noticed that a Pard was selling some Horsefly pants. No, not pants for a horsefly, that is just the brand name. The guy who made these is retired now but was quite well known for the quality of his work.

Anyhow, the guns and holsters are only a small part of the expense involved in the sport of Cowboy Action Shooting, the "right" clothes are real expensive. That shirt I have on in that picture is forty-bucks and not even perma press.

So, when I saw four pairs of these pants for ten bucks a pair I sprained a finger typing "I'll take 'em" and posting it. Now, a minor difficulty is that I didn't NEED four pairs of button fly, no belt loop, three pocket pants, iron every time you walk past pants. There are those who are really into the costume part of the sport, I'm really just there for the noise and stinky black powder smoke but, for a few days I was the Pants King of Lake Tawokonie. As luck would have it, though, another Pard, out California way wanted to buy those pants, too. So I sold him two pair and instead of the Pants King I am merely the Trouser Duke.

If anyone cares this is the first pair of green trousers I've had since back when I wore Uncle's Suit.

Eddie Didn't Come Home

Well, we've lost another puppie. I took Eddie out to pee the other night and then Ming came out and they went off to sniff around. Eddie didn't come home and searching proved useless.

Owl? Coyote? Mean people? Who knows. Foo.

Veteran's Day

Eighty-eight years ago the lights came on in Europe after four years of Hell on Earth. No one knew then that it was the beginning of the end of Europe's dominance of the globe.

Just as Decoration Day morphed into Memorial Day, Armistice Day turned into Veteran's Day. A day to remember not just the heroes, the Chesty Pullers and Silent Lew Walts, the Manila John Basilones and the Audie Murphys, but the other guys like me, and now gals, who put on Uncle's suit and did what they were told in unglamorous jobs.

I don't often think about my time in the Service, life is in the way. Every once in a while, though, I think back. I don't remember the lack of sleep and the bad food, I don't think of the hours of boredom or the moments of terror.

Instead I remember that once I stood with heroes.

Two Anniversaries.

Two anniversaries today. Two hundred and thirty-one years ago the Continental Congress created two battalions of Marines.

Fast forward a little bit and my then-fiance, Linda Lou wanted us to marry on a day I couldn't forget. So, November tenth. Semper Fi, twice.

Pictures

By popular demand, puppy photos! Don't nobody dare tell me that Quality Weenie isn't popular.

In other news the Donks seem to have got some new law on the books. It seems to be against the rules to stand in the driveway of the polling place with a gun and a sign "No Donks!" Foo. I never have any fun.

Anybody know how Frank J is doing with his ASP Baton?

Vote

Just a note on this laptop...vote. I know a lot of conservatives are disgruntled, I have my problems with the bunch running the show in DC. I'm still going to pull the straight Republican Ticket.

Of course, it is easier for me, there are very few RINOs running here in Texas. Still, even a RINO will prevent a Speaker Pelosi. A RINO will help prevent a Donk taking our tax cuts away and, most importantly, will keep up the fight against Islamic terrorism. Nor should we forget judges.

It is somewhat easier for me, too, because I knew all along that Dubya is not, and has not been, a classic conservative. I knew that from the time I met him when he was first running for Governor of Texas. That was during my big political career when I was a Republican Precinct Chairman.

So, vote. Hold your nose if you must, just vote. Don't forget, the polls are supposed to be crowded this year so we Rupublicans vote Tuesday and the Donks vote Wednesday.

My Computer Bit The Dust.

My computer has bitten the dust. I am online only due to this miserable little laptop that is a pain to type on. Between that and the near-impossibility of housebreaking this idiot puppy I have no time to blog.

My computer just quit going online. I paid to have a modem put in, it seems to have made the problem worse. I could at least play solitaire on it, now it won't even do that.

Limbaugh V Fox, Or Is It?

The Michael J. Fox vs Rush Limbaugh would not be nearly so interesting if the Legacy Media would report it straight.

I was listening to Rush on (last) Monday, when he first mentioned the Fox commercial. A couple of things should be noted from the start. First is Rush's admiration for Fox as an actor. The second is Rush's puzzlement. Although Rush is, and was, aware of Fox's bout with Parkinsons he had never seen Fox acting as he was in that commercial. So, he asked a simple question, was he acting or was he off his meds or what. I understand that Rush tried to illustrate what he was talking about on the dittocam, not watching TV or having that service on line, I only know what I heard.

Later in the program Rush mentioned the E-mails he was getting discussing that Fox has written that he does go off his meds when he wants to illustrate the symptoms.

This started a tidal wave, seems that it is illegal, immoral and fattening to notice a Donk's disease. It is quite all right to notice a Repubs's. Just look at how Limbaugh's addiction and deafness are treated compared to say, Courtney Love's or any one of a dozen other Hollywood types. Except, of course, Mel Gibson's. But I digress.

One thing about this controversy that is important is that one side is lying. The ad that started all this is about the Missouri Constitutional amendment about cloning. Since this amendment has very little to do with stem cell research the proponents have named it the stem cell research amendment or some such nonsense. Please note that adult stem cell research is perfectly legal, even supported by Federal tax dollars. There is also much research done with fetal stem cell research, existing lines of these stems cells are eligible for Federal money. New lines are perfectly legal, too. They just do not get Federal cash. Considering that there have been zero (that is less than one) disease that has had any progress noted through fetal stem cell research, that sounds pretty fair to me. If private research comes up with any progress, fine. Then we can discuss a change. I am not sure that my twilight years are worth the death of a fetus but, fine, let us talk. Just, please, don't misname the amendment. Don't claim that backdooring human cloning is making cloning illegal and that it will cure me.

Don't promise that I will never shake again if only we elect Democrats. Don't attack Rush for asking questions. Mr. Fox has injected himself into this story and we aren't supposed to talk about it. Y'all bemember how no Donk talked about Rush's addiction? This a pretty good deal for the Donks, they make up these rules that they say whatever they please and we have to take it and keep our mouths shut..

I don't buy it. Nor do I care that Rush is not an expert on Parkinsons. That is my neurologist job. I don't ask Rush for medical advice, I don't ask Doc Walker for political news.

By the way, anybody notice that Fox's foundation is putting durned near two million dollars to support research in a viral therapy for Parkinsons? Not fetal stem cell, viral. Hmmm. So, HIS money is going for something showing some hope. Good. I like that. So, how much of his own money goes to fetal stem cell research?

Nap Is Over

Hi, my two month nap is over. All two of you are either glad or appalled. I have a couple of posts in my head that I will type out soon.

As some know, I have Parkinsons and will comment on the Limbaugh/Fox kerfluffle, I will be somewhat unique there because I have listened to Limbaugh all this week and have yet to see or hear Fox.

The other thing in my head is an appreciation of the .30-06 cartridge, I need to get that out while it is still the centennial year since some ordnance types dreamed up the old warhorse.

So Much For Freedom

Today is, I believe, the day that freedom of speech is lost until after the election. We are not allowed to say anything about politics without official permission from those who are supposed to work for us.

I shall never forgive that scumbag McCain. I expect the Democrats to be anti freedom, that is what they do. I would not vote for a Donk, anyway, not on a bet. I will, though, never, ever, vote for any Representative or Senator who voted for this bill.

John McCain is a crook. He was in the Keating scandal up to his eyebrows. He claims that we are not supposed to spend our very own money because he is a crook. Wouldn't have been better for him to retire instead of attacking our freedom?

McCain is a crook. Pass it on.

A Swarm O' Grandkids

We had a special treat this week, three of the four kids were in town so we had seven of the grandkids in one place. I have them in some kind of order, it is, from top to bottom, Ethan, Nathaniel and John Mark, belonging to Robin and Meleah.

Next are William and Josiah Dean, they go with Stephanie and Dean. That is Linda Lou holding Josiah. She is responsible for this whole mess.

The bottom two are Michael Jr and Alexandra Dawn, those are Michael and Jennifer's.

Now it is time to nap for about two months.

Meet Josiah Dean R-----

Here is a picture of my new grandson, Josiah Dean. I guess it is time to change my blurb at the top of this Blog, he is grandson number seven, grandchild number eight.
Those who care about such things he weighed seven pounds four ounces and was born at 8 38 AM, Central Daylight Time yesterday morning.

Mothers and those who expect to become mothers will be exceedingly jealous. The kids got to the hospital at six AM, the boy was in the outside world two and a half hours later. Mother and baby are well as is the father. Grandparents are all proud as peacocks.

Frustrating, But I Won My Class

I won my catagory at yesterdays shoot. Well, maybe I lost. It's hard to figure it out when I scored the highest in my class and the lowest. Yup. I was the only one shooting Frontrier Cartridge.

A better idea about how I did is that I was 18th overall, still down toward the bottom of the pack. I think I might have gotten closer to the top fifteen had I not blown the order in which I had to engage the targets. That mistake cost me a ten second "P" or procedural penalty. Other than that one disaster I managed to run the match with only one other miss, I think. I'll know for sure when the club puts the scores up on the website. My time is improving, too. Granted, the top shooters in Cowboy Action shoot a stage in twenty to thirty seconds and I am still just over a minute per stage but then the top shooters are not shooting .45 Colt with black powder loads, either. I am not going to cry about shooting ten rounds, from two handguns plus ten tounds from a lever action rifle and then four rounds from a starting empty mule ear double shotgun in a minute. I suspect that, as I practice I shall get the time per stage down to 45 seconds or so. I'm still having some problems drawing and holstering and picking up and grounding the long guns. The problems are more due to that stroke than poor equipment. Still, an hour or so of practice three or four times a week would help, too. Too bad I don't practice.

At least I managed the shoot without dropping a gun, that's something.

I need to put off road wheels on my guncart. It is so dry around here that there is a real danger of breaking an ankle stepping into the cracks in the black earth. It hasn't rained around here since Moby Dick was a minnow.

The Big Lube Boolits are a real success. I finally got around to shooting the .454 diameter 250 grain Pigeon Roost Slim slugs in the rifle. The .452s shot very well in my revolvers but poorly in the rifle. I have no idea why the revolvers are so much more forgiving than the rifle. It may be just a matter of expectations. I EXPECT a rifle with a 24 inch barrel and a Marble's Tang Sight to shoot a group of around an inch, inch and a half at fifty yards and two inches or so at a hundred. The .452s did not do so with the only load I tried in the rifle. Perhaps a different load would tighten the groups up. I suspect that a full charge of The Holy Black would cause the base of the bullet to slug up to completely fill the barrel. Then I'd have to put up with the complaints about my "hot" loads being hard of the steel targets. With the .454s I had no problem with my load of 28 grains of GOEX FFG, a .7 CC scoop of instant grits, uncooked of course and the bullet. Note that I fired sixty rounds, over six stages. There was plenty of time between the stages for the black powder fouling to harden and tie up the gun. In that heat it would have. The last round was just as accurate and chambered and extracted just as easily as the first.

The only differnce between the Big Lube Boolit and a regular cast bullet is that the Big Lube carries at least five times the lubricant as a bullet made for that newfangled fad smokeless stuff.With my home cast bullets I only get ten rounds or so until the fouling turns too hard and starts giving problems in the revolvers. In the rifle I started having problems right off the bat. Twenty-four inches of barrel is just way too much for two skinny grease grooves.

Of course my homecast bullets shoot just fine with a grease cookie underneath the bullet. That what I will be shooting when I run our of the Big Lubes, at least until I can afford the new mold. There are only two reasons for using the Big Lube Boolit instead of the regular one. The grease cookie takes a lot of room in the case that can be filled with powder. That is not important for Cowboy Action since I download anyway. The time spent loading rounds makes the Big Lube matter to the handloader. It is just so much faster to por a scoop full of dry grits into the case than it is to take a freshly powdered case, push a sheet of beeswax over the casemouth, making a wad. Then we have to push the wad down on the powder. Then put a dollop od soft black powder lube in the case and finally add a card or vegetable fiber wad on top of all that and now seat and crimp the bullet.

Whew! I'm tired just writing that, it's worse doing it. What is even more fun is having to make the sheets of beeswax since no one seems to make sheets. Linda Lou does not much like me making the beeswax sheets since I always manage to drip wax all over her kitchen. Speaking of which, if I cook at least half the meals, how come it's her kitchen?

The other main advantage of the Big Lube Boolits is that it took four patches to clean my rifle and not much more than that to clean each revolver.

The Big Lube Boolits also come in full size rifle sizes, too. There are two for the .45-70 and other .45 caliber rifles, a 390 grain and a five hundred grain, and a 240 grain for the .38-55. These would be really good for long range rifle competion and for hunting. I have heard some rumblings about molds for cartridges like the .32-40 and the various .40 caliber rifles, too. If enough people are interested Dick Dastardly will be pleased to have to molds made. Big Lube Boolits.

Update: 8/20/06. Don't ask why I forgot to finish and post this all week. Too busy playing with a puppy, I recon.