Great Recipe Alert!

I have several local readers to this blog. One has commented a very limited number of times over the years but he and his wife keep up with me and few of you quite religiously. His name here in the blogosphere is 'Blue' (the local baseball umpire who is without peer) and his wife Mrs Blue. I first wrote about him HERE. I reread the comments and see that this post was the first time my good friend Paul visited my Blog.
We had golf league tonight and Blue was on the committee to do the cooking. He brought a pan of bars that were... well, shall I say very, very good. He credited Mrs Blue with having made the bars and this blog post is a shameless attempt to get her to post the recipe in the comments. If she does, it will do you all well to retain the recipe and then make the bars the next time you are attempting to get your spouse to do something they don't want to do. A word of warning, don't waste these bars on something like convincing someone to take the trash out. Instead use them for something big like a cruise, or a visit to a foreign country or possibly as a way to get a new house built complete with 4 bedrooms and 3 and 1/2 baths. Or...well, you know.

And Then July!

After a record wet month of May, we had one of the driest Junes on record. I've had trouble blogging because I can't sit down at the computer without falling asleep. We've been hauling irrigation pipe, planning Independence Day Celebrations, hauling hay, and mowing weeds.
THE FOURTH
We had a great get together. It included a Birthday party for one of my sisters, a surprise family baby shower for our youngest and his bride, and a few lady fingers and parachutes to fire off. Nothing says America like grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, homemade ice cream and fireworks from China.
We found the perfect compliment to Homemade Cherry Nut ice cream, it turned out that if you put a scoop of that on top of a scoop of Homemade Vanilla you had a combination that was hard to beat. We also had a chocolate cake for the birthday and a white cake for the shower. A great day indeed. My oldest son Dan and I finished it off with a quick nine holes of golf at just before sunset. He and I both had new fairway woods (metals) we wanted to try out. We came home and changed the sets on two of our irrigation wells, said our good byes and we collapsed into bed.
As a follow up to this. My 8 year old grandson ended the day with some 'delayed fuse' lady fingers. (not to worry, these fire crackers have the same power as cap gun with a two second fuse.) He was only allowed to light them with a punk. Punk, used in this manner, is a new word for him. He used up his last punk and was distraught because he had a few more to light at the end of the day and his Mom wouldn't let him use matches. Then yesterday, he found a couple of old punks in his Uncle Toms old room upstairs in our house. He came downstairs just beaming, held them up to show Grandma and said, "Look what I found Grandma, JERKS!" Apparently someone in this family, (ahem) uses the word 'punk' interchangeably with the word 'jerk' .
One last thing, I want to see if you think I'm correct. Last night my Daughter and I came into the house. We'd been hauling some hay and Grandma had the kids. They were watching a high def nature film. Fish were jumping out of the water. My Daughter said, look at all of those fish jumping. I told her, "I don't think fish jump out of the water on purpose." Then I imparted my theory on her. A theory I had developed thru years of taking the family camping and fishing at Harlan County Reservoir. I told her "Fish don't jump out of the water on purpose, I think they are just swimming upwards and suddenly run out of water, they then say to their buddies, Oh crap, AIR and turn around and dive back into the water."
They must have thought I knew what I was talking about because they all stared at me for a second and left the room. It seems that I often get the last word in these discussions. I think they are in awe of me.

Weekend Update

Everything went well last weekend. The two roasts almost did it to me again however. I put the 18 pound roast in at 5 A.M. as I was fearful that it might still be frosty in the center. It was. The oven was set at 350 degrees and when I checked it at 6:45, I found that the main control knob had been turned from Bake to Off. Cold oven. Mad cook. After this, Nobody is to touch my oven control knob. My wife won't let me cement it in place because we may, one day, want to clean the oven again.

Both of the roasts were judged edible and since it was a low turn out of people, we sent meat home with everyone. At least we got rid of it.

The Pine Wood Derby was Sunday afternoon. My Grandson got a 3rd place trophy for 'speed' and a smaller one for best design. The picture doesn't show the metal flake paint his Uncle Dan helped him put on the car. (metal flake is that gold sparkly stuff that makes the paint glitter)(sorry I got all technical on you there)

In the pic the clear coat comes out looking dusty. It really was shiny. You'll have to trust me on this one.

Here on the farm...the players are in the dugouts, the tarp is on the playing field, and we are in a 'Rain Delay.' My 'Day in the life' won't work until it dries out a bit.

We're Not Just Hangin' Around

Farming has begun here in Eastern Nebraska. I've put in one good day of planting. Out of three tries, that's not bad. I'm confident now that the planter should run the season in perfect order. I haven't ordered my diesel tanks topped off. I'll do that tomorrow. I must have been waiting for the price to go up. It's high enough now that I can order in 1500 gallons and be assured that it will have maximum economic devastation to the bank account.

*****

Today is the dinner and business meeting at Church that everyone wanted me to cook for last Sunday. I have put an eighteen pound 'leg of pork' (aka fresh ham, aka green ham, {turns out a pigs rear IS made out of pork}) and in one hour will put a top sirloin block in with it. This will be just like the mission, you will need to sit thru a church service before being allowed to eat. The doors will be locked and everyone will be frisked for contraband. (not really, I made that up- I hate to break my string of never having told an untruth on my blog) ahem, cough.

****

Last night I was uncertain about how to spell a word. The spellchecker on Outlook said everything was OK. I changed the spelling 4 more times and each time it was OK. Conclusion: The spell checker program was not written by my mother in-law.

******

Yesterday my daughter took my grandson down to Lincoln to seek help from Uncle Dan in putting a suitable paint job on his Cub Scout Derby Car. I will post a pic when it becomes available. This might be good.

*****

I have considered posting a 'Day In The Life' blog about me and my planting activities here on the farm. I'm having second thoughts though. I fear it may be used by you people as a cure for insomnia and I wouldn't want anyone falling to the floor with a thud and injuring themselves.