This morning, Willard Scott introduced us to a lady in Alabama who just celebrated her 108th birthday. She attributes her long life to watching ‘The Price is Right’ everyday for the past 100 years.

And to think I quit eating bacon just so I’d live longer when really all I had to do was switch on the Tellie.

I have been paging through the last few posts on this web log and realized with a start that my life must be very boring if that’s all I have to write about. I have decided to liven things up a bit with some news out of the ordinary; my sweet potato crop is in and it was a good year.  One evidence of this is to be found in the following picture which I am calling ‘A hoosier kitchen composition.’.

what's that huge orange thing??

This composition features our toaster and a coffe cup imprinted with ‘God danced on the day you were born.’ That’s my cup and while I’m not sure if I believe it, stranger things have happened.  Besides that, Susie broke the handle off my ‘Old Fart’ cup

If you are indeed, wondering what that huge, orange thing is, my friends; it’s  from my garden and is a five pound sweet potato or yam, depending upon your point of view.    Too bad the State Fair is over. I might have won a blue ribbon.

My wife, Susie, in a  fit of fiscal responsibility, recently brought home a large container of Instant oats for our breakfast pleasure.

great value, my eye.

I made the fiscal responsibility statement because she did save some money over buying the oatmeal we normally eat,  made by the man in the Quaker outfit; Benjamin Franklin maybe. 

Nonetheless, I was very upset, being reluctant to eat any foodstuffs bought at the mega mart. There is no indication of where these things are produced, with a message on the box that says only ‘distributed by Giant Corporation (insert your own best guess as to the name.)    

It concerns me that these things could be produced in some far off giant Asian country (again, insert your own best guess as to the country) and in light of the baby formula scare, the gypsum wallboard scare and various other horror stories, I refused to eat the oatmeal as served to me by the BW yesterday morning. Incidentally, I know this fellow who refers to his mate as with the cute term ‘BW’ or ‘beautiful wife’ . I thought I might trying calling Susie that for a while especially since she really dislikes just being referred to ‘the wife’. 

After reading this piece, I know you’re going to say “What about the ground beef recall in this country?”  I don’t worry about that because I make it a practice never to buy any beef, ground or not, that comes in a prepackaged container from any place that produces it by the thousands of tons.  I long ago found a local meat market that is much more attuned to safe practices. 

Back to the oatmeal, in the way of disclosure, I should tell you that Susie ate her bowl of the stuff without any negative reactions if you don’t count the tic that developed in her left eye.

Myself, I made me a bowl of Quaker grits. And, oh yeah, I was just kidding about the left eye tic.

Today marks one year that has passed since I had my heart surgery. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Okay, so it’s not a scary face drawn on the side of a red and white grocery store bag with two holes cut in it so I could see. And I doubt that she would have went to Mr. Fuhrman’s house with Eddie Joe and watched in horror as he sat a bag of dog poop on the porch, lit it with a match, rang the old man’s  doorbell and ran like hell, leaving poor, innocent little me shell shocked, unable to move and ripe for capture .  

Princess Somebody

Hell, I doubt that she even knows about flaming dog poop.

This morning I was up early juggling our budget numbers around trying to come up with a way to pay the property taxes that are coming due next month. Coincidentally,  I received an e-mail from a friend with a link to another government service that drives conservatives like myself crazy. This service was tied to President Obama in the e-mail.

It sounded too preposterous to be true so I went to Snopes for the answer and found that it is only partially true. The service does exist and while it is preposterous, it was not Obama that introduced it. It was in force before he was even elected.

Does this look like we’re in for a bad winter?

is this guy very wooly?

 All wooly worms look pretty much alike to me but then again, I’ve never really made a study of them.    

“Hey, Poco, what’s for dinner??”

“Well, Rocky, We’re having baked mole if you’ll give me time to dig one up. “

“Ummmmm.., I think I’d rather have something out of the fish pond and besides, You’re not supposed to be digging in the yard, you dumb canine. What happens if Susie catches you?”

“You’ve already eaten everything in the fish pond and as far as Susie goes, not to worry. She won’t suspect a thing.”

If you can somehow bring it up in a conversation, you might ask what the fear of Halloween  is called in medical circles. Then again, maybe it’s not worth the bother.

From one of my Sierra Club mailings, A hiking group.