Sunday, December 26, 2010

OK! I Surrender!



Here's a little humor for all you hunting sportsmen and law men who practice on the range using targets. You can purchase your funny t-shirt here along with many of my other funny tee's. Sizes range from unisex small - 3XLarge. In time I hope to have other products available in the future displaying this image. Please comment on what products you would be interested in.

Also checkout my other humorous post's Dogs Really Do Love Cats! and The Montana Snipe Hunt. Hope you Enjoy. Hope you are Laughing. Have a Happy New Year everyone.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Dogs Really Do Love Cats.


This is also one of my creations. You can purchase a t-shirt with this image here along with many of my other funny tee's. Sizes range from unisex small - 3XLarge. In time I hope to have other products available in the future displaying this image. Please comment on what products you would be interested in.

Check out these posts: The Beef Vs Chicken and Lazy Livin' Like a Dog for more of my funny images. Hope you enjoy. Hope you are laughing. And Hope you have a Merry Christmas !!!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Lazy Livin' Like a Dog !



And:





I was home one weekend working on the computer when I decided I needed to rest my eyes for a bit and caught one of the dogs asleep on the couch just as you see her here. I grabbed my camera and snapped some pictures. From those pictures I created these two humorous screens. You can purchase a T-shirt with one of these on the front here along with many other of my humorous Tee's. Sizes range from Unisex Small to 3XLarge. Again I apologize for the lettering across the picture but is necessary for copyrights.

In time I hope to have other products available displaying these two images. Until then, Enjoy. I hope that you are laughing. Merry Christmas All !!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Beef Vs. Chicken



This is one of my latest creations. Sorry about the water stain but it's necessary for copyright protection. If you would like to purchase a T-Shirt with this image (less the water stain), they are available here along with many of my other humorous Tee's. Sizes range from Small to 3XLarge.

In Time I will have other products available displaying this image. Hope you enjoy. Hope you are laughing. Merry Christmas All !!!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Precooked Bean Bones

So you've got your bean bones salted and smoked and packed away in the freezer (see Home Made Bean Bones). Now you're wondering what you should do with them.

Most of you probably already guessed 'Pork and Beans', but why not experiment with something different for a change. One thing I like to do is cook up a pot full of plain bean bones and stockpile them in the fridge.

Note: Consult your slow cooker's manual when ever necessary. The cooker used below may be different than the one you use. You may need to adjust the recipe and cook times to meet the requirements of your cooker.

For this, I like to use my Rival Crock-Pot stoneware slow
cooker that you see on the right. I purchased this back in the late 80's to early 90's when I was working as hand for a large farm and ranch in Eastern Montana. Since I was working ten to fifteen hour days, it was hard to come home and prepare meals. This little crock pot got a lot of use in those days.

First, you need to thaw out enough bean bones to fill your pot to it's minimum capacity. Mine is a 3 1/2 quart cooker and requires that it is at least filled half full before use. Read the instruction manual that came with your cooker to see what it's minimum load is before attempting this recipe.

Next; examine your bean bones. You want bones with meat on them, not lard and tendons. If your bones are nothing but lard and tendons, they're not suitable and defeat the purpose of what we are attempting to do which is creating a stockpile of precooked bean bone ham.

Now it's time to place the bean bones in you crock pot. There's no seasoning. They are already salted and smoked. All you need is to add water. Now I know that some slow cookers instructions say that some meats require no water when cooked on low by their self without vegetables. But being as bean bones are mostly bone and little meat, I like to add some water to them. I ruined a five quart slow cooker once by not having enough fluid in it. Once again I'd advise you to read the instruction manual that came with your cooker.

As you can see in the picture on the right, I have added my bean bones and water to the cooker. I've added about 2 cups of water. You don't want to add too much water because, as the meat cooks, the juices from the bean bones will add to the amount of fluid in the pot. If there is too much water, the juices may run over the side of the cooker, creating a burn and fire hazard. On the other hand, as I pointed out above, you don't want to have too little fluid in the cooker. Once again, consult your cooker's manual.

Put the lid on your cooker.

Now you're ready to start cooking. My cooker has three settings; Low, High, and Off. I like to cook on low. I cook the bones until the meat falls off. My cooker takes eight hours maximum time to cook on low (no more than four on high).
For your cooking times, you need to consult your cooker's manual.

Bean bones are basically ham so you want to cook them to a minimum internal temperature of 160 degrees F. The idea is to cook the meat until it readily falls off the bone so you may need to cook it for a little while longer after reaching the 160 degrees F. internal temperature.

Note: If the meat is dry and hard and turning dark in color, it's done. In fact it's been done for awhile.

When the bones are done, take them out of the cooker and allow them to cool. For this I use a slotted spoon. When they are cool enough to touch, remove the meat from the bones and place it in a container. Seal the container with a lid and place it in the fridge for future use. Dispose of the bones.

You now have your stock pile of bean bone... or... breakfast ham. What do you use it for? Omelets, scrambled eggs and ham, anything you make for breakfast that requires ham. (If you have any idea's, you're welcome to share them in the comments.) It's true you could just cook up a full sized ham but why not save that for the special occasions. Then you can stockpile the left overs.

Stay tuned. I'll have some recipes, using breakfast ham, available in the near future.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Heated Water Dish Slash Foot Warmer

Check out these other humorous posts:
OK! I Surrender
Beef Vs Chicken
Dogs Really do Love Cats
Lazy Livin' Like a Dog

Last summer I purchased a heated water dish for my pets and outside animals. I figured it would be a good investment since the winters in rural Montana get quite cold. Besides that, it would be a switch from having to dump the ice out of the old water dish three times a day and replacing it with fresh warm water. I took it home, put it on the shelf and waited for the first cold days of winter to come.

It was about mid October before the water dish started freezing over so I decided to get the new one out and plug it in. October and November weren't so bad. It was cold but there was not snow on the ground. It was sometime in mid December when the real cold and snowy weather hit. I moved the dogs inside and the outside cats (the ones that keep the mice around the house and outbuildings under control) took over the dog house. I never have had any problem knowing when the water dish was empty. The cats had discovered that, when empty, it had other good uses besides keeping their water thawed out.........









Yup! Besides a warm dog house, lots of cat food and warm water, this little guy gets a foot warmer as well. But first, he and his friends got to drink all the water out of the dish.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Keep Out of Reach of Kittens

I was told a tale this morning by one of my co-workers involving his two house cats. For the last week his cats had been acting quite wacky and strange. It was really starting to bother him and his wife. They were wondering if they needed a visit to the vet.

This morning while at work his wife called and informed him that, while doing the laundry in the utility room of their house, she had noticed the two cats were licking some fluid on the floor near the pantry shelf. She discovered the cats had climbed up into the upper shelf and tipped over a bottle of Tequila, cracking the seal and, over time, most of it had slowly dripped out onto the floor.

Yup! I wonder if there's AA for feline alcoholics.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Carpentry Quotes I've Heard In my Construction Career.

Howdy every one. I've returned again to the blogging world. I've been working on a new building for a local business. It's not quite finished yet. (There's only two to three months of construction left.) But enough excuses about why I've been away so long. On with my story.

I've picked up a couple of quotes from observant folks that I thought you might appreciate:

1). We were remodeling an apartment that was inhabited by an elderly lady. She had no where to go so she usually sat around chatting with us while we worked. The last day of the job, we encountered a problem with the trim around one of the doors. The drywall had been cut away to far and the trim wasn't quite covering the end of the drywall like it was supposed to. The right fix would have been to spend another day or two either taping the drywall up to the door jamb or removing the offending sheet rock and taking care not to cut to much away around the door jamb. We chose option 3. We fudged the trim over enough to cover most of the exposed gap. Then we ran a bead of caulk down the trim against the drywall and smoothed it down to cover the rest of the gap. All that was left was to touch it all up with paint and presto, finished. We were done in thirty to forty five minutes.

All that time, during our dilemma, the lady had sat quietly and watched us work. When we finished, she got up and inspected the trim around the door, gave a nod of satisfaction and said, " I've lived a long time and had a lot of dealings with carpenters. And in all my years of dealing, I've found one thing to be true.

"Oh? What's that?"

"Carpenters are just like cats. They cover up their dirty work."


2). I was on my way home from work and I stopped at a automotive service station to pick up my order of milk for the week. One of the station's tire repair men was sitting at the checkout counter filling out a bill and grumbling to himself.

"Bad day?", I asked.

"Yeah! Ruined a new tire."

I went about my business payed for my milk and he finished with his paper work. Just before I left, he turned to me and said, "I think I'm going to change careers to a doctor or a carpenter."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because doctors and carpenters got it easy. Carpenters paint their mistakes and doctors bury theirs. I have to buy mine."

Purchase a T-shirt with a funny carpentry quote here.

Check my other humorous posts:
OK! I Surrender.
Keep Out of Reach of Kittens!

Cowboys That Joust.