And the Winner is....

...not anyone in the Two Bit Pit bunch placed in the top three in this year's Barbado cook off. 

Folks doing a little bit of Latin dancing before the awards ceremony.  Cumbia is better with beer!

I made Cheese Herb Rolls and placed 7th.  Bummer!   Oh well, better luck next year.  Here is the recipe in case you want to try.

CHEESE HERB ROLLS

2 Tbs. sugar

1 1/2  tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. oregano

3/4 tsp. basil

I add a shake of chipped red pepper, too.

2 pkg. yeast

1 C milk or potato water

1/4 C oil

1 C mashed potatoes

2 eggs

2 C shredded cheese

1.  Combine yeast, salt, sugar, herbs with milk.  Stir to dissolve the yeast.

2.  Add the oil, eggs, mashed potatoes, and the cheese and stir until blended.

3.  Add 2 C of flour and begin mixing.  I use bread flour.

4.  Add enough flour to make a dough that can be kneaded.

5.  Knead for about 10 minutes.  Let rise.  Make into rolls.  Let rise.

6.  Bake in 400 degree oven. 

Roberto's chili was absolutely the best--spicey, hot with amazing flavor.  The judges just don't know what is good.  Back to the drawing board to study for better results.  It was fun.

World Championship Barbado Cookoff...

is being held in Rankin, Texas right now.  So if you hurry on down you can join the fun.  Roberto cooks chili, and has won in the past.  Check out the pictures.

Cookers come from all over, and have various types of pits.  Some of them are pretty fancy, because they compete for the showmanship prize.  The amount of teams doubled this year.

Here is Two Bit Pit (computer talk).  Roberto cooks with these folks; he is always in charge of the chili

and has not won in several years.  I say he makes the chili  too hot for the average gringo who  judges for beer or wine.   Dang!  Leave the Maria Sharp's habanero sauce in the pantry.

Here is some of the Two Bit Pit crew staying cool after all the food was turned in to the judges.  The work is done and now for the fun!

That's a pit up under the porch.

Lots of flags flying for Memorial Day.

And live music. 

Good luck tomorrow with the chili Roberto.  It is not too hot for me and has a wonderful spicey flavor.  I just hope the judges like it warm!  I will post results tomorrow.

The Joys of Teaching High School...

with a full moon and 3 and a half days to go!  Today was wild.  We are having a three day weekend, and the kids are tired of school, have no intentions of working, aren't going to work and that is that.  I have my sources, and today one of the teachers was reviewing, and of course these two boys were talking, so the teacher chewed them out and went on reviewing.  Later one of the same boys, we will call him Johnny, was sprawled out in his chair, turned completely around--talking.  Teacher called him on it, and the kid says, "I'm looking at you," meaning he really wasn't turned--the teacher was imagining things.  So then one of the other boys, says "Johnny is gay," and then one of his buddies says, "Literally, and then Johnny responds that he totally is (gay).  The kids reported that these three upstarts went to the office.  Then I saw two of the same in the office again a couple of hours later because they had their belts off swatting each other.  Some folks think that teachers get paid too much.  I would love to trade places with them the last week of school so they could get a taste of this high paid junket.  I would especially like a few congressmen and women to sub in some of these schools.
P.S.  This may be a risky thing to talk about, but to my knowledge only one  person  from "my town" knows this blog exists, and she is a teacher, and she ain't talkin'.    Three and a half more day!!!!!!!!!

Pet Peeve #1

I come home from a day at school with only four weeks left (that ought to tell you what the days are like) only to find that the well meaning maintenance men had pruned the beautiful fruitless mulberry tree in my front yard.  Well, I don't call it pruning.  Butchering trees is one of my most passionate pet peeves, and a lot of well meaning, industrious people do it.  For instance, they saw a huge limb off leaving a two or three inch stump sticking out, which will rot, harbor bugs and invite disease (see picture #1), or they saw a limb off in the middle (see picture #2) which will sprout all kinds of little sucker limbs if it doesn't die from disease and insects.  I am almost devastated.  That tree was like a huge green umbrella, with limbs and leaves shading the whole front yard and the entire house from the pounding, scorching sun coming up in the East; it was handsome.  As Mark Twain would say, "It looks like something that Congress got ahold of."  Oh well, soon I will move next door to a China berry tree that they practically decimated.  I could go on and on, but I won't, because I am almost embarrassed, but not quite; it seems that all I do is gripe.  Forgive me I just had to get it off my chest. 

Happy Mother's Day

Here is my Mom when she was about 18, wearing the Canadian maple leaf necklace my dad sent her when he was working for the airlines in Alaska during the war.  She got married at 18 and became a mother when she was 21.  That was back in the day when she had to heat the water on the wood and coal range to wash and rinse the diapers, then hang them on the line to dry.  She said they had a clothes line rigged in the attic of the house so she could hang clothes to dry up there in the winter.  Washing in the winter in Montana was not easy, because, you see, clothes freeze solid as a board as soon as you pin them to the clothes line.  She baked all our bread, and we rarely had store bought bread.  Mom likes cake, and when I read Roberto pages from her diary, he decided they were rich because she baked so many cakes!  Mom did a lot of sewing, and was pretty good at it, and she cut my dad's hair for as long as he was alive.  Growing up during the depression left a permanent mark on her and many others; she is very frugal, and has always been an example of my dad's favorite saying, "Eat it up; wear it out; make it do or do without." Mom still lives in her own little house on her ranch  in Garfield County, Montana where my brother and I grew up.  At this age she likes to work crossword puzzles, watch her favorite shows, and read.  She loves history, and if she reads a novel she wants it to be historically correct. She doesn't make bread much anymore, and is downright extravagant in this area.  When she came to visit this winter, I told her she could make the bread.  She said she would just buy it!  Happy Mother's Day to all.  And thanks Mom for all you have done for me. 

Why Do I Procrastinate?

I am going to move next door because the school maintenance people have done a fantastic job of refurbishing the place--painted the brown paneling white, put tile in the kitchen, living room, bath room and hall, recarpeted the bedrooms, new counter tops, and put new windows in.  It seems that I have been procrastinating, though, and this evening I realized why.  Contact paper--that marvelous stuff that makes every cabinet clean, (and must have been invented by the devil).  I forced myself to go over to that "new" kitchen, and begin the task of lining shelves.   I measured and cut that treacherous stuff.  Then wedged my shoulders, and then the rest of my torso through cabinet doors while holding a piece of the sticky stuff, trying to keep it from sticking to itself, and no sooner than I was inside that hot, dark cabinet with my glasses sliding down my nose-- it did it.  Yep, two adhesive sides were stuck fast.  I worked my way back out, unstuck the cursed, plastic paper, and did it all over again, and again and again.  I will get this dreadful chore all done tomorrow, and I do hope that there is enough of this maddening stuff to do all the cabinets.  Of course, there may not be enough, because I did finally break down and have a tantrum fit, and wad one length up and throw it, and it felt good!  This is the worst job lining cabinets I have ever done, and I don't even care.  So, as Larry the Cable Guy say, "Git R Done."  Tomorrow is a new day, and after a good bit of coffee I will persevere.

Home on the Range

Bobby was down on the farm checking the deer feeders, and lo and behold there's a buffalo looking at him.

This beast was all alone--no cows with him.  A surprise to say the least!

Don't know where he came from or where he is headed.  The last buffalo in Stonewall County was over a hundred years ago.  I think he came from Guthrie.  Someone from that area brought a lot of them in, and in fact there was a suit in court not too long ago.  Seems this fellow wouldn't keep his buffs at home and one of the rancher shot a bunch of them.  Of course, Cactus Lil can tell you more about that since it all happened in her neck of the woods.  Happy Hunting!