Jambalaya

 Cool temps, pleasant weather, and I had to make a run to the grocer's anyway.  So, I decided to make a big jambalaya.  Nothing fancy, just chicken and sausage, with plenty of trinity (onions, peppers, and celery).  The basic recipe is here.

Jambalaya is a one pot meal,  Historically a way to use leftovers, with spices and rice, it has evolved into its own dish. The funny thing about jambalaya and most Cajun cooking, is that we can agree on what it is, but we can't agree on how it is cooked.  Everybody does it differently.  I've seen jambalaya with pork, or seafood, or fowl.  Or all three.  I've seen it brown, or white, or red.  The one common ingredient is rice.  Everything else is based on the cook's individual taste.

I made jambalaya once for some Yankee friends, and because they had sensitive palates  (Don't make it too hot!), the only seasoning I used was onions and a little black pepper. I thought it bland and uninteresting, but they wanted milk with it.  Go figure.

Fuel

 This morning I threw the gas cans in the truck and headed down to Holloway General where I get my small engine fuel.  They are one of the local stores that sell non-ethanol, and they are just up the road, so it's convenient. Nine gallons of non-ethanol cost me $34.55, which ain't too terrible.  4.5 gallons of diesel cost me $23.00.

The midterm elections are coming up pretty soon, and ol' Joe is doing everything he can to lower fuel prices.  I don't think it is going to do him any good.

I remember what fuel cost me on the final day of the previous administration and as far as I am concerned, one penny over that price is total failure for a sitting president, all things being equal, and all things are not equal. Fuel is up, crime is up, food prices are up,   The stock market is in bear territory.  This country is in a helluva mess, and it is the Democrats fault.

Good News

Two men found safe after plane crash.  They put it in the tree and walked away from it.

Tuesday Monring

 I awoke this morning to cool temps, in the lower 50s on my back porch.  

Mostly Cajun commented on my post from yesterday.  He is able to get liquor shipped in, and I admit I was surprised.  I've tried in the recent past to get hooch shipped in and was told it was illegal.  So, I went to some other sites and liquor can be shipped to Louisiana.  Okay, I stand corrected.  Some ship to LA, some don't.  Odd.

Hurricane Ian is the prime focus on my news feed right now.  The storm keeps wobbling and will right up until the time it makes landfall.

I got a little movement on a long-term project yesterday.  I own a Smith and Wesson Model 38.  Mine was originally nickeled, but over the years the nickel had started flaking off and needed to be re-finished.  I had stripped it to the frame, and was considering who I would get to do the work.  The project has languished for a couple of years.

Grandson Zach recently went to work for a gun manufactory that builds AR rifles from the ground up, and he is their powder coat and cerracote guy.  He took the frame in, bead-blasted the frame, prepped it, and put a nice black cerracote on it.

I'm going to leave the cylinder and crane nickeled for a two-tone look.  This old revolver will go back in service.

Hurricane Ian

 I'm trying to get a handle on (now) Hurricane Ian, but everyone else is too.  It's going to hit Florida as a strong hurricane, but no one is really sure where it's going to make landfall.

The thing about hurricanes is that they are so big.  Tropical force winds can stretch out 200 miles from edge to edge, and the exact point where the center of the eyewall crosses from ocean to land is kind of irrelevant. A big chunk of Florida is in the danger zone.  Storm surge is the real killer in storms like this, and the surge is always wort on the eastern side, and all of Florida is on the eastern side

I'll be praying for the folks in Florida.

Labs

 I had to get moving this morning, go to the Doc's place and give him some blood and urine.  It's time for my semi-annual visit, so he can tell me that I'm becoming an old, decrepit man.  I don't mind, so much.  I actually like my Doc.  He seems to be a good fellow, and we normally talk about fishing, or whiskey, after he has done his duty to my health.

I'm his last patient today, and I'm thinking about bringing him a sample of a fine, American single malt that someone else introduced me to.  They can't call it Scotch, because it is not a product of Scotland, but they make it in Colorado.  Every Scotch drinker I've talked with thinks that it is a very good representation of a single malt whiskey.  Stranahan's whiskey.

We can't get it in Louisiana (or at least, I haven't found it yet) and Louisiana's laws don't allow then to ship it to me.  It is confounding.

Gestapo

 Breitbart and other are reporting that an FBI team used upwards of two dozen agents to arrest a Catholic pro-life protestor in Philadelphia this week.  It's a harrowing tale:

Mark Houck, the founder and president of The King’s Men – a group that helps men overcome pornography addiction – was arrested at his rural Pennsylvania home on Friday for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act during his regular sidewalk counseling outside of an abortion clinic in 2021. Speaking with LifeSiteNews, Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, said that around 25 to 30 fully-armored FBI agents stormed their property early Friday morning, aiming their rifles as the children screamed in horror.

Over my career, I conducted hundreds of arrests.  Many of these pursuant to a warrant, at a front door.  This type warrant requires no more than two officers. Having three officers is a surplusage.  Having four officers approaches Gestapo tactics.  What was the reasoning behind two dozen armed agents?  It's simple.  The FBI is sending a message that dissent will not be tolerated.

At one point, I tried to defend the "hardworking, sincere, reasonable" FBI agents.  I can no longer do that.  The FBI has gone rogue as an American institution.  It's time for the good agents (if there are any left) to resign, or transfer to another agency.  Honest, hardworking cops cannot serve a corrupt agency.  At some point, it becomes about honor, and if you serve an agency with no honor, you lose your honor.

It's time for a huge change in that agency, and it starts with the honorable field agents saying Enough.

Still Arguing

 I guess the gun writers need something to write about.

Shooting Illustrated talks about the 9mm vs 45 ACP debate.

Meh.  I got over that "debate" in the '80s.

Sunday Morning Dawg

 

Four Storms

 It's not every day that we see four named storms on the same NOAA map.  Fiona near Nova Scotia, Gaston churning away in the central Atlantic, Hermine popping up suddenly off the coast of Africa, and Ian forming in the Caribbean.

Ian is the one that concerns us in the short run.  This morning, the warning cone covers pretty much the entire state of Florida.  This will firm up in the coming days and may change considerably.

Hurricane season ain't over yet.

Eleven Cords

 A reader from Alaska comments on an earlier post.

Well, I’m almost 73 and I’m still splitting and stacking wood here in Alaska. I do have a tractor to move it and a powered splitter to split it. We do buy log length cord wood for part of our needs but I’m glad we have 11 full cords of dry firewood in the wood shed with the prices on fuel oil and propane what they are. We do live off grid and a grown daughter does heavy stuff like hauling water!

Eleven cords.  Wow!  When U was cutting firewood, I could make it through the winter with two cords, but I suspect a winter in Alaska lasts a bit longer than a winter in Louisiana. 

On the Labor Day weekend, my son had a work day at his deer camp, and they cut and stacked 8 cords of wood, but they knew it was over-kill.  They were cutting up a storm damaged tree, and the yield was 8 cords.  They have plenty of wood for a couple of years.

Here locally, from my perusal of the ads, it seems most firewood these days is sold by the rick.

Tropics Watch

 We are keeping an eye on that tropical nastiness forming in the Caribbean.  What they are calling Tropical Depression Nine is going to shake off the wind shear and become a named storm withing the next 24 hours.  Then, turn north and after intensifying, enter the Gulf of Mexico.  Below, a screen grab from this video.

This thing may still go anywhere, and we'll keep an eye on it.