Graffiti… on the trains, on the poles

Roadside graffiti has gotten out of hand with culprits armed with spray paint. Look at the rail cars next time you get stopped by a train.

To make matters worse, one cannot read what is being written. It looks like old tattoos that are no longer legible or chicken scratch. When the culprits are caught, they ought to be required to repaint the damage done and take spelling lessons then move them on to the next markings and repaint it but that would be cruel and unusual punishment. That or let them go to a judge like Ted Poe.

Had a fellow in my office last week saying he bought a pry bar specifically to pull the nails from signs posted on the pole out front of his building on Main Street in Highlands. Told him to look at the telephone pole as you go out of the post office; it is loaded with nails from thousands of signs over the years. Check it out and watch for the poison ivy in the shrub. They grow asp in that shrub too, I’ve seen them. Asps are fuzzy looking caterpillar critters that will sting the living you know what out of you.

Already took down the Purple Martin house for the year and cleaned it out. Boy howdy was it nasty with a dead black bird in it but it’s ready for next year now.

Got a few hummers coming around to the sugar water feeders. It is about the time of the year for the hummingbirds to be coming through on their way south for the winter migration. Expect to have hummers now through mid October. Be making sugar water instead of jelly for a while; change of pace will do me good.

Been in the kitchen most of the day preparing suppers; old brother-in-law is coming over, the good one. Let’s step into the kitchen a minute or two.

Bought six ears of white corn and shucked all of it using my tater washing brush to rinse the silk off the cob under water. Cut the corn off each ear of corn making one slice down the ear rotating as I cut. Then scraping the meat or pulp off the stalk all the way down and still rotating the cob as I cut. I’ve watched my mother cut two slices of corn around each ear then scrape it; then add water, boil down to when it’s rite and add a sliver of butter, cooking until melted. Some use flour and water, some use cornstarch and water, I simply cook mine down, add butter and let it set a bit. The corn don’t need no thickening nor do I. It makes tomatoes taste better too.

Fried up 12 chicken wings earlier and used a drip of oil in the butterbeans as I boiled whole okra in it with the butterbeans.

Old McDonald gave me some deer back strap a while back and I’m frying it up making nice gravy afterwards. I boiled 6 large red taters adding a small can of drained sliced jalapenos to the water as the taters boiled, good too with the gravy and biscuits. Doing that does make the air in the house odorous and a cough or two.

Get this, I was going to do a pan of cornbread but she wants that long loaf of bread claiming to be made over yonder but made here in the USA. Split, buttered, garlicked and toasted.

He just called; I asked him if he like hot dogs.

I was going to have corn on the cob but she insisted I cut it off the cob since he has his front teeth in the dentist shop.