Baby squirrel in our garage

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Happy Easter

The narrator’s voice may put you to sleep, but hang in there for a minute. They’ve opened up a whole new level of photo editing capabilities.

So many times I’ve wished I had more image to work with, or a better crop.

A Photoshop plug-in should be coming soon from onOne Software.

Growing up I’ve always been taught that if a dog eats chocolate, he’ll die. That’s the extent of my veterinary knowledge.
So…what do you do when you come home late at night and find that your dog’s eaten 3 chocolate Santa Snickers bars and a plastic candy-cane tube filled with M&M’s while your wife and kids are out of town?

1. Freak out
2. Try desperately to come up with an excuse that absolves you of any blame for the family pet dying
3. Call every vet in town to find out what you already knew, they’re all closed
4. Freak out
5. Hatch a plan to find a duplicate 2 year old boxer/lab mix at 12:30 on a Friday night
6. Freak out

After you get those first six steps out of the way, settle down and call the emergency 24-hour vet hotline. Here in Grand Rapids you’ll be calling the Emergency Animal Clinic (Map and contact info here).

The nice lady will tell you that no, your dog won’t die from eating a chocolate chip that fell on the floor. In fact, your dog will need to eat a 1/2 oz. of chocolate for every pound of body weight for it to have a severe toxic reaction and a 1/4 oz. per pound for a mild toxic reaction.

From what I could scrape together from the mangled wrappers it turned out that our dog had only eaten about 4-5 oz. Not enough to kill her, not enough to freak out about, but enough that the vet had me feed her 4 teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide to make her yack out everything she ate. “Just pour it down her throat” she said. And 10 minutes later, out came the chocolate.

In the end, the dog lives, I spend the night cleaning up dog puke. Good times.

More info on dogs and chocolate here.

3 frozen chicken breasts defrosting in the fridge. No recipe, no plan, no ingredients and no time.

And there is no way I’m eating plain old chicken. Time to MacGyver something together.

Found: Lemon juice, butter, honey, white pepper, garlic powder, tarragon and oregano.

Do these things got together? They do now. And…it came out damn good, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing it down.

Do this:

1. Thaw your chicken ( I had 3 medium size breasts)
2. In a large skillet, add a tablespoon or two of butter, about a 1/4 cup of lemon juice, about an 1/8 cup of honey, a large pinch of pepper (I used white just because it sounded fancier, but I’m sure regular black will do just fine), a couple teaspoons each of tarragon leaves and oregano and a sprinkling of garlic powder
3. Heat slowly until butter is melted, honey thins out and everything is stirred around evenly in the pan
4. Add your chicken breasts and cook over med-hi heat till they’re done, about 15 min. each side
5. Bonus accident: after sitting for a couple of minutes, the lemon/honey/butter thickened to make a nice sauce to pour over the chicken after you serve it up. If this doesn’t happen for you, you can always drizzle a little honey on top.

The flavor had a little bit of zing from the lemon, some sweetness from the honey, and a little spice from the pepper. And, it was a million times better than plain old chicken. I also made up some steamed zucchini and rice pilaf to go along with it. Tasty.

You should probably know, that I didn’t actually measure anything, so everything you read above is just really bad estimating. Don’t worry though, it’ll work out fine.

Sorensen’s head has not been found. A cause of death has not been determined.

I’m gonna bet that his death has someting to do with the fact that his head is missing.

Convicted sex offender beheaded

Today I’m getting ready to make the first annual autumn batch of Chunky F’ing Chili. The recipe started out with my grandma on my step-dads side of the family. As for the name? We’re from the Northeast. Maybe we swear a lot. Even grandma.

Here goes…

Chunky F’ing Chili

1. Get a big pot
2. Brown a pound of ground beef over medium heat. Don’t drain the grease!
3. Add: baby carrots, 2 green pepper, 2 med. size onion, sliced fresh mushrooms. Make sure all of your veggies are cut into nice, chunky size pieces, or else it won’t be Chunky F’ing Chili. Sprinkle lightly with salt & pepper, paprika and chili powder while it cooks.
4. Let veggies and beef cook together, intermingling their tasty juices and flavors, until veggies start to get soft.
5. Add: 3 cans tomato soup, 1 can of corn, drained, 1 can white northern beans, 1 can black beans, both drained. (You can add 2 cans of kidney beans instead, but I’ve never liked them much. Plus, the whole black/white beans makes a really great racial harmony statement).
6. Stir everything together and sprinkle chili powder until it forms a layer over the entire surface of the chili, then, stir the powder in. It should turn a deep red. Add more chili powder to taste (load it up if you like it spicy).
7. Switch your heat down to low, put a lid on it, and let simmer for at least 30 minutes.
8. Stir well and serve. Top with shredded cheese.

I’ve served this over white rice, which is tasty, but not really necessary. Buttered biscuits or buttered bread really go well with this chili too.

The beauty of the recipe is that you can add whatever veggies you like, I’ve added red potatoes, zucchini, all sorts of stuff, and it always ends up tasty.

Enjoy!

I’m not really big on camping in a camper, I like to tent it. If you’re gonna get out of the house and go outside and rough it, what’s the point of spending time in a smaller version of your house that you tow behind your car/truck/SUV?

Yeah. Well, screw all that. Now the Airstream Basecamp is actually in production. I could camp in that thing just based on design principle alone. I’m already daydreaming about hitching it up to the pickup, sticking the bike and kayak in there, and heading out. Way out. For a long time. A really, really long time.

Finally, A Talk show for me…

There’s something strange about hearing these guys speak so intelligently and quietly. I know they’re all incredibly smart guys, but what a contrast to their stage presence. It’d be like my grandpa jumping out of his recliner and belting out some Pantera. Only in reverse, I guess.

For example:

Crazy Henry, Low Self-opinion

And some old Black Flag

SOAD, Sugar

RATM, Killing in the Name

Later tonight we’ll be camping at Grand Haven State Park, I’m hoping it’ll be a good night to find a spot on the beach to check out the Perseids meteor showers. This weekend is supposed to be peak viewing time.

It should be a perfect night to kick back, drop a couple hits of acid and watch the sky fall down.

That might be a joke.