Larson Loonie Byne
His name is Lee and we got to play together for hours.
From the start.  I was invited to play at the Joy Fest at Miner Pickin' in Idaho Spring.  Susan, and her husband John own the place and we've been up a few times to join in the Sunday night Bluegrass Jam.  We arrived around 1pm and didn't leave until 6.  My back is till a bit not happy with me, buy my soul is totally enraptured with the joy and fun that day.  She invited Lee up from Black Hills and between Mark on the banjo or guitar, Bonny on the mandolin.  Good times were had by all.  Even Robert.  You can actually hear him sing on one song.  He say's it was to get Bonny to sing, but I think he was just caught up in the moment

Using the past to help the future
What feels like 100 years ago I was a new missionary in Minnesota.  Got to talking with the mission president's wife, Sr. King, about cooking.  She gave me her family recipe for pie crust.  Odd thing.  Required 5 or 6 cups of flour, darned if I can remember how much shortening, 1 or 2 eggs and 1 or 1/2 & cups milk. (Notice, no vinegar, lots of milk based pie crust recipes do).  Just cannot remember the amounts, lost it years ago, because it has some draw back.  The first being that it made 6 or more pie crusts.  Once or twice upon a time I remember making it, rolling out the pie crusts, freezing them. But it became a bother, so I lost it.  Fast forward 40 years and I'm gluten intolerant.  How to make a pie crust with flours that don't bind like gluten does.  Oh, an dI didn't want to make 6 pie crust.  So I played.  Only wanting 3 pie crust, I used 2-1/2 Cup Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour. Mostly because it's highly accessible. I think I will play with other flours as time goes by.  3/4 cup shortening, the natural stuff, 1/2 egg (you figure that out, it's really easy with a stick blender) and 3/4 cup milk.  I'm thinking I'm going to play with a whole egg next time.  This time it was a bit dry, but.  Mix together just like any pie crust and roll it out just like any pie crust.  It worked.  Yes, you have to dust your board and pin, frequently. And the smaller pies that I like to make were a lot easier than the big pumpkin pie I made for the family.  BUT, IT'S NON GLUTEN AND IT HELD TOGETHER.  I won't say it was as easy to use a regular flour, but I learned a lot, and I learned not to fear it.  This is all about adapting.  I've been saying I was getting "bored" with the normal food we've always eaten. Time for a change.  Should have made the change awhile ago.  To bad the Dr's are fighting it.  I really think everyone should get tested, just like you do for cholesterol.

Larson Loonie Byne
So I've started a new blog.
The Eggcellent Collection.
With all of the redecorating we've doing around the house, I had to empty the egg case and have taken the opportunity to photograph each egg, so I'm going do document all of them.  I've decided to put a penny in each photo for comparison
Hope people enjoy them.

I think I shall rant a bit.
Some SD idiot has announced that it's OK to partake of caffeine if you LDS. What kind of madness is this?   When are people going to learn CAFFEINE IS A DRUG!! And a dangerous one at that.  I tried to heart attack at 27 when I had my second child and the doctor prescribed a caffeine look-alike to help the pain meds get into my blood stream faster.  That's what caffeine does. Accelerates your heart rate.  Guess who is clinically allergic to it?   And people feed to little kids and wonder why they don't do well in school? 
Let's look at the facts. Joseph Smith drank tea.  Herbal Tea.  Everyone in that day and age did. Why?  Care to guess the quality of the water?  LOUSY!! Water purification?  What is that?   Everyone new if they drank pond water they could and usually did get sick.  40 to 50 year lifespan was normal. Germs were all over and not boiling water made people ill.  Boiled water, plain, tastes lousy.  Throw a few leaves into it, add a bit of root or bark, hey, this stuff tastes pretty good.  Add a bit of honey? even better.  Drink it hot? Are you kidding?  #1 it burns!  I lived with a lady on my mission who had no taste buds.  Burnt them out of on hot coffee.  She was the skinniest person I ever met.  Eating held no joy and she often forgot to do it.  Try putting a piece of meat into a cup of HOT water and guess what you get. COOKED MEAT.  Guess what happens to your tongue, throat and stomach lining when it gets repeatedly hit with HOT water.  You are, after all made of "meat"
#2 If you take hot water and bits and pieces and then drink, why did you put the bits and pieces it.  If the water is still hot, there's no flavor from the bits in the water AND NOT OF THE BENEFITS EITHER!.   There is a lot of good in those leaves, bark and root.  Don't believe me, try making a tea with catnip, oh plan to do it on a day when you rest, cause you won't want to do anything else for several hours.  It's a muscle relaxant.  God put those plants on this planet for our benefit, and then we toss them aside for a manufactured stimulant.  Whatcha gonna do when you get to the other side and find out God don't make caffeine. 
One of the main reasons we are here is to try and be like HIM.  How going to do that when you're so hyped up you can't think straight.  I thought LDS people were suppose to rise above the world, in the world but not of it.  What's next?  Whose re-thinking homosexually?  It's a darn slipperly slope and guess whose busy greasing it.
Me? NO CAFFINE NO CODINE, NO LOOKALIKES. WE MEAN IT!!

One of my dad's favorites.
The preacher has chosen to preach on the need to have no enemies and goes on, quoting this scripture and that to bring his point home.  He's well into his surgery and the need to make friends with everyone and to helps his point get across the thunders across the congregation "I need to know if there is anyone here in this family of friends that can honestly say they have no enemies, I need to have some one rise to their feet and tell us how they have come to the point in their life that all around them are friends, that hey have no one they hate. I need that person to rise to their feet and teach us all how it is done."  WAY in the back old brother Jones rises to his feet (takes a couple of moments to get there, I did say OLD brother Jones) and he says "Reverend, I ain't got no enemies."
"WONDERFUL, brother Jones, tell us all how you did that"
"I OUTLIVED THEM ALL"

Don't think that was what the Rev was after.


LL

Another joke came to mind.

Dr. Christian Bernard, who pioneered heart replacement surgery told this one on himself, and it's one of my favorites.
When you open a patient up to replace a heart, you only have about 6 hours to get the new heart in and wasting no time is critical.  As he was getting ready to install a new heart, he put his hand out of the "cat-gut" It's what they still call surgical suture material, I understand it really was cat intestine years ago (Let us sing praises for better technology) and was handed a "wad" of knots.  Not happy at all he starts "attacking" the wad to untangle it, muttering $#@@%& under his breath.  His surgical nurse asks. "may I help? Doctor" to which he replies " NO THANK YOU. I've been a surgeon for 20 years, I ought to be able to do this" and back to "#@%$^&#$#" A moment later the surgery nurse gentle takes it from his hand and twists that and tugs that and the whole mess untangles in her hand.  She smiles and hands it back and he asks, no to politely "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" She replies "I've been doing embroidery for 40 years"  

Cruising the web one day.  I cannot believe what I found http://www.twirlgoround.com/
My parents bought one of the ages ago.  We called in the Whirley-gig.  We only had the two man version, but oh my the hours we spend on it.  It was blue and red and got rusty as the years went by, but we rode it to death.  I don't recall any of us hurling on it, but I believe one of the cousins or two did.  They don't make an adult version, yet.  Can't help thinking it would a great exercise and gotta wonder if you could use it to generate power.  It's nice to have a childhood memory my sibs havn't tainted.