TOTALLY RANDOM POST II

[moose eater]

Joe came to us as a rescue at age 13. He stayed until over age 19, when we had to have him euthanized last year.

Best lap dog and small version buddy of a canine I ever had... Joseph, as he had more dignity and character than a mere Joe.

And..... I'm out to take pics of tires and rims to sell, having waited until the Sun is setting, thus likely producing gray photos... Oh well.

 

[superx]

Crawling through the attic space in search of tinsel, I came across this. Usually whiskey/vodka/Mountain Dew in each shot glass. Makes a change from playing monopoly or scrabble on Christmas Day.
Most people hope to avoid landing on the Mountain Dew, I’m easy either way, a Brussel sprout would be placed in one shot glass, that’s the one nobody wants.

 

[moose eater]

Just ordered 2-lbs. gross weight of traditional venison haggis with whisky and seasonings in a natural casing, which I presume means it will be in a lamb's stomach. US regulations won't permit us to consume lung of any sort in food meant for human consumption, so while it's 'traditional' haggis, it'll not be quite THAT traditional.

Anyway, got me thinking about what it is that caused the regulatory bodies to ban lung in foods?

Haggis ought to be here by this coming Friday.

Was on my bucket list.

Maybe a kilt is in order for the preparations?

A round-trip ticket from Interior Alaska to Scotland was looking like $1,100 to $1,200 USD, and I figured that rather than going all in, maybe just ordering the haggis was the way to go. Save the airfare money for if and when La Paz, Bolivia comes up again in conversation with my wife.

My bucket list seems to be growing.

 

[superx]

Fantastic idea ordering festive haggis Moose, what are you planning to go with it? (Neeps & tatties lad )
Works fantastically well as a stuffing, moulded into the neck cavity, very nice.
Wasn't aware lung meat was banned over there, has a strange texture, herselfs father cooked coratella for us before. Was simmering the best part of the day, you could smell this stuff from the other side of the mountain (he was a bit of a caveman) I believe the pong coming of it was the kidneys.

Sack the kilt, your testicles would freeze in those temperatures. (If you decided to go bare back that is)
I can see Bolivia climbing to the top of that bucket list..

 

[Gry]

We Legalized Our Sins; Now They Are Coming Back to Bite Us | Opinion​

MSN

 

[armedoldhippy]

US regulations won't permit us to consume lung of any sort in food meant for human consumption, so while it's 'traditional' haggis, it'll not be quite THAT traditional.

so, we can eat lung if it was prepared for our four-legged buddies? i see folks time to time buying a dozen cans of tuna "cat food" , eggs, pickles, mayo... there is no way to stop folks eating lung from game they kill, just can't can it and sell it. are there rules against ALL organ meats? i love thin-sliced and fried venison heart. lungs are normally unfit to eat after having a hollow-point bullet or sharp broadhead crash the party.

 

[tobedetermined]

Just ordered 2-lbs. gross weight of traditional venison haggis

You are a braver man than I, Gunga Din.

(With apologies to RK for the word substitution)

 

[moose eater]

so, we can eat lung if it was prepared for our four-legged buddies? i see folks time to time buying a dozen cans of tuna "cat food" , eggs, pickles, mayo... there is no way to stop folks eating lung from game they kill, just can't can it and sell it. are there rules against ALL organ meats? i love thin-sliced and fried venison heart. lungs are normally unfit to eat after having a hollow-point bullet or sharp broadhead crash the party.

Lung seems to be particularly forbidden, specifically. I pondered that for a bit, and the only hypothesis that held water (a bad sign in lungs, by the way, fluid retention, or in the lower extremities or such), was that lungs present as an open-tissue organ, directly filtering the air in an immediate sense, and knowing what we do about commercial or corporate farms and large-scale stock yards in the US, that might be a bit nasty under a microscope.

But I think it might also be a blanket rule in that regard, as there are plenty of open-air farms in Australia, New Zealand, and even some smaller scale in the US.

We've often/always eaten entrails from various game. A moose liver can be a bit strong flavored sometimes, and in no case, with -any- species, is it wise to rupture the bile sack/gall bladder on the liver when gutting and skinning/field dressing an animal. Stuff stains green yellow and carries a pungent taste that last longer than Hostess Twinkies.

Even with the fried chicken gizzards I've loved since I was a tiny feller, if the factory misses that off-color lining inside the now-open gizzard, the lining being the textured, semi-coarse surface used by the gizzard/muscle to grind up the feed, using gravel in some/may cases to achieve this, it carries a strong and incredibly tough taste and texture. always a let-down to have one of those slip through, let alone a bunch.

But yes, it's relatively limited to commercial lung that's prohibited, but it's not many of us who have a lamb hanging around.

Of course, if we knew of a relatively clean, well-kept, smaller farm with lambs, it might be requested as a 'gift' or composting waste, too. But even then, if it's a registered/licensed commercial farm in any way, it might make someone nervous. Not like there's DEC inspectors our in the bush, in masse, looking for illicit transfer of lamb lung, however. So probably a pretty safe venture or action, depending on the adventurousness of a lamb farmer.

 

[moose eater]

You are a braver man than I, Gunga Din.

(With apologies to RK for the word substitution)

Bucket lists... Things that might see us doing things we know we've put off, haven't done, and figure we'd owe it to ourselves to be able at the end of the trail to say to ourselves (or anyone close enough to listen or care), "Yeah, I did that."

 

[moose eater]

Fantastic idea ordering festive haggis Moose, what are you planning to go with it? (Neeps & tatties lad )
Works fantastically well as a stuffing, moulded into the neck cavity, very nice.
Wasn't aware lung meat was banned over there, has a strange texture, herselfs father cooked coratella for us before. Was simmering the best part of the day, you could smell this stuff from the other side of the mountain (he was a bit of a caveman) I believe the pong coming of it was the kidneys.

Sack the kilt, your testicles would freeze in those temperatures. (If you decided to go bare back that is)
I can see Bolivia climbing to the top of that bucket list..

Sounds lovely.

Yep, bashed neeps and tatties (sounds like something to do with a bad scene at a strip club, doesn't it?), perhaps presented as mash, maybe an egg or 2 on the side, too.

Though there seems to be some cross-Atlantic and cultural variances on exactly what neeps are.

The initial phonetic translation would lead one to believe that, misleadingly obviously, they were referring to turnips, those phonetic short-hand Scots. Clever as they are.

However, it is alleged by some that, similar to my old Norwegian Elkhound being a moose dog in Norway, and that 'Elghund' actually meant moose dog (with lots of research to back that up), some here claim that 'neeps' in Scotland are actually what we refer to as rutabagas in the US, which makes some sense, in that, for example, in Cornish pasties or any cultural derivation in nearby places on the UK's Islands, rutabagas are included in the traditional list of ingredients, not turnips, along with spuds, onion, carrots, steak meat cubed up, or burger, salt, pepper, etc.

So, I'm sticking with cultural translation that makes the most sense and probably going with Yukon Gold potatoes and rutabagas mashed together coarsely with the haggis.

Of course, there'll need to be a whisky sauce (no 'e' in the spelling of Scot whisky in many places), for which I've found several well-reviewed recipes for the stuff, never having had it, let alone made the stuff before. Cream and whisky. What could go wrong? Other than my wife, a self-admitted Scotch drinker, believes that wasting a 12-year-old single malt Scotch in a gravy of sorts, even if only 3 TBSP or so, is a form of an overlooked and poorly prosecuted crime.

We laid in bed this morning (far too long) with me reading off the descriptions of the various packages a particular Scottish goods store offers and laughing pretty hard at times. Characters, it seems.

Though I doubt I'll have a kilt in time, I suspect the thermal event known as stacking, would trap any heat up into the kilt and it be sealed off at the bottom, regenerating the heat from the lower extremities. Hell, I sometimes briefly venture out to plug in a vehicle or check the direct-vent boiler flue in my undies and wool socks. The body's heat aura lasts for a bit, even at temps -well- below freezing. And the trees help to not freak out those who might be driving by. rural hippie hillbillies.

Don't know if a kilt can be had that's leather outside, or maybe tweed, and lined with a goose down liner?

Maybe something to look into. Certainly, apt to be a means by which to keep any other fisher people in the bush on our remote ice fishing trips into the mountains at a distance from our ice holes when fishing; wearing a leather and tweed kilt, drinking a beer and smoking hashish, armed with a .454 Casul chest holster, and talking to oneself and/or the accompanying guest with a purposeful Scottish burr rolling off the tongue. Let alone addressing the occasional unfortunate, less-blessed lake trout flopping on the ice with such a dialect. Who in their right mind would want to infringe on that space and scene?

I'll continue envisioning the high mountains in Bolivia, landing and taking off on such airstrips, and being in a place where all I can do is gesticulate my meaning, as I speak nearly ZERO Spanish, or whatever the local dialect is there. Not likely to be like Holland, with their 95% English fluency rate.

Hope you're well SX.

 

[moose eater]

so, we can eat lung if it was prepared for our four-legged buddies? i see folks time to time buying a dozen cans of tuna "cat food" , eggs, pickles, mayo... there is no way to stop folks eating lung from game they kill, just can't can it and sell it. are there rules against ALL organ meats? i love thin-sliced and fried venison heart. lungs are normally unfit to eat after having a hollow-point bullet or sharp broadhead crash the party.

And yes, in some forms of animal feed, it's my understanding, though not certain, that lung makes its way into the mix. If true, we can't eat the lung, but we can eat those that eat the lung. Kinda' like when we shipped all of our DDT to Central and South America, then spent our winter months buying produce from... Central and South America.

I feel protected. You?

 

[armedoldhippy]

Bucket lists... Things that might see us doing things we know we've put off, haven't done, and figure we'd owe it to ourselves to be able at the end of the trail to say to ourselves (or anyone close enough to listen or care), "Yeah, I did that."

i told my kids i was gonna go sky-diving for my 65th birthday. thank God they forgot... i'm not afraid of heights, but if i go up in a plane, i want to land in it as well...

 

[moose eater]

i told my kids i was gonna go sky-diving for my 65th birthday. thank God they forgot... i'm not afraid of heights, but if i go up in a plane, i want to land in it as well...

That was one gig that never attracted me.

Had a fellow classmate at the hippie school in the Yukon have his main chute fail and his reserve delay. Biggest rush I think he ever had in his life to this day.

It was on his first free-fall, and they say that there's about 1:1000 chance of the main chute failing, and you're permitted to pack your own in the presence of the licensed jump instructor.

The reserve is packed by a licensed instructor, and supposedly a 1:1,000,000 or some outrageous odds of a reserve failing..

He hit his main, and... nothing, maybe a tangled line set. Then he hit his reserve and didn't get much for a bit.

He was diving over the Carcross Desert in the Yukon Territory. He envisioned himself hitting the sand or dunes hard in his mind's eye, but the reserve finally opened. Pat was pretty shaken when he showed back up at the school that day. Understandably

Another fellow (George) landed hard in that desert and fucked his back up pretty good.

The jump instructor, also a licensed pilot, was the youngest most awarded/credentialed jump instructor in Canada at that time. Ken Kroklomo. They hung out at the Carcross hangar back then.

Ken later died in a whiteout flying 2 or 3 passengers down from somewhere up near Dawson City Yukon and needed to set the aircraft down due to the conditions but couldn't see well enough. He was reportedly aiming for the highway or shoulder apparently, but put it into the trees, and everyone on board passed away in the event.

Years later I was sitting in the Vancouver Airport and his mechanic and fellow pilot for when Ken was diving (John) approached me where I was sitting on the tile floor, playing solitaire next to my dog's freight kennel, immediately following a perceivable earthquake tremor, on my way to Scottsdale, Arizona via LA, and we happened to bump into each other in the wee hours of the morning, maybe 2 AM, and it was a joy to see him.

I think he passed a few years later, but I'm not sure of that now.

 

[armedoldhippy]

I think he passed a few years later, but I'm not sure of that now.

reminds me of the old saw about "old pilots, or bold pilots, but not both..." from everything i've read in the hunting/fishing mags about bush pilots, if you stay at it long enough, good odds it gets you. weather there is unlike anything on the planet from anecdotes i've read.

 

[tobedetermined]

I can honestly say that I don’t really have a bucket list. To me, it is pretty much all either been there/done that or I didn’t want or need to do it/have it anyway. No, I haven’t done a face plant in a bowl of high grade in La Paz but I have had a shitload of fun along the way. My job helped a lot but the smartest thing that I did was insisting to my wife that we had to travel early. I needed to see some of the world and I knew that we couldn’t leave travel until we were retired and risk decrepitude. And guess what? Immediately after my retirement, Covid came followed by decrepitude – temporary I hope - but if it isn't, so be it.

 

[H e d g e]

Oops

 

[moose eater]

reminds me of the old saw about "old pilots, or bold pilots, but not both..." from everything i've read in the hunting/fishing mags about bush pilots, if you stay at it long enough, good odds it gets you. weather there is unlike anything on the planet from anecdotes i've read.

I think it's like a lot of things. The more time a person has at the stick, the more they learn to feel comfortable with hot-shot maneuvers, and eventually they push the envelope too hard and too far.. then they're gone.

I know of a fellow who used to own a charter outfit here, and he was steady as they come. Never saw him flinch and I saw him land in the bush to bring folks out and pick me up when there wasn't any way we believed he would be able to fly in.

He had at least three dead-stick landings in the bush under his belt, mostly into muskeg or tundra, and he walked away from every one of them. Bob Burcil/Bursil (spelling?). An incredible pilot.

He had a younger fellow working for him who grew up on a Native trapping family homestead in the bush, where planes were -the- primary mode of transport. Daniel was flying aircraft when they literally had to wrap blocks to the pedals so he could reach. But I flew with him numerous times and he was like a lot of youngsters with a new high-performance machine, though he was pretty darned good.

He had a habit of coming into a bush strip and banking the last turn after checking the wind sock such that he was still coming off the bank as he was getting ready to set down.

He once pulled the flaps and the throttle simultaneously in a Helio-Courier (hell of an exceptional bush plane; a Super Cub on steroids) racing my former buddy down a snowy airstrip in the mountains, with my former friend on a Skidoo, and when Daniel pulled the flaps and throttle abruptly and simultaneously my lower back literally pinched, and I cringed.

I didn't tell him about it, but GODDAMN!! We gained a couple hundred feet in altitude in a couple seconds max, and my spine's already-damaged areas felt it big time. Only time I can recall that experience.

If I had to take a powerless (or other mishap) plunge into the tundra or bush, Bob, Daniel's employer, was the guy that I would've wanted at the stick. Hands down..

Pic below is that of a friend of my former friend in the bush, taking off in a high-performance Super Cub in 12 inches of the white stuff, still running tundra tires instead of having switched over to skis yet.

 

[moose eater]

I can honestly say that I don’t really have a bucket list. To me, it is pretty much all either been there/done that or I didn’t want or need to do it/have it anyway. No, I haven’t done a face plant in a bowl of high grade in La Paz but I have had a shitload of fun along the way. My job helped a lot but the smartest thing that I did was insisting to my wife that we had to travel early. I needed to see some of the world and I knew that we couldn’t leave travel until we were retired and risk decrepitude. And guess what? Immediately after my retirement, Covid came followed by decrepitude – temporary I hope - but if it isn't, so be it.

We often blew our dough, with the exception of building the house, for which we spent 4 retirements. We played and traveled a bit, though I don't think we did so enough.

Then having dogs and a crop, and a garden, meant that someone had to stay home much of the time, so solo vacations for me were the norm for many years now.

I anticipated all along that I'd pass on early and leave my wife what were then TWO life insurance policies (now down to one) to make up for our not saving well enough. But it seems the Grim Reaper has been busy with others.

 

[tobedetermined]

I hate getting a new phone. Invariably within an hour of ownership, I always want to smash it into little plastic bits and bitch slap every designer of every app.

 

[armedoldhippy]

I hate getting a new phone. Invariably within an hour of ownership, I always want to smash it into little plastic bits and bitch slap every designer of every app.

i don't own a phone, but i'd like to crush every damn one of them with the round end of a ball peen hammer. SMFs trying to use them while driving bring out my inner road-rager. "PULL OVER TO TALK, ASSHOLES!"