A friend of ours sprung a leak in his aorta back in the spring. Damn
near died, he did. After seven units of blood and surgery (they went
in through a femoral artery and up to his heart to sew him up from the
inside!) and over three months in the hospital he was back home by the
end of August. Moving kinda slow. Using a walker. But he's farking
alive, and that's one hell of an accomplishment.

I smoked him a chicken and made a Sriracha/mint mayo to go with it
when he was able to receive company.

Fridays a group of us usually gather at a beer joint down on the
square for snacks, brews, camaraderie, and more brews. Dave (our
should-be-dead-but-isn't friend) made it last Friday for a little
while. But we were out of town, and couldn't be there to welcome him
back to the fold. So I'm determined to be there tonight to toast him
and his stamina.

Dave teaches Ag Science. He can and will tell you more about hog
reproduction than you ever wanted to know. I know this first hand.
He's had a feral boar's head on the wall of his office for many years.
It was only last winter that I finally learned that he'd shot the
******* himself out at the college farm. "I wouldn't hang a trophy on
my wall that I didn't shoot," he told me. "I told him to leave, and he
didn't. So I killed him." Apparently it really impressed the students
he had with him at the time. One shot to the head. Dead pig. Not a
squeal. Just bang-thud.

Right now I have a grass-fed beef brisket in the smoker pit. Monday
night I set it in a pickling brine (Ruhlman's recipe). I dumped the
brine last night and left the meat in the fridge till today. Rubbed
with toasted coriander and black pepper, it's slowly becoming pastrami
under the gentle insistence of smoldering lump charcoal and pecan
wood. Unfortunately it won't be ready by 6 when I'm due at the bar.

I plan to bring some apricot preserves doctored with habanero chiles.
That and some cream cheese should be good on crackers.

In other news, I found another bee hive living in the wall of my house
this afternoon. We had one removed from the north wall earlier in the
summer. This one's in the west wall, but it's shaded most of the
afternoon. Not too hot for honey bees. Obviously.

The earlier hive produced two swarms this spring. I got a guy from the
county extension to take care of them. He took one and gave me one.
The swarm that the bee guy gave me left the box I had them in out at
the community garden after a few weeks. One day they were just gone.
No bees. None dead. None alive. The ridiculous prospect that we may
have a case of homing bees has occurred to me.

Gotta go tend the fire.
--

modom