spring flowers and good food

[chuck123wapati]

14 hours ago, fredk said:

I must awa agin

tae the meet shoppe

an git me a haggis

for Burns Night is nearly oun us

Will Chedder brauts and tater tots work? I don't want to dishonor my clan, Montgomery.

[LakeOtter]

19 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

Will Chedder brauts and tater tots work? I don't want to dishonor my clan, Montgomery.

I can whip up a reasonable faux-haggis pretty well... not many sheep stomachs right on hand in the Florida forest but there's steel cut oats and meat (maybe beef w/some lamb), seasoning & fat, and some organs to make it convincing. Can't skip the offal altogether or else it's just oat-burger. I liked it so much when I got to stay in Aberfeldy I had to seek out something similar at home. Haven't replicated beans on toast, though O.O. I could go for wood pidgeon breast again, though! 

[Handstitched]

Just poppin' my head in to say G'day.

I keep seeing  the snow storms over there on the  news. It looks very scary, and dangerous and seeing semis sliding out of control  along the hwys .

But here in upside-down  land, we're having extreme  heat waves, 45+ some days.

I've been on a break over the Christmas period, I have so many (planned)  jobs that I want to do outside, but it's been so damn hot i can't do them,  that's time wasted , so many plants have died. 

But it's just cooled down.....a bit , until later next week when it heats right  up again. 

Mother Nature can really  test us at times.

Now, back to food: it's corned beef for dinner tomorrow, mashed potato,  veggies and a cheese sauce.

Stay safe during those storms 🙏 🙂 

HS

[Darren8306]

I think you are all unexpectedly getting what we up north get lots of. If you have a vehicle breakdown, one guideline in the north is that you start a fire first, make repairs second. This is often not a concern in warmer areas, but it's a lot easier to stay warm, than it is to get warm.

 

Be well, everyone. Help neighbours. All that warm stuff.

[billybopp]

Woke up to no water this morning.  The cold caused a water main break.  At least we have a nice skating rink in the street!  Hope the water dept. can get it taken care of quickly.

[chuck123wapati]

17 hours ago, Darren8306 said:

I think you are all unexpectedly getting what we up north get lots of. If you have a vehicle breakdown, one guideline in the north is that you start a fire first, make repairs second. This is often not a concern in warmer areas, but it's a lot easier to stay warm, than it is to get warm.

 

Be well, everyone. Help neighbours. All that warm stuff.

i carry a complete survival bag in both my rigs, with food and stove plus blankets, plus extra gloves, coats and hats lol.  With the wind and lack of trees, the winds could kill you in minutes here with no possible way to build a fire in these conditions.

When I was about 18 i was stranded overnight in a huge blizzard out in the oil field with two other guys in a pickup truck. We survived by staying awake all night and wrapping our feet together in a xtra pair of coveralls.

Here's a tip: if that ever happens to you, drink as much water as you can before it freezes, and you get too cold to. Also all your food will freeze too. We had crackers that night lol dry with no water. they finally found us and got us out about noon the next day to a small town where we were still snowed in at for another day. After about six hours, the coolest ice circles form from your breath that you have ever seen on the inside of a vehicle but not so cool in the morning, the sun comes out and melts them for your first survival shower.

[chuck123wapati]

56 minutes ago, billybopp said:

Woke up to no water this morning.  The cold caused a water main break.  At least we have a nice skating rink in the street!  Hope the water dept. can get it taken care of quickly.

Stay warm, my friend, and safe. Ice skating isn't what it's cracked up to be. lol 

[fredk]

10 hours ago, billybopp said:

Woke up to no water this morning.  . . . 

Pity I can't send you some of ours. Torrential rain almost everyday. And when its not raining its drizzling with precipitation. 

[fredk]

10 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

. . . 

When I was about 18 i was stranded overnight in a huge blizzard out in the oil field . . .

It rarely snows here but when it does its usually 1 inch deep. But in '81 I was snowed in on a Mountain for 4 days. It was a bad winter here, the petrol and diesel in the post vans froze solid. I was a postie and was delivering a telegram to a mountain farm. Getting there was no problem. I had a hot whiskey then found my van was snowed in. Stayed overnight at the farm and next day took to getting back to base. I only got so far. I abandoned the van and found a shepherds hide, a stone built shelter. It was fully equipped with survival gear - tins of soup, tins of beans, tea, coffee, the means of a fire and lighting it a few old wool blankets. I spent the night in there. The next day an army helicopter, out looking for me, spotted me but blizzard conditions were too bad for them to land so they dropped me more supplies. Two more days in the shelter then a bit of a thaw and I could get away. I left the extra supplies the army dropped in the shelter for the next person. I reckon my survival training in the RAF kept me alive

I often take an 'emergency supply' of food and things in my car yet. And my #1 son used to laugh at it until one dark night. . . . but thats another story!

[chuck123wapati]

On 1/28/2026 at 4:51 PM, fredk said:

It rarely snows here but when it does its usually 1 inch deep. But in '81 I was snowed in on a Mountain for 4 days. It was a bad winter here, the petrol and diesel in the post vans froze solid. I was a postie and was delivering a telegram to a mountain farm. Getting there was no problem. I had a hot whiskey then found my van was snowed in. Stayed overnight at the farm and next day took to getting back to base. I only got so far. I abandoned the van and found a shepherds hide, a stone built shelter. It was fully equipped with survival gear - tins of soup, tins of beans, tea, coffee, the means of a fire and lighting it a few old wool blankets. I spent the night in there. The next day an army helicopter, out looking for me, spotted me but blizzard conditions were too bad for them to land so they dropped me more supplies. Two more days in the shelter then a bit of a thaw and I could get away. I left the extra supplies the army dropped in the shelter for the next person. I reckon my survival training in the RAF kept me alive

I often take an 'emergency supply' of food and things in my car yet. And my #1 son used to laugh at it until one dark night. . . . but thats another story!

A lesson a person only gets one chance to learn sometimes. Was working as a roustabout. We had snowed in the day before in a small town; it was Thanksgiving week, so in November. Luckily, one of us had a girlfriend there, so we had a warm floor to stay that night. Got up to drifted snow that totally packed into the engine bays of our trucks. Spent half the day getting them running, then the boss says our pump station was offline again, so buy as much food as you need and head out, the station was 30+ miles into the desert lol. No problem, got there, fired up the station just as the storm started, hopped in the truck happy and warm, put it in gear, and it died, wouldn't start...  There we sat. A vehicle goes from warm to freezer in about 30 seconds. Then the compressor station died again, so there were no lights or heat even at the location. We just huddled up together and did everything we could to keep awake through the night. All three of us were local boys and friends and knew not to leave the truck, and not to go to sleep, so we just sat there in the dark watching snow blow across the windshield at 40 mph plus doing about anything to stay warm lol. Yeah, it got colder than hell, about two hours in we figured out that all the really good canned food we had bought was frozen solid as well as our water. Luckily, the storm died, and the sun came out. There was about 6 inches of frozen vapor in the truck just from our breath that we had to knock down because it was thawing on us. Anyway, as the sun warmed us up and we felt safe we fell asleep to be woken up about 2 in the afternoon by another crew sent out for us. It took two graders from sunup to blade the road to us out.