strange things out by the road

 warning...photo of a dead animal carcass below...

My apologies to my brother, John, if he reads this. He has already heard the story twice before.

One day when pulling out of our driveway I was unpleasantly surprised to see this....

A headless deer carcass by our other driveway.   I thought maybe it had been hit by a car, and a "trophy hunter" stopped to get the head for a taxidermy mount.

That  has happened in almost this same spot years ago. We saw two guys stop and cut the top of the skull with antlers off of a deer that had been killed on the road. 

But I also had a suspicion that this deer had been shot and killed elsewhere and someone only wanted the trophy head and dumped the body here.  Look what a tidy and bloodless cut that is.

That really made me mad to think about.

I called the road department to remove it but since we live on a state road they told me to call the State Highway department. I left a detailed message but no one ever came out.

The Sasquatch thought we'd better drag it back to the woods before it decayed too much to be moved.  He was able to get it most of the way pulling it with his vehicle but then had to finish up dragging it by hand (with a rope of course).  He said he didn't see any thing to indicate that it had been shot.

At least it provided food for some vultures and other scavengers.

Gosh, if I had seen that headless deer as a child it would have been so scary. I would have been afraid it would jump up and chase me!

On a lighter note,  this by our driveway....

A toilet tank.

 I guess I have no shame.  I put it there thinking someone might be able to use it, although I know not all tanks and bowls will match up.

Sure enough though, it was gone the next morning. Maybe kept it out of a landfill anyway.

Austin's Drive In - Whopper Sandwich

My husband grew up working in his father's drive-in restaurant (Austin's Drive In).

He and his brothers started out with jobs like swatting flies and picking up garbage from the lot, then progressed to the position of  "soda jerks" and eventually to knowing the business inside and out.

One of the stories they like to tell about those days involves preparing pork tenderloin cutlets for a sandwich that eventually was re-named "Whopper Sandwich". It was a best seller.  (This was long before Burger King so no problems there).

I think they each had a different experience making those sandwiches and a different story to tell.

The process involved tenderizing the cutlets with a mallet, then dipping them in egg, then in cracker meal, then later fried to produce a beautiful golden patty that stuck out the sides of the bun all the way around.

Lonnie's story is that as a pre-teen, he started challenging himself to see how big of a patty he could make from those small pork cutlets. I guess he kept dipping and working in those cracker crumbs until the patties were coming out as big as saucers!

His Dad had to tell him to hold back and not make them so big.

Then there is the story of one of the younger brothers assigned to the breading task... each time he did it, he ended up with such a thick coating of the breading on his hands that he couldn't close his fingers!

Fun memories for them!

So, a few months ago, one of the nieces, sent out a group family email, saying she wanted to make Whopper Sandwiches for her teenagers and wanted to know the original recipe for them.

The brothers described the ingredients and the method, but in the end, she couldn't find cracker meal in her area, so she had to make substitutions.

Her family loved the sandwiches and she had fun with her daughters making them.

With all the talk of making Whopper Sandwiches, Lonnie started craving them too. Of course I had to try making some for him.

I bought thin boneless center cut pork chops but I couldn't find cracker crumbs in any of the grocery stores around here either.  So, I spent forever crushing saltines to use.

I don't have a tenderizing mallet so I scored the chops on both sides with a knife...

...then used a potato masher to flatten them.

I did the egg wash and crumb coating twice, added salt and pepper, then fried them (about 1 inch of oil) in a skillet.

They came out pretty good.

I stirred up a simple version of 1000 Island dressing (tarter sauce and ketchup) and grilled the buns.  Lonnie added lettuce, tomato and onion to complete the sandwich as he remembered it.

He enjoyed it and said it was close to the original.

Next time, I'm going to get him to do the breading and see if he can come up with some saucer sized patties - just like old times!

And, I should add, I have since found cracker meal...it's stocked near the seafood department at the grocery, and labeled as fish fry mix...but the ingredients list is just cracker meal.

More indoor blooms

 I have been keeping an eye on one of my succulents that sent up a bloom stalk not long after I repotted it a couple of months ago. It surprised me with these sweet little orangey blooms.

I've only had the plant since last winter so I had no idea that it would bloom. It has been a vigorous grower and spreader, though.

The bloom stalk is so long that it tipped over and is resting on an aloe plant.

The blooms actually lasted a couple of weeks. I would have liked to have moved it up off of the floor...somewhere more visible...but I was worried the stalk would break.

Here you can see the actual plant better. There on the right with the grayish leaves.

Isn't that a good color combination? Next fall, I'll try to remember to give it a dose of fertilizer to encourage more blooms.

And below you see the last of our cherry tomatoes as of November 6th.

Husker Cherry Reds.  Grown in a large pot on the back porch...making it easy to remember to water.

I will look for this kind again next spring.

A last little blast of color before winter's gray days.