Spring comfort

It is the time of year that the weather does not quite know what it is up to. It is erratic. It is like a teenager entering puberty. Things change day to day, hour by hour. It seems there is no reasoning with March weather.

Still, as the brown hills begin to awaken and dream of the coming green, there is comfort to be obtained during the lengthening days. Here is one: Fire. A gentle blaze is always a comfort here at Rock Eddy Bluff, but when cool March winds envelope the hills, a fire in the stove or fireplace is certain to provide a special comfort.

Here is a prescription for relaxation at The Bluff: A long walk in the woods and then a fire. Outside, the buds are swelling, daffodils are poking their shoots upward, while inside the cabin there is the crackle and the flicker of fire.

There is also comfort food. We now propose to add to your recipe collection for Pie. Coming through New Mexico recently, we stopped at Pie Town, a small, mostly abandoned village on the historic cattle drive route. There, the drovers could always depend upon pie for all the hands. “Get into Pie Town and bring us some Pie”, the foremen would command. So, we stopped there at the Daily Pie Café. A scrumptious breakfast was followed by a piece of New Mexican Apple Pie. It was top notch and slightly modified from ordinary apple pie. And, they were willing to divulge the recipe.

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New Mexican Apple Pie (From Daily Pie Café, Pie Town, NM)

Ingredients

4 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 c. sugar
4 T. flour
2 t. cinnamon
¾ t. nutmeg
2 ounces of New Mexican (Hatch) green chili, hot or mild or more! to taste
2 ounces of pinon nuts
1 T lemon juice

Peel, core and put apple slices into large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients mix well.
Set aside to blend flavors while the crust is being prepared.

Pastry crust (makes four crusts)
This recipe will use two crusts.
The other two can be frozen for future use always handy and makes for a speedy pie.

3 cups of flour
¼ t. baking powder
1 t. salt
½ c. salted butter
½ c. shortening
1 egg
1 T. white vinegar
1/2 c. ice cold water

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter and shortening to pea sized pieces with pastry knife or fork and knife(do not use your hands yet). In separate bowl, mix egg, vinegar and water. Add wet mix to flour mixture small amounts at a time and blend with spoon or pastry cutter until dry ingredients are moist and form a ball (more or less water may have to be added depending on moisture content of flour).

Roll into a ball wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour. Divide dough into four sections. Roll out one section on a floured board to fit 9” pie pan. Put crust into pan. Place apple mix , mounded in the center. Top with one rolled section of crust. Flute edges, cut vent holes into top crust. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle natural sugar on top (optional). Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, turn, then 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an one hour. Pie is done when golden brown and juices bubble thickly around the outer edge. Serve with vanilla ice cream (highly suggested).

They say it is the little things in life...... The Hired Man

En Todos las playas en todo el mundo

This always happens when I come to a beach. I consider a number so large that I cannot conceive of it. Yup, it is the sand that does it.

No wait! Stay with me. It is a little exercise for the mind. Move your mind from the beach to the universe. Still with me? Now, scientists have estimated -- postulated, roughed out, even SWAGed (that is a scientific wild-assed guess) -- that the number of stars in the universe is roughly equal to all the grains of sand in all the beaches in all the world.

I can't count the number of grains in my hand. I can't conceive of the numberof grains on this beach within my view. My mind hiccups when I try to think about all the beaches in all the world.

Carl Sagan called this number a googleplex (I think) and it was a number so large that it confound any attempt to consider it.

Well that is the universe we live in. And we think we are so smart.

Please think of this when you go to the beach.

Los Tres Vagabundos in Mexico, Tom, Kathy & PeeVee

Pollo Muerto

What are we going to eat? An old comic reply: “Dead chicken”. Then, the chicken somehow loses some off its taste appeal. But, here in the Mexican town of Puerto Penasco, we believe the lowly bird died for a good cause. Here they do wondrous things with dead chicken.

It is called Pollo al carbon, a type of roasted chicken, but not cooked with any type of flame. It must be roasted on a wood fire. And then there is the seasoning…. My Spanish is not good enough to discover much of it, but I know the marinade is chiefly orange juice.

We have recently returned from the chicken joint on Calle Benito Juarez and we need a nap. We are likely going to skip supper tonight and go directly to the hot tub where we will watch the sun sink into the sea.

I am really disappointed in myself, but my attention seems to have slid toward gluttony and other pleasures of the flesh. Already we have planned breakfast. Awakening slowly in The Minnow to the sound of the waves, we will lightly pan fry in butter some huge, fresh local scrimp, some asparagus, and a few new potatoes. Yes, that is breakfast, or perhaps we should call it brunch.

We promise to do better….in a day or so. Meanwhile, every day here on the beach is an awful struggle.

Los Tres Vagabundos gordos

Pollo Muerto

What are we going to eat? An old comic reply: “Dead chicken”. Then, the chicken somehow loses some off its taste appeal. But, here in the Mexican town of Puerto Penasco, we believe the lowly bird died for a good cause. Here they do wondrous things with dead chicken.

It is called Pollo al carbon, a type of roasted chicken, but not cooked with any type of flame. It must be roasted on a wood fire. And then there is the seasoning…. My Spanish is not good enough to discover much of it, but I know the marinade is chiefly orange juice.

We have recently returned from the chicken joint on Calle Benito Juarez and we need a nap. We are likely going to skip supper tonight and go directly to the hot tub where we will watch the sun sink into the sea.

I am really disappointed in myself, but my attention seems to have slid toward gluttony and other pleasures of the flesh. Already we have planned breakfast. Awakening slowly in The Minnow to the sound of the waves, we will lightly pan fry in butter some huge, fresh local scrimp, some asparagus, and a few new potatoes. Yes, that is breakfast, or perhaps we should call it brunch.

We promise to do better….in a day or so. Meanwhile, every day here on the beach is an awful struggle.

Los Tres Vagabundos gordos

Pollo Muerto

What are we going to eat? An old comic reply: “Dead chicken”. Then, the chicken somehow loses some off its taste appeal. But, here in the Mexican town of Puerto Penasco, we believe the lowly bird died for a good cause. Here they do wondrous things with dead chicken.

It is called Pollo al carbon, a type of roasted chicken, but not cooked with any type of flame. It must be roasted on a wood fire. And then there is the seasoning…. My Spanish is not good enough to discover much of it, but I know the marinade is chiefly orange juice.

We have recently returned from the chicken joint on Calle Benito Juarez and we need a nap. We are likely going to skip supper tonight and go directly to the hot tub where we will watch the sun sink into the sea.

I am really disappointed in myself, but my attention seems to have slid toward gluttony and other pleasures of the flesh. Already we have planned breakfast. Awakening slowly in The Minnow to the sound of the waves, we will lightly pan fry in butter some huge, fresh local scrimp, some asparagus, and a few new potatoes. Yes, that is breakfast, or perhaps we should call it brunch.

We promise to do better….in a day or so. Meanwhile, every day here on the beach is an awful struggle.

Los Tres Vagabundos gordos

Pollo Muerto

What are we going to eat? An old comic reply: “Dead chicken”. Then, the chicken somehow loses some off its taste appeal. But, here in the Mexican town of Puerto Penasco, we believe the lowly bird died for a good cause. Here they do wondrous things with dead chicken.

It is called Pollo al carbon, a type of roasted chicken, but not cooked with any type of flame. It must be roasted on a wood fire. And then there is the seasoning…. My Spanish is not good enough to discover much of it, but I know the marinade is chiefly orange juice.

We have recently returned from the chicken joint on Calle Benito Juarez and we need a nap. We are likely going to skip supper tonight and go directly to the hot tub where we will watch the sun sink into the sea.

I am really disappointed in myself, but my attention seems to have slid toward gluttony and other pleasures of the flesh. Already we have planned breakfast. Awakening slowly in The Minnow to the sound of the waves, we will lightly pan fry in butter some huge, fresh local scrimp, some asparagus, and a few new potatoes. Yes, that is breakfast, or perhaps we should call it brunch.

We promise to do better….in a day or so. Meanwhile, every day here on the beach is an awful struggle.

Los Tres Vagabundos gordos

En la playa

"El Peccecillo" esta en la playa del Mar de Cortez, Sonora, Mexico. Hey boy, this is the life. We have "The Minnow" nestled into a lovely spot right on the beach. The surf lulls us to sleep at night and awakens us in the morning. I have a picture for you but forgot to bring the photo card with me to the wifi spot.

Aqui quiremos muchos mariscos. Already this morning, without leaving the Minnow, we have purchased a pound of the largest scrimp you ever saw. Camarones mas grande. (Ok, so I can't spell in spanish either.) Our mouths are watering.

We plan to reopen Rock Eddy Bluff Farm on March 1 in time to enjoy a wonderful Ozark spring. But right now we are beach bums in Mexico. The pervasive fear of Mexico by Americanos has hit this place hard. We were here a year ago and find, this year, that the number of turistas is down be more than half.

I must tell you this: The temperatures are in the 70's --maybe low 80's in the day and then cool off with the sinking of the sun to perhaps the mid-to-high 40's. We have our nests made in The Minnow and snuggle down into our sleeping bags.

We have come back here for the beach, the seafood, the scenery and also for pollo al carbon (wood fire cooked chicken) It is nothing like pollo asada. This is stuff your mouth will remember. It is found in a little cabana somewhere in town, if we can find it again.

Hope we have made you snowbound folks sufficiently envious. Rest assured that some serious relaxing will occur here in Puerto Penasco. If I can shake myself loose I will send photos next.

We will see many of you in the spring at the Bluff.

Los Vagabundos del Mar, Tom, Kathy, and PeeVee

A Fall Day Afield

Seems like my recent postings here could be called, "Reflections of a mature gentleman", subtitled, "musings of an old guy". Well, let's suffer through this one more time.

Yesterday I climbed on my four-wheeler and went for foray out over the countryside hereabouts. Now, to do this you must be familiar with the land, where the old logging roads wind through the timber, where the wire gaps are in the fences, and where the old home places are hidden in overgrown pastures.

I had my camera with me and decided to take some photos of the old wrecks of houses and barns, the collapsed cabins that have settled to earth in a grove of trees, the faint marks of humanity on the land. Then it hit me: All these structures were standing when I was young.


The old relic of a house was inhabited then, a family tending the fields in the creek bottom. This pile of boards and logs was a place, though abandoned then, had the traces of children in the upstairs bedroom where I sifted among their scant leavings. I realized out there yesterday that I have experienced a broad span of years in the surrounding land. Let's just say that yesterday I felt experienced.

Twas a beautiful fall day and I gloried in it, accepting my continually broadening span of years as something more than simply a relentless aging. History resides in me. I know these things personally. They don't come from old books. In fact, in a certain way I wish I was older.

I wish I was personally acquainted with the folks that lived in that sunken house. I would like to see their faces in my mind, perhaps have attended a spare one-room school with their rambunctious offspring.

Then, I would have even more to muse about on a clear fall day in the Ozarks.

The Hired Man at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm www.rockeddy.com