You either love 'em or you hate 'em!

One day last week I was cleaning an onion--I was making spaghetti and even though I just buy sauce in the jars I always add onions, sometimes garlic. Spaghetti is not the subject of this post though.

It is onions. Just with the simple act of cutting into the onion, I am immediately ravenous! I don't care if I have just gotten up from a holiday feast, or if I have just had a steak meal, or barbecued ribs...if I smell an onion I am immediately hungry. I want cornbread! Southern style, I suppose, without sugar. I don't know if that is a southern thing or just from my particular neck of the woods. But I do know that I have yet to meet anyone up here, that makes our type of cornbread.

But back to onions. I want cornbread and a slice of pork shoulder or salt cured bacon, cooked over an open fire with onions to eat with it. Or if I smell onions, I want soup beans and cornbread and onions...and you won't believe this. I like them cold out of the fridge...one of my sisters used to come back home to visit and I can remember her/us getting up after everyone had gone to bed, and we would go raid the fridge and if there were cold soup beans, she would have cornbread, soup beans and onions. I had not had that in years and years, and last spring, I remembered and tried it again, and I still love it.

And let's not forget wilted lettuce and onions. With cornbread....

Or something my mom cooked and I do, too, that I have never seen anyone else cook...well, my sister-in-law might...but she would be the only one...but not sure if she does. I think I ask her a year or two or three ago, but forget the answer. Anyway, mom would get stew beef and cook it in the pressure cooker till tender, or almost tender....then add potatoes. I get a nice chuck roast from my local IGA store...cook it till tender in the pressure cooker. While it is cooking I usually have my potatoes cooking in another pot and once the meat is tender, I add the potatoes to the beef and add water if needed and cook a while longer.

I have my cornbread baking, and green beans in another pot...then when I sit down to eat, I have an onion sliced....there just isn't much better on this earth. I don't fix it often...but when I do, I am ashamed of how much I eat.

I don't cook like that all the time, but ever since I made the spaghetti I have been craving at the least, a pone of cornbread and a slice of onion.

When a kid, and my nephews stayed/visited in the summer, if there happened to be sliced, white bread, which we called light bread, sometimes for a snack we would have a mustard and onion sandwich. I still have that once in a blue moon....

And I love onions on a hamburger.

I suppose if I could have left the bit about having a mustard and onion sandwich and having onion on a hamburger, I could have titled this post With cornbread.

But since there are some people that just cannot stand onions, I will leave it titled as is...

From the hills and hollers of Tennessee

I got this in my email yesterday from my niece, Holly...it is looking up towards the holler that was our old home place. I think she knows I long to be in Tennessee one more time when it snows. There is just something about looking out and seeing snow on the hills and the misty look of the mountains. It is home...one of these days maybe things will settle down till we can head down that way when we know they are expecting snow.
Now, Holly is Jackson's mama....and Holly's mom told me that Holly had taken a photo of Jackson and he reminded both of them of Lorelei....it was hard to imagine but being that Holly's mom and I agree about a lot of stuff, I sort of figured if they saw it I would too so I told her to have Holly send it to me and she did a few days later..so now I am showing it to you along with one of Lorelei when she was younger.
I think it is the way they hold their mouth and also their eyes when they are really happy...how they are all squinty.

And that is not the only way they are similar....Jackson loves to dance, also. But he is a toe tapper where Lorelei is a butt wiggler, head bobber. Can you just picture the two of them together!
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We got another dusting of snow yesterday...maybe an inch or so. But the wind has blown it around so much it is hard to tell. We had our first howling wind last night of the winter. It was searching for any little crack or crevice to get in. Our swing on our back porch is a glider swing...made of wood. So, in weight, it is not real light. It normally sits with the ends going east and west. I heard it being scooted around by the wind last night, and when I went to let the cats out, the ends are now pointed in the north-south direction.

The cats are getting cabin fever....they want out but only stay out a minute or two and come back in. Last night they were trying to start the game of tag, or something and racing through the house after each other...Roger was laying on the couch and Cougar came tearing through, jumped over the end that his head was on, and landed right on his solar plexus and made him about jump out of his skin!

Even Mama Cat was swatting everyone and trying to get them to play chase with her. If Lorelei had been here she would have had a ball watching them. She just giggles and laughs so hard when Otto and their cat chase each other.
As you can tell, they are absolutely the best of buddies. When we were over there just a month or so ago, we were outside. Sarah, Roger and I ended up setting in the swing...along with Lorelei. And on top of all of us, here came Otto and got up with us. It would have made the most perfect picture, but we could not have got up to get the camera without them moving.

It was so funny, Otto was sitting there between Lorelei and me. Her mom was on the other side of her. I looked down at Lorelei and she looked at Otto and scooted over as close to him as she could get. I would love to have captured that moment in time.

Birds of a feather....

I have been wanting to get out to the strip pits near sunset...so last night, I debated on going or not. I wasn't really in the mood to get out but I knew it was supposed to rain today so I forced myself got my mind/body in gear and headed out there late yesterday evening.
I had not gone even half a mile till I seen my first pheasant...he took off at a pace, too fast to get a good photo. But just little bit farther on I hit the jackpot! Except I did not get a photo of them all. Up near the road there were 6, yes SIX male ring-necked pheasants...and up the hill a bit farther were the two above.
I did not get a single picture of the group of six....they were kind of strung out and started taking off before I could get all the photos I wanted And at that none of the ones I took are very good. The only thing I wonder is where are the females...I saw several more pheasants after this bunch, but not one single female. And back during the spring and summer, I only saw one or two females...but lots and lots of males.

I know the females are harder to spot...they do not have the the beautiful colors of the male, but still you would think I would have seen one or two last night...specially with the snow on the ground.
No here we have the main reason I was wanting to go out there late in the evening...I wanted to see if any of the short-eared owls had returned. I am here to tell you they have returned and brought their relatives and neighbors, too. I have never seen so many as were out there.
I am showing three different short-eared owls....but I could not count how many I saw...I counted 5 in the sky at one time. It was not seeing one, it disappearing and seeing another...they were all within sight at the same time! They look like a bomber at certain angles in flight.

Notice the sign under the one above...apparently the owl is not reading the sign. Click the above photo and and look how intent the owl is looking at something down below. If I were a mouse, I would be afraid.
Aren't they a fine looking bird?