Arachnocrazia

Here's a little video from earlier this fall. Dr. Mike and D$ had a sweet garden out back, with tomatoes and peppers and a pumpkin and all sorts of other goodies. They also had some little stink bugs who loved the tomatoes; they also had a giant frickin' yellow garden spider that loved the stink bugs. Of course we tossed plenty of bugs into the spider's web. They stick better if you give 'em a good squeeze -- enough to wound them so they can't escape but not so much they stop wiggling.

Check out the mad spinning action from this spider. He hit the jackpot when we found him.

13.5 hours of bliss and ignorance

FishMasterMezz works hard to retain his courtesy title.

It was a great plan: Arrive before dawn and stay until we catch some fish. We didn't figure it would be 11 hours after our arrival before someone caught the first fish worth mentioning.

I say it was the first fish worth mentioning, because the largemouth bass I caught before the rest of the harvest party arrived was pretty small. Whoops, I mentioned it. Anyway, the crew didn't believe me when I mentioned it to them, even though I took a picture. And Sir Gavin of Jers caught a clam. Those pesky clams.

We did catch a gaggle of tourists though. They seemed to think Dr. Mike in his many-pocketed manssiere would be a nice Norman Rockwell background to their vanity portraits. At least, they did until Dr. Mike stuck his ass out like a cat presenting. I laughed till I cried. No joke. Our laughter and Mike's ass didn't seem to discourage them from hanging out and blabbering for a solid 30 minutes though. Here's three of them after their return from up-lake.

So I arrived at 7 a.m. The rest of the all-day crew (Dr. Mike, D$ and Dave) arrived a short time later and David Laurence Fishbourne caught this honker at 6 p.m. Nothing in between. ELEVEN hours people. But it was awesome. So relaxed. Tequila helps.

(clicky for album)

We grilled burgers and chicken for lunch after Carrie, Layla, Gavin, Will and Alex arrived, and spent most of the day getting lures caught on what I'd like to believe were pirate ships forever committed to Davy Jones' locker during the heat of battle. As this was Little Dixie Lake my powers of deduction lead me to believe they were likely Confederate corsairs extorting funds for their war chest from the good people of Boone County. I'll bet there are cannons down there. I say we get some wetsuits and snorkels and pay back our student loans with the inevitable booty.

I lost my lucky Rapala to one of those scoundrels. It escaped though, and while it floundered around (ha!) I threw it a lifeline in the form of a fine balsa faux fish on an invisible monofilament.

Dave cut his fish up and stuck it a ziplock and about an hour later I caught a catfish too! Hurrah! It was quite a pickerupper after 12 hours of standing in mud.

Fat face!

I did my best to make a couple nice filets, and I don't think I screwed it up too bad. They're living in my freezer.

And then Dr. Mike whispered sweet nothings into the misty water and viola! He caught one too. He was probably just waiting till we caught ours.

And with that, and a few more casts for good measure, we packed up and rolled back to town. Thirteen and half hours after arrival.

The long and winding road

Since apparently fishing is too much of a "sedentary" activity, Carrie insisted we take a little hike on the MKT Trail here in Como.

(clicky for album)

So we took Sam down to the trail Sunday for a little walk. It's a pretty nice trail, though I'd like to smack whatever genius came up with the idea to build little bits of gym equipment every 30 yards. I mean, come on. Really.

(this one nearly broke when I sat on it)

My favorite was the three lengths of wood laid together in a triangle on a concrete slab. Like a curb for stretching your Achilles tendon. And then built a sign with instructions on how to use it. Engineering and artistic genius together at last! Give that guy or gal a frickin Nobel Prize. I mean, Al Gore did it with a slideshow -- I don't see why a guy who formed a complicated shape out of wood in a public place should not get the same recognition.

But don't plan on enjoying your bicycle on the trail. I mean, you're allowed to ride on the trail -- you are merely forbidden to enjoy that beautifully welded, two-triangle alloy frame and its mastermathematic gear ratios that let you glide over impacted gravel like a wheelless wheelbarrow down an icy embankment.

Really though, great trail. It was a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day. Carrie has good ideas. She goes running a lot. I walk places sometimes. I am getting too sedentary.

Oh, and to the lady who was wouldn't cross the bridge -- hang in there. I know Sam is pretty scary looking.

Adventures in Pizza: Chapter 1

So we here at Fuzzy Britches have entered a new frontier of adventuring -- pizza.
Each week (or whenever we feel like it) we will be exploring a wild frozen tundra chock full of these sedentary culinary creatures.

Our hardworking staff certainly eats enough pizza, so why not allow our two loyal readers to reap the benefits of all this first-hand knowledge? We're pioneers, truly.

Last week we ate a Kashi Mediterranean Pizza. It sure looks pretty on the box, and by golly, it looked pretty coming out of the oven too. MMM! Just look at that feta cheese, spinach and red peppers. The peppers were the bees knees, fo' real. Makes our mouthes water. If the crust wasn't so cardboardy we just might have drooled to death. It could happen. Good thing it was a flax seed crust, whatever that's supposed to be.

It's ALL NATURAL ! And NEW !

Kashi has a couple other frozen pizzas, too.

Stay tuned until next week for DiGiorno Thin Crispy Crust Spinach, Mushroom & Garlic Pizza!