Fun Monday-A Fishing Story

Miss Olive is hosting Fun Monday this week, and she wants to hear something fishy. Here are her instructions:

I would like to hear about your *whopper* of a fishing story. Yes, you heard it correctly whether it is fictional or non fictional I want to hear a fishing story from you. An example would be if you catch a minnow and tell it that you caught a swordfish (exaggeration is the operative word here). Did you hear me say show your photo(s)? Of course you did – be creative.

Well, I like to joke that the only fishing and hunting I do is in the bottom of a cooler, but that's not really true. I don't even spend much time in the cooler, unless of course it holds ice cream. I don't spend much time fishing ANYWHERE, but I do have a tale I can tell.

One of the advantages of growing up in the country, especially in this part of the country, is that there's always a fishing hole somewhere close by. When I was young we had a pond near our house that held more turtles than fish but provided us with a good place to fish. I remember fishing there with Daddy a few times. Handy Man was the big outdoorsman in the family. It wasn't unusal for him to grab a pole and tackle box when he was really young and trot off to the pond. One time he came dragging home a long line of itty bitty fish he had caught all by himself. They were too small to keep but Mama didn't have the heart to tell him to throw them back, so she cooked them for him. There was barely enough for him to eat. He couldn't have been more than eight or ten years old. Teen Angel was about that old when she got a wild hair to go fishin', so I took a day off of work, grabbed an old pole we had lying around the garage, bought some worms at the closest convenience store (most every convenience store around here carries live bait-welcome to Kentucky) and loaded her in the car for a trip to Mama J.'s farm. I was hoping we wouldn't run into a game warden who wanted to see a fishing license.

The family farm is about thirty minutes from our house. It's way out in the boondocks and is a pretty place full of wildlife and a whole mess of peace and quiet. Sitting near the dilapidated old barn is a pond that's barely big enough to take a swim in, but it does hold a few fish. By the way this picture is untouched by PhotoShop and gives you a pretty good idea of the scenery that surrounds us in this region.Teen Angel and I sat up shop near the edge with her pole and bait. Marie..um I mean Mama J. didn't want to be left out of the fun so she pulled up a lawn chair as close to the weeds as she could get without actually touching them. See? She's way over there on the left. It was so weedy, you could barely see my little pumpkin at her perch. I tried not to think about how many snakes were probably slithering around us. After some initial angst over touching worms and learning how to cast past the bank, Teen Angel got the hang of it and before you know it she had caught a fish. She was so excited. He was a little feller so we tossed him back in...and proceeded to catch him again.And again. And again. Over and over she caught a fish. I'm pretty sure it was the same little fish. The pond isn't that big and no sooner would we throw him back and toss the line back in the water than she would snag another catch. It didn't matter that it was the same fish, she had a big time racking up a dozen catches. She kept running up the bank to show Mama J. her catches. We had a great day, and Teen Angel had a big story to tell her Daddy that evening. Aside from a couple of fishing trips with her uncle Handy Man and Grandpa Zeke, that was the end of her fishing career....almost.

Flash forward this past October when we spent a week in Florida at a private home in Gulfport that sat on the marina. While we were having a cook out with friends Teen Angel decided she wanted to go fishing...again...without a fishing license....or equipment. A rather clever friend, who also happens to be one of the best hairdressers in Gulfport, took a decorative fishing pole off the wall, used an old fashioned metal can opener as a weight and a cocktail shrimp as bait and had Teen Angel fixed up in no time. Now we didn't expect anything to come of her fishing adventure and thought T. was sweet to indulge her whim, but that man is ingenious I tell you because within a couple of minutes we heard Teen Angel squealing on the dock. After a great deal of yanking and tugging and some help from T. she managed to pull in the oddest looking catfish we'd ever seen. And we've seen some crazy looking catfish.

(By the way, I hate that shirt she's wearing.) After a couple of pictures and a lot of laughs she tossed him back. This one was big enough to eat but too big to ship home. She is one lucky gal when it comes to fishing, and we are still laughing about her Florida catch.

Now friends, follow me over to Olive's to read everyone else's fishing stories.

Ice Cream at Miss Hinda's

*I'm taking a holiday from writing today and instead am republishing a post from last July. It will give you a taste of what I'm doing Friday and a bonus recipe to boot. We won't have any big fireworks though, because our favorite Tennessee stand is shut down this year. Funny, as I read through this old post I realized I'm already having some of the same thoughts about summer's fast pace as I did last year. I hope you have a great 4th!

I can’t believe the 4th of July has already come and gone. The summer is flying by. It’s not fair that my favorite season seems so short. I love the heat and the sun. I’m even okay with the humidity. I’m just weird that way. Everybody loves autumn, but it makes me sad; sad that it will be another eight months before the long, hot days roll around again. Like I said, I’m weird that way. There are only so many flip-flop days in the year, so I’m trying to savor each one between now and October.

We spent Independence Day the same way we spend it every year, swimming, grilling and lighting fireworks. We skip the traffic and crowds and do it all at home. Our celebration hasn’t changed in ten years, probably because no one has lost a finger or eye yet with those illegal fireworks we get in Tennessee. We’re sticklers about our 4th of July routine. We always spend several hours in the pool. We always grill in the late afternoon, and we always shoot off fireworks. Most importantly, we ALWAYS make homemade ice cream, and we ALWAYS use Hubby’s grandmother’s recipe. Our love for Miss Hinda’s ice cream recipe is probably more sentimental than anything, but we think it’s the best. That plain old vanilla ice cream freezes the tongue and warms the heart because it brings back lots of great memories for Hubby and his family. Whenever we eat it, they always share stories about making ice cream at Grandma’s. Miss Hinda loved homemade ice cream. Really she loved sweets of all kinds, but ice cream was her favorite. She made it in her old crank freezer, and the grand kids remember taking turns sitting on top of the freezer to keep it steady while one of the uncles turned the handle. She always served it up in the same blue glasses and scraped the clumps off the dasher for herself. She was quite elderly when Hubby and I married, but I managed to get in on a few years of ice cream making at her house before she died.

When she started getting kind of feeble, we began fretting about preserving her recipe for her ice cream mix. She never wrote it down. When you asked her for it, she always said she just put in “a little bit of this and a little bit of that”. It took me two years of watching, wheedling tidbits of information from her and experimenting at home to come up with the recipe. I am going to share it with you here. Now, when you look at it, you’ll notice a couple of things. One…it has flour. That seems a little odd, but Miss Hinda said it added texture. I think she was right. Two….it includes raw eggs. At the Hula Girl house we eat homemade ice cream with raw eggs, and we like it that way. You can cook the mix if you like, but I don’t recommend it. It makes it taste too much like scrambled eggs. I know all the food safety folks say the eggs need to be cooked, but personally, I think that’s a crock of hooey. I’ve been eating raw cookie dough, cake mix and ice cream mix for years without getting sick. I’m sure one butt cheek clenching case of salmonella would change my mind, but until then I’m alright with the raw egg thing. The eggs should be medium sized, not large. Also, you may use any brand of vanilla you like, but Miss Hinda always swore by Watkins double strength. I think she was right on that one, too. I’ve tried other vanillas, and it’s just not the same. Don’t use 2% or skim milk, either. First of all, that’s just crazy. It’s ice cream for Pete’s Sake! It’s not supposed to be healthy. Secondly, it just won’t taste good. My family gets excited because there is usually a little whole milk left over, and it’s the only time they get anything other than skim. They like it when the whole milk gods shine upon them. Occasionally, I have substituted a half pint of cream for some of the milk in this recipe. It gives it an even smoother texture, but it takes longer to churn.

This recipe will make enough for a small freezer. If you have the honkin’ big White Mountain freezer like we do, you’ll need to make 1 ½ times this recipe. When she was eating this ice cream, Miss Hinda always said it made her eyeballs freeze. I don’t have a remedy for that, but I think this stuff is worth freezing your eyeballs for.

Miss Hinda’s Ice Cream
5 medium eggs
2 ½ cups sugar
½ cup flour
Pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon Watkins vanilla
Whole milk

In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, flour, salt and vanilla with enough milk to blend. Transfer mixture to the freezer tub. Add more milk until it reaches the fill line and stir thoroughly. Add the dasher, seal and turn in ice cream freezer until firm. At this point you have two options. You can either transfer the tub to a regular freezer for another hour or so to firm it up even more, OR you can go ahead and eat it, but you’ll need to eat it fast because it melts quickly. We usually pick option #2.

Because Mia Said So

Okay, Mia wrote a lovely post about her husband (and can I just say he sounds like a swell guy). Now, she has tagged me to do the same, and I'm glad to do it. I have a wonderful husband, and I like to brag about him every now and then. He has his share of flaws like the rest of us (like selective hearing loss and a tendency to pinch my leg or poke me in the ribs during church) but honestly, those flaws are small compared to all the good stuff. In fact, I think I'm much more flawed than he is. When I first saw how he looked after his parents years ago, I knew he was a keeper. I'm a very lucky gal, so here you go Mia: Ten Things You Don't Know About My Husband.


1. He has a ponytail. Because Papa T. is blind he didn't know about the ponytail until Teen Angel recently let it slip. Papa T. freaked about it a little. He still thinks he can tell Hubby when to get a haircut, even though Hubby is 54 years old.

2. The three things that make him go ballistic in 1.2 seconds are: vending machines that rip him off, someone honking their horn at him and stepping in dog poop.

3. If there is dog poop within a one block radius of his feet he will step in it, no matter how careful he is. This has caused me and Teen Angel to laugh uncontrollably on numerous occasions because we walk around barefoot all the time, never looking where we place our feet and NEVER stepping in dog poop.

4. He retired from being a parole officer two years ago and became a house husband, taking care of the laundry and grocery shopping, among many other things. He's great with the vacuum cleaner and cleans stuff without being prodded. Me? Not so much. Stay AWAY from him ladies. You can't have him.

5. When we first met he alphabetized his canned goods in the cabinets. Whew! Good thing we cured him of that 'cause that was almost the demise of our relationship.

6. He watches absolutely no organized sports on television whatsoever....EVER. It's one of the reasons I married him.

7. He loves John Wayne and his favorite JW movie line is "Prepare to die you sons of *****!"

8. He is ten years older than me but doesn't look it.

9. He carries his mother's pocketbook around all the time when he is shuffling Mama J. around town and doesn't mind at all. In fact, sometimes it matches his shoes and he laughs when I point it out. I usually offer to take it, and he usually declines.

10. I often find him helping elderly people reach groceries on the top shelf (he's tall), feeding stray dogs in parking lots and feeding neighborhood critters. In fact, he spends a few hundred dollars a year on bird and critter food.

I know Mia said ten things, but I color outside the lines so I'm going to add another one.
11. He lovingly and patiently puts up with a wife who wears grass skirts in public, doesn't know when to shut up, thinks she's always right and laughs loudly at inappropriate times. Can you see why I love him?

Bunny Tales

Psst. Come a little closer. I want to show you something. It’s the latest family to move into our neighborhood. They’re kind of reclusive, so I had trouble snapping their picture. In fact, they come out only on Sunday mornings. They like to run, play and romp in our garden, and they think we don’t see them, but we do. We watch from the bedroom and bathroom windows for minutes at a time laughing at their games. We haven’t officially met these guys, so I call them Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cotton Tail. Here’s Flopsy.
And here’s Mopsy.
We’ll get to Peter in a moment. Mopsy is the smallest and a little too trusting…for a young bunny anyway. I got right up on him before he noticed me and froze.
And then he sat there for a long time, never moving a muscle or blinking an eye. We stared each other down for probably thirty or forty seconds before I twitched and he ran. Darn skeeter. Mopsy’s mama probably would have picked him up by the scruff of the neck, toted him home and put him to bed without any chamomile tea had she known how close he let me get to him.

Now, Mr. McGregor didn’t like rabbits in his garden, but the Hula-gen’s have never minded. Each year we get a litter of bunnies that sets down roots in our yard and sticks around long enough to raise its babies. They eventually move on, but for a while we get to enjoy their antics. They chase each other around the tomato, pepper and cucumber plants, roll in the dirt and jump over each other, making us laugh and giggle at their games. They are hilarious when they think they’re not being watched. They have never been a problem…until now….until Peter showed up. This little fellow has nerve because while I stood ten feet away from him he reached up and did this.
At the time I thought he was nibbling on a cherry tomato so I didn’t get too bent out of shape. I have gads of those. I can share a few. But Monday when Hubby went to pick the first big ripe tomato of the season…the one we’ve anxiously watched turn from green to pink to red over the last few weeks…the one we planned to slice and share and celebrate over…the one that marks the beginning of tomato season…glorious ruby red juice down the chin tomato season…HE FOUND THE WHOLE SIDE EATEN OUT OF I!. Hrump! Now, it could have been the birds, but I suspect it was Peter. I hope for his furry sake it wasn’t, because I really don’t want to have to choose between my bunnies and my tomatoes. Cute vs. homegrown delicious. What’s a girl to do? For the love of Pete Peter, don’t make me get the rake. Not that I’d do anything but shake it at him…maybe....I mean after all, it was just one tomato. But did it have to be the first? All I can say is it’s a good thing he’s cute.

Pimp My Ride Results

Remember a few weeks ago when I told you how we were gettin' all redneck and pimping out Papa T.'s old golfcart? Well, Hubby and Teen Angel have finished their little project, and I must say the old cart is pretty snazzy. I don't even want to know how much of their mad money they spent on that thing, but I know it wasn't cheap. And never mind that we don't play golf. We just use the cart to shuffle up and down the street, usually to travel back and forth between Sissy's house and ours. We're like the Kennedy's you know, without the money..or the prestige...or the political clout. But we all live within two blocks of each other. The best part of this project has been the time Hubby and Teen Angel have spent together picking out paint colors, upholstery, wheels and various other items. It's been a great bonding experience for them....and we have the sharpest ride in the neighborhood. Now, for the results. If you remember, this is what it looked like the day we took it to the body shop for a new coat of paint.

And these were the wheels.
Well, take a look at it now. As my daddy says, how da ya' like them apples?
I love the red paint job.
And look at these mack daddy wheels. Is that pimpin' or what?My favorite part though, is the upholstery. Teen Angel picked out the colors and the style. I think she did a great job. It kind of reminds of of an old '57 Chevy. Besides a new motor, new battery, wheels, seat, mirrors, horn and paint, it also got a snazzy new steering wheel and dash.
It is cute, cute, cute and somebody in the family should take up golf so we can cruise around the course in it. And I do mean cruise, because now it will go 22 miles an hour. We should probably add seatbelts so we don't dump Mama J. or Papa T. into the street when turning corners. It won't be me taking up golf though. I have enough frustration in my life.

Shut Up And Sit Down, Hula

I’ve been somewhat frustrated with my running lately. I did a four mile race recently and was lousy. I wanted to improve over last year’s time for that race, and I did not. In fact, I was a minute slower. I have been winded and out of steam for about three weeks. I have blamed it on exhaustion, the heat and asthma, everything but me. I have whined and moaned and griped and have been all blah, blah, blah and waaa, waaa, waaa about it. In fact, I whined more than I ran last week. I was so busy belly aching about it that I couldn’t see the root of the problem….until I opened up my email this morning.

Like you, I get a lot of stuff in my email-box, everything from goofy jokes and funny commercials to mandates directing me to drop everything this second and pray a special prayer to keep from going to Hell. Amidst all of the junk emails that had collected over the weekend was a little nugget that I have nicknamed Why Hula Pulled Her Head out of Her Butt and Got a Better Attitude. This came just when I needed it, (Is that God winking at me?) and I’m going to share it with you. Promise me that you’ll watch it. I think it’s worth four minutes and 36 seconds of your time. You may have even seen it before because the father and son in this video have been quietly winning hearts in the running world for several years. In all of the reading I’ve done on running since I started this hobby last year, I had not stumbled across them…until now…..and I’m kind of glad it happened now and not earlier.

Their story is one of a young man who asked his father to run a marathon with him, even though neither one of them was a runner. He did. They tried another and then another. They kept going, eventually tackling the Iron Man Triathlon. As you watch this, keep in mind that the Iron Man consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run (full marathon). Now, you’ll have to go watch the video before you’ll understand the rest of this post. If you’re a softy like me (this means you janjanmom and mia) you might want to grab a tissue. And because I’m a blogging idiot and haven’t taken the time to figure out the whole how to post a video thing you’ll just have to use this link. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I mean it, don’t cheat. I’m waiting.

Team Hoyt video

Done yet? Okay. How moving was THAT?! Since 1979 they have competed in 958 events, including 224 triathlons and 65 marathons (25 at Boston). They have won numerous awards, and their paces are fast. They are not in the back of the pack.

Well, I had to watch this video twice and when I quit I told myself to just SHUT up and sit down. “That’s right, Hula. Quit your itchen’ and shut up. You’re mouthin’ about being slow while some folks are climbing over mountains much bigger. The good Lord gave you two good legs when others have none. You’ve got two good lungs while others can’t breathe, and two good eyes and ears when some folks can’t see or hear (including your father in law.) If that man can run, swim and bike a triathlon while carrying, dragging and pushing his son, you can haul your happy butt down the highway for a few miles and be happy that God gave you the tools to do it and another day to try. So just shut up.” And I did. And you know what? I ran at lunch today and had the best run I’ve had in a month. If you need me, I’ll be right over here in the corner thanking the good Lord for all of my blessings and keeping my mouth shut. And if you’d like to read more about Team Hoyt and their trials and successes, you can check out their website. I highly recommend it.

Fun Monday-Our Quirks

The lovely lisa marie is our hostess today. Here are her instructions.

A quirk is defined as a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism. We are all unique individuals, having quirks that help make us who we are. I would like to know what your quirks are. Confess to one, confess to ten, you decide.

Oh my. Where to begin? My friends tell me I’m a little quirky in general. And I can understand why. Just being a Parrot Head is qualification alone. Really, how many people wear shoes like this?

I was probably born in the wrong generation. I really was meant to be a hippie or so those same friends tell me. I’m all about peace, love, civil rights and 60’s rock ‘n roll. If I had been born fourteen years earlier I definitely would have been at Woodstock or Height in the summer of ’68. Living outside my own generation makes me somewhat quirky, but lisa marie is looking for specifics today, so here we go:

1. In general, I don’t like the foods on my plate to touch, but I love mixing mashed potatoes and corn into a big glob with salt, pepper and butter. I could eat a whole bowl of just potatoes and corn…mixed up…in fact, I’d like to have some right now.
2. My favorite breakfast drink is club soda doctored with those fruit flavored packets you add to bottled water. It has the taste of fruit juice and the fizz of soda. I love something really fizzy in the morning.
3. I’m one of the fourteen people in the United States who doesn’t own a coffee pot because I’d rather have something fizzy in the morning.
4. Sometimes I open a can of corn or green beans and eat them out of the can, unheated. Mushrooms, too.
5. While I’m not a picky eater, I’m always putting stipulations on the food I eat in restaurants. For example: I order unsweetened tea at McDonalds but I ask for it in the Styrofoam cup instead of the plastic cup. The plastic cup gets too sweaty. I often order sandwiches plain and dressings that aren’t meant for a particular salad. At Cracker Barrel I want the biscuit after the meal (as dessert) and always with strawberry jelly. If I go through a drive-thru and order a Coke but all they have is Pepsi products, I politely say “no thank you” and do without a beverage because there IS a difference.
6. I like to eat raw potatoes sprinkled with salt. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know why.
7. I’ve just realized that all of these bullet points are about food. What the heck?
8. I have one hip bone higher than the other.
9. For years my eyes were brown, then naturally they became somewhat green.
10. I can’t stand to smell raw chicken.
11. I can’t stand to touch the skin on raw chicken.
12. I can’t stand to put my hands in cold dishwater or dishwater that has floaties in it. Yak! I’m gagging right now just thinking about it.
13. My elbows are double jointed, allowing me to do gross tricks with my arms. It’s handy for freaking out drunken people at parties.
14. The lines in my left hand form a perfect star of David in the middle of my hand.
15. And the granddaddy of them all..(Insert eerie music here) sometimes I have premonitions, usually about something bad that’s going to happen. I hate it, and people look at me like I’m a freak when I admit this.

Wow. That list was a little longer than I expected, and I could have kept going. Hmm. Maybe my friends are right.