Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Donkeys, Food, etc…

Not too much to report this week… At the moment, things are a bit slow and peaceful in our household.  Luckily for us, we live about 70 miles away from those terrible fires in East Tennessee that were centered in and around Gatlinburg.  Gatlinburg will be open for business by this coming weekend and we’re planning to go over there to do some shopping, visit the aquarium and have a big lunch or early dinner.  To keep folks employed during the expected long term recovery they need customers…

Visit and Shop in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville Tennessee!

In the meantime, here are a few photos that we’ve taken in the last month or so that really didn’t fit into any single blogging category.


Howdy!  This is one curious donkey… We ran across a group of donkeys in a field not too far from our home.  We both love donkeys.  They’re especially smart and curious, plus they all seem to have lots of personality!


She seems to be getting a little excited!  What has stirred her up?

Donkey Factoids:

·       Donkeys have been used as a working animal for at least 5000 years.

·       There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world.

·       A male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny or jennet and a young donkey is a foal.

·       Jack donkeys are often used to mate with female horses to produce mules.
·       The biological "reciprocal" of a mule, from a stallion and jenny as its parents instead, is called a hinny.


Doesn’t this donkey have the sweetest face?  Despite the calm, something has drawn her over to the fence by the road…

Factoid:

·       In some areas of the world, including parts of the western USA, populations of donkeys have reverted to their wild form.  Australia alone may have a population of 5,000,000 wild donkeys!


Ahhh!  There’s the reason all of those donkeys are so interesting in us.  Laurie discovered that she had a bag of peppermints in the car and donkeys, like horses, love peppermints!  She only gave them a couple each before we escaped from the growing crowd…


Change of topics… We love a good chicken pot pie, especially if someone else makes it!  Good commercially made chicken pot pies are hard to find.  This one from Fresh Market was actually pretty darn good.  I should have taken a photo of a serving of pot pie on a plate.  We did cheat in the sense that we heated up a jar of chicken gravy and Laurie spiced it up as an accompaniment to our pot pie.


Remember this beautiful standing beef rib roast that we had for our Thanksgiving dinner?  I’d posted this photo along with the rest of the meal.  I had some serious leftovers to consume…a ‘tough’ assignment to be sure.  I had a roast beef sandwich, I gnawed on a meaty rib bone, I ate a slice of beef cold with a little horseradish…but still we had leftovers!  What to do?  


How about finishing that rib roast off the old fashioned way…with hot open faced prime sandwiches on crusty bread with enhanced beef gravy?  Yum!
It’s going to be a rack of lamb for Christmas when Dawn Marie is here…followed by a giant beef pot roast with roasted potatoes and vegetables when our son and his family arrive after Christmas. Mac & cheese too for the grandsons!  Back to the gym in January…




I haven’t published any breakfast creations recently either… Just the other day I toasted an English muffin, slathered it with Amish butter, added 2 slices of sharp cheddar cheese and microwaved the combo for 20 seconds to melt the cheese.  Then I added 2 warmed up sections of a leftover split smoked sausage and topped each of the muffin halves with an over-easy fried egg.  Then of course, I had to splatter this very satisfying breakfast with a bit of Tabasco sauce!


To end this post with a note of change… This house is nearing completion just 2 lots up the street from us.  We’ve been told by the builder that starting in January he’s putting a house on the lot right next door to us!  Yikes!  So much for the woods that the local deer and turkey love to roam… Plus we’ll have noise for 3 or 4 months too!  The good news is that the woods across the street and on the master bedroom side of our house is still going to be intact…for now!

That’s about it.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 


2 comments:

  1. So now I know where the term "jack ass" came from - being called a male donkey is not nearly as derogatory as I always thought.

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  2. All of the food in your photos and text look and sound delicious, Dave...and a roast rack of lamb is something I truly love, as lamb is one of my favourite meats! And the donkeys are absolutely delightful. I love them! I find them intelligent, curious and sweet. I also appreciate all the information you are sharing about them, I didn't know this. Thank you so much for sharing!

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