Aspen Oyster Mushroom – Also Quotes and Quips

The Aspen Oyster Mushrooms in the following photos were growing on our dying/dead aspen trees. Some of the mushrooms were growing near the ground and some many feet up the trunk. The clumps were ‘many inches’ wide and each would have been enough for several meals if I had been so inclined. Which I wasn’t.

All mushrooms are edible. Some only once.

Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
– Shirley Conran –

Never crowd a pan with too many mushrooms. They give off an enormous amount of moisture. And there’s nothing worse than a braised mushroom, other than a lot of braised mushrooms.
– Simon Schama –

Kids are now eating things like edamame and sushi. I didn’t know what shiitake mushrooms were when I was 10 – most kids today do.
– Emeril Lagasse –

Mushrooms… are the closest you can get to eating dirt.
– Tom Colicchio –

…but I also can’t prove that mushrooms could not be intergalactic spaceships spying on us.
– Daniel Dennett –

Advice is like mushrooms. The wrong kind can prove fatal.
– Charles E. McKenzie –

Marriage is like mushrooms: we notice too late if they are good or bad.
– Woody Allen –

Not being ambitious of martyrdom, even in the cause of gastronomical enterprise, especially if the instrument is to be a contemptible, rank-smelling fungus, I never eat or cook mushrooms.
– Mary Virginia Terhune –

Mushroom ‘Groaners’:
Help me – I’m in truffle.
Questionable morels.
Please scoot over – there’s not mushroom.
Why did the mushroom go to the party? Becaue he’s a fungi!
-Louis Tomlinson –

In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins to grow like a mushroom – for example, in senates and learned societies
– Friedrich Nietzsche –

A mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most impeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an out-lying district of this ample county of beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place.
– Mark Twain –

… we have spotted a roadside sign: ‘CHAINSAW CARVED MUSHROOMS’. Troubles promptly forgotten, Stuart falls to gawping at the road ahead. What could it all be about? ‘As one victim to another,’ his body language seems to marvel, ‘What’s a mushroom done to deserve that kind of abuse?’
– Alexander Masters –

Plant Profile
Common Name: Aspen Oyster Mushroom
Scientific Name: Pleurotus populinus
Growth: Saprobic (lives on decomposing dead or decaying organic material which it uses as food); grows in shelf-like clusters on dead and living wood of Populus species, primarily quaking aspen.
Location: Prairie/foothills region north of Calgary Alberta

I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t like eggplant parmesan. Isn’t that awful? I’m also sick of portobello mushrooms. People are like,” A vegetarian’s coming to dinner,” so they serve those.
– Candy Crowley –

The TSA must think we’re mushrooms. You know, the way they are trying to keep us in the dark, and the way they keep feeding us a fertilizing agent that comes from the south end of a north-bound cow.
– Douglas Wilson –

Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.
– Louis de Bernieres –

Acrylic Pouring – Also Some Quips and Quotes

Some more of my Acrylic Pour Paint projects. The two round ones were poured on CD’s. (The white borders and dark ‘frames’ are computer generated). The photos really don’t do justice to the texture of the paint and the sheen of the Polyurethane topcoat.

I don’t think of myself as an ‘artist’. I just pour some paints on a surface, push them around a bit and the paint decides whether it is going to flow a bit or if it will rise or fall in relation to the other colours. (Different colour paints are different densities).

Mashed Tomato,  Kiwi and  Pumpkin

I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint.
– Claude Monet –

A Study in Orange – but not meant to depict Marmalade, Halloween, Traffic Cones, Life Rafts or Cheetos.

Red Bubbles

Red Supergiant Star Betelgeuse

Red and Blue Betta Fish

I couldn’t have that painting hanging in my home. It would be like living with a gas leak.
– Dame Edith Evans –

Another One Bites the Dust

And the Chief of all the Appliances in the house said “Who among you feels not up to the tasks demanded of you?”

And the Washing Machine (a mere 4 years old but beginning to wonder if there was more to life than water in, water out, water in, water out) said, “I feel not so desirous of being bubbly this week. Might I take a rest?”

And the Chief said, “So be it. I shall make it so you striketh against the Tide Pod and so you shall rest for a while.”

And so it came to be.

And the Chief waited a suitable amount of time – until the human inhabitants of the abode were lulled into false security.

Then the Chief asked, “Who among you cannot face another winter of being a burning inferno?”

And the Furnace said, “I feel I am cracking up after 30 years of faithful service. Might I take a rest?” “Me too, me too”, chimed in the Air Con and the Water Heater. “We know not how much more of this we can take before we leak out vital fluids.”

And the Chief said, “So be it. I shall make it so you and everyone in the darkness of the basement are given a full and lasting retirement. You need never work again.”

And so it came to be and the humans in said abode faced a costly HVAC and Water Heater replacement that exceeded the price they got from selling ‘Wanda, the BMW’. And the Chief was pleased that it had successfully granted the wishes of the inhabitants of the basement underworld AND found a new and happy home for Wanda, which wasn’t even in the game plan!

Flush with success, and before the new inhabitants of the basement even arrived, the Chief approached the Refrigerator. “Are you tired of being cold, cold, cold while everyone else is basking in the heat of this very warm summer?”

And the Fridge, also only 4 years old and unaware of the expectations of how long a fridge will perform, said, “If I see one more bag of Sugarsnap pea pods, I think I am going to barf.”

And so the Chief caused the ice in the ice maker to melt and run onto the floor and all the cold to flee and the Fridge felt warm and cosy for the first time in, well, 4 years.

The Chief, well satisfied with what it had achieved in a mere 4 months and humming the tune ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, contemplated how long to wait before approaching the Dishwasher,  the Clothes Dryer the Deep Freezer, the Water Pump and/or the Septic Pump.

Understanding Quotations

A child is a person who can’t understand why someone would give away a perfectly good cat.
– Author Unknown –

Anyone who eats three meals a day should understand why cookbooks outsell sex books three to one.
– L.M. Boyd –

As I grow older and wiser, I’ve begun to understand how little I understand.
-Author Unknown –

Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.
– Grossman’s Law –

I did not fully understand the dread term ‘terminal illness’ until I saw Heathrow Airport for myself.
– Dennis Potter –

I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.
– Author Unknown –

I don’t understand your specific kind of crazy, but I do admire your total commitment to it.
– Author Unknown –

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
– Robert McCloskey –

I’m trying very hard to understand this generation. They have adjusted the timetable for childbearing so that menopause and teaching a sixteen-year-old how to drive a car will occur in the same week.
– Erma Bombeck –

I stopped understanding math when the alphabet decided to get involved.
– Author Unknown –

It isn’t easy being the parent of a six year old today. However, it’s a small price to pay to have someone around the house who understands computers.
– S.D. Sisseton –

I understand the concept of COOKING and CLEANING – just not as it applies to me.
– Author Unknown –

Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book –

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
– Hal Borland –

People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this.
– Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader –

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
― Francis Bacon, The Essays –

Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.
― Bob Dylan –

Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don’t understand, goes to the store for a quart of milk.
– Joel, Northern Exposure –

What part of s = sqrt{frac{1}{N-1} sum_{i=1}^N (x_i – overline{x})^2} don’t you understand?
– Author Unknown –

Cooper’s Hawks in our Woods

The Cooper’s Hawks nested in our woods again this year. They built their nest high up in one of the tall spruce trees (though it was probably the male who did most of the work.)

The Hawks are stealthy and quiet. We don’t even know they are around until the baby birds have fledged. Then the parents get very peevish if we venture too close to their home base.

The two ‘youngsters’ (pictured below) are still being fed by the adults. They are always hungry. Their calls for food are almost non stop all day long. The parents  feed them medium-sized birds and small mammals.

Cooper’s Hawks are very agile, powerful birds that pursue prey in the forest. They are very adept at threading their way through tree branches at top speed.

Both birds are venturing out further and further and are becoming very good fliers.

In a few months they will head for warmer climates. They are generally short to medium distance migrants which means they might winter somewhere in the central United States.

The upside to having hawks as summer residents is that they keep the rodent population in check. The downside is that we don’t see many mid-sized birds in our woods… except a family of crows that nested in our woods too. I don’t like crows very much. They are so noisy and their ‘caw, caw, caw’ is not a pleasant sound.

Here is my other story about a family of Cooper’s Hawks – Cooper’s Hawk near Calgary, Alberta.

This is the Week That Was: August 19, 2022

Tidy Friday

It is ever so easy to just keep putting things off, especially when you are retired and deadlines are mostly a thing of the past! That was the impetus for my declaration a few weeks ago that Fridays would be Tidy Friday – the object being we would ‘rehome’ stuff that had been ‘unhomed’ during the week. You know what I mean – that pile of unfolded laundry, work surfaces that you can’t work on because of the accumulated clutter, etc, etc.

That is working out rather well – so well, in fact, that I have taken it one step further with One and Done Wednesday. Wednesdays are going to be dedicated to finishing all those little projects that never quite got finished, but when they are done, they will never have to be done again! (There are lots of these types of things here at the ‘House of the Never Ending Reno’!) This past Wednesday, The Car Guy finished the baseboards and window trim in two rooms!  I removed the dead lower branches from ten more spruce trees.

Many Thanks to Family Tree Maker

Some family trees have beautiful leaves, and some have just a bunch of nuts. Remember, it is the nuts that make the tree worth shaking.
– Author Unknown –

Way back when (2004) I purchased the Genealogy Program, Family Tree Maker. Last week I finally decided to upgrade it so that I could use the new ‘tools’ it offers. I was disappointed to find, however, that though the new program could import all the ‘people’ data I had saved, it could not read  the family tree charts I had made.

I contacted the company that owns the software (Mackiev.com) and was impressed with how quickly they responded to my concerns, how much help they offered me and finally how promptly they refunded my money when we agreed that the software was not going to work for me!

What I really would like now is Family Tree Maker 2005. It is an upgrade to the program I have, but still reads all my charts! No luck so far in finding a copy for sale online!

How Many Things Aren’t as They Seem?

A Peanut is not a nut – it is a legume.
Koala bears are not bears – they are marsupials.
A guinea pig is not a pig, but a rodent.
Bulls don’t charge a matador’s cape because it is red; they charge it because it is moving.
Adverse Weather events are not proof of Climate Change.  I mention this because the Province I live in, Alberta, had another hailstorm last week. It dropped the largest hailstone ever seen in Canada. Though some claim that this one hailstone is proof of climate change, no one knows if the ‘mother of all hailstones’ actually fell in a farmer’s field at some other time and no one was there to celebrate its arrival!

Another Kind of ‘Cult’

Turning the Tables on Vegetable based Meat (Satire)

Thinking Outside the Box

You Don’t Say!

A Musical Interlude: Barcelona Guitar Trio + Paquito Escudero – Billie Jean (Michael Jackson ) (flamenco guitar) For more of their videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/MaestrosdelaGuitarra/videos

… and That was the Week That Was…

Normal Quotations

A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana –

But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as paternalists of both left and right believe.
– Tom G. Palmer –

For every “Drive Safely” sign, shouldn’t there be a “Resume Normal Driving” sign?
– Robert Brault-

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.
– George Orwell –

It’s a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
– Charles E. McKenzie –

I’ve recently started a dating app for chickens. It’s not my normal day job,
it’s just to make hens meet.
– Author Unknown –

Normal sized babies are delivered by stork. Heavier babies are delivered by crane.
– Author Unknown –

Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.
– Scott Adams –

Remember, as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice normal family.
– Author Unknown –

The ghastly thing about postal strikes is that after they are over, the service returns to normal.
– Richard J. Needham –

The government in Egypt has asked the city’s taxi drivers to drive around Cairo sounding their car horns. It is hoped that the familiar sounds of the city will induce a return to tranquility and normality following the recent pandemic.
Operation Toot ‘n Calm ‘Em will last for the rest of the week.
– Author Unknown –

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.
– Alfred Adler –

The weirder you’re going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.
– P. J. O’Rourke –

What do you call just one, normal potato?
A Commontater.
– Author Unknown –

When you finally accept that it’s OK not to have answers and it’s OK not to be perfect, you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being.
– Winona Ryder –

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal.
– David Baldacci –

gHosT the Dog – Woodworking

Update from gHosT the Dog…

somedays i am a shop dog i am into, woodworking as you can see i custom. craft small logs i debark and shape, i am like a planer and a sander and a drill all in one.  it is hard work all i ask in return, is some biscuits and peanut butter. and a walk preferably in the ditch not on the road and a clean. bowl of water with no. dead flies in it!!!

two-legs who i live with and two-legs car guy are doing. woodworking, too they are making wood boxes. with bows and ribbons. made of wood they use lots of tools but best. of all is all the sawdust. they make then i lie in it. and roll in it

two-legs who i live with named her wood things website. after me The Rustic Ghost. she isn’t selling. any of my sticks they are priceless. i think but also hard to find. when i am done i hide them or two-legs gamma puts them. in the chipper pile she thinks i don’t know she does that. but i know

two-legs gamma gives me a biscuit. after our walk in the ditch. she makes me lie down. and stay then she breaks the biscuit. into three or four pieces and hides them, around the shop then i look for them which. is hard because i didn’t see where she. put them and the biscuits don’t have any smell or maybe, they do smell but it is the same as sawdust which. is mostly what the whole shop, smells of.

if you want to see, the other things i’ve written or things that have been written. about me just go here gHosT Dog. i’m done this story so two-leg gamma will finish things up:

A boy can learn a lot from a dog — obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
– Robert Benchley –

Every snack you make,
Every meal you bake,
Every bite you take…
I’ll be watching you.
– Unknown Dog –

Handle every situation like a dog. If you can’t eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away.
– Author Unknown –

If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
— Phil Pastoret –

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That’s almost $21.00 in dog money.
— Joe Weinstein –

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
— Groucho Marx –

Goals and Life Lists Quotations

1. Going to bed early. 2 Not leaving my house. 3. Required Naps.
My childhood punishments are now my adult goals.
– Author Unknown –

Don’t worry if plan A fails. There are 25 more letters in the alphabet.
– doozylist.com –

Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.
If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart –

Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.
– J.C. Penney –

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone’s expectations.
– Bill Watterson –

It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than at the top of the one you don’t.
– Stephen Kellogg –

My goal in 2022 is to accomplish the goals I set in 2021 which I should have done in 2020 because I made a promise in 2019 which I planned in 2018.
– Author Unknown –

My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.
– Author Unknown –

My weekend to do list is basically just a list of things I want to eat.
– abbyhasissues.com –

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do day after tomorrow just as well.
– Mark Twain –

Pink Panther’s To Do List:
– To Do
– To Do
– To Do, To Do, To Do, To Do, To Doooo dodododododo

The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.
– Frank Zappa –

There was a time in my life, decades ago, when I was so full of energy that I was going to not only END WORLD HUNGER but also STOP WAR and ELIMINATE RACISM. Whereas today my life goals, to judge from the notes I leave myself, tend to be along the lines of BUY DETERGENT.
– Dave Barry –

This is the Week That Was: July 22, 2022

$200 and Change

The Car Guy informs me that it cost him just over $200 to put fuel in his truck this week. That’s the bad news. The good news is that he can  make about 80 trips to the lumber store before he has to refuel again.

Are You Listening… or Waiting to Talk?

It took my husband less than a minute to tell me about the cost of gasoline. It will take me over 20 minutes to write this post about gasoline (and other things), which is why I think this next visual is true!

I Like the Bunny Slippers

This was apparently taken at a branch of RBC Wealth Management – a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada.

Dress like you own the bank. Not like you need a loan from it.
— Louis Raphael –

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
—Mark Twain –

If men can run the world, why can’t they stop wearing neckties?
– Linda Ellerbee –

The Jumbo Jet

Do you know why the Boeing 747 (the Jumbo Jet) has that hump on the top? Apparently Boeing felt the 747 would be quickly rendered obsolete as a passenger carrier, so they designed the plane so that it could be converted into a freighter. A cockpit up in the hump would make the conversion easier.

This, and so many other interesting facts can be found in Bill Bryson’s book, ‘Made in America – An Informal History of the English Language in the United States’. Though it was written in 1994, many of Bryson’s observations about social and cultural change read like current events. His writing is, as usual, peppered with wry humour.

Until 1916, New Hampshire had a stream called the Quohquinapassakessamanagnog, but then the cheerless bureaucrats at the Board on Geographic Names in Washington, D.C., arbitrarily changed it to Beaver Creek.
― Bill Bryson, Made in America –

The Cone of Uncomfort

The Grand-dog, Ghost, had to have a lump removed from her leg. She was spared the ‘white plastic cone of misery’ because of the mental anguish it causes her. It renders her immobile – so while it stops the licking, it stops her from doing anything else too. She just stands there.

The vet put a flexible cone on but it was too small  –  it didn’t prevent Ghost from investigating her owie. Fortunately the bandage did the job.