Really?

I love Christmas and have about every decoration a person can get.  I have lots of Santa figurines, nativities, bells, ornaments, reindeer, etc. but as I was thumbing through the   paper this weekend, I found this ad from K-Mart.  What???  Really???

I can't in any way associate a pig in a Santa suit or a lighted hippo to Christmas. I have heard of Christmas geese.  I was in the play the "Christmas Goose" when I was little, and I have heard of Christmas mice and spiders coming out at night to see the Christ Child but please tell me what a pig and hippo have to do with Christmas ???  I won't be adding these to my decorations any time soon.

Maybe I am not enough of a redneck. I think I can see these sitting beside a Jeff Foxworthy mobile home.

Barnes & Noble.com - Image Viewer: There's No Place like -a Mobile- Home for t

Mmm Mmm Good

For some reason, the pictures of the food this month are turned sideways.  They are correct in my picture file, and when I upload them to the blog they are correct at first and then turn sideways.  I can't figure this out so they are going on as is.

Our dinner group in October was hosted by Jim and Jaymie Utley.  The theme was Mexican food, and who doesn't like Mexican food?  Jaymie outdid herself with the table decorations and food.  I would say Jim helped, but I am not sure of that.  I think he was just the host with the most.

Jim and Jaymie

The Children's  Smaller Table

  The flowers and runner were just the thing to introduce Autumn.

The colors, candles, beautiful glassware and place matts really dressed up the table.

The theme was carried through with leaf shaped dishes

                         

The best flan you have ever tasted made by Scott and Lori.  I forgot to take a picture of the caramel sauce that went over the top, but trust me, we all wanted to lick the bowl when it was empty.

Cream cheese 3 berry ( strawberry, raspberry and blackbeery) chipoltle dip with blue corn chips made by Wayne

Melt in your mouth Chili rellenos made by the Turner's

Mmmm tender, stuffed pork with mole sauce made by the Welton's

Fresh salsa made with corn, beans, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro etc.

Can't get enough of the good things right Doug and Julie?

Ostler duo - Joan and Wayne

Scott, the official flan tester and sous chef

Laura, Lori (the flan chef) and Rick

The Welton Pair - Susan and Paul

The Ahlstrom couple - Doug and Julie



Pumpkin Carving

My carved pumpkin from last year

One that I did not carve last year

I was watching a show on HGTV one day about people that have a real talent for carving pumpkins.  I mean "real" artists whose work will blow your mind with their imaginative creations.   I feel so inadequate. I may never carve again. There have to be some real hints out there in Google land that would show me how to make carving Jack-O-Lanterns easier, or maybe some fabulous tool that I'm not aware of that would make carving them as easy as buttering toast.  I will have to see what they are, but in the mean time check out these links.  You will be amazed too.  Click to enlarge to get the real detail of their work.



              Photos of Amazing, Unique Pumpkin Carving Designs


Horror Movies Pumpkin Carvings are Too Scary for the Weak Hearted | Walyou


                             Pumpkingutter Pumpkin Carvings

                   42 Carved Pumpkins that Will Blow Your Mind



Cannery Row

When I was a kid, my cousin Cindy and I would eat sardines right out of the can.  I liked them, believe it or not, until someone told me that they are so tiny that they don't bother  gutting them.  You get the whoooole fish when you eat them.  I didn't eat them for 50 years.  After this trip I found out they really did gut them. Well, did I waste 50 years of not having my sardines.  No, I had them by accident on a pizza in Idaho and thought they were TERRIBLE!

Remember the movie "Cannery Row" starring Nick Nolte and somebody else?  Me either, not really very much anyway.  I need to rent it to refresh my memory.  I do remember the frog scene and the Cannery Row feeling so that when we got here, I knew a little about what I was looking at. Cannery Row is the waterfront street in the New Monterey section of Monterey, California.   It is the site of a number of now-defunct sardine canning factories. The last cannery closed in 1973. The street name, formerly a nickname for Ocean View Avenue, became official in January 1958 to honor John Steinbeck and his famous novel "Cannery Row". I have to confess, I have never read the book.

According to Wikipedia, the canneries failed after the collapse of the fishing industry in Monterey Bay in the mid-1950s,  due to overfishing. Before the collapse, the fishery was one of the most productive in the world.  Today the area around Cannery Row is a marine sanctuary and is home to a large population of California sea lions, of which I never saw.  I only saw seals.

Cannery Row itself is now a tourist attraction with many restaurants and hotels, many of which are located in former cannery buildings, and a few historical attractions. A few privately owned and operated fishing companies still exist on Cannery Row, and it still smells fishy. 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium (opened 1984) is located at the north end of Cannery Row, at the former site of the major Hovden Cannery which closed its doors in 1973. It was the last sardine cannery on the row to close.

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." — John Steinbeck, opening sentence, Cannery Row (1945).

          This is a sign/walkway that crosses the road on cannery row

 This is a photo I took of a picture that shows what it looked like during it's heyday. 

                  One of the poster signs hanging in the museum

                                             Factory Workers

Can you imagine what you must have smelled like after your shift?  I have a hard time even washing the tuna or salmon smell off my hands after I fix it for lunch.

Several of the original boiler cookers still sit in the Monterey Aquarium. Wayne is standing in front of one of them.

I worked at a vegetable canning factory when I was in high school, but we only had to pick grasshopper heads or other debris off the conveyor belts and you could go home and wash your hands and go on a date.  If I had worked here, I would spend so much time in the shower, I would have never made it on a date.

Monterey Bay and Monterey Fisherman's Wharf

We toured Monterey's Fisherman's Wharf.  It was such a foreign place to a Wyoming girl that I could hardly take it all in.   I know I snapped photos of trawlers, whalers, fishing boats, sail boats, yachts, dinghy boats and even tugs but after I put them on my computer, I forgot which ones were which..  Here are a few.

                                             I think this is a fishing boat.

                                           A small whale watching boat

      I have seen pictures like this before but it is so cliche that I had to snap it.

                                                     Docked sail boats

Here are a whale watching boat and a sail boat but I took the photo because I loved the seals perching on all the buoys.

These big guys were sunning themselves on the deck of a restaurant next to the seal watching area.

                                                A pod of playing seals

                                         Taking a break from playing

You usually see  weather vanes atop cupolas that sport roosters, horses or eagles where I come from, but this one was so appropriate for the area. I love weather vanes and need one at my house.

                                      The Fisherman statue at the wharf

Fishing is a very dangerous profession and the fisherman have to be strong mentally and physically to survive.    Job Description for a Professional Fisherman | eHow.com

                         Standing in front of the kelp beds in Monterey Bay  

                                   A light house right off the golf course

Kelp Beds

The seals like to come here to eat the many species of fish that hide in the kelp

  

I took this in a pull off area by the bay.  It was the perfect time off evening to shoot, the waves were crashing and the sun was shining on the rocks.  It is a beautiful picture if I say so myself.