Let’s talk simple pleasures — hot coffee, wheat toast with real butter and, thanks to generous friends, huckleberry jam.
That’s how I began my Sunday. Not fancy, just good.
What the National Weather Service’s Little Rock office called “unsettled,” I call stormy. Yesterday was everything it was supposed to be, and more — the rain was heavier than Saturday’s and it stuck around longer. The cold and damp made my bones ache.
As the sun (such as it was) came up, The Mountain was in dry air, though, and I took advantage of the break to rummage in the shed for supplies from the RVing days. I came out with a bunch of microfiber cloths (handy to have) and an unopened box of kitchen trash bags (I won’t have to buy those again for a while), among other things.
I also brought back the Lodge Cast Iron “Double Play” reversible grill/griddle, bought four years ago in Tennessee as a companion to my old Coleman camp stove. It was last used during the summer of 2023, and it bore evidence that I hadn’t put it away properly.
The grill side was covered in surface rust. The channels were choked with baked-on burger remnants. It needed not so much restoration as reclamation.
I settled in with it at the cabin and attacked it with a wire brush, then scraped the channels clear with a butter knife, before oiling it and setting it on the range burners to begin re-seasoning.
It’s better. It’s usable now. It has a long way to go still, but I pulled it back from the brink.
One of the reasons I devoted time to this bit of cookware yesterday is that I want it to be available as an option in the cabin kitchen. Yes, the range has that nifty integrated griddle over its oblong center burner, but not a grill.
Now GE does sell a reversible grill/griddle designed for that center burner, and it’s cast iron (as opposed to the Teflon-coated cast-aluminum griddle that’s there now). The Lodge, however, has four distinct advantages.
- It’s 23% larger;
- It sits flat and can be used on camp stoves like my Coleman:
- It retails for $42.95, compared to $109 for the GE; and
- I already own it (and I paid $17).
With the Lodge bridging the right-hand burners, I can grill and griddle at the same time (or have more than double the griddle space). It’s a no-brainer, and I’m glad I was able to resurrect yet another useful kitchen tool.
Maybe a little stir-crazy yesterday afternoon, I took a quick drive. I told myself that I wanted to see how the area was faring after two days of persistent rain.
Crooked Creek was high and muddy south of Flippin, though I’ve seen it much worse.
I slowed for whitetail deer four times and once for wild turkeys.
Driving west on the county road, I was treated to a memorable view of The Mountain, shrouded in clouds and rain.
The trip was worth my time.
I came home and decided to rinse out one of my vintage Revere Ware saucepans in preparation for dinner later. Expecting the reliable click-click-click of the on-demand water heater but not hearing it, I looked up at the display — it was dark.
Fortunately, by that time it had stopped raining for the day. I walked around back to where the unit is plugged into an outdoor outlet and lifted the cover. Sure enough, the GFCI had tripped.
I reset it, but it popped again. I unplugged the water heater, to determine if it might be the load, and the outlet still tripped.
It had to be the outlet, then. Or I hoped it was, anyway.
I came back inside, shut off the breaker at the panel, and dug into a tote of leftover electrical supplies. Returning to the box outside, I swapped the troublesome outlet for a new one, then applied power — it worked.
I plugged in the water heater, and that worked, too. Fixed.
Before buttoning up the box, I made sure that it was bone-dry inside. Rain and pervasive dampness likely caused the problem, and I didn’t want a repeat.
Dinner was red beans and rice, by the way, from a box. I had a hankerin’, and I picked up the mix last grocery run.
It was made in a pan bought at an antiques shop, stirred with a wooden spoon and served in a bowl from a thrift store.
Simple. Pleasure.
I haven’t done much YouTubing recently, but i did watch a couple of videos Saturday night (on the bedroom TV) and Sunday morning (in the living room).
On Simple Living Alaska, Eric and Arielle built a cold smoker. Dave Whipple, aka Bushradical, put some finishing touches on the remote Michigan cabin he’s been working on for over two years.
Whipple spent two weeks living on the property while he checked items off his list. Toward the end of the video, he confessed,
“I thought I’d be farther along, to be honest. I get up here and spend a lot of time sitting on the porch, staring into the woods. And I also spend a lot of time reading.
“And, you know, you think you can get ten things done in a day, and you find you get two done.
“But that’s okay. We’re not too far off from the day when I can come up here and not touch anything but my boat and my fishing rod.”
That hit home with me. That’s my life.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable