Cottage butts and a talk with a rodent.

Hello.  I'm caffeinated.  Do the best you can to keep up. 

When I went grocery shopping about a week and a half ago, I was walking through the meat department, saw these cute little hams and thought that it would be perfect for ham and bean soup.  I flipped it over to see how much.  $3.65.  A bargain!  My love is to go to the Honeybaked Ham to get their bean soup mix and a lovely ham bone.  Considering that is an investment of about $20.00 and that particular store is 25 minutes away, I'll take the tiny supermarket ham and the lovely dried bean mix that I bought in Amish Country.  I had to laugh when I read further on the label.  "Cottage butt."  Really?  Why would anyone ever think that would be an appetizing name? 

I'm happy to say that my Cottage Butt Soup turned out just fine.  I called my sister, the meat guru, to see if I should lob it in whole or cut it up into large hunks.  I told her that I had a cottage butt.  Then I cut into it and saw a wide swath of fat hunked in the middle.  Cottage butts are not the best cut of ham, says my sister who basically managed a supermarket meat department for years.  "Well, it was a little ham and I figured that it would do the trick."  "It's a soup ham, only good for what you are using it for, so leave the fat because your soup needs it anyhow."

I'll admit now that I cut about 1/2 the fat off that was exposed and that I could just easily chop off.  Squishy butt fat just didn't seem appetizing. 

As I said, the baby ham rocked it just fine.  When I got home, I pulled out the hunks and shredded them into bits, removing the squishy fat, then dumped it all back in.  I flipped in a few spices, some potato flakes to thicken it up and it was delicious! 

This morning as I was learning how to work with my cottage butt, I checked to see if we "had company" as K- would like to say.  Why yes, we had 6 squirrels at the feeding area.  Too bad that they were being pigs and not allowing the birds to enjoy.  They've decided to climb the pole now, so Hubs instructed me to open the door and clap my hands at them.  I did that and 5 of the 6 scurried off and away.  There was the 6th who hung out on top of the pole, in total defiance.  I started speaking to him, asking him if he really wanted me to come over there.  He just stood there on the top of the pole, chuckling to himself on the inside.  "She'll never come over here.  She's in her slippers and there is snow everywhere."  I surprised him and walked in the snow in my slippers to the pole.  You know what?  He didn't flinch.  Not a tiny bit!  So there I was, eye to eye with a rodent on top of the feeding pole figuring that now I was within about a foot and a half of him.  Certainly, he would be scared and run off. 

Uh, no.

"Why is it that I have to come here to speak with you?  Do you know that you aren't supposed to be on the pole?  Do you know that this is not your seed?" 

He stood there.  Then thoughts started coming through my mind.  Maybe this isn't a squirrel just used to humans.  Maybe the squirrel is going to jump off the pole and onto my face and begin gnawing my face off.  No doubt that one of my nosy interested neighbors would come to my rescue.  Certainly they would see all that was going on since they were watching every single move that we make enjoying our bird feeding area and all of the wildlife it attracts. 

After a minute or two of stern discussion, the squirrel slowly, and I mean slowly, made its way down the pole and stood on the ground eating the seed that had just been tossed out there for him 15 minutes prior. 

"I'll eat from the ground because you are standing right there, but seriously, would you want to eat from the ground when you have a perfectly good opportunity to eat from a dispenser and all of the seed is dry?  I'll be here right now, but as soon as you pull out of the driveway, I'll be back.  And no, I won't even wait for you to exit the street.  Thanks again for all the seed.  Keep it coming and don't buy any of that cheap millet stuff.  Keep up the good work and buy the stuff chocked full of sunflower seeds.  That's my favorite."

Smiles in my day:
-  I have two W-2's now!  I printed the mortgage interest statement online, but now I'm waiting for the bank interest statements.  Granted, it is probably under $50.00, but I claim all income and I'll hold on.  I did as much on Turbo Tax as I could do, so now I wait.
-  Homemade soup for dinner.  Yum.

Have a great day!