Horse Sense

People still ride horses here in rural America. One doesn't see them on the highway very often because some Wisconsin drivers are on the low end of the intelligence spectrum.  Yesterday's freak snow storm which closed the schools at 1:30 pm caused numerous accidents.  Dawn says a co-worker returned from a trip to Milwaukee via Interstate 90/94. Normally that's a 3 hour trip.  It took this person 5 hours.  She was stunned to drive by the scene of an accident and find the wheels of the overturned  RV still turning.

Jorge and I travel to Cashton via two main highways.  It's snowing. In front of us is a Neanderthal driving as if there were a foot of snow.  There wasn't.  The road was slushy, but clear.  Road crews were working on clear cutting the shoulder of highway 14 for the new four lane highway.

"Run for your lives, there's a storm coming."

Since the snow storm came in the middle of April. there is cause for concern.  If it were December, it would be just another squall.  We leave 15 minutes early not because of the weather, but because we want to get to the food bank before the crowds form. Insert comment about food bank.

[There are no qualifications for eligibility for the food program, save for one. You must be human.  Donald Trump could park around the corner from the Tip Top Tap, get a number from Spunky, banter with her about going home with her if the snow continues and sit on the balcony watching the parade of humanity. This is a partial view of things I pick up at the food bank for my Amish friends.]  

Bottom right, extra large peanut butter chips. Cookies made with these chips have mandatory labeling:

One moment on the lips-30 years on the hips.  

Danish butter cookies in a tin, same moniker. Two plastic bags of salami strips: sodium alert.  Six cans of chili and beans 990 mgs of sodium per 8 oz. serving.  That's 1980 mg per can.  Lethal for one with elevated blood pressure. Two cans fruit cocktail-I intensely despise fruit cocktail. Today, I'll bring them the rest of the load when I go for fresh milk. 

My Amish friends love the stuff.  You must remember that once while helping them butcher a hog, we talk to man with a beaver carcass hanging from his arm as he walks in the butcher shop. "You want it?" he asks. The Amish Patriarch states he's never tasted beaver, but that they'll give it a try. Later I ask, "How was the beaver?"  His reply, "Probably wouldn't eat it again."

Lunch after I return from the trip are two food pantry temptations-(I rationalize it as an experiment. The same is true for planting onions, spinach and peas in April just south of the arctic circle) corned beef hash and this bag. I  never buy junk food,  The six bags of onion rings, bags of barbecue chips and a 32 oz. bags of pretzel sticks would last us a few years before they get stale.  Most of the items I get from the food bank go to others.  I save the Greek yogurt, sour cream and a stick of pepperoni for homemade pizza. A loaf of bread goes in the freezer for hot summer days when I don't feel like baking. Every Friday the Amish bake sale features  fresh baked pie, bread and cinnamon buns from a state inspected kitchen.  My dog won't touch the leftover corned beef hash. It was an experiment on my part. I saved back one can before I donated the rest to the Amish.  I wash it down with a 16 ounce bottle of diet Mountain Dew.  So much for a healthy diet of organic food.

I go head to head with my doctor about alternate medicine.  His solution to any medical problem is to throw a prescription at you. If you ask about side effects, the standard reply is, "Even water has side effects." another favorite is, "You have to take the good with the bad."   It took me 11 days to get in to see him. He's 35 minutes late for the appointment.  He's running late because he tries to squeeze in too many patients in the three day week he's at the clinic. In twenty minutes not all my questions are answered and the few he answers before his nurse interrupts the appointment to tell him on the phone ,"You're running late."  are standard replies.  I can see him flipping the medical reference textbook from his intern days in his mind.