A photo is worth 1,000 words, but you can have it for much less.

Your Gluten-Free Twinkie Dreams Are Answered

453 words

 

So with the recent closure of Hostess (which is really quite sad for most of us, but my wife and I actually had a hostess platter of cakey goodness at our wedding, so a bit more sad for us really) we decided to keep the Twinkie alive through the power of Gluten-Free Prairie bakeryness!

 

So using the power of our recipe for Gluten-Free vanilla cupcakes, our Gluten-Free Prairie toasted oat flour, a novelty Twinkie kit, and a meringue filling recipe of your choice we will keep the Twinkie alive and well!

 

Make sure your dog supervises the greasing of the Twinkie pan. This step is crucial for success.

 

Use an ice cream scooper to fill the Twinkie pans just under half way, these babies will rise like things that rise!

 

While your cupcakes... er... Twinkies, yeah... while your Twinkies bake in the oven (more like 12 minutes as opposed to the 15 the cupcake recipe calls for) make your filling. We made a really easy meringue from an old school cook book I had laying around.

 

Like I said, these babies rise like things that rise, so cut off the "dome" to give them a really authentic Twinkie flat bottom.

 

Since you bought that novelty Twinkie Set you'll get one of these "Twinkie The Kid" filling filler thingys. My mom said "here you go Twinkie guy". Don't worry, I corrected her for all of us.

 

Insert "Twinkie The Kid" filling filler thing and fill until it just starts to come back out at ya. That way you know it's filled as much as it can be filled. And really, this what we all love, other wise it's just a delicious vanilla cupcake shaped like a torpedo and wanting for some creamy thing to with it. Am I right?

 

Repeat two more times until you get three, yes three little filling holes filled with delicious filling goodness!

 

Eat one or four to make sure they aren't poisoned or whatever excuse you need to eat one immediately. That's your treat!

 

Be amazed at the Twinkie-esqueness going on there. It's truly amazing! BE AMAZED!

 

Cut. Fill. Repeat. Testing for poison whenever you feel it is needed.

 

Not wanting to have the "domes" just go to no use at all, you should probably apply some filling to the top of these little guys and enjoy the heck out of them. Save the Twinkies for your friends or your lunchbox or your pocket or whatever.

 

So there you go. Even if you're gluten-free, you too can enjoy Twinkies for years to come whenever you damn well feel like it. The whole process took my me and my parents a whopping 40 minutes from the word "I really want a Twinkie".

The birds, the bees, and Gluten Free makes 3!

Wow, it's been a while since we last spoke old friend. Let's get right into it.

 

Today was a big day around the Wheaton circle of interest, or at least what I paid attention to.

 

The Bees

Let's start with the bees since they started off our day. We already have chickens, so I thought it was high time we got some bees too. Let's hope it was a good thought. I've got my suit and smoker can at the ready just in case of an unruly rise up (2012 is supposed to be the end of the world, maybe I'm part of the real cause?)

 

Don't Drink And Fly

My wife and I are taking great steps towards raising a successful colony, so the first thing we did was wash out our backyard pond which Roscoe tends to frequent. Nonetheless, it's clean and ready for the girls to use now. And use it they did. After about ZERO seconds the first 10 or 12 bees were waiting for us to fill the pond back up. I happen to have my camera with me since I was taking photos of other things, keep reading, it will become apparent. I'm telling the story from the end, like a Quentin Tarantino flick, so stay with me.

 

CPR For Bees

Being a newbee myself and this being one of my new bees I didn't want to see her drown in the clean pond so I thought I'd give her a hand (or a large stick as it were). I gently pushed her toward the edge. Out she came, shook off her wings and off she went back to the hive. It's so awesome to be writing that!

 

The Birds

We have these adorable little Cassin's Finches everywhere out here. It's our doing though, we provide roughly 1 gallon of black oil sunflower seeds to them every week or so. These two were happily building a nest on top of one of our outdoor speakers. We called her Dumb-Dumb since it's right next to a major thoroughfare on our patio. But oh well, you can't help stupid. Just make fun of it I guess. Right Colbert?

That pic above is actually the parents of this little baby finch. Which is funny, because today is my sister's birthday too and she's pregnant. Man, big ol' circle of life there. So anyway. This little one hatched TODAY! So Happy Birthday to my sister Amy and happy birthday to this little Cassin's Finch too! Ah hell, if its your birthday today too, then happy birthday dear reader.

 

And Gluten Free Makes Three!

My mom, dad and I launched our new family owned business; Gluten Free Prairie!!! My mom and my sister both have been diagnosed with celiac disease (her blog post about it goes into greater detail). I had quit an IT job I had for over 11 years because it was no longer what I wanted to do with my life. My parents were thinking about retiring. We decided to work together and see if we can't have some fun with a family business and make delicious gluten free oat based products at the same time!

 

Our First Product

In recognition of May being Celiac Disease Awareness Month we are taking 25% off your order if you use the promo code "aware". We hope you'll join us on this journey!

Thank you!

Enough said. That's my mom and dad at our oat harvest last year!

 

Our Oat Harvest!

 

Now I've done it or WOTD:omnibus

328 words

omnibus

\OM-nuh-buhs\ , noun;

1.A volume of reprinted works of a single author or of works related in interest or theme.

2.A bus.

adjective:

1.Pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once.

Who knows, maybe one day you'll be buying my omnibus.

So I'm sitting here staring at my lightroom catalog the other day thinking to myself... "Self, you need to justify this camera gear you went and bought." I've tried several different ways to sell my photos, mugs, calendars, notecards, big ass prints, etc.

 

Now I going to try a freakin' book. My brother has been wildly successful writing books. If the 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon game holds any truth at all then I should do pretty well. Not only am I only 1 degree from Kevin Bacon (my brother was one of those celebrity cameos in "She's Having A Baby") and I like the song Footloose, but I'm 1 degree from book writing success. Those two things are totally the same. Totally.

 

I've got 25 pages of macro photos. Most of them have never been shared outside of my office until now. Consider this a little behind the scenes of the soon to be wildly successful "little big world" photo book by Jeremy Wheaton if you will. The above photo was taken in Oregon in a little park with my wife, my sister, and her husband. See that, totally revealing information that's not even in the book! Just wait for the director's cut when it comes out on Bluray.

 

This is a little mushroom town that just so happened to be in that very same park I was at with my wife, sister, and her husband. What can I say, Oregon makes some darn pretty macros! So, let's see how this book thing goes. Because if it goes at all, I've got several other photo books that I can toss out there. I've even set a 5% discount just so you'll buy the thing! Merry Christmas!

WOTD: fascicle

285 words

 

fascicle

\FAS-i-kuhl\ , noun;

1.A section of a book or set of books published in installments as separate pamphlets or volumes.

2.A small bundle, tight cluster, or the like.

3.Botany. A close cluster, as of flowers or leaves.

4.Anatomy. A small bundle of nerve or muscle fibers.

Me: Whoah, check out the fascicle on that thing! I haven't seen a fascicle with a star behind it before, have you?

Made Up Person: What in the hell is a fascicle dude?

Me: Read my blog made up person, it will explain everything.

Ok, so I don't really have a good way to use fascicle in a sentence, or at least not currently. So, I'll just put up a couple more macro shots that really show of some serious fascicle goodness.

I'm not sure what kind of plant this is, but I really liked its tight formation going on here. If I had read my blog back then I probably would have busted out facsicle, or maybe not. I gotta keep ya guessing.

I really love shooting macro photos. I always see something in the photo that I didn't see with my eyeballs. For instance, I didn't notice the extremely tiny insect on the outside of the fascicle on the upper right until I saw the photo.

Fascicles come in all different shapes and sizes, or at least I think they do. Why not, right? Anyway, enjoy the seriously pretty fascicle on this dandy lion. You know, I love to see them lit up by the sun in the summertime when they aren't in my yard. These little buggers are quite a pain in the butt when it comes to keeping a yard weed free. Pretty though.

Have a nice day :)

WOTD: nyctophobia

38 words

 

nyctophobia 

\nik-tuh-FOH-bee-uh\ , noun;

1.An abnormal fear of night or darkness.

Young zombies are definitely cause for nyctophobia. Happy Halloween!

This was the first year we had a pumpkin carving party.

Pumpkin pi!

Serious pumpkin patch is serious.

WOTD: berserk

617 words

 

berserk

\ber-SURK\ , adjective;

1. Violently or destructively frenzied; wild; crazed; deranged.

Even though the strong young rider had confidence a vest and a helmet, he was still no match for the berserk bull.

I've done a rodeo post before, but I didn't show the entire sequence of the rides. They have a story, or at least I like to think they have a story, albeit short. Here are some shot of this same ride. This guy had no chance from the get go.

They call the guys in the purple shirts the "bull fighters". They are the guys you don't want to piss off if you are in this rider's situation. My friend is a bull fighter. He's no joke.

I think when you're on the ground with a 2,000 pound berserk animal drooling all over you, you wish it was just 8 seconds long.

And.... scene. The fighters did their job and distracted that big hunk of beef so the downed rider could stagger away to safety.

In order to further enrage the frenzied bronc, they made comments of dog food and glue factories. This only made him berserk even harder.

Right out of the gates this riders face said it all. "Oh my god, what was I thinking?" Now, I'm not a horse person, therefore, I don't have many horse related stories or experiences, and that's by choice. This guy chose to get on this 1,200 pound beast. He's a horse person.

The only thing that comes to mind when I see this photo is the sound of a bad Daffy Duck impression. He's still on though, and I think he's counting the seconds on his free hand. Looks like he's down to 4.

Oops, the horse zigged and the rider zagged. He's still got a hold of that saddle horn. I'll give this guy the same advice my dad gave me when I jiggled the handle of our white Volkswagon Vanagon while driving through an intersection and the door flew open. "JUST HOLD ON!" Thanks dad.

Ah, my favorite rodeo photo. Check out the riders face and the horses face, they are pretty much the same. Both are thinking "when will this end?"

And the final shot of this guys ride. He made it! But he still has those four fingers up. Maybe it's how many jager bombs he's going to need in order to forget about that ride. But he did stay on for all 8 seconds. Way to go buddy.

Ok, a new rider with a new style. Looking pretty good man. Nice form, you still got your hat on too.

He looks like he's riding down a giant slide, just enjoying the ride back down. That horse is having a different experience.

Oops, lost the hat on that last bounce. It's ok, you still got your glasses on though. By the way, why in the world would a bronc rider want to see what's going on anyway? Just seems like it would all be blurry and bouncy anyway.

He's still hanging in there. Looks like he got a hold of some bad thai food though, that's why have a pile of magazines in the bathroom ladies. Sometimes you just gotta berserk in the bathroom.

Look at that, he's smiling at us. What a courteous rider. "HI MOM!"

Hmmm, could be a problem here with the whole andgry horse heading towards the steel rails while trying to throw you off. Like a cage match with Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Superfly Snooka! Who's who though brother?

Ok, made the turn, it's all good, just hang on and you're done. He made the entire 8 seconds as well. Congrats Smiley, now don't get all berserk at the post rodeo festivities.

WOTD: mesmerize

384 words

mesmerize

\MEZ-muh-rahyz\ , verb;

1. To spellbind; fascinate.

2. To hypnotize.

3. To compel by fascination.

The first time I stepped foot on a glacier I was truly mesmerized. The idea that I was standing on something that was actively melting, albeit quite slowly, was still a thing of fascination.

My wife, my parents, my sister and soon to be sister's fiance (he proposed on this trip) took a vacation to Alaska. We decided that we should take advantage of the opportunity and the weather to fly in a helicopter up to a glacier. I have 3 words to describe it: MES MER IZING. The blueness of the puddles up there are super intense, it must be similar to what it's like to give a smurf a prostate exam, wait, that came out wrong. Sorry, I meant to say to give a Na'vi a prostate exam.

Another time I was mesmerized in Alaska was when we first heard and saw the glaciers calving. These massive chunks of ice just fall off and splash down. Some of the chunks are easily the size of a couple of school buses duct taped together. The waves rocked our enormous cruise ship like a cork in a bathtub. Nuts, just nuts.

Yet another time on this vacation we were all at once mesmerized and awestruck was in Denali National Park on the Polychrome Pass. This place looks like another world. You can see as far as the mountains will allow. The colors are all in HDR all the time. The only way in is on a bus, which kinda sucks, but it's totally worth the bumpy 7 hour ride.

There is a joke in Alaska that says their state bird should be the mosquito. Having been there in the summertime, and experiencing these birds of prey first hand I don't think they are joking at all. We went on this awesome nature hike to see some awesome nature. It's hard to experience the nature while looking through a green screen door, but it's even harder to see through mosquito bitten and therefore swollen eyes. Did you know that caribou (or reindeer if you ever visited Santa's Village) have to take turns being on the outside of the herd because they can actually be sucked dry by those bastard skeeters. Isn't that a  mesmerizing fact?

WOTD: anoesis

474 words

 

And now for something completely different...

I don't find it difficult to come up with things to write about, but more like... how you say... putting it all together in a fun story that's not just like a home movie snore fest. I have some really awesome photos that I'm proud of and want to share, but there might not have been an interesting story associated with it. For example, the photo above doesn't have a great story associated with it, I took this during a Pheasant's Forever Young Hunter's Program field day. Mostly I was photographing dogs retrieving pheasants and the kids learning about that sort of stuff. Then I saw this gorgeous little gold finch sitting on top of this purple thistle picking at the seeds. The contrast of the colors was quite lovely and snap, I got this photo that nobody has ever seen until now. You're welcome, leave a tip in that jar by the register, but I've to see it for it to count Mr. Kramer.

So, in an attempt to change things up a bit, I'm going to rely on Dictionary.com's WORD OF THE DAY to help me come up with posts. I will try to use it in a sentence too. Oh, Mr. Leek would be so proud. No, he's not a fictitious plumber, he was my high school english teacher. I probably won't get every single word of the day or "WOTD" for short, but at least if I'm inputting code at the computron there's a much higher chance I'll put something out there. If it's not out there, then it's just here, and you're not going to see it otherwise. And it might give me an upper hand while playing Words With Friends (let me know if you want to spark up a game) Ok, here we go...

 

===begin new thingy===

anoesis

\an-oh-EE-sis\ , noun;

1. A state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content.

When I am surrounded by the fall colors a great sense of anoesis settles in which allows me to take it all in.

Ok, that wasn't too bad. I'm not sure if I used it right, but who the hell cares, except for maybe Mr. Leek.

Here are a few more fall color photos that might invoke a little anoesis  of your own. BAM! Two times, oh yeah, I'm on a roll now!

Oxbow bend in southern Yellowstone. I've got this one printed up huge, it's probably my favorite print. If you want one, let me know, we'll work something out.

The entire fall color spectrum as seen from a path in Wyoming looking up through the aspens. The anoesis is quite powerful with the leaves fluttering in the cool autumn breeze. Ok, now I'm just being a dork.

Oxbow bend from an entirely different angle. ANOESIS BABY!

Vacatiomo 2000

1,373 words

 

Me:        "Hey Niff, you ready for Rushmore tomorrow? Mom and dad will be ready to leave in the morning. We can drop the dogs off at doggie daycare at 9. We'll take turns driving so dad's ass doesn't fall off."

Jenn:    "Hells yeah, I can't wait to go on a road trip! How long is it going to take to get there again?"

Me:        "The Googles tell my smart phone it's about 8 and half hours, but we won't have any weather to deal with so that's a bonus."

Jenn:     "Dude, seriously? 8 and half hours? Um... You're going to hate me."

Me:        "..."

Jenn:    "I don't think I can do a drive that long, we just drove for like 7 hours this last weekend for the pheasant hunt, I don't got it in me babe."

Me:        "Ok... well, we're all booked for the hotel in South Dakota. We can cancel that but might have to pay a loser fee. What do you want to do instead? Mom and dad are really looking forward to this with us."

Jenn:    "I'll find some options that aren't that far. Let's talk about it tonight."

 

Then I had to tell my parents. But, as you can see, they are pretty easy going and had no problems at all, but I couldn't let Jenn know her abrupt vacation e-brake hadn't caused any issues. So I let her stew until we figured out the new plan later that night.

 

You see, we had planned a road trip with my parents since last year to go to Mount Rushmore and it's surrounding glory while they were out here this summer. We didn't want to go when it was so hot so we just slid it back until the last week they were here. I think it's actually a good thing though, since my dad had fallen of his horse (literally) only a week earlier and had bruises covering about 50% of his low back and butt region. Sitting for 8 and half hours in a car probably wouldn't have been the best prescription for his banged up back side. Jenn came through with a very reasonable second option that only had us driving about 2 and half hours to our first destination. Mucho bueno my love, mucho bueno indeed (we had mexican for dinner the first night).

 

We drove through Anaconda, MT which has these awesome old smelting pots filled with flowers all over town. It used to be a really big mining town, like most of the southwest Montana towns, but this one managed to thrive and not turn into a ghost town like so many others did.

 

 
It being an old mining town, they had allot of bars. They still have these old painted ads all over the place, this is one the better ones we saw. "You work better Refreshed!" Which translates to "Get drunk here before you stagger back to work in the most dangerous conditions imaginable."

 

Which brings us to our next stop. The cemetery in Anaconda is massive, as you might imagine, and sits atop a hill overlooking the entire town. It's quite a fitting place to rest in peace because it was quite peaceful up there.

 

We had packed lunches so we could stop where ever the urge hit us. It just happened to hit us when we were in the cemetery. Totally normal. As my dad and Jenn were making sandwiches he said "These sandwiches are to die for". I swear, if they could bottle the corny essence that spews from my family we'd solve the worlds fuel problems. Come on science, stop worrying about growing ears on a mouses back and get on this would ya?

 

We drove along the historic and scenic Pintler Loop, which was awesome in and of itself. Lots of old barns, pastures, rivers, streams, and almost no people to speak of. Paradise really.

 

The next stop on the scenic Pintler Loop  was the historic town of Phillipsburg, MT or "PBurg" as we are led to believe the locals call it. I kinda doubt that though. We never heard or saw one reference to that ridiculous name anywhere.

 

PBurg (see how lame that sounds?) was awarded the best painted town in America or Montana or something. I can totally see that too. The entire town helps to keep the place looking old-ish, but clean too. Everyone was really nice and happy to share info about their town, which they referred to as Phillipsburg. Imagine that.

 

They have the oldest operating jail in America, complete with a hangman's noose on the upper floor.

 

There is also a massive candy store there. I felt like a dog who's owners had left an entire bag of food out when they left and it was all mine! (Sorry, that's what happened yesterday with Roscoe P Coltrane, so it's fresh in my mind) Or, I also felt like a kid in a candy store... either way, it was awesome!

 

They're opening up a brewery in the town too, which will mean that have everything a town could possibly need.

 

This is Elwood the donkey. That's all I got, we stopped. He was there. Then we left. So long Elwood.

 

There is no question what's on the menu here. We went in for a much needed bathroom break, but not wanting to pee and run, I ordered up a huckleberry shake. It was easily the best tasting shake I've ever had. Maybe it was the bison skull it was served in, but man, it was super tasty! Skullerific!

 

Next stop, history! We had heard about this place, but never made a point to travel there. This was one of Jenn's options for the trip and we all agreed it would be fun to see. They have a great visitor center with more info on the American Bison than you can shake a stick at. Go ahead, shake your stick and we'll see what's what.

 

There is an annual event that occurs at the bison range where cowboys round up the entire herd on horseback just like they did back in 1908. We were lucky enough to see this in person. They were pretty far away, but it was awesome to hear the cowboys whooping and the thunder from the hundreds of bison as they ran together. They can only keep a certain number of bison on the range so this roundup serves several purposes. They can check the herd for illness, tag any new members, and then they sell the ones they just can't keep. Sounds like grade school all over again.

 

They could also call this place the National Antelope Range because damn! They have allot of antelope there. The rut was just starting, which is nature speak for "its horny time, let's make more of us". We watched this antelope buck chase this doe around at about 30 MPH. It must be the equivalent of putting gum in the hair of the girl you like in school. You know, we're just showing you we care girls.

 

After the National Bison and Antelope Range we drove to the small town of Thompson Falls. We were really excited to see some nice falls. Who isn't? Am I right? My folks went into a convenient store and asked where we could find the falls. They were told that they had been dammed up years ago. Damn. My mom's response when they got back to the car was "We've been Klamathed". Which is funny because they had the same thing happen to them in Klamath Falls.

 

Oh well, at least we got to see this puppy chase a couple young white tail deer along side the river where these geese were in full goose games.

 

I love my wife. Even though she bogarted our Rushmore trip plans less than 24 hours before we were going to leave we ended up having an awesome time. We had a great vacation with my parents and got to see new places in the state we proudly call home. Thanks Niff. We wouldn't have seen that stuff unless you were such a wuus. Kisses. (By the way, she's not double fisting beers, at least not here, she always picks up garbage when we find it, she's the best.)

flower power

145 words

 

This will be a very short post. I'm almost done writing about it  right now and I haven't even started, that's how short it's going to be.

In my last adventure as a part time blogger type person I wrote about my garden and the GIANT PUMPKINS I'm growing and there a was a bee in a flower and what not. Read about here.

Well, I decided to find out what happens to the flower throughout the day. Instead of sitting there all day staring at a flower again I let my camera do it for me. Then I compiled my 14,378 photos into a 2 minute time lapse. It was awesome to see the flower in all it's morning glory and then it just sort of wilts away leaving my baby GIANT PUMPKIN filled with pollinated goodness. There, all done writing. Post done. Now watch.