RED CHILI POWDER – DIY! + TRIVIA + FASCINATING FACTS + HORNET HUMOR
Hello friends!
Greetings this last Wednesday of June 2024.
* Gulp * can ya believe it?!
Presenting Wednesday Reader full of fun + inspiration + joy.
BEGINNING WITH:
SUN RAY ARTWORK!
LESLIE ELMAN
Trivia and Fascinating Stuff. Never disappoints!
QUICK QUESTION
If I could learn a skill in a snap and be good at it – I choose welding! So many beautiful huge art pieces can be made if ya know how to weld!
THE TOAD WHO TOOK A NAP
Story is soooooo cool. Unbelievable.
Almost makes me wanna take a road trip to Eastland and check out the “rest of the story” thing.
DIY RED CHILI PEPPER POWDER RECIPE
So good and so many uses in recipes to kick it up to stellar level!
TRACY BECKERMAN
Hornet’s nest. Been there. I can relate!
THANKS
For popping in today + time + engaging.
We feel the love and support and we are grateful.
HAVE A GREAT REST OF THE WEEK!
CATCH YA FRIDAY
SAME TIME
SAME PLACE
POP QUIZ
- DINOSAURS MIGHT HAVE GONE EXTINCT DUE TO A METEOR THAT IMPACTED EARTH AT CHICXULUB CRATER IN WHAT PRESENT COUNTRY?
a) Canada
b) Iran
c) Mexico
d) Russia - STUDENTS AT THE BEGINNER LEVEL IN KARATE AND TAEKWONDO WEAR BELTS OF WHAT COLOR?
a) Green
b) Red
c) White
d) Yellow - MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE’S PHOTO OF THE FORT PECK DAM IN MONTANA APPEARED ON THE COVER OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF WHAT MAGAZINE IN NOVEMBER 1936?
a) Life
b) Look
c) Saturday Evening Post
d) Time
QUICK QUESTION
IF YOU COULD LEARN ONE SKILL
INSTANTLY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
POP QUIZ ANSWERS
- The Chicxulub crater is in Mexico.
- Students at the beginner level in karate and taekwondo wear white belts
- Margaret Bourke-White’s photo of the Fort Peck Dam appeared on the first issue of Life magazine in November 1936.
COPYRIGHT 2024, LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
THE TOAD WHO TOOK A NAP
Eastland, TX, on U.S. Hwy 20 100 miles west of Fort Worth, is the hometown of the late “Old Rip,” the horned toad who in his day gained more publicity than many famous and accomplished people.
In the fall of 1897, the town of Eastland was celebrating the laying of the cornerstone for a new courthouse.
At the proper moment in the ceremony, county officials began placing inside the cornerstone the usual assortment of items that custom dictates must be deposited inside such a vault.
Present that day was young Will Woods, whose father was playing in the town band for the occasion. Will happened to have a horned toad in his pocket.
Watching the proceedings, he felt compelled to contribute to the collection of memorabilia. He did, by dropping in his pet.
The cornerstone was capped and tapped into place. It would be 31 years before anyone would see its contents again.
In 1928 Eastland was preparing to tear down he old courthouse and build a new one. On February 28, a crowd of some 2,000 onlookers was on hand to see the old cornerstone opened.
Historian Edwin T. Cox, who was present, gave this account of what happened that day:
One end of a chain was fastened to the cornerstone, the other end to a tractor.
Moments later the cornerstone was pulled free from the wall. County Judge S. Pritchard
reached into the small vault, removing a Bible and other items from their three-decade hiding place.
Again the hand was thrust into the opening.
This time the judge gingerly lifted out a flat, dust-covered toad, which he dangled aloft by a hind leg so all might see.
Suddenly the inert toad gave a convulsive shudder and began to swell up as it took a deep breath.
Without benefit of food, water, or fresh air, the spiny little fellow had endured for 31 years.
Now, through some strange circumstance it had come alive again!
The toad was immediately christened “Old Rip” in deference to the legend of Rip van Winkle, and as word spread, the publicity gate opened.
Once quiet Eastland became a seething mass of people wanting to see the frog. Reporters and photographers converged, and the wire services picked up every detail about the famous creature.
“Old Rip” had surpassed the achievement of the original Rip van Winkle who had slept a mere 20 years.
Will Woods, who had placed toad in the cornerstone, exhibited “Old Rip” on a tour of the United States.
In May of that year, “Old Rip” was invited to visit President Calvin Coolidge in the White House.
Legend has it that “Calvin broke several engagements in order to see the toad.”
Unfortunately, the little reptiles days were of short duration. Eleven months after his emancipation from the cornerstone, the January 20, 1929, issue of the local Daily Telegram carried the banner headline — DEATH ENDS RIPS CAREER. Official cause of death was listed as pneumonia.
Preparations were immediately made for the body of “Old Rip” to lie in state at the Barrow undertaking parlor for several days so that people might pay their respects.
People came from all parts of the country to walk past the bier for a glimpse of Eastland’s famous toad.
Town officials had the body embalmed.
Today, “Old Rip” and his legend remain very much a part of Eastland. He may still be seen in his plush-lined casket inside a glass and marble case in the lobby of Eastland’s courthouse.
~ Author unknown –
from my fabulous collection of emails
I NEVER LEAF THROUGH A COPY OF NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC WITHOUT REALIZING HOW LUCKY
WE ARE TO LIVE IN A SOCIETY WHERE IT IS
TRADITIONAL TO WEAR CLOTHES.
~ ERMA BOMBECK ~
INSTANT KARMA
LISTEN TO THAT HUNCH
RIDDLE ME THIS
WHAT KIND OF BAND
NEVER PLAYS MUSIC?
RED CHILI POWDER
Yields 1 cup
You won’t BELIEVE what a difference it makes to use your own fresh ground peppers as chili powder vs. commercial chili powder (soups, stews, brisket/steak/chicken rubs, enchiladas,, quesadillas, queso, salsa …)
HERE’S HOW WE MAKE IT
- 5 PACKAGED, WHOLE DRIED
PASSILLA CHILIS
OR
ANCHO CHILIS
OR
GUAGILLO CHILISavailable in the produce section of many supermarkets
- Prepare the chilIs by removing the stem and seeds
- Toast the peppers in a skillet over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes, turning them frequently until they are dry and crisp. But not burned.
- Let cool
- Puree the toasted peppers in a coffee grinder until they become a fine powder
(AND when finished grinding the chilis – clean out your coffee grinder. Better yet, get a separate coffee grinder for things like this other than grinding coffee beans. - Store in a glass mason jar or tightly lidded plastic container
- Use in recipes as you would use “store bought” chili powder
Hippie Cowboy recipe box
((Pro Tip : x 2 this recipe. Keeps for quite a long time in your pantry))
RIDDLE ANSWER
A RUBBER BAND
LOST IN SUBURBIA
INVASION OF THE HORNET SNATCHERS
BY TRACY BECKERMAN
I discovered the squatters when I was outside watering the flowers on our front porch. I heard a slight buzzing sound, and since I wasn’t asleep, I knew it wasn’t me snoring. Suddenly there was a fly-by buzz over my head, and when I followed the path of the buzzee, my eyes landed on a wasp nest, roughly the size of Rhode Island, under the portico above the front door.
I assessed the situation and then, like any rational city-turned-suburban-turned-rural woman, dropped my watering can and ran screaming into the house.
“I think I know why we haven’t received any of our packages recently,” I said to my husband over the phone.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“Because there is a wasp condominium over our front door.”
“If they’re not paying HOA fees, then they have to leave,” he said.
“How do we get them to do that?” I asked.
“Call the pest control people and get them to come over and get rid of it.”
To me, the nest looked pretty big, but you know you really have a substantially sized wasp nest when the pest control person takes one look at your nest, steps back and says, “Whoa!”
“Those are hornets,” he said, ducking down as one of said hornets emerged from a hole in the mothership.
“Is that different from a wasp?” I asked him.
“It’s a kind of wasp. Except they’re bigger and meaner. But don’t worry. I’m a hornet removal specialist.”
“That’s great,” I said wryly. “You know, I was thinking about getting a guard dog to protect the house while we’re gone, but a swarm of mean, angry insects with enormous painful stingers on their butts seems much more efficient.”
Wasp man went back to his truck and came back wearing a hazmat suit with a mesh helmet. I was standing there in a T-shirt and shorts and suspected, based on his wasp-fighting wear, that I was probably underdressed for what was about to happen next.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“We’re going to spray it, and then the wasps will die and fall out of the nest.”
“Fall like where? All over my front porch? I don’t think that’s going to be a real selling feature form my house either. Can’t you just take the whole nest away and relocate it someplace, like the neighbor around the block who reported us to the town because our fence was an inch too high?”
“Nope,” he said. “If I try to move it while they’re all in there, it will make them really mad.”
“You mean madder than they already are?” I asked, taking yet another couple of steps back.
“Right,” he said.
I looked back up at the alien hornet nest mothership and thought for a minute.
“Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen,” I finally said. “You’re going to do the thing you specialize in. You’ll spray and then clean up the hornets when they fall out and then take the nest away when it’s all done.”
“Got it,” he said. “And what about you?”
“I’m going to do the thing that I specialize in,” I replied. “I’m going to leave.”
~ Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love and Kibble.”
COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM
Fascinating Stuff
- There are more than 1,500 active volcanoes in the world. On average, 50 t0 60 of them erupt erupt in a given year. Of the 169 active volcanoes in the United States, 54 are located in populated areas. Geologists monitor movement and pressure changes in the magma beneath the Earth’s surface so they can anticipate eruptions and warn people to evacuate.
- William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, was a masterful writer of stories with twist, such as the “Ransom of Red Chief,” about kidnappers who abscond with a child so unruly they can’t keep him. While living in Austin, Texas, in 1895, Porter bought a failing magazine called The Iconoclast, revamped it and renamed it The Rolling Stone. As publisher, editor and chief contributor, he filled the magazine with satirical articles and cartoons, but no album reviews.
- On July 17, 1918, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, Alexandra, and heir five children were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries. A few years later, a woman came forward claiming to be be Anastasia, the czar’s daughter, who’d survived the shooting. When the family grave was discovered in the 1970s, minus the body of one princess, her story seemed plausible, but a DNA test in the 1990s proved the woman wasn’t a Russian royal. Remains found in 2007 confirmed that Grand Duchess Anastasia had died with her family in 1918.
- Athens was the most important city in ancient Greece, and it’s the capital of Greece today. But for a brief period of time in the 19th century, the capital of Greece was Nafplio, a coastal city on the Peloponnese peninsula. That decision was made after Greece won it’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1822. Athens was reinstated as the capital in 1834 by Otto, the first king of modern Greece.
- In the 1860s, the French wine industry nearly collapsed when an agricultural pest threatened to wipe out all of the wine grapes in France. Help arrived unexpectedly from Missouri entomologist Charles V. Riley, who recognized the problem as phylloxera, a pest he’d seen in U.S. grapes. Working with French scientists, Riley conceived a way to foil the bugs by grafting French vines onto pest-resistant American rootstocks. Crisis averted! And the chardonnay flowed freely once more.
COPYRIGHT 2024 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
As always Daymaker never disappoints . Of course, I go to my all time favorites which includes the Art designs, cartoons, and what’s cooking. Another enjoyment of mine is the QUESTION such as today’s “IF YOU COULD LEARN ONE SKILL INSTANTLY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?” Mine? Electricity! I know it sounds a little wacko but I know nothing about electricity except fear . Put me down for Electricity 101.
I’d never thought about making my own chili powder, but now that retirement is imminent I think I might try. Recipe looks super!!!
Definitely inspired by the sun ray artwork!
Love the Sun artwork! I can totally relate to the hornet story. We get wasp nests under our deck. It is hillarious to watch my 6’4 hubby spray them then run like scared little girl into the house while I stand ready to quickly close the door behind him. They hang around mad and aggressive for a few hours after the spray.