The gooseberry pie lesson

This is a picture of the gooseberry pie I enjoyed this week at my mom's house. Here is the recipe:

• Locate thick woods with wild gooseberry bushes.
• Spend at least an entire hour picking each pea-sized gooseberry individually from the thorny bushes - one pint quart* is required per pie. Humidity and voracious mosquitos are a given.
• Spend at least another hour stemming each gooseberry.
• Prepare the filling, make the crust, and bake.
• Watch the whole pie being eaten in less than 10 minutes.

I had always taken the these pies my mom made for granted until I went gooseberry picking myself once. Unlike the hybrid gooseberries that are the size of a shooter marble, the wild ones are very, very small and it takes a lot of them to make a single pie.

I guess the lesson here is to never underestimate the effort others may go through on your behalf - or a mother's love for her family!

* Common knowledge according to my brother... Sorry.

Vanity plates

I laughed when I saw this, but I am not quite sure why anyone would have this as a vanity plate...

(Some readers are telling me they cannot view this image. I have a support ticket into my bloghost. Sorry. For those who can't stand the suspense, the license plate reads "TEECHUR.")

Being grandpa

For the next few days I'm being a grandpa, not a blogger. Have a happy 4th!

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