These next photos were at the Pima Air Museum
The photos were taken the day after Thanksgiving playing paintball. 
We really had a good time and no one got an eye put out. The closest was Sarah, who got shot on the top of her head with a yellow paintball. She did not want to leave that in her hair for the drive to back to Utah.
The 22 hour drive back to Missouri was pleasantly uneventful.
This was a hotel a long time ago. 
Angouleme is more than 800 years old, so many of the old streets were built long before there were cars and are quite narrow. Even though this street was very narrow, it still had parallel parking with enough space for cars to barely get by.
My last night in France was in Paris. I ate dinner in the hotel by the airport. I ordered “apple pie” for desert. But the apple pie was not what traditional American apple pie. This is what it looked like. It tasted pretty good.
The next day my flight back to the states did not leave until noon, so I decided to get up early and take the train into the city and see the Eiffel Tower. This was taken shortly after it got light in the morning, as seen from the east of the tower looking west (sun to my back).
While at the Eiffel Tower, I found a geocache in a small hole in the wall on the far side of the Seine River just west of the tower. Close by was a old barge like boat that had house plants on the boat suggesting that someone lived on the boat. This is a photo of the boat with the Seine River and the Eiffel Tower in the background looking east into the sunrise through the clouds.
I made it back to the airport in time to catch my plane and fly to Salt Lake and see my family. 
Mom looked for him in the National Audubon Society Field Guide. It is a “wheel bug” or Arilus cristatus. I copied the following from the Field Guide:
Description: 1 1/8 – 1 3/8" Gray-brown to black. Prothorax raised into a curved series of coglike teeth along midline, inspiring the common name. Nymph is blood-red with black markings.
Habitat: Meadows and crop fields.
Range: East of the Rocky Mountains, from southern Canada south to the Gulf states.
Food: Caterpillars, even large ones including hornworms, Japanese Beetle larvae, and other insects.
Life Cycle: Eggs are laid in clusters on foliage. One generation a year.
This handsome predator can give a painful stab when it defends itself from a carless handler.”
I did not read the part about the painful stab until after I had captured and brought him in for Mom to see. Fortunately, I used a paper towel to handle him and did not get stabbed. When I saw the part about eating caterpillars and other insects, I wished we had lots more of these guys in the garden.
I have made “Dilly Beans before much like dill pickles but made with green beans. I wondered if it would work to treat small skinny squash like green beans and make “Dilly Squash”. I decided to try it. I chose the skinniest squash I had until there was enough to fill a pint jar and then followed the dilly bean recipe for one pint. The recipe includes water, vinegar, salt, garlic, dried red pepper flakes and dill. The largest squash was about 5/8 of and inch in diameter. This is what the jar looks like. 
I’ll load it in the car to try out at Thanksgiving. It might be good and then again it might be horrible. We can all find out together.
Even closer yet, I could see they were not morels. 
I looked in our Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. The closest I could find was “Shaggy Mane” which was listed as “choice”. There were enough differences (like the cap on top) that I was not going to try them out. There were also some similarities to “Scaly Inky Cap” which was listed as edible with caution. Regardless of what kind of mushroom these actually were, I decided to go with the caution philosophy and only take photos.
While in the yard with the camera, I thought I should check out the growing sink hole. A couple of years ago, a new large hole opened up in the front sink hole. It had steep sides and was pretty deep with lots of mud in the bottom. We recently had lots of rain. We had about 5 inches in one day, so I was wondering how the muddy sink hole was, because the scouts are coming to our house to play capture the flag in the woods at night on Wednesday evening, and I did not want it to eat any scouts. This is what it looks like now. 
The diameter has increased from erosion and filled in the bottom so it is not as deep as it was a few months ago. Rocky used to go nuts when Joseph would go down in the hole, which made it more fun.
I think I need to mark it off with some caution tape and glow sticks for Wednesday night so we don’t lose any scouts in the dark.
The peppers are roasted to get the skins off. We used the oven method by putting them in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes. When the skins puff up, they are done. The peppers are then pulled out and wrapped in a wet towel. When they have cooled down enough to handle, the skins are removed and the top of the pepper is opened and seeds removed without completely opening the pepper. Strips of Monterrey Jack Cheese are then placed inside the peppers as shown in the following photo.
The peppers are then rolled in flower.
Once coated, the peppers are dipped in an egg mixture described at the end. 
They are then fried in hot oil until golden brown.
Mom made 6 of them.
This is what it looked like on the plate with rice.
They were really really good. We each had two for dinner. Mom had one the next day for lunch and I froze my leftover one and took in my lunch to see how good they were after freezing and then re-heating in the microwave. It was still really good.
The next photo is a completed eagle.
I think I’ll just stick to cutting up logs for firewood. That is more my skill level.
Before anyone thinks I need to bring one of these to Tucson in November, I’m pretty sure Mom will not want turkey droppings on the back seat, and besides, the turkey would go after the bags of rice I was going to bring. I think we ought to stick to a store bought turkey.
As you may be able to read on the bag, Haiga rice has the bran milled away, but the rice germ is still intact making it healthier than white rice. Since I have not been able to find Haiga rice lately, I thought I should get some brown rice. I discovered that there is yet another category of brown rice that is somewhere between true brown rice and Haiga rice. This particular brand has called it Gen-Ji-Mai rice, where the outer bran is partially polished away just enough to allow the rice to cook more like white rice and have a texture that is more like white rice than brown rice while still retaining most if the vitamins and minerals that are usually lost in the milling process to get white rice.
And a photo of the Gen-Ji-Mai partially polished brown rice.
This is what it looks like on the plate after it has been cooked.
It still has healthy brownish looking stuff in it, but it tastes really good. We were impressed. You can tell that it has more healthy fiber than white rice, but it is still pleasant to eat. We had some Nishiki true brown rice before, and while it very good for you; this new rice that we found is much more enjoyable to eat. I don’t think we will completely give up the yummy premium white rice as there are times when it is what our taste buds want. But there will be quite a few meals that will have this slightly polished brown rice instead of the traditional white rice.
After washing, they looked pretty good sitting in the bowl. 
At first, it seemed that for a small batch of pancake batter that used 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of buttermilk, an entire pint of blueberries was a lot. I decided to go for it anyway. As you can see, there were a lot of blueberries in each pancake.
After turning, you can see that they cooked up perfectly.
We had blueberry syrup to put on them, but Mom wanted to really splurge and got out the whipped cream too.
It was amazingly tasty.
I ate quite a bit and needed to relax a little before I could even think about desert. This is me relaxing on the couch with some presents just before I opened them. Thank you.
For desert, we had peach pie made with Eckerts peaches and served with home made vanilla ice cream. 
It was all incredibly tasty. 
By Sunday, I had so much extra that I took most of it to church to give to others. I filled the bottom half of this cooler with green beans. I then stacked about 30 squash on one side of the cooler and then filled in the rest of the space with green beans to fill the cooler.
Lots of people were happy to have squash and green beans and I gave away all that I had and could have given away even more if I had it.
I have been picking more since then but the production rate is starting to drop off a bit, but Joseph and I eat squash or green beans every day for dinner. I may still need to give some more away, but Mom is going to want to eat a lot of squash and green beans when she gets home in two days. We’ll be prepared.
I have been picking some tomatoes, but it is a war against the squirrels. I have to pick them while they are still mostly green but showing red. They complete the ripening process on the counter in the kitchen. If I don't, the squirrels eat part of the tomato and leave the rest for Rocky. I think I am winning, but not by much. It is a good thing I planted more than I need.
