Ok so what is it?

The Footless Man has struck again.

The food bank had a lot of these. 

they were being loaded in the freezer section and he brought some home. 
There is no label.
there are no " Serving Suggestions" or cooking instructions, just this enigmatic bundle of square sheets, wheat in content, roof shingle in texture.
  I am a veteran of many food bank" what the hell is this?" sessions.  I have encountered many new and strange foodstuffs and discovered some that I will grab in a heartbeat if I see them, (clementines) and others that I will give a wide berth to (chayote).
So far these seem to be some sort of whole grain rectangles abut 1/16 inch thick, fairly flexible, not very tasty.
You can fold them up and jam them in a toaster.  Warming them doesn't improve the taste.  They are too flimsy to resole a shoe, but I imagine the taste is similar.
Baking them crisps them, and makes them a bit better,  what else might make them palatable?
At present I am considering them as a form of pre-cracker.
The footless man has his instructions: avoid these from now on.

The Footless Man has a birthday

He got a rough start to life.  He was diagnosed with Diabetes  at age 2, at a time when the therapies and technology were pretty crude.  His mother was told ( in his hearing) that he would not live to make ages 9,13,21, or 30. Estimates given by doctors, all of whom are dead.

He married me late, after a checkered career.  Everybody had doubts about how this was going to work out.  We did it anyway after dealing with very determined opposition from family.

He took on two small children and did his very best to raise them well. He took me on and supported me through both a long healing process and all the years of struggle to get an education. 
He has been slowed down by three heart attacks, two amputations, eye problems, frozen shoulders, and episodes of  insulin shock too numerous to list.

While moving some slower, He continues to plug away at house and yard maintenance, the kitchen renovation, and all the minutia of the house including his hoard of catalogs that he tends in the basement.

Last Wednesday,  The Footless Man turned 71.

I though long and hard about how to mark this occasion.

Last year I managed to trade work with a bluegrass singer who came in and played to him and Dad  for a joint birthday celebration

There is no topping that

so I didn't.

This year The Footless man got his yard cushions replaced with better yard cushions, and I made him a cake.

This is big. 

Diabetics don't eat cake much (Too many concentrated carbs), so how do you make a cake they can eat?

This is made of meatloaf.  The frosting is mashed potatoes.

He was both touched and thrilled that I would take the time and effort in a week when I was getting back home after 8 pm.

Happy birthday, and congratulations.  You will never ever die young anymore.

mama don't 'low

mama don't 'low no bind weed growing round here

mama don't 'low no bindweed growing round here

I don't care what mama don't 'low, bind weed grows here any old how.

Mama digs up the bind weed 'round here

Mama digs up that bind weed 'round here

dig up the dirt , break  up the clumps.

take those roots right out of those lumps.

Mama digs up that bind weed 'round here

hipy papy butuduth buduthudy

This is my Dad.

He is one of my heroes.  He ( and his brothers and sister) has given me a great picture of how to grow at whatever age you are.   He worked most of his career as a petroleum geoligist for a big oil company.  When he was downsized he worked for a power equipment rental company first as a mechanic, and later as a sales rep. He retired at 65, and three weeks later was back in school to become an airplane mechanic.

Airplanes and flying are his great loves, he was free to do what he wanted, and that was it.  

After he graduated, he worked with a friend for a while and then began building a kit plane in his garage.

The plane was named The Horse of Heaven, and flew beautifully.  About eight  flying hours before the plane would have been cleared to take passengers,  the landing gear caught irrigation equipment and flipped the plane.  Dad came out with a scratch on his hand and otherwise was alright.  The Plane was trashed.   Dad waited and thought about what he should do for a month or so, and then started in to rebuild the plane.  

A couple years later The horse of Heaven once again was flying.

Over the years Dad has given me a living example of how to cope with huge freaking disasters.

here is what I learned about how to live from him.

• Know that people are important. If they are OK, then the rest of it can be dealt with.
• Do what needs to be done for the people involved first.
• Blame is useless.  Spend your time finding solutions to the present problems, because the people  who messed up will do a better job of calling themselves down than you ever could.
• The way it looks is secondary to how it works.  
• People are infinitely interesting. Watch them often.
• A Person with an opposing view has something to teach you, listen carefully to what they say.

Yesterday Dad turned 82.
happy birthday Dad, and many more to you.

What to do on Saturday

The Footless man has in his provident way, managed to muck up the driveway with some purported firewood.  It comes from  some downed trees a few blocks away that someone cut down and into pieces. Most likely they have been wondering what the hell to do with the wood ever since.
The Footless man saw it sitting there and went out with the RAW*  and did a bit of salvage.

I would be a whole lot happier with the whole thing If it was any kind of wood that was any good to burn.  As it is I am less than thrilled because it is elm ** and poplar#. 
Among the chores that the Footless man asked me to do over the past week included:

1. Finding  the chainsaw, 
2. rousting the multitudes of spiders that had taken up residence in the case ( the Footless man feels about spiders like I feel about tomato worms, he screams like a girl at the wolf spider that lives in the bathtub, and  these were black widows) 
3. getting the proper oil for the gas,
4. prospecting for a non leaking gas can in The Hoard##,
5. getting the gas,
6. finding the proper ratio of oil to gas on the internet, 
7. Locating a funnel and holding the funnel while he decanted gas, 
8. and trying to locate a users manual for the saw on the net. 

None of it hard to do, just sandwiched in between rows of a sock, a conversation with Thursdays child, phone calls with the Erstwhile child and enlivened by the kind of headache that makes me want to pop my eyes out and trade them for glass ones. The chainsaw has not been run for ten years at least, and seems unwilling to start now.  The last I saw of the Footless Man he was harrumphing out to the wood heap with a bow saw.  I assume this means that the chainsaw will not run today.
*   Rent-a-Wino.  My politically incorrect but accurate title  for the guy who does odd jobs for the Footless Man.  He is a very nice guy with a huge dog, a kind heart, a good work ethic after noon, a load of stories, and a taste for cheap wine.
**smolders and doesn't burn
# stinks worse than cottonwood
##  The Footless Man's eclectic collection of entirely disorganized Good Stuff.

It lives in the garage and tries really hard to sneak into the house.  We have ( at last count) more than fifty screwdrivers, and equal amounts of most other hand tools.  This includes cabinets full of hell boxes, and an amazing conglomerate of odd things including a plaster camel, the odd stuffed animal, and a series of vacuum cleaners.  Up until last November the cabinets that now live in the kitchen lived out there, waiting renovations.

First of the month chores

1. Find a new quote for the blog page
2. clean the downstairs bathroom floor
3. work on birthday post for Footless Man
4. replace Heathers light switch with David