The missing lynx

First wife Iris likes to get things done "NOW!" She does not even understand the concept of "procrastination." In fact, Iris thinks people who habitually postpone any kind of a chore until "later," should be punished…but she married me anyway.

Last Friday she suggested it was past time for me to get going on our annual Christmas card using one of my photos. I told her I was thinking of not using a colorful scenery shot this year, hoping instead to come up with something different. "What do you mean by something different?" she asked.

"Oh, maybe a bird or animals. Perhaps something completely different…like mating antelope."

Youngest son Clark was listening and jumped into the conversation immediately. "Dad! Anybody knows mating antelope are for Valentine's Day."

That incident reminded me of another Clark story from 10 years ago:

Clark is a sports nut, especially pro football. His pride and joy is a huge television screen sitting across the living room from his fully equipped recliner chair. Iris called him late Sunday to see how things were going, and Clark promptly told her it had been a bad day. Iris wanted to know "why?"

He replied, "I got settled in my chair for the first game this morning and then had to watch the same channel all day."

"Why was that honey?"

"Battery went dead on my remote control."

For those who have forgotten the infamous "Turkey Dressing" scandal of 1996, I think that would be a fun thing to revisit-

We are very busy at the Ostrom house, revising Thanksgiving plans at the last minute. We are just one of the millions of Americans who were shaken to the deepest culinary roots last August when the U.S. Department of Agriculture outlawed "cooking dressing inside the turkey," because it could cause everything from athlete's foot to instant death. Because Ostrom's have absolute faith in our government's bureaus, most of the fall has been spent rehashing…so to speak, our traditional menu.

Eric O'Brien, the bureaucrat who issued the original warning over the "Federal Meat and Poultry Hotline" has now backed off a bit this week and said, "…you can stuff it as long as you do it safely." By "Safely" they mean using a thermometer to make sure the dressing reaches 165 degrees thus killing bacteria that might be sneaking around in there.

Right now at our house we are debating whether to spend money on a thermometer in case a government inspector comes to check on us, or just take a chance we will be one of those lucky citizens among the 45 million turkey buyers who are not caught violating Federal Pronouncements. Figure we've got a pretty good chance of being overlooked by "dressing inspectors" because of house being back in the trees off the main road. The only thing that might trip us up of course, would be if somebody who eats here comes down with athlete's feet or instant death.

For those of you who don't want to use any of the options Iris and I are considering, there is another one, which carries some risk but does meet government regs. Place a smoke detector on the ceiling 40 feet from the stove and cook the astuffed turkey until the alarm goes off. (The End)

Appreciated the marvelous lynx photos taken by Chris Peterson in last week's Hungry Horse News and recalled it was only a couple of years ago Larry Wilson and Lynn Ogle got shots of a lynx. In 74 years of wandering the local woods (that's minus three years in the Army), I've never even seen a lynx in the wild, let alone photographed one.

Knowing Peterson, Wilson, and Ogle are probably more sinful than I, not as pure in thought and deed…I've decided the Lord has planned to reward me soon with a photo-op that will make those guys weep in envy. It could be a monster lynx killing a world record mule deer then getting driven off by a pack of wolves…or something like that.