The After Mass

 

One of the things that happens here is that we meet at 5.30 pm on Thursdays to worship God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and no, this doesn't mean we blasphemously attempt to repeat the one all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ but rather, by grace, unite ourselves to it. 

Magnum mysterium, to put it mildly, sacramental unity with our Lord's paschal offering of himself for our atonement on Calvary. And right there in supernatural power  in Bosque County, Texas, there on the Altar was Christ's Body and Blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of Man to God.

Heaven, for a moment, breaks through to us and we to heaven, "peace be to this house." Then we're dismissed with a benediction and vale, "May almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, this night and forevermore. The Mass has ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord."

Reflect on this. If Christ is truly present in the Mass, if we meet him and enter into communion with him in the Eucharist, for the forgiveness of of our sins, if all this is true how could any faithful person not want, fervently, to meet our Lord at the Last Supper which is Holy Communion? Yes, judgement for sure, but also mercy and infinite compassion.

That in mind, I was heartened by the congregation this evening, our worship is growing, and waved goodbye to the guys, "See you Saturday (men's group), I'm going fishing." And there it was, Soldiers Bluff, resting under a hot Texan sun, just a minute or two away from the church.

It was beautiful to be out by the water as the sun began to set and fun to catch a scad of little perch who went back in to fight again another day.

God bless you all,

LSP

The Sun Shines

 

Yesterday may have been Eschaton but today is Elysium. The sun shines, Mass has been said, sturdy venison sausage pasta is on the go and all is well in this focal plane of the great state of Texas. Elsewhere? Maybe not so hot, but it's alright here, today.

Speaking of elsewhere, I've heard that many people in this country don't cook at home, they have these trophy Viking ranges and kitchens full of status gadgetry, but it's all unused. Instead, they eat out every day or did before our wise and beloved Administration made this unaffordable for all but the socialist rich.

You know what they say, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. That in mind, Doktor Swankenstein sent in this helpful infographic, here it is:

Diversity is our strength, eh?

Salve,

LSP

The Dog Is Free - In Mem Blue

Just a quick blast from the archive. I miss that Blue.

Always,

LSP

Happy Cooking With LSP - Yorkshire Pudding

 

how can anyone take you seriously?

Can you have too much of a good thing? No, but only if the thing in question is absolutely good. That in mind, this humble cookery blog's focusing on the X-Ring, yes, Yorkshire Pudding, so very tasty. But how do you make these "puddings"? Good question and here's my fix, backed up by experts.

nice

Get a mixing bowl, mine's made of pyrex, you maybe have some other kind and that's OK. Tip a cup of regular flour into the bowl. Add 4 eggs. Stir it all about until smooth, perhaps you use an Olde Wooden Forke to achieve this τέλος, or a whisk, or whatever, your call.

Next up pour a cup of whole milk or 3/4 cup of whole milk and 1 1/12 tbs water into the mix. Add 1/2 tsp of salt. Stir until the consistency of cream. Well done, you've just made Yorkshire Pudding batter, no small thing. So now what?

next add milk/water, don't forget salt

Put the batter aside, expert YP science says it doesn't matter if it goes in the fridge or not, I use the fridge, and let it rest. Settled science says the longer the rest the better, up to overnight, makes for a better rise, because science. But if you're turning these beasts on a schedule/dime, 30+ minutes works too.

this batter's ready to go hot

Then clean some guns, or catapults, kitchen knives and sticks if you're in the UK, wash the kitchen floor, catch up on blogs and LL's excellent meditation on Faith and Substance while the batter's resting. Admire the rus in urbe aspect of your Compound's back yard while you're at it, all is good. Next?

hot tin

Preheat oven to 425* and pour beef dripping or olive oil into your pudding tin. I use olive oil and a sixfold muffin thing; you don't need much oil/fat, just cover the bottom of each indent or, if you're going hardcore heavy metal, 8" heavy metal skillets (x2).

Well done, you've got this far, sharpen a kukri while the oven heats. When it's ready, put the oiled tin into the oven, let it heat up for around 10 minutes if you're using a Sixer muffin tin. Tin hot, experts say it doesn't matter if it is, take it out and pour in the batter, around a 1/4 cup per ripping hot indent. It should sizzle. Word to the wise, don't take the hot tin out of the oven with your hands, sayn.

Command & Control from the, er, kitchen

Too much detail? Hey, no gain without pain; fire the superhot tin into the 425* (some techologists say 450*) oven and let it do its thing for around 20 minutes. Word to the wise, don't take it out too soon or the puddings will collapse, you want a crispy exterior which upholds the rise. They should look something like this.

a bit done? Hey 4 outta six, not a bad ratio

Mission accomplished, behold the beauty of the thing and fall upon your scoff, yes, like a warrior.

Adveniat,

LSP

Easter Monday Cooking With LSP

Birds sing, exotic ducks roost on top of Eduardo's roof and all's well in LSPland, in that balmy springlike way we so love. Alleluia, Christ has risen from the grave and death and Hell have no more dominion over us. 

That in mind, I fixed a G3 monocle on a boneless 6-7 rib roast lurking in the thievish corners of the fridge. Why not cook that beef up, after all, it's Easter Monday. And here's it is, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with pepper and salt, ready to go onto a vegetable trivet and into the oven.

Now, before you say how could you possibly afford that on your miserable stipend, so-called LSP? I'll tell you this little beast was bought at a 50% markdown firesale. Margin calls aside, great result, and here's the plan. 

Roast for 15 minutes at 500* then at 325*for 12 minutes per pound. Test with a meat thermometer at around 50/60 minutes, it should come in at 125-130* for medium rare awesomeness. Next up?

just a kid

Take the life giving beef out of the oven, celebrate your not inconsiderable victory with a glass of the right stuff, cover the meat in foil and let it rest for around 20 or 30 minutes, it'll continue to cook to tender, juicy perfection. 

As it does, fire some potatoes in the oven at 425* along with Yorkshire pudding batter in a preheated tin or skillet(s), boil up carrots or whatever, there's no "rule," and after 20 minutes or so remove from oven. In the meanwhile, and this is key, make gravy from the beef's drippings and remains of the veg trivet (which should include garlic cloves, onion and carrot, which you crush and strain, obvs).

hey now

Strife o'er, cut the beef. Serve the veg alongside. Place several Yorkshires on the plate. Stand askance at the sheer beauty of the thing and add gravy. Then fall upon your scoff like a warrior. Well, that's the projection and let's see how it goes, so far we're at the seasoned beef resting to room temp stage, with YP batter in the fridge, let that rest, important.

Stay Tuned,

LSP

A Cautionary Tale

 

Now look here, you lot. It's all very well to get out in the field with a rigful of weaponry, well done, but here's the thing. After the shoot you have to clean the guns because if you don't they don't work, and if they don't work what use are they?

Caveat in mind I set to work on the front porch, starting with shotguns. Some people think shotguns don't need to be cleaned and that's an error, they do have to be cleaned otherwise they turn into  filthy, rusty, seized up, malfunctioning beasts. 

Dirty

Perhaps you've been there. You're out in the country on a shoot and guess what, your friend's miserable gun, typically a pump which someone's been too idle to look after, won't feed or eject. Utterly useless except as some kind of club.

Still, some weapons are easier to keep in good order than others. The AR 15, for example, is annoyingly fixy, there's all these little bits which get filthy dirty because of the wretched thing's direct impingement system, annoying.

Filthy

On the other hand, the gas piston system of, say, a ChiCom SKS is simpler, runs cleaner and I seem to remember the same held true with the FN. Mind you, we had to polish those things to the extent of harming the rifle itself, same with gas masks. You can bull a gas mask? you ask in bemused consternation. Yes, yes you can. I tell you, they shone like glass.

Ole Rascal

Other people think the lowly .22, pronounced "Tutu" or "Desmond" in the Sceptred Isle, doesn't need cleaning. This too is a mistake and I congratulated myself this evening on sticking to bolt action rimfire, Ruger American.

Clean

Some say they're more accurate than their semi brethren, and that's as maybe. But one thing's for sure, they're easy to look after. Remove bolt. Clean bolt. Run rods and patches through the barrel, replace bolt, oil the whole thing up and there you go, easy.

Then, job well done, sit back on the porch and watch lightning flash across the sky. Draw the moral of this cautionary tale as you will.

#2A,

LSP

Bomb Cyclone Winter Eschaton

 

Many of you will laugh and shake your heads in scorn, but it's cold in Texas. Like no kidding, there's ice and even some snow. "Look," I announced in awe to a young soldier, "Snow, see it?" It took a while but he did, "Oh yeah, literal snow, wow." A few wind-driven icy flakes of it anyway.

So layer up, pull on an Arcteryx fleece, dust off the Carhart and face the new Ice Age. Such, my friends, is global warming. You see, the hotter it gets, thanks to people not paying carbon taxes, the colder it becomes.

I was struck by this, driving into a golden sunset across Lake Whitney dam to say Mass as clouds of mist steamed up from the water. Climate change can be dramatic, no doubt about it. Let's zoom in:

The Sacrament confected and the Sacrifice offered, ite missa est, it was time to drive back to the Compound, wary of black ice and grateful for the privilege of being able to celebrate the Eucharist. Where angels fear to tread, eh?

Domine non sum dignus,

LSP

A Coyote Story

 

A churchman called in the other night and our conversation ranged far and wide. He told me about his grandfather, wounded at the end of World War I and demobilized after the Armistice. On returning to the States he caught the train from New York (?) and found himself several days later in Valley Mills, Texas, late at night.

There was no one to pick him up so he decided to walk home, carrying his duffel, home being an earth floored house some 15 or more miles away. So off he went across country, and in the depth of the night became aware he was surrounded by coyotes, "They were all around him, he could hear them moving and he had his knife out. But he made it back to the earth floored house that was his home. Father, it wasn't that long ago."

No, it was not. Sometimes I take guests out to the fields and brush near my friend's range then, at dusk, we hunker down and I tell them to listen as the coyotes start to howl. What an eerie, unearthly sound. The wolf, they say, is their natural predator.

Cave Canem,

LSP

Cocktail Party - Yes, They still Exist

 

Do people even have cocktail parties anymore? Apparently they do, not least here in the North Central Texas Exclusion Zone, and what fun it was.

"Crazier than a sh*house rat!" said one punter and I paused, "What do you mean?" He explained and we looked out on the town's Heritage League. 

Behold, diamonds shine brightly. And you'll be sure I thanked relevant people for relevant favors; I do not say that lightly. Also spent a good portion of the evening talking to our LEO bodyguards. Good men.

You know what? I feel a chaplaincy role coming on.

Spem in Alium,

LSP

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Here's a prayer for the day:

O MOST merciful Father, who hast blessed the labours of the husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth; We give thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching thee to continue thy loving-kindness to us, that our land may still yield her increase, to thy glory and our comfort; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

God bless you all,

LSP

Roundup

 

You no sooner attempt to step away from the news cycle to concentrate on producing an overdue magazine than boom, everything goes rodeo.

Governor Abbott invokes Texas' Invasion Clause, authorizing exceptional measures to stem the flood of migrants into the state, some 1.26 million in 2022 alone. Abbott intends to:

Deploy the National Guard to safeguard the border, and to repel and turn back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally

Deploy the Texas Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) to arrest and return immigrants to the border who crossed illegally, and to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal activity;

Build a wall in multiple counties on the border;

Deploy gun boats;

Designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;

Enter into a compact with other states to secure the border;

Enter into agreements with foreign powers to enhance border security;

Provide resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to the “border invasion.”

Quite a thing, to put it mildly, and that's not all. According to AP, a Russian missile/s(?) hit a farm in Poland, causing outraged cries for NATO heads to call an Article 4 meeting, frontrunners to suggest Article 5 and, well, war with Russia. No, not the proxy one we're fighting now but the real deal and all that goes with it. Huh, World War III. We can imagine the overworked DIs at Benning working 'round the clock to learn their intakes' pronouns.

But the next Big One's averted for now, thank God. Turns out the missile in question was a Ukrainian S 300 which went astray trying to take out a flying Russkie adversary. AP walked back the story and Biden confirmed the new narrative, much to Zelensky's discomfort. In fairness to the Ukraine's diminutive if coke fueled President, the most popular Ruler of America ever, Old Joe, must be a difficult paymaster. 

And then, just as you're recovering from the news that Armageddon isn't quite yet, 45 announces a bid for the White House in 2024. Will he be defeated by JEB! in the most insanely vicious revenge arc ever? 

That, along with everything else, remains to be seen. In other positive news, Nancy Pelosi's finally fired...

Saints preserve us,

LSP

Mashed Potato Monet

 

Two Germans from climate activist group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) threw mashed potatoes at a Monet painting, Les Meules, on Sunday at a museum in Potsdam. The weather vandals then glued their hands to the gallery wall while yelling at onlookers.

“People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying. We are in a climate catastrophe,” shouted potato protester Mirjam Herrmann, “Science says we won’t be able to feed our families by 2050. This painting will be worth nothing if we have to fight over food.”

Quite, an art critic pal from Detroit shot me a text by way of commentary:

What worries me is that these things spark trends (miscreants love trends -- I don't think I have to elaborate) which escalate as they gather momentum. It would be very easy to smash the Michaelangelo Pieta with a concealed sledgehammer. Unlike the Monet potato this is something that could never be repaired. Next thing you know galleries are on lockdown and the world's current slide towards dystopia deepens.

 

Well said. In the meanwhile, Germany and the rest of Europe are heading into a difficult winter as the cost of energy, food and everything else continues to skyrocket. That in mind, Science says feed your family or heat your home and maybe neither as Europe deindustrializes. 

Go on, glue yourselves to the wall, potato heads

All very green, which brings us back to Monet masher Mirjam. Fighting over food by 2050? I fear that sounds more than a little optimistic, Fraulein Herrmann. 

On topic, the War on Weather continues here in Texas with a full, solid, day of rain. We call it Skywater.

Gotta get back to the garden,

LSP

Just Get Out In The Field

 

"For an LSP you sure don't get out in the field very much," the people murmur, discontentedly. And they have a point, so to put things right I RV'd with some church ranch people and off we went against the avian adversary, dove, splitting into two groups.

Our section had a good setup. Imagine a dead tree by a stock tank and then, maybe 150 yards off, another dead tree pretty much opposite the first. And there it is, mojo decoys at the tank, clipons at the further tree, wait for the birds to fly and have at it.

Fly they did, especially at the tank mojos, those things definitely work, which is awesome. But I was at the second dead tree and stupidly didn't have mojo power, only clipon. Still, plenty of fast flying, wing shooting action.

OK, I missed more than I hit but still, plenty of sound and fury and the tankers did very well, with one shooter close to limiting out. You see, practice doesn't hurt when you come to these things, especially when the birds are fast, go figure, dove, and shot-savvy, which they are at this point in the game; just watch them dodge your hurtling hail of 1400 fps BBs.

Then dusk began to fall and we regrouped in a laager of pickups to clean a tailgate of birds, tell war stories and enjoy ourselves under the bright stars of a Texan night. No small thing, they shine brightly.

What a great evening. Shotguns, pickups, birds, great people and the open air of the Lone Star State. There'll be dove poppers tomorrow. Yum.

Remember to aim,

LSP

Sunday Comms

 

There we were on the back porch, just me, Old Blue and a razor sharp kukri. Typical, maybe a glass of well chilled wine was involved. Then the sat phone rang. Yes, it was the Wolf.

"Are you able to pay full time clergy or is it all volunteer, like the Mormons?" I thought about this for maybe a second, "No, we're all good in this diocese, unlike, say, the Episcopalians. They're running out of cash to pay full time pastorenes. Go figure."

"Maybe this will help," offered LL with an infovid of PMC WAGNER recruiting out of some penal colony. "Good call. We'll bus those convicts straight to the homes of Episcopalien bishops. Kinda like sanctuary cities but house church."

"Exactly," said the Wolf, who proceeded to lay out preliminary plans for the operation. All well and good, then a rambunctious soldier burst through the back door, full of youthful high spirits allied to fitness, "Hey Dad, how's it going!" I stared into his EyePros. "Everything's good, kid, we're just fixing to solve a clergy staffing crisis. Working title? OPERATION MARTHA'S VINEYARD."

Have a beautiful Sunday.

Cheers,

LSP

Mexicans On The Roof

 

Never a dull moment at the Compound. Today we had Mexicans on the Roof? Why? Because the roof over the church hall was rotten and had to be replaced and the Hernandez crew gave us the best deal. So off they went, crashing and banging and nailing from 0800.

Not that I'm complaining, those boys work hard, for a realistic price and sure enough, they'd removed rotten shingles and laid a new set by end of play. Of course they wanted a check for fiddy percent on completion.

Well, they'll get get that tomorrow morrow morning. And what a good gang, hard working, polite, quick and hey, they got the job done at a good price. Were those boys wearing gold crucifixes? Yes they were, and I like that too.

So here we are, new roof on and all the better for it. Beto, on the other hand, is suffering from MillSoc MonkeyPox. Count your blessings as you find 'em, eh?

Rule Britannia,

LSP

Under Glowering Skies

No foreign sky protected me,

no stranger's wing shielded my face.

I stand as witness to the common lot,

survivor of that time, that place. 

(Anna Akhmatova)

What remained after the flood? For us, we few survivors? A glowering sky for sure, that much is constant.

And shacks, somehow these too remain.

As does the Dojo. Kick 'em out, kids, before you too are washed away in the flood.

But trees still stand. What happens here is that roots destroy the sidewalk which no one walks on, so the Town in its wisdom cuts down the trees. Idiots.

So back again to the Compound, unscathed, frosty, our enemy the Weather threatening. But questions remain.

Have we paid too much Climate Tax, too little, or is this an issue caused by prayer? Pray for rain, God agrees, cause and effect. Problem, solution. But note how abundantly our Creator provides this. 

Do you detect judgment?

LSP

A Good Sunday

 

After spirited, uplifting Sunday worship we ended up at Fort Hood's training grounds. Well, one of the entrances to the thing, and there it was, big Texas under a big sky and enough space for big Army III Corps to do its not inconsiderable thing, and then some.

The kid's proud to be part of that and fair play to him, I would be too, "Look, dad, this is where we ruck, and check out the 15 yard sight-in ranges, dead on at 300." Several motor pool drive-bys and a pit stop for food later we landed at the home of 57th Expeditionary Signals BN  (Enhanced) and that was that, "Train hard, think positive, fight easy," I offered by way of UKLF inspirational cozy farewell, and was met with a grin.

What a good result and what a good Sunday. The Sacred Mysteries offered, ite missa est, a son fast becoming a man under the watchful and doubtless patient eyes of good Command, thank you NCOs and Officers, and Fort Hood itself. Great result.

Next time I'll visit some of the post's museums, stay tuned.

God bless,

LSP