Saturday

We had a full weekend which is extremely rare for us. We like to stay loose and go with the flow on the weekends. It started Friday night when my cousin Brent wanted to meet us for drinks and it kept going from there.

On Saturday we had a cracklin' cookout in the small town where my grandparents lived. My cousin Billy started with a big iron pot and some vegetable oil. Then he threw in about 75 pounds of pig fat that he had pre-cut into small squares. There's a lot of stirring involved and at one point he took out the cracklin with a slotted spoon the size of Texas and spread it out on a table to cool. While that cooled he began cooking whole chickens, liver, and french fries in all that pig fat. Then he returned the cracklin' to the pot and cooked it again. Apparently, this is what gives it its crunchy goodness.

This is Billy on the left and my Uncle Jay on the right. They are very serious cooks.
Here they are discussing how long the food needs to boil in oil. Not healthy, but hey, it's once a year.

These are my 2nd cousins Eric, Brody and Tyler. Love these boys!

Eric, his dad and my favorite first cousin, Brent, and my other first cousin Michael, who is director of the
St. Vincent de Paul shelter in Baton Rouge. He is such a good and caring soul. Brent is too, he's just
a goofball sometimes. But we love that. :)

My godfather, Uncle Johnny and his pretty wife, Aunt Yvonne.
They were both very close to my mom and did a lot for her when I couldn't be here.

Afterwards we went out to Bluebonnet Swamp. The owlets have not made an appearance yet, so this is all I could come up with. Sorry for those of you squeamish about reptiles, but these are non-venomous and I'm shooting them from a safe distance.

Ribbon snake. See the skink in the lower right corner? He kept antagonizing the snake,
seemingly enjoying sneaking up on him.

Five-lined skink. I loved the texture on the tree trunk.

Investigating. He passed on the red globs--whatever they were.

I think this might've been mama skink. She was watching two little ones very closely.

After the swamp, we rented "The Big Year" starring Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black. If you're into birding at all you will really enjoy this film. Double D and I were laughing at ourselves and wondering how we got to be such bird nerds.

Whew, so Saturday was a big day. Sunday will be discussed in tomorrow's post, but will be much shorter in length.