Well then, please dig me and ma a hole. We got fresh apple cakes to bake, we got shortbread to pat out, we got pecans to roast with our top secret family seasonings, we got sweet potato-cranberry muffins to pour into our fancy bundt-shaped muffin pans, we got biscotti sliced and ready for that second crispin' (I think the ashes drifted over the top are right pretty, and lend an interesting texture, don't you?), and, Oh yeh, I saw a groundhog out by the road that is swelled up just right for supper so it won't take so long to get tender.


No kidding, I don't much enjoy skinning and butchering animals, but have done so, and groundhog has got to be the toughest mammal in the Western hemisphere to skin. Must be why, if you can find one big enough, they make such nice drumheads.