Sunday, February 22, 2009

Plan Your Garden With the Help of Wizard Water©!

As you look eagerly towards planting season, remember that Doc Johnson’s Wondrous Wizard Water© makes an excellent seed-starter. If you have a sunny window and a spare table or other flat-surfaced furniture, you can place seeds in soil you have warmed by the fire to room temperature and dampened with a few drops of Wizard Water© while the ground is still frozen outside. Many accomplished gardeners use this method to get a head start with their crops or household gardens.

A word of warning, though: only use this method on a few seeds, and in rooms with high ceilings! I knew a woman who didn’t heed this simple advice, and lived to regret it. She competed annually in the county agricultural fair, but rarely won. In an effort to beat her neighbors in the “early fresh produce” category, one February she planted four dozen tomato seeds in tin cans placed by every window in her house, and wet them very liberally with Doc Johnson’s Wondrous Wizard Water©. She awoke the next morning to find her roof elevated off its moorings! The seeds had sprouted overnight and their accelerated growth placed her rafters at twice the height of the walls! She was so loathe to lose the potentially prize-winning tomatoes that her husband had to add a second storey to the home, at great expense.

In addition, the plants produced so many tomatoes, so quickly, that she wore herself out harvesting the fruit. They sprouted and ripened faster than she and her family could pick and eat them. Every few minutes, night and day for weeks, she had to toss freshly-ripened tomatoes into a laundry pot she kept in the back yard and boil them down. She managed to sell extra jars of her boiled-down tomatoes, but never won the blue ribbon she sought for fresh produce.

So let this be a lesson to eager agricultural competitors: use Wizard Water© sparingly, or you will have to stew lots of tomatoes to catch up.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Doc’s Advice on What Not to Give a Woman on Valentine’s Day

1. Poultry (dead or alive).
2. Fancy mail-order face cream “that gets rid of blemishes.”
3. A sturdy shoulder yoke to help her carry water buckets.
4. A mechanical corn-shucker.
5. Chocolate-covered novelty foods, such as green beans.
6. Any perfume named after a city, such as “Eau de New York.”
7. Large new cast-iron frying pan.
graveside flower bouquet8. Extra-large cast-iron cooking pot.
9. Cast-iron anything.
10. A fur sunbonnet.

Also, do not cook dinner for her if the only thing you know how to fix is beans and mashed potatoes.

Most importantly, do not try to save money by giving the one you love a slightly used bouquet of flowers (or if you do, first make sure the sympathy card is removed).

copyright ©2011 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

A Recipe Using Wizard Water©

The fig bush produced a bumper crop this past summer, and I was looking forward to fig preserves during the winter months. I was mighty disappointed to learn that squirrels got to them first. My wife thinks she has that problem licked. Next winter there should be plenty of fig preserves. This winter, we will have to make do with stew. For those of you with a similar problem, the Missus offers the following:

Mrs. Doc’s Squirrel Stew

Fig-eating squirrel, photo by Brett FurnauAbout 70 fig-fed squirrels, cut up
½ lb. bacon
5 gals. water
4 bottles of Wizard Water©
1 qt cider vinegar (optional)
3 lbs. salt pork, chopped
2 gals. butter beans
4 gals. chopped peeled tomatoes
1 gal. chopped potatoes
1 gal. chopped carrots
3 gals. corn
1 gal. chopped cabbage
5 red peppers, chopped
1/2 c. black pepper
1 c. salt

Directions:
Clean and cut up squirrels, making sure to remove all birdshot. Fry with bacon. Bring water to boil in a large kettle. Add squirrel and bacon drippings. Cook, stirring often, until meat comes off the bone. Strain out bones and any remaining birdshot. Chop salt pork and add to mixture. Add vegetables. Cook and stir until tender. Add cabbage, vinegar, Wizard Water© and seasonings, and continue to cook, stirring, until stew is thick and flavors well blended. Add more water if needed. Fig-fed squirrel meat adds a piquant, sweet flavor that nicely complements the salt pork. Ladle into large bowls and serve with cornbread. Makes a lot.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Former Occupation

I was once in the fortune-telling business out West, but was too successful.

I accurately predicted a drought, a prairie fire, and a run on the banks by desperate ranchers. The first event helped sell Wizard Water©, which I was just beginning to market, but folks started to avoid me after the fire. When the last prediction came true, too, the employees of three banks in Colorado City took me outside of town for a strong lecture on the responsibilities of free speech. Luckily they didn’t tie the knot tight enough and left in a hurry, so with a little help from Bleb, I was able to make it to New Orleans in time for my next business appointment.

I no longer tells fortunes, as I see very little future in it.

copyright ©2009 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.