Hobo Jungle

[hev52]

Damn Roger .............you did it. I know ya would git it sooner or later. Keep um coming.........................

I brighten it a a bit for ya............................





Is that the 2025 Roger.........................

[rogruth]

Hev,

Thanks for the fix.

It's a 1947 675.

I don't have anything fancy or expensive.I'll keep trying with the photos.

[Del Mar]

When selecting wines for baked ham, keep in mind the combination of its salt cure and sweet glaze. Because of the salt, you’ll want to avoid wines that are too tannic since they’ll wind up tasting quite bitter. Likewise, because of the sweet, you’ll want to avoid wines that are overly dry reds since the wine’s fruit will be overwhelmed by the sugar in the glaze. Nevertheless, that still leaves you with a lot of choices—in both reds and whites.

To highlight the flavors of the ham, look for dry whites with good acidity that will cut through the ham’s saltiness and perhaps even enhance the sweetness of the glaze. There are many options: a dry Alsatian Riesling, a French Chablis, a dry Vouvray, an Italian Orvieto or bubbly Prosecco would all work well.

To complement the glaze and serve as a counterpoint to the ham’s salt, look for sweeter whites and fruitier reds. A semi-sweet Vouvray, an Alsatian Gewürztraminer, a high quality Italian Soave, or a Costieres de Nimes would be great choices for white wine lovers. Young fruity reds, low in tannin with good acidity, like an Italian Barbera D’Alba, a Cotes du Rhone, as well as a wide variety of reds from the Languedoc-Roussillon based on Syrah and Grenache would be outstanding red alternatives. An elegant Zinfandel with gobs of fruit or a juicy Pinot Noir are also wonderful matches. In fact, either might almost be regarded as a “fruit sauce” for the ham.

Can’t choose between reds and whites? Then go for a classic rosé like a Tavel from the Rhone or a California Vin Gris. Both these wines are on the dry side and would harmonize with the ham and let the glaze speak for itself.

My choice would be Ravenswood Zinfandel.

What type of ham will you get? I like spiral cut, if one has to deal with the supermarket stuff. I have always wanted to try a cured, uncooked Smithfield and roast it. Ralphs and Vons have the usual easter deals, but those hams don't have much that is distinctive in taste.

Ingredients:
1 (10 pound) fully-cooked spiral cut ham
1 pound light brown sugar

3 cups milk
3 (20 ounce) cans crushed pineapple,
drained
Directions:
1. Trim any visible fat from the surface of the ham and place cut side down in a roasting pan. Pour enough milk over the ham so that it ends up about 1/4 inch deep in the bottom of the roasting pan. Use your hands to pack the ham in a generous coating of brown sugar. Cover the brown sugar with a layer of crushed pineapple, packed on in the same manner. It is okay to have a few bare spots but try not to. Cover the ham with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. When the oven is hot, place the ham, still covered in foil, into the oven. Roast for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and baste with any juices that have accumulated in the bottom of the pan. Continue roasting for 30 more minutes, or until ham is heated through.

San (warming up to the idea of ham for Easter but living among those who don't like ham)

[JIM2223]

Hev and Jon:


I had to put this on here. Its out of subject but this is her first school picture. Jon , this is Jessica, the one you and Daisy sent the birthday presents for 4 years ago. I just love this picture so I had to put it on...OOPS,, gotta have grandma sow so more buttons on my shirt...Damn things keeps popping off.




Jim

[hev52]

She's a cutie there Jim........................

Here is one of my grandaughter Tori. Her first school picture too...................................

[dougdagrump]

Jim, Every right to be bursting them buttons.
San, Gonna be trying something a little different for this year. Normally I'll do a ham and a turkey. No ham this year, I have a recipe that I got from Sam the Cooking Guy for some nice thick center cut porkchops marinated in maple syrup, soy sauce and garlic. Instead of the chops I'm using the marinade on a big ol hunk of pork loin that will go on a rotisserie, now just need to figure out which brine to use on the turkey boobs which will go in the oven.
Tomorrow is Easter Train run at the museum, hopefully we'll have lots of kids stopping in. Steam is up and ready to roll :

[hev52]

Hey that's hevy.......................... I guess there will be a lot of Easter trains runnin' around the country. Strasburg is runnin' one.

[webenda]

OK. But now it's too large.

All right Roger! You solved that problem with your next post.
You are now a member of the, "Hobos Who Post Photos" club. Congratulations.
I've got your next one at Gomer's.

Jim, Hev,

Charming photos. The photographer did a good job teaching how to pose.

San,

Do you have to eat a pig? I think not.

[2railjon]

Roger, Great shots of your layout!!!!!

Jim and Hev, nice shots of the grandkids!!!

Chef San, I went with an Australian Yellow Tail Riesling. I'll give your brand a shot next, it sounds great! And yes, I'm going the brown sugar and pineapple glaze route!!!!!
A hobo feast, indeed!

[Water Man]

I need one

Happy Easter everyone

Kurt

[webenda]

Jon,

That hobo has a mighty fine kitchen set-up there.

Kurt,

Is that one of those Pennsylvania BBQs Obama was talking about?

The president obviously never lived out west. Our local sheriff told us that, in case of a home break-in, he cannot protect us and recommended that we all arm ourselves. Sometimes the President shows his naivety.

[Del Mar]

Jon,

Your Easter dinner is going to be delicious. A few glasses of the Australian Yellow Tail Riesling grape will be good for you.

Love the traveling man with the grub box. I made one to augment my teardrop kitchen, but I don't think it has been quite as weathered as that in the picture.



San

[Tramp]

Here's something I do not understand. As some of you know, the smoke on my 3rd Rail Berkshire would not work for years. During my winter roof-leak flood, I decided to run my trains. This was odd behavior on my part, but when many things are going wrong and you feel desperation, why not fire up the steam engines even though water is dripping from the ceiling and it's just above freezing on the third floor. Well, the trains ran perfectly and . . . the smoke began to billow joyously out of the Berkshire. I ran trains again over the last few days being home on a break from school. Not only is the smoke still working, but another problem, reversal of bell and whistle button on the EM-1, has been cured as well. I thought electrical issues where finite and consistent. How can time heal trains?

Jon, you asked about teaching. I just wish these college girls would dress a bit more modestly.

Here's wishing all hobos a wonderful Easter.

[The Dirt]

Had a neat thing happen to me the other day.

Catawissa is a small town 4 miles downriver from Bloomsburg, which is 8 miles south of Orangeville. The Catawissa Railroad was a line maybe 63 miles long, but for a distance of some 30 miles it traveled a mountainous area, requiring a total of three tunnels and seven wooden trestles. I had seen pictures of some of the trestles, this one being the Ringtown trestle …



… and this one being, (I believe), the same span, based on numbers of tiers, and style…



As it wended around the mountains, and forded valleys, I had read of there having once been a trestle near Mainville, but that as the years progressed, the trestle had been removed, and a bazillion cubic yard dirt fill put in to replace the trestle. I just had it set in my mind that there was nothing left to find.

Well, I’ve been collecting rocks, as I see them here and there alongside roads, as I need to build a rock wall maybe three feet high and thirty long, and I had known of a spot near a Mainville hill where there are rocks aplenty, but as it is a ‘narrows’, and as a pickup was behind me, I continued to the next road and turned right, and as he turned right, behind me, I continued up a hill to the next right, onto a dirt road. I must have been looking left going up, but coming down, I (dumbfounded!) spot this…



…and looking back up, this…



and the dirt road onto which I had inadvertently driven was none other than the fill which had replaced the original trestle, with #1 being the abutment and original roadbed, and #2 being the new roadbed…



So I followed the fill, (which curved to rejoin and make use of the original roadbed)…



and found the other abutment on the other side of the valley…



…being partially covered by the dirt used in the fill. And perhaps in that picture lies the reason for the use of fill- the rocks are dislodging, and perhaps the upkeep of the abutment was to prove too costly and time-consuming. And, (of course! Duh!), it makes perfect sense that the fill would have been put in place while the trestle was still in use, meaning the abutments were NOT buried.

And beyond the 2nd abutment, a rock cut as the bed continued toward Catawissa, its next station stop…



So I went down into the valley, because the dirt fill had effectively bisected the valley, and there had to be a culvert or such to allow the creek (‘crick’, Mitch) that cut the valley to pass underneath. I stopped at a house to ask the landowner for permission to wander into his property, talkative old gentleman, and in the space of 5 minutes, I learned that he was a Korean War vet, had trained for only 6 months before being shipped overseas, had gotten frostbite on his feet over there, that he had bought an acre of land across the road for $150, that he had a pile of brush he had to burn once it wasn’t so breezy, that his son-in-law who lives in Allentown helps him around the property, that he had his peas and onions already in the ground in his garden, that his wife worked for Geisinger Health System (I work at Geisinger Hospital) and that she collected Longaberger baskets, and that he had both a pacemaker and an internal defibrillator. 5 minutes! LOL!
Nice guy. The kind that are everywhere when you live rurally.
Anyway, he had a natural spring that came right up out of the ground to which I was invited to take a drink…



…and that was some D*MN tasty water!!

And of course, I found the culvert, which you see here placed under the massive dirt fill, which replaced 727 feet of trestle 115 feet high!



The last interesting tidbit the old gentleman told me was of a local scandal. At equal intervals between the abutments were three stone ‘towers’ to help provide support to the wood. When the trestle was decommissioned, a man was brought in to remove the three ‘towers’, and he was supposed to pay the townspeople for the stone, but made off without the town ever getting it’s money.

So herewith, pictures of the wooden trestle and the three stone ‘towers’, built in 1832…



...the stone house in the center of the picture is still there...
…and the steel bridge that replaced it in 1896, the ‘towers’ and near abutment now plainly seen…



...the dirt fill having been placed in 1927.

How ‘bout it, discovered entirely by accident while out on a cruise!

And of course, the obligatory picture of a hobo below…



…and atop a 177 year old stone abutment!!



The end.

[The Dirt]

I just wish these college girls would dress a bit more modestly

LMAO!!

WE'LL be the judge of that!
Pictures, please!