Gonna be a good day

I have not posted nearly as much as I wanted in the last week or so. The weather has kept me from doing anything with Brewer for the most part, and I have just been tired. Today is Super Bowl Sunday, I am pulling for the Colts, but I will not be devastated if the Saints win. Steffi has to work all day, so that is disappointing, she might make it home by halftime. Today is looking pretty nice so far, me and the Brew will get to run around this afternoon. It is just about time to start looking for shed antlers, I think I have him trained to find them since I hide his antler( a shed I found last year) in the house and around the yard, he usually finds it. We will see.
If you know me you know I love to eat, Steffi says I dont have an off button like most people, she might be right. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, a traditional excuse to pig out, I am currently preparing 2 racks of baby back ribs, and a large beef roast. In the same way I am strangely attracted to hunting critters of all sorts, I get really excited about any opportunity I have to use my grill. I generally do not follow recipes. I usually experiment with different things even after I find a good way of doing something. Most of the time this works out pretty good, but sometimes disaster strikes. My wife wouldnt tell me the truth, but just the other day I tried to cook a roast in the crock pot, I thought I followed all of the right steps, but somewhere along the way I messed up. The truth lies in the fact that Brewer only wanted 1 tiny piece. After he managed to chew it up he just walked over to his water bowl took a few sips and didnt ask for more. Amazingly though, Steffi liked it, interesting....It was really bad, way too chewy and dry, who knew you could dry something out in a crock pot? My point being, I cannot consider my self grill master or chef just yet, but I am pumped about these ribs. They are currently absorbing a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic pepper, black pepper,a little salt and a little butter. This afternoon, I will cook them in the oven at about 225 degrees for 2 hours. Then I will use a combination of A-1 marinade and Kepley's down home BBQ sauce to add some more flavor and moisture and place them on the old stand by Weber charcoal grill for a few minutes for that smoked flavor. That is my make shift recipe for baby back ribs, I will let you know how it turns out. I havent decided what to do with the beef roast yet, but it is currently marinating in A-1 classic marinade and black pepper. I could drink that stuff.
I am in for a great day. The house is clean, I get to go shed hunting with Brewer, come back and fire up the oven and grill, watch the big game and enjoy some great food. Hopefully Steffi gets off sooner rather then later so there is still food left when she gets here.
I plan on continuing to reinforce Brewers training today by attempting to make him quarter different areas in search of sheds. I know this could be confusing for a dog to hunt shed antlers not birds, but I think he can handle it. If he cant, maybe I will find some nice sheds at the Fun Trial next week. One last note, Steffi and I took Brewer to the Vet this week because we though he was sick, turns out he is fine. I was anxious to get him on the scales to see how much he has grown. Last time we took him was sometime in October or November. He was 30 lbs then, now he is 50 lbs.He doesnt look like he has grown much to me, but I see him everyday. I think he is 23 or 24 inces tall. He is 8.5 months old. Both his mom and dad are a good bit bigger then he is now, so I think he has a lot of growing left to do. They are both around 70 pounds and stand about 2 inches taller then he does. Of course I want him to be as big as possible. I realize this serves no purpose except to inflate my pride, so if he doesnt get that big its ok, but I hope he does. We had the vet clip his nails because he will not cooperate for us at home. Turns out he doesnt like it there either. My self, Steffi and the assistant had to pin him down while the vet clipped his nails. He turned in to a little monster, growling, whining and yelping. The funniest part was when we had him held down, he saw the clippers moving towards his foot, and before the even touched him he yelped really loud as if it already hurt. I felt so bad doing that to him, but those claws were getting long. The only way I could get him to calm down was by asking him where the DUCKIES and BIRDIES were and asking him if he wanted to go HUNTEM UP, this seemed to distract him just long enough for the Doc to finish. He was all kisses and wags afterwards because he was graciously rewarded for his courage with doggy treats. Next time we might just put him under.
Well, time is a-waistin, Thanks for stopping by, I will let ya know how those ribs turn out and hopefully have some pics of the sheds I find today.

-Andrew