The Campfire Trail: February 5 - The Campfire Trail

February 5, 2025

Day 1,223 of the Adventure

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I guess it was inevitable that I would eventually begin showing signs of the "Grumpy Old Man" syndrome. It's been building for a while but has boiled to the surface more regularly in the past couple of years. I think I know why too. Since moving to a small cabin in the woods, I'm relying more upon the simple things in life to serve as a benchmark to my overall temperament and demeaner. At least as much as I can. Things like coffee by a campfire at sunrise. Cutting, splitting and stacking firewood for heat. Picking tomatoes from the garden for a simple BLT sandwich. Simmering a pot off soup in a crock pot on a chilly winter weekend......... Things like that. Doing my best to avoid complicated processes or formulas. Which brings me to my "grumpy rant". Crock pots! Why can't a crock pot just be a crock pot? They are simple enough. One moving part! The ceramic pot! Maybe two parts if you count the lid. Perhaps three parts if you include the heat selector switch. I suppose that could even be counted as three parts by itself. High, Low and Keep Warm. Still, all very simple with the fewest moving parts to get the job done. No programming, setting selections, digital read-outs, 32 page instruction books, electronic circuitry, flashing lights, beeping alarms...... shall I continue? To me, "Put it in the pot and turn the selector knob to either High or Low" is adequate enough! But I guess that just won't do anymore. For a few years, we have owned both varieties of crock pot. My version, two steps and one knob. And Shelley's version........ All those other things I just described. Now it calls itself a Crock Pot, because that's exactly what it says on the side of it. "Crock Pot" in big letters. But I'm skeptical.

Anyway, to move on. Soup was on the menu a few days ago and it was going to be a crock pot day. I suggest our old reliable standby but no. That didn't have the capacity to do the job without one of the extra features of the "Space Pot". I guess it was to be a multi-phased event, this soup of ours! Don't ask me about the complexity required to cook our humble pot of soup, just accept the fact that it must have been necessary. After several beeps, flashing lights and steam surges, our soup had entered phase one. Some time later, it was time for phase two, I'm honestly not sure how many of these phases were on the agenda, but I can tell you that phase two is where everything went wrong. Somehow, phase two required the soup to be removed from the pot, then, something else was to occur and then the soup returned to the pot for continued cooking. Again, don't ask me why, it's obviously too complicated for my simple mind. Upon returning our dinner to the alleged "Crock Pot", the entire contents of it came running out the bottom onto the counter. passing directly through the electronics all tucked in to the lower part of the unit. Everything seemed in order except for one of the "moving parts". Or maybe I should call it a "Removable Part". The resemblance to a crock pot would leave you to believe that pouring the contents back into it would be logical. Unless you had removed the inner liner for some reason. I wasn't in the kitchen when it happened but could hear the commotion from the next room. As I saw the results of pouring a pot of soup onto the counter via the interior workings of the "Crock Pot", my only response was to utter "Too many moving parts!" That did not go over well, and in retrospect, was a bad move on my part. A Crock Pot argument ensued for several minutes, and I could rapidly see there was no chance that I would prevail. I simply went back about my business, along with wondering what we would be eating for dinner. Based on my defense of traditional crock pots, it was quite possible that I would not have to be concerned with what I would have for dinner. Likely nothing!

In the end, much of the contents were recovered from the counter and returned to the "Crock Pot". Although I knew better than to find myself in the kitchen again, they may have indeed found their way into the crock pot instead. (lower case letters indicating the traditional crock pot) I don't know and if I'm smart, I don't care! To avoid any near future conflicts or fights about the crock pot debate in our cabin, I've discreetly hunted down one of our old Bean Pots buried on the back of a bottom shelf in the cabin and put it on notice of potential active duty. A good choice, in my opinion since it contains precisely zero moving parts. Then again, I wonder if I'm safe or if it's in my best interest to even suggest that there may be a simpler solution. I may have to rethink that one. Maybe I'll go split some wood or drink some coffee.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: "Good judgement comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgement!

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