Today from my organic garden I made beautiful chemical free jalapenos lightly grilled and then stuffed with cream cheese and bacon.
Yummy!
I ate them all.
Parts of me are now on fire.
I may not survive...actually hope that I don't.
Ice cream doesn't work.
Prayer isn't all that helpful either.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Ring
She had the ring picked out before the man, too bad. She imagined it from the start, the first start. If she couldn’t be a cowboy then she would marry one and she twirled where cowboys gathered. At the time it seemed a reasonable plan.
The ring would be a simple 10mm band, 18k rose gold with his their brand embossed equidistant in five places. Husband, wife, two children and one more after they were married, just to seal the deal. Five equals, no more, no less, forever.
It couldn’t be a complicated brand or the sentiment might be lost in the heat of it. Nothing that would form a hot spot to scar when they punched it to the shoulder of a 3-month old calf. Something with a mill iron would be fine.
It should have been a Running W, but she was slack in his rodeo now. Still damn good fun at a ropin, or in the empty calving shed way up in the bluffs with no one but the eagle as witness. Fun is not for marrying, too bad. A fence crawler with two small children is worse than a breachy second calf heifer. No matter they were his calves she weaned, or what good hooks and pins she had. But the way she swung her rope…he would remember and calls her still, when he’s drinking.
Her brand would tuck inside the band, engraved, marked, scratched, branded, scarred, forever, this time.
She found him, a Lazy J mill iron. No hot spots there, none. Finding a herd sire isn’t difficult when all you’re looking for is a simple brand, and it only took the honeymoon for her to understand she had a two-hundred pound pizzle rot Lazy J mill iron bull-ringed through her Achilles tendon. The brand made it hard to swing her rope, so she quit tryin.
Monday, August 15, 2011
A Name For it
There isn’t a name for it, that thing when you make a memory, lifelong. She was 23 and pregnant. Just a girl walking up the stairs to sign a real estate contract with her first, soon-to-be-ex, husband. Just a man coming down the stairs, their hands sparked on the rail, a connection, a jolt to the system. Not her type, late 40-ish, drab Mister Rogers cardigan, penny loafers, scraggly moustache, prematurely graying hair with an unlit pipe clenched between uneven teeth. She was a pretty girl, but he looked past her pretty into “I know you, you are someone to me.”
Their eyes met full, unembarrassed. Neither apologized, as is customary when you touch a stranger on a stairwell. Neither dropped their eyes or glanced away from invading personal space, like an invisible force field around modern society they stared directly into the eyes of not a stranger and fell instantly sad, ancient sad. What do you call it? Profound loss? and you have never met? never will?
He turned to follow her up the stairs. Stopping at his office door to check his watch, fumble his moustache, watch them file into the room. She hung back slightly, the last inside, her eyes drifting again to his, just to be sure, to be sure.
No, never, not ever. She was sure of it, so was he. They kept eyes to eyes until the attorney asked if she was feeling all right. “Could I get you some water?” “No, thank you.” Pulling her eyes away from not her type she went inside leaving the door wide.
He followed their business with something like interest. Leaning back in his chair to put his feet on the desk he watched. She leaned forward laid her hand on the table and watched as two worlds revolved into an easy, familiar balance.
He twiddled no particular thing at all until he thought to light the pipe. Good for at least five-minutes of ritual. He was new to pipe smoking, but not for long. He would think of her always when he smoked, on the golf course between drives, after making like to his wife, puttering in his orchids when he was older. His last thought would be of long black hair and unashamed eyes when she took his hand into eternity. He wondered why he knew her. Why he knew her so completely.
She thought of him when she went into labor, would have called out his name had she known it. Thought of him when she was baking cookies, planting carrots, folding laundry. She thought of him years later when she buried that child, would have cried out his name had she known it. Would cleave unto him had she known it.
“Missus? Missus? Are you all right? Can I get you something? Is it the baby?” She should pay attention, but she couldn’t, the room felt airless and uncomfortably tight.
“Pregnant women, friggin’ weird,” the attorney thought. “It’s the hormones,” the attorney thought. But he was wrong. Not hormones, the light and dark, good and evil, yin and yang, man and woman of it.
When she left the room he followed her as far as the bank of glass at the top of the stairs. He watched her walk down and look up as she swung slowly around the newel. He counted her steps through the building until she came into view in the parking lot. She stared long at him before crawling inside the car. He watched them pull away, watched her fingertips press the car window as his own pressed the glass. They watched until there was nothing left to see.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Should Genetically Engineered Food Be Labeled?
It is safe to say that most Americans want to believe that what they are consuming is truly what they are consuming. To that end, the concerns and necessity surrounding food labeling began in 1977 when products containing the artificial sweetener, saccharin, were required to have a label informing the consumer of the potential adverse health effects of saccharin consumption (USFDA, 2009, a.). This legislation did not restrict the use of saccharin, but it did alert the consumer to the “potential” for deleterious health effects, not unlike alcohol and cigarette packages of today.
In 1990 the USFDA enacted the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act further requiring all packaged foods to follow standardized terms for content and health claims. Additionally, supplementary changes to labeling and standardization of terminology have been added to products with known or suspect allergenic reactions such as, latex, certain plastics, peanuts, shellfish, and monosodium glutamate (MSG) (USFDA, 2011). Tweaks to the labeling system are current and ongoing in an attempt to best inform Americans about the products that they consume.
Therefore, given America’s legislative tradition of full disclosure regarding product content, it is not unreasonable to expect that a product or commodity containing genetically engineered (GE) material would be labeled as such. This allows the consumer to consume or not consume based on personal choice. Like alcohol or cigarette packages, this does not impose a governmental opinion, but serves only to provide a “heads-up”. This “heads-up” approach has the bio-tech industry screaming foul and the truth in advertising population screaming fair. Not surprisingly, money is at the root of this controversy.
Bio-tech advocates rely on support from “substantial equivalence” (USFDA, 1992), essentially that GE food and feed products are almost exactly the same as naturally occurring products (USFDA, 2009, b.). Further, citing an unnecessary—but unsupported—claim that the resulting substantial increases in product costs will impact not only non–consumers of GE products, but all consumers (Byrne, 2010). In a research study at Colorado State University’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a series of surveys specifically targeted at potatoes were undertaken to understand Colorado-consumer attitudes toward GE foods. The survey of 437 supermarket shoppers in four Front Range communities in the Fall of 2000 found that 78 percent supported mandatory labeling of GE foods (Byrne, 2010). Further surveys, studies, analyses, and prognostications all dependent on the tenuous hold of substantial equivalency lead us to believe that consumers are not willing to pay for labeling (Byrne, 2010), but more than a decade after CSU’s potato survey, informed consumers worldwide are still fighting for GE labeling (FSANZ, 2011).
Clearly, after more than ten years of embittered battling between industry and consumers, Americans join the ranks of citizens worldwide that want to know a product contains, or is, GE and are willing to pay to fight for that right.
References
Byrne, P. (9/2010). Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods. Colorado State University; Extension. No. 9.371. Retrieved 27 February 2011 from
FSANZ. (2011). Genetically Modified Foods (GM). Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Retrieved 26 February 2011 from
USFDA. (2011). Labeling & Nutrition.
USFDA. (2009, a.). Milestones in Food and Drug Law.
USFDA. (2009, b.). Plant Biotechnology for Food and Feed
USFDA. (1992). Statement of Policy – Foods Derived From New Plant Varieties
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Caveat Lector
Today is about loss.
If that is a bummer for you, stop now and go do something productive. Preferably with chocolate.
...I can't write this yet.
Some hours later...
I opted to read about gain and ignore the losses I have tallied up on my score-card of life.
Not to forget the lesson that loss teaches, I just don't want to drag them behind me anymore.
So I don't, almost don't.
Currently, I hear my youngest call from the bathtub. No doubt summoning me to fetch the towel that she chooses to forget. Of all my children she is the most imp-like. My friend calls her a buzz saw. An accurate description, but chipper/shredder might be more accurate.
Her attitude says, "I have needs and you will meet them." And so of course, I do.
This attitude is for me alone. Our unique mother-daughter bond.
She has her reasons that are not a mystery to my family. To the world she is a puzzle of painfully shy, emotionally cripplingly, downright rudeness. It is a sensory overload that hopefully time will cure, or maybe not.
When people realize this they try and draw her out, which only serves to push her more tightly in.
She can't bear to be touched. Now that she is older she knows that this is rude and will stand stock still to almost tolerate a hug from an acquaintance, but it requires monumental effort.
I will pay for this because sometimes I am not her buffer.
I am the mother, I should fend and interpret for her---her eyes tell me, and frequently I do. But she has to make her own way eventually and baby steps are good.
At our house good is subjective. Many things that are mundane, odd, or downright unusual are good, real good.
Last year we had pneumonia together, she and I. We went to the emergency room.
The intake Doc came into--intake. He looked at my chart and looked at her chart and then at us.
"You are the..."(looks at charts again--and again) "you are the mother?"
"That's correct."
Looks at charts, knits brow.
"You are 57 and your daughter is...6?"
"Correct, again."
I have, as the whim strikes me, spun the yarn of fertility drugs, late in life pregnancy, and breast feeding without having to lift my child up off of my lap, but I was too sick for my old bag-of-tricks and he chose not to pursue his.
Sadly, another laugh lost.
I love her for all of her twisting of my tail because she mostly makes me laugh at that giant attitude.
Her bad attitude is my great guffaw.
If that is a bummer for you, stop now and go do something productive. Preferably with chocolate.
...I can't write this yet.
Some hours later...
I opted to read about gain and ignore the losses I have tallied up on my score-card of life.
Not to forget the lesson that loss teaches, I just don't want to drag them behind me anymore.
So I don't, almost don't.
Currently, I hear my youngest call from the bathtub. No doubt summoning me to fetch the towel that she chooses to forget. Of all my children she is the most imp-like. My friend calls her a buzz saw. An accurate description, but chipper/shredder might be more accurate.
Her attitude says, "I have needs and you will meet them." And so of course, I do.
This attitude is for me alone. Our unique mother-daughter bond.
She has her reasons that are not a mystery to my family. To the world she is a puzzle of painfully shy, emotionally cripplingly, downright rudeness. It is a sensory overload that hopefully time will cure, or maybe not.
When people realize this they try and draw her out, which only serves to push her more tightly in.
She can't bear to be touched. Now that she is older she knows that this is rude and will stand stock still to almost tolerate a hug from an acquaintance, but it requires monumental effort.
I will pay for this because sometimes I am not her buffer.
I am the mother, I should fend and interpret for her---her eyes tell me, and frequently I do. But she has to make her own way eventually and baby steps are good.
At our house good is subjective. Many things that are mundane, odd, or downright unusual are good, real good.
Last year we had pneumonia together, she and I. We went to the emergency room.
The intake Doc came into--intake. He looked at my chart and looked at her chart and then at us.
"You are the..."(looks at charts again--and again) "you are the mother?"
"That's correct."
Looks at charts, knits brow.
"You are 57 and your daughter is...6?"
"Correct, again."
I have, as the whim strikes me, spun the yarn of fertility drugs, late in life pregnancy, and breast feeding without having to lift my child up off of my lap, but I was too sick for my old bag-of-tricks and he chose not to pursue his.
Sadly, another laugh lost.
I love her for all of her twisting of my tail because she mostly makes me laugh at that giant attitude.
Her bad attitude is my great guffaw.
Cape Lookout
Gorgeous day here on the Emerald Coast. Kids and I went for a hike halfway up Cape Lookout. We would have gone to the top, but there were no bathrooms.
The--"Make yourself large and wave your arms screaming if confronted by a bear"--signs posted everywhere were prohibitive of a woodsy release of excess body fluids for us girls, so we opted to go back to the comfort of the bearless sanitary station near the beach.
As if I need a sign to wave my arms and scream when I see a bear.
I know where Ents live, and it is here on the Oregon Coast. The Sitka Spruce have wonderful absurdly shaped limbs with many different species of moss hanging long from them. When the wind blows they sway and you can hear them talking.
OK...I can hear them talking, you might just hear the wind in the trees.
The trail winds up the forest covered volcanic cliffs about 2 miles and you can always sit and just take in the ocean view.
We are going back tomorrow with PBJ's and hot coffee...and pepper spray.
The--"Make yourself large and wave your arms screaming if confronted by a bear"--signs posted everywhere were prohibitive of a woodsy release of excess body fluids for us girls, so we opted to go back to the comfort of the bearless sanitary station near the beach.
As if I need a sign to wave my arms and scream when I see a bear.
I know where Ents live, and it is here on the Oregon Coast. The Sitka Spruce have wonderful absurdly shaped limbs with many different species of moss hanging long from them. When the wind blows they sway and you can hear them talking.
OK...I can hear them talking, you might just hear the wind in the trees.
The trail winds up the forest covered volcanic cliffs about 2 miles and you can always sit and just take in the ocean view.
We are going back tomorrow with PBJ's and hot coffee...and pepper spray.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Bathroom White
I don't know how you handle stress, but I paint things.
Not paintings, but things--under the stairs, the insides of closets, basement walls, bathrooms--things that rarely get painted and usually need it.
This is my recessive Romanian side (the more dominant Irish side just makes jokes and drinks when stressed).
All year long, the Romanian Aunties scrubbed the paint off of everything so that they could repaint in the Spring. Often with those little Slavic patterns of dots and dashes. I tried dots and dashes, but leaning toward instant gratification I am more of a stamp-it, sticker freak instead of the more traditional Romanian Morse code for I hate my life today.
In the past, to lift my spirits, I purchased inappropriate colors that look fabulous on a 2X2 swatch and not so fabulous on an entire wall. That was how painting inside closets and under stairways got started. I'm over that. Now I buy Dutch Boy soft white because I like the little Dutch Boy and really good brushes so that I can paint anywhere anytime and perk myself up with my sticker accessories.
Today I painted the tired old vinyl bathroom floor. Yes, of course you can, and even if you can't just keep painting it if it wears. It lasts a good year and by then I need to paint something again anyway.
Have you been sticker shopping lately? A product of the 10 small red stars equal 1 big gold star generation, a sticker is the ultimate reward for the child in me and stickers are wonderful these days.
To my now soft white vinyl floor with the 1986 2x2 embossed faux tile pattern I have centered golden opalescent translucent geckos and red dragonflies in an alternating pattern. I also have pastel elephants and ladybugs and frogs but haven't decided how these will fit into my motif.
Fortunately, I am rarely motif constrained and will stick them wherever I please. After I have the whole design thing established and stickered down I will fast-dry urethane over the top and life will be good, or at least the kids can use the bathroom again.
Trust me on this one, nothing smothers trouble like a nice coat of white paint...and a shimmering opalescent gecko.
Not paintings, but things--under the stairs, the insides of closets, basement walls, bathrooms--things that rarely get painted and usually need it.
This is my recessive Romanian side (the more dominant Irish side just makes jokes and drinks when stressed).
All year long, the Romanian Aunties scrubbed the paint off of everything so that they could repaint in the Spring. Often with those little Slavic patterns of dots and dashes. I tried dots and dashes, but leaning toward instant gratification I am more of a stamp-it, sticker freak instead of the more traditional Romanian Morse code for I hate my life today.
In the past, to lift my spirits, I purchased inappropriate colors that look fabulous on a 2X2 swatch and not so fabulous on an entire wall. That was how painting inside closets and under stairways got started. I'm over that. Now I buy Dutch Boy soft white because I like the little Dutch Boy and really good brushes so that I can paint anywhere anytime and perk myself up with my sticker accessories.
Today I painted the tired old vinyl bathroom floor. Yes, of course you can, and even if you can't just keep painting it if it wears. It lasts a good year and by then I need to paint something again anyway.
Have you been sticker shopping lately? A product of the 10 small red stars equal 1 big gold star generation, a sticker is the ultimate reward for the child in me and stickers are wonderful these days.
To my now soft white vinyl floor with the 1986 2x2 embossed faux tile pattern I have centered golden opalescent translucent geckos and red dragonflies in an alternating pattern. I also have pastel elephants and ladybugs and frogs but haven't decided how these will fit into my motif.
Fortunately, I am rarely motif constrained and will stick them wherever I please. After I have the whole design thing established and stickered down I will fast-dry urethane over the top and life will be good, or at least the kids can use the bathroom again.
Trust me on this one, nothing smothers trouble like a nice coat of white paint...and a shimmering opalescent gecko.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
No Particular Thing at All
One of the writing strategies I've learned is that when you can't think of anything to write just start typing.
However, don't use this as a conversational tool.
I wrote a "My Children's Story" for a class in indigenous agriculture that worked out pretty well. My kids love it anyway. I'm considering writing more of these as a way to share our family history before they are too old and cool to care.
The point of the exercise was to emphasize that most ancient knowledge was passed down in story form and that most modern humans can't tell much of their personal history because many of us don't even know our own story. That is the disturbing commentary of our time, we've stopped sharing the instruction manual.
From the class I've gained a healthy respect for indigenous people. The annihilated tribes and the few that remain were/are not ignorant barbarians, but very complicated societies that function in harmony with nature, not in opposition to it. I'm just learning about the coastal Salish tribes that managed resources in the Pacific North West for more than 15,000 years. Unlike the tribes of the vast American prairies, that were few and far between so of course they left a small footprint, Salish tribes were numerous, lived in close proximity and managed to live sustainably long before it became the buzz word.
I was surprised to learn that indigenous tribes manage their territory. My idea of a hunter/gatherer society was like a browsing animal "pick stuff up and eat it, no stuff, no eat." Forgive me lord for I am a product of my biased grade school text books.
Far from being savage, these people had brilliant ideas. Way too many to condense here. One little example to facilitate basketry is that they selectively burned small portions of riparian areas so that the willow would grow back in abundance, straight, and of uniform length. They didn't need an industrialized technology because fire is a more elegant solution to meet the need.
Sheesh, and then they had time to tell stories to their children.
http://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-2006/wild-gardens
Life isn't fair, but I can be.
However, don't use this as a conversational tool.
I wrote a "My Children's Story" for a class in indigenous agriculture that worked out pretty well. My kids love it anyway. I'm considering writing more of these as a way to share our family history before they are too old and cool to care.
The point of the exercise was to emphasize that most ancient knowledge was passed down in story form and that most modern humans can't tell much of their personal history because many of us don't even know our own story. That is the disturbing commentary of our time, we've stopped sharing the instruction manual.
From the class I've gained a healthy respect for indigenous people. The annihilated tribes and the few that remain were/are not ignorant barbarians, but very complicated societies that function in harmony with nature, not in opposition to it. I'm just learning about the coastal Salish tribes that managed resources in the Pacific North West for more than 15,000 years. Unlike the tribes of the vast American prairies, that were few and far between so of course they left a small footprint, Salish tribes were numerous, lived in close proximity and managed to live sustainably long before it became the buzz word.
I was surprised to learn that indigenous tribes manage their territory. My idea of a hunter/gatherer society was like a browsing animal "pick stuff up and eat it, no stuff, no eat." Forgive me lord for I am a product of my biased grade school text books.
Far from being savage, these people had brilliant ideas. Way too many to condense here. One little example to facilitate basketry is that they selectively burned small portions of riparian areas so that the willow would grow back in abundance, straight, and of uniform length. They didn't need an industrialized technology because fire is a more elegant solution to meet the need.
Sheesh, and then they had time to tell stories to their children.
http://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-2006/wild-gardens
Life isn't fair, but I can be.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Let Me Tell You ‘bout the Birds and the Bees
Today a friend sent me a link to a new documentary Queen of the Sun. I think I will buy it for our county library just so that I can see it sooner than later. It's about what is happening to the bees and ultimately...us.
My interest in natural science began as childhood curiosity about how and why living things work, especially the birds and the bees. Indeed, biology played a major role in the path that my life has taken.
I had planned on a romantic self-indulgent career in marine biology but the instinctive desire to preserve my DNA put that dream on hold. Well, that and how ridiculous I thought I looked strapped into a wet suit.
Most of my middle life was spent on the Great Plains raising cattle and children. This fed my need to know how things grow and kept me busy enough to almost stop wondering. Almost.
Early on I began to question the need for all of the agricultural chemicals and antibiotics we used on our ranch. As it often happens my concerns were dismissed with the addition of “everything we use is safe enough to drink.”
Once when they sprayed “safe enough to drink” I woke to what sounded like soft hail on my tin roof. This turned out to be hundreds of birds. Even the little Rocky Mountain Bluebirds that I love so well were dead all about me. I kept my children inside for a week.
I called the state and forced an investigation, which served only to label me a hippy in my small community. My celebrity caused me to keep a low profile, but I continued to wonder and converted 175 acres to organic hay and lamb production.
Organic farming is wonderfully all consuming and it worked well for a time…until I got the bees. I really loved my bees, as much as I love those tiny Rocky Mountain Bluebirds.
Early January 2006 I checked my hives. All were full of healthy looking, active, winter bees and plenty of honey left them for the winter. When I checked in February the hives were still full of honey, pollen, and brood cells, but empty of bees.
Oh, there were a few deads, maybe a hundred in each hive, but nothing like the 20,000 workers and their queen that should have been there. They weren’t dead they were just…gone. In the frigid desolation of a prairie winter bees do not naturally swarm or even leave the hive very often. I didn’t know it, but I had been devastated by Colony Collapse Disorder.
The birds and the bees caught my interest as a child and they sent me back to school as a woman in an attempt to understand what is happening in our world and how it can possibly be “safe enough to drink.”
I am working on my Masters with a more feasible eye toward soil science and food security instead of marine biology, but frankly I just can’t see myself in a wet suit anymore.
Life isn't fair, but I can be.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Going Coastal
Today is stormy and amazing. We haven't had rain for a week and I was getting a little tired of the nice weather. Nice weather demands cheerfulness and cheerfulness can be such a burden.
On the other hand, a majestic storm limits possibilities and forces us to sit back. Unless you are in the Coast Guard, there's nothing you can do in the face of a really good storm except read, drink coffee and catch up on sleep.
Storms charge my soul like sunshine never could, and they give me perspective. In the great scheme of global weather I am an insignificant speck. Does it really matter if I miss a deadline? Not if there is a storm.
Here's wishing you stormy weather, good books, plenty of coffee, and food for thought...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQERicjyc4o
On the other hand, a majestic storm limits possibilities and forces us to sit back. Unless you are in the Coast Guard, there's nothing you can do in the face of a really good storm except read, drink coffee and catch up on sleep.
Storms charge my soul like sunshine never could, and they give me perspective. In the great scheme of global weather I am an insignificant speck. Does it really matter if I miss a deadline? Not if there is a storm.
Here's wishing you stormy weather, good books, plenty of coffee, and food for thought...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQERicjyc4o
Friday, February 11, 2011
Aughhh! Coffee
Day three and I am painfully behind here.
However, this is not a bipolar issue of following a shiny object. I had a story deadline and finishing that puts me way beyond my 1000WC today. Yay me!
I could just sleep in tomorrow except that I have another deadline and that pesky forestry quiz.
Gack
However, this is not a bipolar issue of following a shiny object. I had a story deadline and finishing that puts me way beyond my 1000WC today. Yay me!
I could just sleep in tomorrow except that I have another deadline and that pesky forestry quiz.
Gack
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Kimchi and Coffee
I have some kimchi fermenting in a crock on the kitchen counter. Kimchi is a Korean staple of fermented Napa cabbage, onions, carrots, garlic, diakon radish (and whatever else is in the frig) with enough ginger, fish sauce and red pepper to knock you off the chair.
I love it even though it produces breath that necessitates increased personal space by a factor of ten. Fermented foods, that are not pasteurized or heat preserved, are full of beneficial microorganisms. The recipe is very easy and pretty loosely based on personal preference. If you are interested in trying it, Google video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeBR91ypxk4
Gosh, how did we pass information before the internet?
I'm still figuring out this blog thing, but will try and insert a picture of it in the recycled Costco Animal Cracker jug that stores it in the refrigerator. Fermented veggies can keep for a year, but mine never last more than a week or so. I might be addicted to microbes as well as coffee and we sure know I am addicted to fermented barley beverages.
HaHa! I did it. Please note the forced hyacinth in the background. The fragrance of hyacinth combined with fermenting vegetables is beyond description. Fermenting, just a gentler way to say rot. Yummy.
More later, I have a forestry quiz and I am ill prepared. I simply cannot keep my conifers in order. That's a taxonomic joke in case you missed it.
I love it even though it produces breath that necessitates increased personal space by a factor of ten. Fermented foods, that are not pasteurized or heat preserved, are full of beneficial microorganisms. The recipe is very easy and pretty loosely based on personal preference. If you are interested in trying it, Google video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeBR91ypxk4
Gosh, how did we pass information before the internet?
I'm still figuring out this blog thing, but will try and insert a picture of it in the recycled Costco Animal Cracker jug that stores it in the refrigerator. Fermented veggies can keep for a year, but mine never last more than a week or so. I might be addicted to microbes as well as coffee and we sure know I am addicted to fermented barley beverages.
HaHa! I did it. Please note the forced hyacinth in the background. The fragrance of hyacinth combined with fermenting vegetables is beyond description. Fermenting, just a gentler way to say rot. Yummy.
More later, I have a forestry quiz and I am ill prepared. I simply cannot keep my conifers in order. That's a taxonomic joke in case you missed it.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
AM Coffee PM Corona BiPolar Anyone?
I prefer the term manic and to a certain degree depressive although, I tend toward the mania and I hope that you do too. This is a 365 day account of what goes on in the mind of a madmam. Mad as in Hatter not as in angry.
On any given day I am a parent, work full-time on my Masters in soil science, employed part-time, remodeling a giant old house, rehabilitating 2 acres of degraded soils for food production, and trying to keep physically fit.
Sometimes some of these things actually work out, just not all on the same day.
I like my disorder, I get a lot done. So then, there is order in disorder and function in dysfunction.
Today started at 5AM. Not a morning person, I get up early so that by the time I need to be alive...I am. I lit the home fires brewed a pot of coffee, of course, and here I am.
I should be on the treadmill, but instead am typing away for no particular reason at all. I try to keep to my goal of 1000 words a day to improve my writing skills. I want all of this word writing profundity to account for something even if it is just a misuse of bandwith.
To get you started with a laugh follow the link. My personal favorite, bird number one playing the nighttime/daytime game. I am that bird.
Not made my WC goal yet, but this is a start and starting is half the journey.
On to the T-mill...yuk, I hate it so, but I can watch a soil lecture while I go walkies. Does anyone but me remember that British lady dog trainer from the '70s PBS Show? Ahh a voice like Julia Childs on helium.
http://www.wimp.com/
On any given day I am a parent, work full-time on my Masters in soil science, employed part-time, remodeling a giant old house, rehabilitating 2 acres of degraded soils for food production, and trying to keep physically fit.
Sometimes some of these things actually work out, just not all on the same day.
I like my disorder, I get a lot done. So then, there is order in disorder and function in dysfunction.
Today started at 5AM. Not a morning person, I get up early so that by the time I need to be alive...I am. I lit the home fires brewed a pot of coffee, of course, and here I am.
I should be on the treadmill, but instead am typing away for no particular reason at all. I try to keep to my goal of 1000 words a day to improve my writing skills. I want all of this word writing profundity to account for something even if it is just a misuse of bandwith.
To get you started with a laugh follow the link. My personal favorite, bird number one playing the nighttime/daytime game. I am that bird.
Not made my WC goal yet, but this is a start and starting is half the journey.
On to the T-mill...yuk, I hate it so, but I can watch a soil lecture while I go walkies. Does anyone but me remember that British lady dog trainer from the '70s PBS Show? Ahh a voice like Julia Childs on helium.
http://www.wimp.com/
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