This weeks “Farming Update?” from Ben
I got a massage the other day and the salt wall in the header photo is the wall of their waiting room. It has a nice amber light that is very calming, and they say it supports relaxation to help reduce stress. I just like the look of it. Daughter has a salt lamp that is the same color. It sweats due to the higher humidity in our house, and kinda makes a mess, but it is a very nice warm light.
It’s been kind of a busy week.
There was no farming this week, unless you call cutting the grass and picking up sticks and feeding the chickens and collecting eggs farming. And that was done by Kelly and daughter respectively. I got diddly squat done at home between Work work, tech rehearsals for Sweeny Todd, several meetings, homework, and yes, the massage. That’s how I spent the week. Well, at least until I got to Friday. I got a few things done Friday.
I must say, I am acing the humanities class. 100%. And this comment from the teacher: “You know you’re going above and beyond, right? I mean that you’re writing 2-3x as much as your classmates… but you’re probably also having 2-3x as much fun!” I wrote to her and said I knew I was writing too much and I felt sorry every time I submitted a paper to her. She responded, ” No, it’s fine. Write away! At least I can hear YOUR voice in your writing and it’s both personal and wise. Plus, you really enjoy doing it.”
That made my whole day…
Music class… eh. 8/10 on a workbook and that’s the only grade posted so far. I go see the teacher weekly and we have a good time talking. It always makes so much sense when she tells me. It doesn’t sink in from the book. Course it would help if I actually read the book first and didn’t just jump into the middle. I can “wing” a lot of things, but evidently not this so much. Geez, sounds like high school all over again.
At college one day I made an electric cable. You know, lighting fixtures used to come with a cord, and you just put on the end you needed. It might be either of a couple specific theater kinds of ends like, ‘Stage Pin’ or ‘Twist Loc’ (new or old style) or regular old Edison like at your house.
Then they, “They”, stopped putting cables on the light. You get a ‘receptacle’ on the back of the light fixture, and you hook up a power cable. They were ‘powercon’. So, I made powercon cables and adapters and couplers, because you couldn’t simply hook one end to the other. And from powercon, now they created ‘True 1’ connectors. “New and Improved!” Here I am making MORE cables. But at least this connector can hook end to end without a special coupler.
A few years ago I learned if you read the printing on the cable, the female connector will go on the right hand side, because the woman is always right, and that way you don’t need to twist the wires to connect to the proper terminal. HUH!
Sweeny Todd opened last night, Friday, at the Rep in Rochester. I’d seen the show once before, never saw the movie. I know the plot, but I didn’t know the show that well. This version, this director, Philip, really brings out the humor in the show. There’s a lot of sarcasm. Sweeny goes off on this big song of bringing vengeance on all those that have ruined his life, and Mrs. Lovett sits for a moment and finally says, “Well yes, that’s all well and good…”
Lighting it has been fun. We ended up with 206 lighting cues. A handful of those are before the house opens; turning on house lights, checking all the fixtures are working, etcetera, but the bulk are during the show, when Emilie, our stage manager, is also triggering 200 sound cues. It’s OK, she has 2 fingers; one for sound, one for lights. We don’t have an orchestra for this show, we have recorded music. (Musicians are busy, and it’s often hard to find enough to cover the run of a show. If they’re in a band, they’re usually playing weekends as well). Emilie is busy! And she does a fantastic job.
Here’s some looks from the show.
There was an auction again. See how this newer tractor sold for so much less? It has a lot more hours, and it needs tires. Looks like its been ‘rode hard and put away wet’. Tires will be about $20,000 for all 8 of them.
The top tractor only has 5000 hours. The bottom one has 11,000 hours.
I didn’t buy anything. I watched a few things, didn’t buy any.
HOW MANY KINDS OF SALT IN YOUR CABINET?
DOESN’T EVERYONE HAVE A WATER SOFTENER?
I have 3 kinds of salt. 1) A box of iodized table salt. 2) A jar of coarse Kosher salt (because Sav-a-Lot in town was closing, and it was discounted), and 3) Something coarse in a salt grinder on the table for dinner use. I also have rock salt in the garage for melting ice in the winter. I have no salt lamps.
No water softener here. Our water comes from Lake Michigan, about 5 miles away. Once you get used to the flavor, it’s adequate for most needs.
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Table salt and sea salt.
Sadly, I rarely use any due to high blood pressure.
Franklin, Ohio treated tap water is tasty. No additional softening is needed.
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Except for the Lake Michigan part, I’m kind of in the same place as David. I have the traditional can of iodized salt in the cabinet, a grinder on the counter and I think I still have some ice salt left in the garage although haven’t used it for a few years. Haven’t really needed it. And no water softener here either. I did come home from Peru in 2019 with several packets of pink salt that were given to me by various hotels and suppliers while I was traveling there. Fun but of course I’ve used that up!!
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Oh good grief. Previous Anonymous is VS.
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We have iodized salt in the standard cylindrical container (and in the shakers) and kosher salt I use for cooking. I think somewhere we also have some pink salt but I don’t generally use it. The copy on the jar of pink salt makes me laugh. It claims it is “said to be the purest salt in the world”. No mention of who might have said that. It could be anyone, not necessarily someone with special knowledge. That’s weaselly ad copy at its finest. And isn’t the fact that the salt is pink a clear indication that the salt is not in fact pure but contains minerals and perhaps other components that give it its color? The fact it contains unspecified minerals is not automatically a good thing either. Some are beneficial, some not.
I have never owned a water softener. Some municipalities, like Minneapolis, soften the city water, rendering water softeners unnecessary.
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The mention of salt takes me to the 1930 Gandi protest march to the sea to make salt. Brilliant! The movie version is highly accurate.
“Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life.”
Non-violent protests work.
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Good grief – just looked, and I have sea salt from the co-op, kosher salt, some Irish Sea Salt from a friend’s trip to Ireland, some pink and other fancy salts that were a gift from my sister, and regular iodized.
There is a book that I haven’t read yet, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking” by Samin Nosrat, that apparently explains how/when to use all these different salts to their best effect…
We had a water softener in Robbinsdale, but alas not here – I miss it when cleaning the bathroom fixtures, where the lime builds up.
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Sweeny Todd looks fun, Ben!
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We have coarse and fine sea salt. We cook with Diamond Crystal salt, which is coarse, as well as camning and pickling salt. We have some Himalayan pink salt that Boommate brought, as well as some other fancy salts I haven’t explored yet.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons:
iodized salt, course sea salt, Kosher salt.
OT: I am off to the Hennepin County Master Gardener House Plant Sale (Grow Yourself Inside is the official name). I am the Pot Head in charge of recycled used pots donated for resale. This goes from 12:00 noon to 3pm. Deeply slashed prices start at 2:30pm.
Hopkins Eisenhower Community Center, Hopkins, MN.
All funds raised are returned to the program for scholarships and outreach.
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Snort! You are the Pot Head… 😂
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We have regular iodized salt, kosher salt, pickling salt, and coarse flake salt. No colored salts. Husband has high BP so what we have is more than enough. I don’t heavily salt foods, just what’s needed for flavor. Son and I add extra at the table.
We have a water softener now, but when we lived in Eden Prairie we didn’t need one.
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I have iodized salt, kosher salt, and sea salt. I mostly use salt in baking, but not in hotdishes, soups, sauces, or stir fry.
They don’t have water softeners in Duluth or Two Harbors because Lake Superior is the water source. I have one here, which I wouldn’t be without. It has used only one bag of softener salt in a year.
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Everyone here has a water softener due to the really hard water here. I think they are a pain. The salt bags are so heavy we can barely lift them. I think I will contract with Culligan to haul salt into the basement.
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