Today marks the anniversary in 1609 of Galileo demonstrating his telescope to the Venetian Senate. Imagine what they must have experienced looking through it. I wonder how they wrapped their minds around what they saw and what they thought they knew about the universe? I hope he demonstrated it at night so they could really see the stars.
What are your favorite Heavenly objects? Have you ever seen stars?
Husband’s new smoker/grill arrived on Tuesday. You can see it in the header photo. It is quite the machine, something my dad would have called a “delicate piece of equipment” given all the complexity involved in using it. It is iron, true. It took two trips to the hardware store just to unpack it. We needed a tin snips to cut the thick, wire strapping that secured its protective wrappings. Then we found it was firmly attached to a heavy wooden pallet by screws that had odd heads needing a bit with a square head for the electric screwdriver. I am thankful I managed to remove the screws without stripping them. What would we have done then?!
Husband has waited years for this grill with the same anticipation as a child waiting for a long hoped-for special toy at Christmas. His first smoked sausage and country style pork ribs turned just as he wanted. We are truly blessed with good cooking equipment.
What is the most complex piece of equipment you ever had to operate? What is your favorite cooking vessel or utensil.
For the first time ever, we have an infestation of flea beetles in the kohlrabi and cabbage. You can see in the header photo what they did to the kohlrabi leaves in just a couple of days. We very rarely have insect problems in the garden, and usually never have to apply insecticide. This time the Sevin was sprayed vigorously on these tiny, black, flying beetles the size of sesame seeds. We will wait three days to harvest, then all the cabbagey things are getting removed.
I am both fascinated and repelled by insects. I know we need some, like bees, but I wish they weren’t so destructive. People here try to catch flea beetles and take them to the Badlands and put them on Leafy Spurge, an invasive plant that is toxic to cattle and resistant to herbicides. What a wonderful use for them. I like useful insects, but that is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
What are your favorite/least favorite insects? How do you manage them in your garden? What are your feelings about insecticides?
Husband and I started six varieties of peppers from seed this year. We started two sweet red peppers (Spanish Giants and Ajvarskis) and two hot chilis (Joe Parker, a New Mexico Hatch type red chili, and Chimayo, a smaller, hotter, New Mexico red Chili). We also started some Habaneros and Thai chilis for our son
We labeled them and were careful to not mix them up. When we planted, I was certain that all the Joe Parkers were given to my secretary, as we decided at the last minute we didn’t want them. The Thai chilis and one Habanero went to our son, and all the rest, (17 in total) went into our garden. Or so we thought. Imagine my surprise when son sent photos of the alleged Habanero that looked long and slender like a Joe Parker. Two of what I thought were Chimayos also turned out to be Joe Parkers, and now we can’t tell the difference between the Spanish Giants and the Ajvarskis, as their tags got all mixed up when we planted. The header photo shows what I think are, from left to right a Spanish Giant, an Ajvarski, and Chimayo. (The latter are quite easy to discern.)
Husband tried to do a taste test between two big peppers, but they tasted similar. I decided the only way to solve this mystery is to not start any Joe Parkers next year. I should add that the peppers I gave my secretary were doing well until we had a wind storm and a big tree crashed on top of her garden.
What mystery, ancient or modern, would you like to solve?
I have never been able to do math in my head. Husband is far better at it, but last week he failed at basic math hilariously while using a calculator.
Husband found some lovely vegetables at an Adventist farm stand. (Adventists are supposed to be vegetarian, but I find it humorous that some of our most prominent local Adventists are big time cattle ranchers.) We decided to make German refrigerator pickles with them. The recipe called for four quarts of brine and one cauliflower, one carrot, twelve pearl onions, two cucumbers, and two bell peppers. It all had to sit in the brine in a steel pot in the refrigerator for a week.
We have a refrigerator in the basement just for this purpose, but we are always concerned about the weight on the shelves. Husband calculated the weight of everything and worriedly told me that we couldn’t possibly put the brine pot in the fridge because it weighed 84 pounds.
Well, that just didn’t make sense to me, and after some sturm und drang, Husband recalculated and determined it all weighed 8 pounds. The veggies are brining away in the pot in the fridge. Now I can finally tease him about his math skills.
How are your Math skills? What kinds of Math are easiest for you? When have you miscalculated?
VS and YA are out and about this week. A few clues:
Where are we?
Today’s post is from Steve Grooms
Last September I joined a group of friends who met when we lived together in a dormitory at Grinnell College. David, Jack and Ralph flew into Saint Paul from Boston and the District of Columbia so we could relive old times. Because David made a fortune in the scented candle business, he happily funded the reunion. We would dine in a restaurant two nights. My suggestions about places where the food was good and inexpensive were laughed off. For David, cost is no object. He is used to the very best when dining out near his primary home near Washington, DC.
Since cost was not a factor, I had another suggestion. WA Frost and Company is a splendid old restaurant on Selby Avenue in the Cathedral Hill district. Built late in the 19th century in the Richardson Romanesque style, the Dakota Building, the home of the restaurant, now exudes the charm of an early time. While I had not eaten there in many years, fond memories of the place allowed me to hope it would not disappoint David or my other friends on this special occasion.
The restaurant was as lovely as I’d remembered. The building features arched windows, copper cornices and walls of sandstone and brick. Giant fireplaces provided light and warmth for diners. The room itself was so quiet we could all speak at normal volume as we told stories about our shared past. The wait staff was deft and unobtrusive. The bounty from the kitchen was so good that we kept saying, “This is the best ___ I’ve ever had!”
We had the sort of evening one remembers with a romantic glow. We had expected a great deal, but WA Frost delivered more than anyone could have hoped for. It was perfect.
Other restaurants can be excellent in other ways. The header photo shows Mickey’s Diner, which in its own way is perfect. You don’t go to Mickey’s expecting the elegance and refinement we had at WA Frost, but my last visit to Mickey’s was all we’d hoped it would be.
What memories do you have of a special restaurant, diner, food truck or family eatery? Or do you remember a restaurant that was so bad you can’t forget it?
Our family often exclaims sympathetically “Bad News Bears” when we hear about the bad luck of others. For the most part, we and our family and friends have not experienced much bad luck, save for one of my uncles who had years of successive crop failures. He was still able to sell his farm when he retired and buy a nice house in town, though.
Today is the anniversary of the bad luck of a woman baseball fan who was at a Phillies game in 1957 when one of the players fouled and the ball hit her in the face and broke her nose. As she was being carried by stretcher from the ball park, the same player fouled a second time and the ball hit her again. Bad News Bears!
Tell some tales of woe.
Husband told me out of the blue this week that his three favorite people of the 20th Century were Rosa Luxemburg, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (He has more time to sit and think now that he doesn’t travel for work). I had to admit that I didn’t know who Rosa Luxemburg was, but Husband tells me she was a good socialist.
Given our current situation, I think my three favorite people of the 20th Century would be Jonas Salk, Alexander Fleming, and Tommy Douglas.
Who are your favorite people from the 20th Century? How about the 21st?
Today’s post comes from Linda.
One of the projects I have been putting off way too long, and finally got to this summer, was to re-roof an old birdhouse I’d gotten from one of my gardening clients. It’s a very old weathered wood house that had been chewed on by a critter of some sort, and I had put it aside when the old roof fell apart.
I rounded up the wood scraps, saw, hammer, nails, ruler and pencil necessary to play Norm Abram for an hour, and hung the completed project on a panel of the old gazebo out back.
I felt rather pleased to be able to check it off my to-do list, but even more pleased when two days later I spotted some nesting material poking out of the opening.
After consulting a local wild bird store, I invested in some live mealworms to help provide a steady food supply for the parents and the offspring that were likely to follow soon. One of the parent birds became quite bold when s/he realized what I was delivering, and would come perch on the feeder while I sprinkled the mealworms from the container. The birds became a bit shy when I tried to film them, but I captured a few short videos of feeding time.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l17jw3bbm3u7vjw/wren2.mov?dl=0
The activity intensified when the little ones hatched out. They were hungry, and talked about it a lot. The bold little wren actually brushed a wing against my hand one morning in its eagerness to get breakfast started. I was a little concerned that it was becoming too tame for its own good!
Do you cut corners on safety when you’re in a hurry? Do you worry about your family and friends who do?
Trail Baboon 