Serbian Lily-Nuts (бели лук)

I do go out of my way to avoid being politically correct, do I not?

One of my long-planned projects has been to clean and pickle some garlic cloves. Mixy likes to dig them out of the bottles of pickled peppers and dill pickles; we sometimes have a difference of opinion over who gets the last one in the bottle. Therefore it simply made sense to pickle some cesnak and forget the peppers and cucumbers for the moment.

This required that I peel the cloves first, and it took about 45 minutes per cup to get the three cups of Serbian lily-nuts I needed.

I also had to get some bottles of a proper size collected. Since I don't throw away very much stuff (pack rats prevent litter!) I had some 8 ounce jars from various items -- jelly, fancy roasted peppers, etc. -- on the shelf in the basement. They just needed some cleaning and boiling.

Then I had to scale down the recipe for the pickle. Obviously, I was not going to need 5 quarts of pickle. The following was the starter:

Just to make it easier, I decided to use the dill pickle variant, which calls for a 1:3 vinegar:water ratio. That meant that for 2 cups of pickle, I would need 1-1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of vinegar, and converting cups to teaspoons (48 tsp:1 cup) 5 tsp salt and 2-1/2 tsp sugar. I mixed that together in a saucepan and brought it to a boil.

Meanwhile, the bottles and their lids were hauled out of the boiling water, drained, and a nice sprig of dill was put in each. Dill? Yup, frozen from last summer.

Then the bottles were filled with the lovely cloves and the hot pickle was poured over them, filling the bottles to the bottom of the threads.

The lids were screwed on loosely and the bottles put back in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Then I let them go for another 3 minutes, just because.

Removed from the boiling water bath, the lids were given a final tightening and they were allowed to cool until the lids clicked down.

Of course, this stuff now has to age a bit. For that reason, I hid them from Mixy. Ha. Ha. Ha. When I think they have aged long enough, I will take them out of hiding.

Of course, I have more garlic in the garage that I can peel and can. I should probably do that, since I had quite a bit of it dry up on me last winter because it didn't get used. This is a good way to turn it into snack food. I also thought about sprinkling some hot red pepper in each jar but today was Be Kind to Mixy Day. Maybe next time.

I'm also going to have to investigate getting a beer bottle capper. Granny often told how, after moving to Canada and setting up housekeeping during the Depression, she and her sisters would scavenge beer bottles from the dump for canning tomato juice (Mason jars were nearly luxury items then). It would be fun to can garlic and chili peppers and salsa and home-made ketchup in beer bottles.

Just another project to have on the back burner for when I have nothing else to do...

Down 'n' Dirty

Yesterday I transplanted several dozen more of the garlic starts that came out of the tops I clipped last summer. Then I stuck close to a hundred garlic cloves into the ground in a second bed -- those were some heads of garlic that my neighbor gave me last Fall and which sat in the greenhouse over Winter (they were starting to show green sprouts, so I decided to bury them). After that some carrot and parsnip seed went into another bed. Its supposed to snow tomorrow.

Inside the greenhouse the cabbage and broccoli seeds are coming up. In the basement, Bek's heirloom beefsteak tomatoes are reaching for the sky, and her giant Chinese sweet peppers are poking out of the dirt. The Sweet 100 tomatoes, the Rutgers, and the Romas are all coming out as well.

Still looking for signs of life in the pot with Dad's oxheart tomato seeds from 1992. The big wax peppers, spicy banana peppers, the big jalapenos, and the little chilis are making me wait. I expect some activity in those pots any day now.

Spring is here. Have to go make a celebration.

Groundhog is Delicious

Got your attention, didn't I?

It is delicious. From Al's, or homemade. Or even from the garden, say some. Filet of Phil. Just not kosher at all.

Anyway, the date reminded me that I needed to check in with the Old Farmer's Almanac to see what I should really expect for a while. You can get a free two month forecast at 2011 Long-Range Weather Forecast and filling in your ZIP code.

Then I looked at the gardening section, and found 2011 Best Planting Dates for Seeds for Wadsworth, Ohio -- you need to fill in your own ZIP code.

Then, under Plant Guide: Vegetables, Herbs, & Fruit, I found the following:
That is interesting, because I tried a variation of this last summer in my new beds, mulching the potatoes with leaves. There is also a trash-bag version of the technique being popularized by an Indian Indian. I'm leaning toward the five gallon bucket alternative.

Just think -- the tables say I should be seeding my cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, and peppers indoors in just 3 more weeks. Spring is coming, groundhog or no.

Good Medicine

Last time, we left the hive to drink the potion. Opening it up two days later, we see that for the most part, they have ignored the syrup for fresh nectar that is available all over the countryside. Still, they have been sampling the special hooch...



...but we need to provide more ventilation, and the mite treatment needs to be added. Taking off the feeder and the inner cover, its obvious that the crew is at home.



I found a partial package of Apistan™ in my bee supplies; I'm going to try using that package up before I open the new one. It has been cool, dark, and dry in the closet, so the strips should still be OK. One strip is in the lower left corner, between the frame bars, and the other toward the upper right. The bees come into contact with the strip, and the Varroa mites die.



Since this colony is small to begin with, and the queen is going to be laying at top speed, treatment right now is critical. The mites attack the larvae; by the time they have matured, it would be too late to treat. It will be almost three weeks before the new workers emerge, and the older workers -- the original swarm -- will be weakening and starting to die off. If too many of the new bees have "crooked wing" because of the mites, the colony will not be able to maintain itself.



A different inner cover has been modified with screened holes for ventilation. It is hard to get too much air flow through the hive. As the bees bring in nectar, they change it to wax, for the comb cells, and honey. In the process, huge amounts of water need to be evaporated. If the moisture cannot be vented quickly enough, the result will be sick bees. Even in winter, air flow is critical. The colony can maintain 95°F around the queen in sub-zero temperatures, but must vent the moisture that is produced.



Everything is back together and its work, work, work as usual.

Dis'n'Dat

1. Granny is coming home Thursday
2. Planted onions, cabbage, broccoli, and some more lettuce in the greenhouse Saturday
3. Started soaking some of Dad's old (1992) pepper seeds in HOHO (that was Bruce's suggestion, that HOHO would possibly provide extra O to break dormancy); they have swelled up and I need to get them in potting soil

Spring is Coming

Yesterday I was able to get into the greenhouse for the first time since the beginning of the year. Had to shovel away almost a foot of snow from in front of the door; in spite of the melting the snow is still piled around the sides from where it slid off, and the door had been blocked by several feet of snow that had accumulated through normal snowfall plus drifting.

Outside, it was barely above freezing. Inside, the temperature was a balmy 56 degrees. The lettuce I planted in the Fall with a hope of having fresh greens at Christmas seems to have survived. We shall see. In a day or so I maybe there will be some new growth, I hope, and then perhaps there will be home-grown salad for Easter.

The sweet basil and pepper plants that were left over the winter need to be cleaned out and the soil improved with some manure and lime in preparation for planting.

I need to get a thermometer with a probe in order to take the soil temperature a few inches down. It is March; time to seed onions, cabbage, broccoli, some more lettuce...

Any more suggestions as to what I should try to grow in there?

Big Hal

I left a few pepper plants inside the greenhouse when I transplanted everything else outside. They are still growing and blooming while their siblings have died and gone to compost heaven. One of the jalapeno pepper plants produced some VERY large fruit :


These were meaty, which I find to be a typical jalapeno trait, and not at all hot except in the immediate vicinity of the seeds. Maybe next summer I can work on this strain some more.

2009 has Fall-en

'Tis Fall of '09. The summer is gone. So is most of the garden. I have been eating the Golden Delicious apples for the past week or so (somebody has to know when they are ripe, and I elected myself Chief Ripeness Tester) and tonight I decided to pick the tree clean. The yellowjackets are running out of other things to eat and they were starting to make some serious holes in the apples. Ergo, I picked.

The front basket has apples that the yellowjackets had attacked.
This is the second crop that this dwarf tree has produced. The year before last it had a dozen or so apples, and last year had nary a bloom, but this year it bloomed heavily. I was unable to spray after mid-July due to rains at the wrong time and my long commute eating up over 3 hours of each day, but the apples are relatively bug free.

And they are indeed delicious.

Chicken Wars!

Saturday is a kick-back day sometimes. Today, I had nothing that was screaming "URGENT!" in my mind, so I was slow to get out of the rack. Thus it was that I was jolted from semi-slumber by the phone call at 6:15 AM from Cousin X ( the X is the chromosome identifier, and I won't go any further than that ) to inform me that she and her family were moving, and to give me their new address. It seems their prior landlord would not fix a problem with the apartment, so they had to find a new place. Also, would I please call her sister and let her know they had moved?

Frankly, I'm a bit flattered that I rank so high in her pecking order, even if it left me shaking my head over the timing of the call. Somehow, the incident led me to thinking about groceries ( at this point, I don't think we will take them any, since she didn't request help, and on top of that, I didn't ask since I was still not thinking too clearly due to my somnia ). If you don't like my invention of new words, too bad. Besides, she has my phone number. Anyhoo, the incident fired my neurons and soon I was off on a rabbit trail regarding food, and I eventually recalled an article in the local rag about a state-wide ballot issue the Humane Society is pushing to force farmers to supply bigger cages for their livestock.

The trail began with the phone call, leaped to the blog posts I was planning to do regarding the return on investment from rental properties, hopped over to my data gathering at the Geauga County Fairgrounds, bounced around the concept of value in use, acknowledged that I needed to get information on the local cost of boarding horses, briefly touched on the costs of veterinary treatment ( because I am going to ultimately have to try to develop value opinions for a couple of vet hospitals ), ricocheted off the dangers of parasites in pastureland, flip-flopped to the fact that local produce is probably more dangerous than Mexican imports, and sat down on the cage article. If you attempt to psychoanalyze me, I guarantee to drive you crazy.

In previous posts, I went into some detail regarding parasitic worms that affect people. I am much impressed by the existence of parasitic worms, because in Beauval we had many graphic lessons, from doggy doo to fish for the table, which made us wary of trusting food in its most natural state. There are quite a few people in our land who are strict vegetarians, and many who think the best way to serve food is raw. They are entitled to their opinions, and I have no desire to force them to eat otherwise. I am quite aware, however, that gastric discomfort can result from something as simple as drinking water from a well that one has never used before, and I have experienced diarrhea from sampling veggie trays at parties. In fact, the first couple of salads fresh from my own garden are likely to trigger funny stuff if the produce isn't cleaned well.

Grazing animals are particularly subject to parasitic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in low-lying vegetation. Watercress eaters probably have liver flukes, and I suspect that most vegetarians are skinnier than the population at large, not because of the lack of fat in their diet, but, because of their internal zoo which shares their nutrient supply. Trichina in pork was once a problem in this country, but after pigs began to be kept in smaller pens and couldn't free-range and eat rats and mice that hosted the intermediate stages, the disease practically disappeared. Chickens are also omnivores ( T. rex with feathers ) and if they get a chance, they will eat any rodent that crosses their pen -- we used to catch mice and throw them into the middle of the chicken yard and watch the action.

All the arguments about how good-tasting free-range livestock is tends to ignore the fact that part of the good taste comes from the stuff that buzzards eat. I would be willing to put money on the idea that free-range chickens and pigs (and cows and sheep and goats ) have worms that can be passed on to their eaters. That is not a gamble, because it is almost 100% certain. So we come to cages, and whether or not they are cruel.

Many of the Humane-ists see nothing wrong with keeping their dog or cat in the house. That is cruel, because both are hunting animals that need to roam and kill in order to be mentally well adjusted. Further, dogs are pack animals, and have a social need to be with other dogs. They think humans are poor substitutes for dogs, a fact which is easily shown as soon as they come into proximity with another of their own species -- they immediately sniff anuses. In addition, to neuter them is to deprive the male dog or cat of the joy of procreation and the female dog or cat of the satisfaction of maternity; such neutering is cruel in the extreme. Nevertheless, these same people would argue that keeping a laying hen in a cage so small it could barely turn about in, for the purpose of safety and hygiene, is cruel.

The chicken in a cage has controlled feed -- no wild critters in its provender to give it worms. It is kept clean -- no straw to collect chicken dumpings, since the mess drops through the bottom screens and gets taken away. It is safe -- no chicken hawks threatening from above, no skunks, raccoons, or dogs on the ground, and no peers to harass. I did forget to mention, didn't I, that chickens are known for their cannibalism? They have a pecking order. You put them in a flock, in the chicken yard with all kinds of room to roam, and they will establish the pecking order. Bottom ranking hen gets pecked by everyone else. She gets her feathers pulled out. Woe be to her if she starts to bleed, because at that point the whole flock will attack and eat her. She is much better off in the cage.

As a matter of fact, the optimum cage size is just the size of the chicken. She can sit or stand, and being very stupid, has no need to turn around, since the feed only goes in one end, and the eggs come out the other, and if the chicken turns around, there will be disaster in the cage. Farmers are not only smart, they are practical. Those are two characteristics that are underdeveloped in the Humane-ists.

Prior to Walt Disney and his anthropomorphic mice, attitudes toward animals tended to be realistic. Those who have been brainwashed into thinking that Bambi, the Snow White menagerie, and other cartoon animals represent reality have forgotten the facts of nature. Abuse is defined by society, and the definition will vary from place to place. In essence, it is a religious argument. Animal worship is a subset of human self-worship. Love me, love my dog. I am an absolutely irritating philosopher, am I not?

They Are Back

I haven't seen much of our local deer since spring. Then, while in the garden this evening, ...



A loner. Probably a buck. Season doesn't open until 9-26. I'm gonna need a crossbow for this job.

While I wish I could use the SMLE, it scares me. Houses behind the garden. I'm not too worried about a miss; its just that a deer isn't too "thick". Even a soft-point coming out the other side could be dangerous, and the black bear was "thick" and still had a decent exit hole. And I remember Chuck's rabbit. The one that was hiding behind the telephone pole, with just a fringe of hair sticking up. And the shot that went through the telephone pole and turned him into a yard wide hasenpfeffer. Even if that was a full metal jacket round. Old Smiley has a lot of oomph.

Gotta get a crossbow. And I have to fix the shed loft so it makes a comfy blind.

Radishculous!

We bought our beet seed at Copley Feed this year. Detroit Dark Reds. Shortly after it was planted, I noted that one of the sprouts looked a bit strange -- too green among beet greens tinged with red. Sunday I went out to pull a few (have to thin them, you know) and I decided that the oddball would be the first victim. As I bent to pull it, I was flabbergasted by size of the root. I pulled, and out came a monstrosity.



It was a radish. I wish my father-in-law could have seen this one! Despite the size, it was tender and relatively sweet inside. Usually big radishes are stringy and vilely "hot". We have been slicing it and using it; one slice covers a half slice of bread.



My regret is that I didn't leave it to go to seed. This one could get the Darwin Award for sure. Maybe I can clone it -- make the top sprout roots. Maybe.

... and JUSTICE for all!

One of the reasons I wanted to fine-tune the Nylon 66 was the thievery occurring in my cherry tree. Old Owl sat on his stick, but he wouldn't give a hoot (even if we can hear REAL great horned owls every evening) and the birds were ignoring him. Fiberglass must have caught in his throat. The only things that were halfway scary were his eyeballs, and the birds flew right past him, and even ignored my fluttering foil cake dishes.

Ergo, I planned to reduce the population of feathered bandits. Meanwhile, my Smarter Half decided that we should simply pick the cherries, because they were almost all ripe, and that's what we began to do. We had filled two pans, so she went back to the house to get me an empty, and when she gave it to me, she left me in the tree (actually, on the stepladder) to finish picking while she began to pit.

The robins were not happy about my presence in the tree. They were screeching and flying around, and must not have been paying too much attention to other things. Suddenly I noticed the intensity of the screeching changed, and one bird sounded like it was in terrible distress. Sure, enough, sitting on the ground about 10 yards away was an avenger -- a Cooper's hawk. As I watched, it tore feathers from the still struggling robin. Then it tore chunks out of it and started enjoying its meal.

After a few minutes some bluejays started dive-bombing the hawk, never really getting too close. Finally, the hawk picked up what was left of the robin and flew off, with the jays in hot pursuit.

So there is justice in the land, after all. Thieves will be eaten.

I have been given to understand that farmers who used to have problems with chicken hawks would erect a pole with a muskrat trap on top in their poultry yards. Maybe I should erect a pole, say about 20 feet high, but with a nice perch for Mr. Cooper's Hawk. If I am nice to him, maybe I won't need Mr. Fiberglass Owl as much.

My Honey said she saw a bald eagle in her cherry tree. I'm still looking for him.

Crazy Onion Soup and My Relatives

A few years ago, when I first dug up the beds in which we now have the strawberries and raspberries, somebody gave me some "crazy onions" to plant for use as green onions -- like shallots. They grow like weeds, and as the plants mature, they produce heads that contain small bulblets and florets. Some of the bulblets have baby onions; the idea appears to be that the adult onion leaves fall over and the bulblets grow into new bunches of onions.

They are all over the raspberry patch now, and have grow up waist-high, with two and even three generations of onions on the same plant. I was thinking about simply tearing them out, since they are very strong flavored, and, as green onions, somewhat stringy at times.

I got this idea, this afternoon, however. The kiddles were arguing over the pickled garlic cloves in the pepper jar last time they were together, and I began to wonder if the crazy onion bulblets could be pickled like those little pearl onions people buy as appetizers. I went out and gathered as many as I could find, and started breaking the bulblets off and cleaning away the outer skins.

As I realized that I would not have much more than a quart of the little stinkers, I decided I would turn them into onion soup. They are sort of like matryoshka dolls in that you peel away one layer, and inside will be another bulblet, and you break that apart, and inside ... Yeah. These things would make onion soup. but not French onion soup. It would have to be Russian onion soup. Crazy Slavs.



My fingers stink from peeling onion bulblets. The soup was simple -- boiled onions, some beef bouillon, and a touch of salt. We shall consider the consequences later.

Ah, yes. Who Daddy me? Back on 1-5-09 I stated that I thought Geni.com could be a useful and fun idea, but I had some security concerns. Joonyah was of the opinion that putting family information on Geni.com was not too terrible a threat to personal security. I thunk about it, and he is prolly right. If I have the correct information, it is better that I put it there than to let somebody else put bad info up. This is especially the case when I think about the posts from some of the people reading this blog and asking for help in tracking down their roots.

So. I have filled in a bunch of other stuff on my tree. Corrected some stuff that John Hunyadi had wrong. Added information from the Hrubik Reunion booklet from 1984 (when there were a lot more of Dad's generation still around). I will be contacting some of our common tree dwellers with invitations to join Geni and take charge of their own branches. Steve Webel (Bob's boy, for those who know a little and might be interested in more) who is off in faraway China, has put HP and Bek in his tree, mis-spelling her name. Also Erwin and Emily Webel (who are in my tree as well, via my great-uncle, Pal Hrubik). I need to contact him to merge our trees. Also, Emmie (Pamer) Hill, in my tree (via Anna (Knab) Hill, my great-aunt), is the sister of George Pamer (in John Hunyadi's tree, via Dave and Barb), and he and I are going to have to work out how to do the merge (more like a loop maybe, since our trees are already merged). I know that some of Uncle Dan's grandchildren and great-grandchildren are interested in finding family also.

I have heard that everyone in the world has at least one common ancestor if you go back only eight generations. Playing with only four or five generations, I can almost believe it.

A Spud Investment

This Wooly Bear thinks it might be a hard winter. Gotta store up some 'taters. Went to Aldi and bought a 10 pound bag of russets (gen-yew-wine Ider-hoes, according to the label) for $2.99. Made sure they had cute little eyes that looked like they could sprout if given some dark moisture.

Cut them up, with at least one eye per chunk.

Stuck them into the row, about 6" - 8" apart. Roughly half the bag planted two rows about 30 feet long each. This is a new bed, special for spuds this year. We'll see how they do.

This is also a new bed, with the broccoli and cabbage plants.

The garden planted itself the other day; a row of Blue Lake bush beans, two rows of wax peppers, a row of Rutgers, double row of onions, half row of jalapenos and half row of banana peppers, row of beets, row of Roma tomatoes, row of parsnip and rooted parsley. Still have to stick in the cucumbers and carrots. I think the blueberry patch will be a good spot for a few hills of Charleston Grey watermelons, and I need to locate some spots for the bush butternut squash and the Big Max pumpkins.

The strawberry beds are looking pretty. Almost all the grape cuttings appear to be rooting. Maria said hers failed to root. These will have to go to new homes come the fall.

And ... my new pegboards are up in the garage, and the baseboard is done in the downstairs bedroom and dining room.

I Needed That Nap

I started about 10 AM, and finished just after 3 PM. Then I showered and took a nap.

The Jonathan

and the Golden Delicious

and the Rome. They have never set fruit so heavily before. I sprayed (petal fall) yesterday. Lord willing, we will have apples to eat in the fall.

Time to eat the lettuce now.

It goes good with eye of round. And some fresh asparagus. Washed down with a cold Bud. YUM!!

The tomatoes need to be turned loose soon.

This was yesterday's project. My Better Half started those boxwoods from cuttings. People just don't appreciate the planning and waiting she has put into this place. She dreams, and sometimes her dreams would be catastrophic if they met up with gravity. My job is to turn her dreams into workable plans, then make the plans work. Some of that has taken years. She has put up with the dirt and the inconvenience, all for the sake of seeing dreams come to life.

I love you, Violet.

Get Your Pork Now

It is time to start another conspiracy theory.

"Everyone knows" that the government is out to control its citizens.

"Everyone knows" that our current administration has been infected (we once used the term "infiltrated", but I think under today's conditions, "infected" is apt) with hard-core anti-people pro-pagan socialists. The current administration is well versed in demagoguery, but sometimes schemers forget that no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy. When you start a stampede, don't try to change horses in mid-stream. (I love those old saws!)

This week we are beset with "swine flu". All over the world, governments are racing to slaughter pigs. The administration is suddenly worried that calling this disease "swine flu" will cause people to avoid pork, and ruin the pork farmers. The price of pork is set to rise, you betcha.

I see the hand of PETA (Pagans for the Extermination of Thoughtful Americans) in this. "Swine flu" is a ploy to stop people from eating pigs. Next month we will have an outbreak of "Mad Cow" disease, and steak and hamburgers will disappear from the menu. Then will come an epidemic of "Chicken Pox", and all the Illegal Aliens working at the chicken processing plants will be out of their jobs and eligible for a stimulus payment of some kind.

Yup. Grandpa Jim has it all figgered out. Conspiracies Unlimited, that's me. I guarantee that you will find it difficult to tell when I am serious and when I am delirious.

Stay tuned as I guide you into more lucidity than any Compact Florescent Light could ever provide.

Ooooo... another brainstorm... space aliens from Mercury... CFLs... there will be a shortage of tinfoil hats...

"Flat Pimento 1992"

The printing on the piece of paper towel brought back fond memories. My Dad, carefully recording in detail the events of his life, spoke out of the past.

The story : Dad loved his garden. He especially loved his peppers. Unlike his son and his grandsons, he tended to avoid spicy peppers. He liked his sweet and meaty. Sometime in the mid-1960's, he was given some small bell type peppers by one of his co-workers. Dad enjoyed them, and saved the seed, year by year selecting the sweetest and thickest-meated of his produce.

Every Spring he would begin his ritual. He soaked the pepper seeds for a day or so, then planted them in a shallow container under the florescent lights in the kitchen. Once the second leaves appeared, he would fix up the cover on his cold frame, and transplant the seedlings to await the last frost. (I'm not sure; this could be hereditary behavior. If so, my children-in-laws are in for some fun.) Typically, Dad would set out 50 or so of his sweet pimento plants in the garden.

As noted above, Dad selected for sweetness and thick walls. The peppers would mature at about 2-1/2"-3" in diameter, and were flattened, about 2" high. Even when green the peppers were great snacks, and as they ripened and turned red, their sweetness increased. We picked them and ate them like apples, right there in the garden.

After Dad retired, he and Mom started spending their winters in Phoenix. Sometime around 1997-98, he decided that it was time to stop worrying about being home in time to plant peppers in the Spring. He gave his seed to a family friend, with the requirement that she would start the seeds and give him a few plants for his garden after he returned from Phoenix. Life has no guarantees beyond dying; the friend did just that over the Winter and Dad never did get his pepper plants. Worse, he had given away all of his seed, as far as he knew. Every Spring for the next several years, he would recount the tale of the lost seed; he missed his peppers.

The other day I called Mom to see if she had any caraway seed. I was looking all over for some in the grocery stores. (Hey, why pay Big Money® for a packet of seed when you can get lots and to spare in a bottle of spice-grade condiment?). Yes, she had some, how much did I need, (a teaspoon full was plenty to start a caraway patch in the garden), and by the way -- she found a bottle with a note in it. "Flat Pimento 1992".

I went to see what she had. Wrapped in the paper towel were several hundred seeds that Dad had dried and stored 17 years ago. He had apparently forgotten they had been saved.

Taking the seeds home, I cut a paper towel in half and laid it in a dinner plate, scattered about a hundred seeds on it, folded it over, and added water. The seeds soaked for about 48 hours, swelling and developing the little pimples that would become rootlets. In the cloudyhouse I made a furrow where the first lettuce crop had been. (Oh. Forgot to tell about that. I transplanted a few dozen each of romaine and simpson and about sixty-five buttercrunch plants to the other side of the cloudyhouse, leaving a space for some more seed starts. Maybe we have salad soon?). Into the furrow went the soaked seed. Now for the wait.

Whazzat noise? Did I hear Mixie cheering?

Buttercrunch, Romaine, and Black-seeded Simpson.

From the far end : the Flat Pimento furrow, a row of Calabrese brocolli, 2 rows of onions, a row of Golden Acres cabbage, 2 rows of jalapeños, 2 rows of Rutgers tomatoes, 2 rows of spicy wax peppers, 2 rows of Roma tomatoes, 2 rows of spicy banana peppers, a row of chilis. Figure about 100 seedlings per row. I need more ground.

It's a CLOUDYhouse, Mr. Dirt

I allus wanted a greenhouse. My house is beige. Sort of putty-colored. I'm not allowed to spread dirt on the floors and grow stuff. So I wanted a greenhouse.

I made coldframes in lots of places over lots of time. They just aren't the same. I built a 12' geodesic dome that I was going to cover with plastic, but we moved to Beauval and I left it at my folks' place to rot. I built a mini-greenhouse following the Beltsville plan while we were in Nisku, but it was not even big enough to stand in.

Finally, I decided to keep the dirt out of the house and build a real full-size model of the Beltsville plan. But, problems never cease. Where would I put it? This lot has very little level ground. In fact, the only level ground is probably in the shed floor. When I finally settled on a location that was agreeable to my better half, my project had shrunk from 12' long to 8' long due to the slope of the back hill.

Nevertheless, I set to work. Originally, I figured I could get away with three courses of 2 x 6 treated center-match in the base. Wrong. The slope was just steep enough that I had to increase the base to four courses. The project moved in fits and starts, but now, after about 3 weeks and $200 worth of material, it is done. Well, sort of. Have I ever completely finished a project? Door latches? Hinges on the vent panels?

But, as you can see, it is not a green house. It is a clear house. But not entirely that, either -- sort of a cloudy house. Which is fitting, because when the sun is shining, and I walk inside, my glasses fog up from the moisture. It actually rains (ah, I exaggerate, it drizzles a bit) inside my cloudyhouse.


This afternoon we went to Copley Feed for some seed. I am preferring open-pollinated varieties of everything; Rutgers tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Calabrese broccoli, stuff like that. We might need to save seed, depending on what our silly Congress regulates next.

When we got back, I seeded a wee bit of Buttercrunch, Black Seeded Simpson, and Romaine lettuce, a row of broccoli and of cabbage, and two rows of onions. I will start soaking the tomatoe seeds and the pepper seeds tonight, for planting tomorrow.

As to other stuff. The Ohio Department of Education says I can reactivate my certificate if I take 12 semester hours, submit to a criminal background check, and pay $200 bucks. I'm planning to go see an academic advisor at UA in the morning. Of course, I have an ulterior motive. Michelle said she would go back to school when I did. Pony up, Miz Horsearound.

Oh, yeah. Since I am a Golden Oldie, I am eligible to audit any course at UA that has room, for free. If I sign up and register, I can use the library and pool and all the other good stuff. Maybe I can audit a few law courses and find out how to file class action suits against politicians.

Mo' Ham, Maude

Seeing as how Saint Padraig's Day has just passed, it being time for a celebration of sorts, tomorrow is the much delayed Ground Hog Party around here. As a good descendent of Celts (just not the Irish kind -- our ancestors probably painted their naked bodies some other color than blue when they went to battle -- oops, sorry, mixed up the Irish with the Picts, sorry...) any day is a good day to party.

So I went to Sam's and got the fixin's. Pork shoulders at $1.18/lb, bone in. Deboned them, weighed the bones, and figured that the deboned meat cost about $1.27/lb. Good deal. Sliced it up, ground it (grinding in 1-1/2 heads of stink-lily [česnak] as I went), added 1/4 cup of salt, a cup of water, a half cup of paprika, and mixed it thoroughly. Behold.I then taste-tested it by frying up a patty for a sandwich... notice that it was ready just in time for lunch.

Of course, there is other stuff to be done. I need to get the plastic cover on the greenhouse and get the tomatoe and pepper seeds started. [That was deliberate, to prove I am not an illiterate MainStream Media Talking Head who thinks that tomatoe has to be spelled tomato. I have a REAL AMERICAN dictionary, one that admits to traditional AMERICAN spellings.]

We pruned the grapes, and I decided to get some cuttings started for all my wee ones to begin their own vinyards...

Ah, Spring is sproinging. Tomorrow's plans are to murder trees at Joonyah's house. Breakfast at 7:30, sez he, and he has been rounding up the ropes and chainsaws and machetes and axes. Then, AFTERWARDS we roast the ground hog.

Urine for a Treat

Almost pee-ed my pants reading this one. I can see PETA pushing this for inclusion in the Economic Stimulus Plan, as a Green Alternative. What would really be hillary-ous would be to see BO, Miss Nancy, and Mr. Harry drinking this at a press conference, with Algore speaking in the background about the ocean levels rising.

Go green. I may have to go buy some Depends.

India to launch cow urine as soft drink