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mundane me
I didn’t think I was going to make today’s post. I got tired watching the game but got a second wind. Nice to see the Tiges up a couple. Down two to one it was pretty much a must win tonight and so far so good. Fairly engaging day, a couple random crises at work and shot over to Trevor’s for a “happy hour” after work. We toured his garden and I got a partial bucket of produce, cherry and canning tomatoes, string beans and purple peas, yellow squash and a couple of cucumbers. I was happy.
John made dinner and Kevin did dishes so I got to eat a home cooked meal for free and a comfortable lead in the 7th. Not to shabby. Tomorrow’s game is early and I work late so unlikely to see much of it though I can watch some of it on lunch and hopefully will be home for the end. The kid is pitching. I like that Leland is sticking to the rotation. Shows confidence in letting Verlander rest. I was hoping to get called for Jury Duty but no luck. Most everything is settled by plea bargains around here. Missouri’s courts are even more kangaroolike then Michigan’s.
The Fall is nicer though. Had my group outside. I did half of it (its 2 hours) last week and the vibe is a lot different. More conversational and collegial. More interactive, because I don’t have whiteboard so I don’t pace around and preach. I don’t generate a topic list and then work my way through but answer questions as they come. Had some good ones today kept me on my toes, trying to make points about the dangers of benzodiazipines with some people who are pretty attached to them. They call it rolling with resistance and I had to be methodically careful to not generate excuses and arguments but kept sticking to my guns that they were risky, short term, and ultimately less effective then things like relaxation. Twice the dude said he was going to cut back though, that I reflected.
Tomorrow’s our work potluck too. Since Wednesday is my late night it makes it easier to cook a dish. Thinking about making Dal. I wasn’t going to make it again with green split peas, looks to much like baby poop for the uninitiated. But I wouldn’t mind left overs and Negar from the Human Rights Commission is coming to speak and she seems like someone who might like Indian food. Saw her at the market at least. Thursday Trevor is coming to dinner. Promised to make some of his produce. John is doing a stir fry and I will probably make something to compliment that.
lazy day
I saw post recommending a post a day through October to gear up for write a novel in November month. I am not committing but its only like 1,6137 or something words per day to get your 50 K for a decent sized novel. I routinely write posts that long so it seems doable. I think of it most years and reject it for this or that. Probably always be to busy. Certainly ain’t getting it done today. I had ambitions of doing some stuff but just didn’t feel it today. Up late with the rain delay and dozed off in the chair. Had to look up the results on tigers.com.
Slept late and just a little out of sorts. Drank coffee and read the newspaper and decided to just take it easy. Did get a couple loads of laundry done with the last one still on the line. Maybe take it in the morning. There has been an unending string of perfect days. Sunny around 80. Could use some rain though, I haven’t felt like watering. There’s consequences to a lack of ambition but I will spare you the litany of the undone projects.
I did cook a couple nice meals. Made scrambled eggs with an italian sausage, a pimento pepper, green onion, a few baby portebellos and some olive cheese. Served em up with some grits and toast. For supper I felt I had to use the egg plant and knowing John is not a fan i tried to do it super jazzy. I brined the egg plant in salt water for several hours and rinsed good and made a packet with sweet onion, fresh basil and tarragon from the garden, olive oil and black walnuts and little black tomatoes. It was pretty yummy but still egg plant. (should’ve done the turnips).
To accompany that I did organic t-bones with a dry rub of some medium roast guatemelan done to an espresso grind and fresh ground black pepper. I used mesquite chips for the smoke and had a medium fire smoking nicely. While doing the outside stuff I fired a smallish black bell pepper, a big green onion, and some portabellos and garlic in butter to serve on the steaks. Broke out some dill pickle slices which were pretty good. It wasn’t too shabby.
Other then reading some Thor comics and farting around that was my day. I’m about through a box of mostly Marvels from the late 70s. Thor was looking good in that era, steeped in the myth in the beginning of a post-DonaldBlake. Pure Thor, even in his “secret identity”. Fun book, riding his Goat Cart, Beta Rey Bill, you’d have to be a fan…. Nothing wrong with taking one to rest but hope I can get on some stuff this week. But its late faithful reader and time to wind down and rest, perhaps another Thor.
what’s for dinner
pretty quiet sunday here at leslie lane. the tigers almost blew an 8 run lead to the indians but ended up holding on and getting the sweep. made bacon and eggs for breakfast and used my bacon cook time to call directv about my missing local channels. sending someone out on wednesday.
mulched the roses and its just nice to see things starting to flower and getting to ready to flower as the summer starts to wind down. i was going to cover my compost i mulched with with a couple of inches of pine needles but want to wait until i get some lime to add. i think my soil is sour.
i dozed off in the easy chair so was up early. had a late night with Planet of the Apes which i enjoyed very much and it was nice to make it back to the drive in. the game was a long one and caught a little nap in the middle innings.
decided to grill out, mostly stuff from the market. baked white potatoes, grilled burgers drenched in traverse city cherry hot sauce and barbecue sauce, and sweet corn left over from yesterday that i rubbed in olive oil and Bob’s Steak Seasoning (because it has a lot of salt). it was good. did a mesquite fire and let it fire up and rolled the corn around till some kernels darkened slid em to the side and closed the vents and let it smoke.
also made a peach salsa with a peach, a grilled peach, grilled green pepper and grilled jalapeno. i let em darken over the fire and scraped off the skins (the peppers). the peach i cut in half and peeled grilled maybe a minute on a side. also did half an onion, a splash of malt vinegar & 3 cloves garlic (mine) pressed as well as a pint or so black grape tomatoes. it was pretty fucking awesome.
my last dish was wilted lettuce. took my bacon pan from breakfast and chopped up 3 pieces of leftover bacon, apple cider vinegar & some minnesota honey. poured it over the washed lettuce leaves covered for a minute and served.
it was a casual summer feast paired with the last of the chamomile mead that was gifted to me. yummy. thinking about taking a dog on a stroll. probably that fido, he has been extra cute today, wanting his belly rubbed and laying at my feet.
grammar free zone
what a blessed day. early to bed last night, early to rise this morning. listening to the rain come. tried the light roast ethiopian john made, pretty good not the greatest. made a pot of the guatemalan later and it was a touch better then that. the stuff from yemen is the best and panama was the least impressive, though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. john said he would gift me his roaster when he goes back to california so i will be continuing on the home roast. expecting a grand nephew any minute now, my prayers are with the new mom. going to the drive in to see planet of the apes/cowboys and indians (weather permitting). trevor is coming over for dinner and the whole leslie lane gang minus the dogs, and the plants of course (they’re inveterate homebodies).
john teased me for my grammar in my last post. i did have a 3 line run on sentence devoid of punctuation til the period at the end so i could see his point. especially since i’d posted some oatmeal for apostrophe day. but what are you gonna do. if i write for free i’m not gonna hit the shift key without recompense. it was legible if you worked at it.
went to the market early so i got bacon. i was light on cash so i didn’t buy out the store. kept me from getting a pork roast even though i was nice and early. some other time. i had a lot of stuff but i still nabbed 3 bags. got some lettuce which muddy farms or boots or whatever has been putting out every week. how do you grow lettuce when its 107????
got a 1/2 peck of peach seconds for six bucks. i ain’t proud. six bucks is six bucks and i don’t need the perfect roundness of grocery store expectations. had one it was oh’ so yummy. kale was lovely as well. i chopped some up in john’s leftover chicken and noodles and made a casserole. also added last weeks red peppers, banana peppers, onions, and i also got some okra, though mine is coming back strong after the deer predation of a few weeks ago. i still hope to have some late. i topped it with crackers and pecans, getting to the end of my 10 lbs early this year. will have a gap til the first winter market when this years returns. actually looking forward to eating some other kind of nut. a local cuisine is cool but its a big world out there with a lot of nuts for example. had breakfast this am with some yogurt, local apple, fresh ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. trevors here time to eat.
birthday float
john and i had a long night but the birthday moonlit float of the gasconade went splendidly. Its a beautiful drive from Columbia to the Linn area where we put in. trevor had suggested the gasconade with a put in at where it crosses highway 50 at the 219. We decided, wisely in hindsight, to use it as our take out, correctly surmising that we would need an extremely clear land mark for a pull out to have any chance of seeing it. We drove around quite a bit following roads and driveways trying to find a nonexistent river access point.
We ended up just parking the truck on highway 50 near the take out area after scouting around on foot. We realized it would be a haul pulling out the boat so for day floats it would make an easier launch point then take out point.
We then drove to Linn at the 203 and easily found the boat ramp. we packed up the boat and got on the water at dusk. there were a couple of boats but we didn’t pass any as we set off. the nice part of a night float is it thins out the boats with engines. caught a little of the sunset and the moon was up nice and it soon settled in to as dark as it was going to get. you could probably have read a large print book by the light of the moon.
The river was strange not knowing what’s ahead until its upon you. shallow at times and a fair number of trees and other obstructions coming up out of nowhere. the gasconade is braided through there and it would be hard to tell shadows from islands. mostly the current could guide you until it took you under a low hanging tree. some of the rocky bluffs would look like channels and even though it was mostly a calm and gentle float there was a hint of excitement on occasion when obstacles appeared out of nowhere.
we left the dogs at home but regretted not bringing one or two as it was fairly easy. we used the outriggers which was a good move though we never needed them. there was one area where going around an island we were in a narrow and swift channel with a maze of downed trees to navigate through that the outriggers barely cleared. john broke out the light and i paddled us through. our short boat with a big keel makes it very maneuverable and that was probably the highlight of the trip.
It was peaceful, though we passed two parties and a few people camped on gravel bars. there were fireworks, occasional sounds of the city, some car noise on occasion but a lot of peace and some pretty bluffs. not a lot of wildlife to be seen but we scared up a big heron and the swallows or whatever insect eating birds would buzz us on occasion. Big splashes from the suspected asian carp rounded out our interaction with wildlife. bugs were thin.
the perseids were light but i got a couple of flashes, nothing worth wishing on. john saw a nice one but declined to wish being a rational sort. we were quiet some and talked some and it was peaceful. i definitely want to do it again and want to see the gasconade by daylight.
this is my 5th float of the year, with one more planned and likely at least one more, so not a bad year for floating considering the swollen nature of the big muddy. thanks to john for the lovely sandwiches and working out the logistics. many thanks for all the b-day wishes, i am blessed.
got in after 4:00 but feel pretty good. got some bean soup on the stove with sarah’s easter ham bone, market white potatoes, onions, yellow pepper & a hot pepper with rosemary, oregano, lots of garlic, time & a little sage from the garden. also started my day with my first egg and tomato sandwich of the year. got a nice heirloom tomato and very yummy. put a little fresh dill & fresh ground pepper in my market eggs. hope to lime some more pickles, watch the Tiges catch up to the Orioles (down 3-1 in the 4th) and may mow the backyard. laundry of course.
thanks again faithful reader and continue to make comments. if you’re ambitious register and make them on wordpress so they last. facebook has its charms but it is transitory, your comments do not have to be.
birthday pickles are done
birthday pickles are done, did 5 quarts, 1 pint & 1 cup of dill pickle slices. used garlic, dill, grape leaves, and asian basil out of the garden, cukes from betty & bill & hot peppers and green peppers from the market. from the store used a pint of apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup balsamic, & 3/4 cup white vinegar, quart of water (from the tap not the store) & 1/2 cup kosher salt plus mixed peppercorns. in each jar i put a couple few peppercorns sorting out different kinds for different jars, couple few cloves of garlic, couple of grape leaves, couple few asian basil leaves, couple few hot pepper rings & green pepper slices and 1/2 a handful of dill leaves (hadn’t gone to seed yet). considered putting in bitters. next time.
market was nice. saw many people i knew and talked to none, just like i like it. i am there to shop and managing the crowds about the best i can do. i got flustered buying a chocolate card. do i want a loyalty card? i’m not ready for that kind of involved decision making, i barely decided to buy the chocolate bar. after that it was smooth sailing. the line was too long for peaches though, that’s how i know i’m spoiled. can’t wait 5 minutes for local peaches in season. plan on grabbing some at wilson’s and i got a cantaloupe.
harry came by and offered to take me for breakfast. i decided to make it an event and enlisted john’s help in buying a fancy hat at larry’s boots out at midway truck stop. fame hasn’t gone to their heads out there though they are busy and need to hire some more help in the kitchen. Our waitress was very pretty but didn’t know how to hold a coffee pot, or a tray, or take an order without writing out every word slowly. She said “truck stop people drink a lot of coffee, I mean they guzzle it”. ah, the glamor. at least she didn’t have to hitchhike to the mean streets of LA to try to be famous, just learn to pour bad coffee.
i got a stetson, black, kind of dressy. almost went for a brown one that looked even more cowboy but i was looking for a dress hat. i didn’t have anything to wear on ‘wear a fancy hat day’. next year i’m covered and for when i MC the trivia for the Phoenix Fringe.
john and i are pretty well ready to float, except for loading the boat. we decided to do the 203 to the 219 on the gasconade so our pull out was by a bridge and we wouldn’t miss it in the dark. decided to skip going out to dinner since we had the big breakfast. i had the hamburger steak and eggs, dad would have been proud and we sat in the smoking section but didn’t smoke.
didn’t get a nap in so it will be a long night perhaps, i think the excitement of the whole thing will keep me awake and you dear faithful reader, i will tell all about it when we return. lord willing. mostly though i am grateful for the love and support of family & friends. many times an attempt at a life well lived leaves you alone and unappreciated but not me. people have been good and i am thankful. as my buddy kalil gibran says: “to give when asked is good, but to give without being asked, out of knowledge, is better’.
weekend cooking
Enjoyed the rain yesterday and feel better for all my plant friends. It was also nice to have a break from the 90s and humid that feels like it has gone on nonstop for better then a month. i took advantage to put down my milky spore. We’ll see if it works. the traps turned out to be a bust in the mole war. when i pushed down the humped earth to see if the run was active they just went deeper. i had a trap on a run which was fruitless and had no better luck trapping the air hole. they would come up right by the activator plate and not set it off.
Other then that i mostly cooked yesterday. I made a cucumber salad with cukes, green peppers, banana peppers, onion, all from the market with basil & oregano from the garden. I did a dressing with sour cream, red wine vinegar and local honey and a little fresh ground black pepper and it was done. It got a nice flavor with just a few hours in the fridge. I soaked some sweet corn in the husks cutting off the ends. I made a packet with the last of the cabbage (what little i salvaged from the moths) [which i am hoping the milky spore will help with those fellows too] and thin sliced zucchini. I put some garlic, tarragon, onion, a little bacon grease slathered on the foil and some seasoning salt oh and one of my crappy tomatoes from the garden.
For the main course i rubbed in some turmeric, onion powder, & garlic granules with some Traverse City cherry hot sauce on some pork cube steaks & let that sit for awhile . i grilled it all on a mesquite chunk fire. for the steaks i seared both sides on a hot fire and then turned off the vents and let them smoke for a few minutes. everything came out pretty good.
at the market i had gotten some canadian bacon and john had suggested egg mcmuffins. i have new respect for mcdonalds. mine were much much better but what a pain in the ass. I made a round egg mold out of a tin can but the egg stuck to the sides, even when i greased the edges. i found the best round egg was just to bust it in the pan and scrape up the egg into a round shape when it cooked a bit. i broke the yokes and covered them with sharp cheddar. i just heated the canadian bacon with a little water. also sliced up thinly an heirloom tomato and broke out the local horseradish mustard and it was pretty yummy. i served it up with some cantaloupe, blackberries, raspberries & blueberries and some hash-browns (microwaved red potatoes and grated them up and fried them with butter and seasoning salt) .
all in all a killer breakfast with home roasted guatemalan, light like i like it. it was a nice prelude to seeing cowboys and aliens with dan and harry. pretty decent i thought and wrapping up the afternoon with some tiger baseball. verlander’s no hitter blown away in the eighth but they’re still up by one run and i am cautiously optimistic. have to roll into work and play a little catch up and that’s the weekend. feel more up to the daily grind then i did last week. and a 4 day week at that as i head up for the family reunion friday morning.
hot & wet
the heat continues here in the show me state. there is a heat advisory until friday at 7:00 pm. we were lucky the last couple of years so i am trying to bear it with good grace. no, that’s not strong enough. i am trying to enjoy it for what it is. been just running the air 24/7. we keep it on 79 here on leslie lane and with lows close to that and humidity there’s no real point. usually i like to let the dogs come and go in the morning at least, but this am i tried it for about 2 minutes and a bitter hot wind was flowing in so i closed her back up.
did spend a little time outside this morning. watered everything in the back. used city water because i didn’t want to fritter away the shade hooking up the hose to the water barrels. i want to do it in the morning because the water can get hot. trevor just got a wooden barrel for his house. i want to upgrade when these go to pot.
friday we went on a bit of a float trip. drove out to overton bottoms with jared and met up with eric and a buddy of his and trevor and a buddy of his although didn’t end up seeing them much. fido came along had a real good time. ended up smelling like a swamp. dove off the canoe twice and did some swimming. we canoed down but couldn’t get through to the river. canoeing through the woods is a rare experience.
yesterday canned pickles with sarah, went to the market and drank coffee with harry. saw the pitiful state of memorial hill and weeded it while the grill got going. roasted a local chicken over a can of ginger ale with some garlic thrown in. smoked it up with apple wood and fresh sage & brined it in balsamic, sugar and salt. roasted some sweet corn & polished off the cabbage/pasta salad.
for our outdoor adventure john and the dogs and i hiked up bear creek. went right the creek bed which gives it more of an outdoor feel dropping out of the sounds of the city and the dogs could be off leash some. fido got confident and started to wander so i leashed him up.
made for a long day so i went to bed early and slept late. had a long involved dream again largely work related. a client from the agency shot me in the shoulder with an electrical gun. hurt like hell but i was stoic about it and told him not to worry about it that i had bated him. i had said “go ahead and shoot me” or something of the sort, new it was the wrong thing to say at the time but dreams. the overall feeling was a stunned bemusement so that appears to be progress. usually my overall feeling is being overwhelmed or annoyed/frustrated. haven’t had a panic work nightmare for many years and several jobs.
this morning made french toast with black bear bakery wheat bread. i had sliced thick as it was crumbly and let air out but the slices were to thick and the batter didn’t seep all the way in so it was a little on the hardy side. french toast is not supposed to taste like its good for you. had a nice flavor though i fresh grated vanilla bean, nutmeg, cinnamon stick & star anise into the batter.
mowed the front lawn before it got unbearably hot. drinking my second round of coffee before gearing up for the next project. i’m going to make some zucchini soup i got out of the tribune. maybe i’ll be early enough on it to serve it with supper. going to do something with the left over chicken probably throw in my annie’s mac & cheese with some grape tomatoes and fried cabbage (if the moths left me any. my cabbage has been almost a total loss. handpicking was inadequate for the task so i am looking for a more aggressive organic solution or i may have to look at poisons or give up on home grown cabbage).
bread & butter pickles
had fun canning pickles with sarah today. our second year. only took us 3 1/2 hours for a batch and a half of dills & a bit more than double batch of bread & butters. i had a request for the recipe and so i thought i would provide both sarah’s mom’s recipe & the recipe i used off the internet. turns out they are identical except for how much sugar and cinnamon they take and sarah leaves out the celery seed. so the brine takes: 1/2 cup kosher salt, 2 1/2 cup white vinegar, 2 cup apple cider vinegar (i use bragg’s unfiltered mostly),2 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups sugar (i used agave nectar last year to good effect), 2 tbsp mustard seed, 2 tsp crushed red pepper, 1 1/2 tsp celery seed, 1-2 cinnamon sticks (i broke mine up), 12 all spice berries, 2 pinch ground (i fresh ground 2 berries last year & a touch of star anise), 12 cloves, pinch of ground cloves (fresh ground 2 cloves last year), & 1 tsp turmeric (i substituted yellow curry last year). for the pickles you use twice as much cucumbers as sweet onion and green pepper slices. last year i also used red peppers (i think pimento), banana peppers,& poblanos. last year my cukes (thanks betty) were a couple of weeks ago so i limed them according to the instructions on the pickling lime package. this year and the first batch were probably less than 24 hours off the vine before going in the jars and stayed crisp all year.
the good life
I haven’t blogged for a while and felt like I should put something up. I have been a little emotionally drained for the last couple-few weeks and motivation has been a little harder to come by. I am certainly meeting expectations and even advancing some projects but sometimes come short up against what I would like to do. Two months since The Popster passed so I guess I’m right where I should be. I had a week or two with just the dogs when coincidentally john and kevin both went back to california to get there stuff. John’s things are here now and tonight’s after work project is to help kevin move his things. They have cleaned the garage which is looking better then it has for a long time. I opted out of that process to spend the time in the garden. John moved up some book shelves into the living room and am looking forward to seeing his library join mine for a time. He also has two paintings by Gonzalez Gonzalez a London painter Dr. Tod was into in the 80s. Having not even finished painting I have not got onto getting things for the walls. He paints faces that look like abstract water colors at first glance. There’s one with a little yellow that we’re hanging in the living room as that really pulls the face out, and there’s a blue and violet one, that I’m not sure I see the face in yet, that we’re putting up in john’s room.
We’ve had our first string of hot, unrelentingly hot for better than a week. Its slowed me down a bit as I get used to it. Mowed the lawn, back on saturday and front on sunday. Had to find the sweet spot between the evaporation of the dew and before it became to damn hot. My neighbor John broke out an old push reel mower yesterday. We both agreed it was quite a work out. I hope he sticks with it. Its a chore but so is going to the gym and that costs money. It makes me think how much all these time saving devices really cost us more. With the introduction of vacuum cleaners and dish washers and the like they’ve just increased the standard of what a clean house is, not to mention the rise of square footage of the average home, and how much time do we save if labor saving devices take out the physical effort so we have another chore of having to go to they gym. simpler is better and the old ways have their wisdom. I could have a bigger garden if i used a rotor tiller but you can’t dig down 2 feet any way but a shovel. My 2 feet of top soil tells me its been worth the effort.
Yesterday I mostly rehabbed the big garden bed. I weeded, harvested a nice little jar of radishes and planted my black plum tomato. The compost is coming along and I have a lot to use. i also jazzed up some of the extra soil from the tree planting and added some more soil around the peach tree. John looked up Belle of Georgia and its a red skinned white stoneless peach that comes due in August. I’ll let you know how they turn out. I also swapped the hose onto the rain barrels and watered that way rather then by 2 1/2 gallon can. That was so much easier and I am going to use so much more rain water which takes more out of the fall on the roof and run madly into bear creek process. i can see adding multiple barrels if I keep using goodly amounts of water. last year was wet, but still I only got to the bottom of the barrel once.
I also picked strawberries and made round two of strawberry pancakes. This time I used Jiffy Mix and I am definitely sticking to scratch from now on. Its hardly any harder and its quite a bit cheaper and way better. I almost stirred in a little extra baking powder after the first cake came off the grill but just stuck with it. They were good nonetheless with the stanton boy’s local eggs over medium and real maple syrup and organic butter.That led to a lively discussion on if that means anything. I bought it because butter was $4 and organic was $5. When i can get regular for 2-3$ then the price differential doesn’t seem worth it. John’s proposition is that corporate cows making corporate butter is so off that organic practice becomes meaningless. My argument is that cows eat a lot of corn, unfortunately and my understanding is that organic animals are fed organic feed and that makes a lot more acreage of organic corn a slight improvement over our normal monoculture nightmare food production system. It also increases the chance that our milk cows are grass fed by changing those relative economies.
Dinner was altogether much better as we were well over 90% local and 20% from the backyard and all agreed that it was good. I roasted my first beer can chicken. I brined it with salt, brown sugar, and some unfiltered apple cider vinegar. then I stuck an open can of budweiser up its yahoo and sat it on the grill. For the grill I had a big fire on one side and added a lot of soaked hickory chips which provided the bulk of the flavor. It was yummy with a crispy brown skin. I also made a packet with the first of the new potatoes (reds and whites) and a couple of baby turnips, with half a garlic snape, some fresh fennel root, & oregano. kevin put together the asparagus packets. sarah brought some trout and a pasta salad (our pasta is where we lowered our local percentage besides incidentals like butter & salt).
Its been really fantastic and again I thought that no one was eating a better meal no matter how much money they had. I like living the ‘good life’ and showing it can be done with just a little bit of labor and gumption. alright well maybe a bit more than a little but we can all take steps down a path of sustainability.
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