Ambergris

Yes, really.

I have repeatedly stored Velveeta for over a year. It used to make great macaroni and cheese, especially as compared to the Orange Powder, but the ingredients changed several years ago and I have not stored or used nearly as much since then.

We're having chicken too.

Adding to this thread instead of starting a new one. Cats happened to my earlier plantings of garlic, so I planted again yesterday. Still have some leftover planting cloves of creole garlic, which I'll try to give away this week. Wish me luck.

My go-to medicine for colds, flu, or worse of that ilk is hot lemonade (or limeade...or kumquatade) with ginger in it.

Having an interview is a whole lot better than waiting for someone to be willing to even interview you.

Deerslayer, what kind of dehydrator did you use, how did you prep the potatoes, and how long did the drying take?

I'm staring at 20# of russet potatoes. I'm thinking of washing them, slicing them, blanching them, and running them through the dehydrator. Any suggestions?

Do we need to pass the hat for all this work?

Yes. She should start laying again a week or so after the days return to the same length they were about a week before she stopped laying. Given your latitude, I'd expect eggs again at the end of February. Make sure to feed her laying-quality food beginning in the second week of February to build her up for it.

One night, probably closer to twenty than to fifteen years ago, the screen fell out of the backyard window to my bedroom. I heard something, so I put my hands on the windowsill to lean out and look down. Or ... that was my plan. I put one fist on the windowsill and one fist inside the hot, wet belly cavity of an ENORMOUS RAT. I became excited. After that, my huntress cat returned to eating her catches somewhere else.

Denise, if you are afraid he might wander off at night or while you're in the bathroom or something, install latches at the bottoms of the doors. You can nudge them open with your toe in the morning (or after you get out of the shower) instead of bending over to unlock them, but they need to be latched by hand. Confused people will stand at the door, locking and unlocking the usual locks over and over, and unable to tell why the door won't open. Be sure to get really lightweight ones in case emergency people need to kick the door open.

I'm reading a history of the Plantagenets.

Welcome home, Victoria!

Oh, man! I hope I can get some good prices here. They stay good for a loooong time if not cut or bruised. The carving ones are not the best for flavor, but they have plenty of soup-worthy nutrition--and seeds!

One is to allow ads. Google AdSense is probably the easiest. If you're going to get serious, consider using AdSense Channels, so you can see what people are clicking on. Knowing what key words are producing clicks is vital to making decent money. Yahoo also has AdSense, I think. AdSense pays cents-per-click. The alternative to CPC is a system I'm not sure about called CPM. I avoid even discussing it because the people who do it include Casale, Adify, and other people I have always considered malware company. One is to be an affiliate, meaning to have a link to a retailer, such as Amazon, so that you get a tiny fraction of every purchase made by someone who accesses Amazon through that link. Other than Amazon, look at Commission Junction, FlexOffers, LinkShare, and ShareASale. I don't know the difference between affiliate programs and referral programs. Swagbucks and Sharebuilder are referral programs I've heard good things about. Again, though, I don't get how they work differently from affiliate programs. You need publicity. I know people who swear by Gather. Others talk about blogtours and blog carnivals. You want a lot of links back to your blog, so get in all the directories you can. Also, put out lots of Squidoo pages that have links back to your blog. If you have the nerve for it, put a link in your signature and comment a lot on other blogs. You need Google Analytics or something like it to see what pulls people to your site. Then you need to give people more of that. Find a "keyword tool" site and find out how many people are looking with specific keywords. I keep hearing about Search Engine Optimization. As best I can tell, this is a glorified version of picking key words by their popularity.

I did a chunk of research a while back. http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39890 Some of it's bound to be out of date by now, but feel free to poke about.

Yesterday's roaster turned out to be unexpectedly wholesome--more like a two year old bird than the usual tender little spring chickens. So anyway, the remains of it are in a slow cooker with onions, carrots, more onions, and more onions. We do confess a vague fondness for onions. I'm making broth! BROTH! And there are sliced lamb shanks and slices of beef marrow-bone in the fridge for tomorrow's version. I'm going to use the largest lamb slices for osso bucco. Any suggestions for the rest?

I have a tea camellia bush. Sometimes I pick off the tight little buds and cure them to add to my tea.

Couscous is kind of like grits made from wheat. I've made Shrimp Grits with couscous. It wasn't exactly a waste of perfectly good shrimp, but I went back to my cold couscous and parsley salads.

I like it with half a handful of finely chopped parsley (at minimum, five or six leaves with finely chopped stems), a small can of sliced (or minced) black olives, lemon or kumquat juice (two kumquats works very well), olive oil, and maybe a finely chopped plum tomato or two. If available, crumble in some nice, salty feta. If there are any chives or scallions about, chop them up very finely and throw them in. (Dried is fine--don't reconstitute first.) This stuff can be kept in the fridge for several days, and just gets better every day. I eat it cold.

And then, next year,

Your car insurance should go down.