Ambergris

"If you are not paying for the product, you are the product."

Azalea can be deadly too.

It's raining and I really don't want to walk down the hill to town, but I have things to do that have been waiting for the end of Carnival.

First, though, I can spend some time drinking coffee and setting up the slow cooker for black garlic. 

I've been watching videos on this, and the point is to keep garlic at 130 degrees or so for three to four weeks solid.  People buy a separate appliance to do this, or use proofing cabinets, or use slow cookers, or use rice cookers, or set them tightly wrapped in foil (to maintain moisture) in a cabinet dehydrator.  I was going to blacken garlic in the Excalibur, but the owner of the appliance objected because running it that long might burn out the motor.  So I dehydrated all that garlic plain, and continued my research.  I don't want to be without my slow cooker for a month, as I use it a couple of days a week now.  But here's this--I can move the garlic to the Excalibur when I need to use the slow cooker, and that will keep it at the same steady temperature.  That way, if I burn out an appliance, it won't be someone else's $400 appliance.

One use of black garlic paste is to replace the bouillon cube that makes me so ill.  It's semi-shelf stable, like cheese, and (like cheese) lasts a very long time in the fridge.

If you don't have time to pet him for an hour, grab him by the legs and swing him back and forth until he goes limp.  This is a temporary fix, lasting a few hours to a day, while the petting him into submission fix lasts much longer (eventually becoming permanent).

You have to get your locks changed out after that many people touch them anyway, just as a matter of course.  This is basic operational security.  You're a step ahead, is all.

Electricity off and on all day.  Off all but a couple of minutes at a time until noon.  I don't know what's going on in town, but before dawn the town had some lights (with large dark patches) when I had nothing.  Got about two hours of electricity right after noon, when the housekeeper arrived, so she and I agreed it was back for good.  (Nope.)  We got some housework done.  When it went off again, we got some yard work done, and then some more floor-cleaning and things that didn't need electricity.  Among other things, we Found The Smell, which turned out to be a half-eaten, moldy can of cat food that somehow got abandoned behind a sliding-glass door curtain.  Eew.  We (meaning she) also scraped clean the cuy cage, which needed cleaning, and hung/calibrated the hanging scale.

Around two, the electricity came on again, and hasn't so much as flickered in the past two and a half hours.

Now, of course, it's raining.

Turns out my bigger red flowers are gerberas, which don't like full sun.  We moved them to an area with bright indirect light and they perked up within hours.  Put in seeds for oil-seed sunflowers and red nasturtiums (the latter courtesy of PuppyMama) to replace them as eye-catchers for anyone admiring the view of my yard from the terraces above.

I'm having hummus (and tortillas) for brunch today too.  Was going to have an avocado too, but some critter broke in to the kitchen (the door doesn't fully close) and ate a good quarter of my ripe avocado overnight.  The chickens haven't discovered the rest of it in the lawn yet, but they will.  Probably having eggs and tomato-cracker salad for supper. 

This afternoon I plan to plant the red flowers bought earlier this week, prettying up some planters along my retaining wall, and bury the expensive-but-moldy loaf of bread I bought.  The chickens won't eat it, turns out, but it should make decent compost.

When my house burned, the insurance dragged me out forever,,,or rather for two years.  I finally walked away with them owing me over $40,000 based on my receipts that they didn't refuse to pay but somehow never paid.  The adjuster kept whining about how overworked he was.  I maxed out all my credit cards and took out loans to pay for things they were to reimburse me for, that they never, ever reimbursed me for.  I should have gotten the lawyer, but my husband dove into the bottle and the marriage was breaking up and my kids were crashing and I was generally not doing well.  

Don't let them being nice fool you.  The moment they refuse to pay a bill or sidestep paying a bill, get a lawyer.  

https://www.echocommunity.org/en/resources/49954b28-cefb-46f3-9c46-ffd1723c329b

This is how to adapt a bicycle pump and use other items to evacuate the air from packages.

It worked.  Made two coffee mugs full, so about 20 oz.

The housekeeper came by to check on me and was not happy.  She rousted me out of the bed, made it, and boiled a quartered apple.  She told me to drink the resulting "tea," which I suppose is pectin water with a little sugar and maybe some malic acid in it from the apple, once it cooled some, and to add the juice of half a sour lime (Mexican/Key lime) and a level spoonful of bicarb if needed after.  I never heard of this treatment, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

It's not too much. It's an investment.  Seed prices never go down.

I've been in bed all day.  I ate some fruit from the market without the usual thorough vinegar/water wash several days ago, and got the squirts.  Haven't been able to shake this and have been getting weaker and weaker.  Usually I don't go for the pink liquid because I want stuff ejected from my system, but four days is enough.  I took the pink stuff today and stayed in bed.  Things have been getting behind (no pun) over the last few days, and I need to get over this before the critters get out of hand too.

I have a sourdough sponge going on in the kitchen right now, and today I'm doing something that I hope will end up as a vinegar (as opposed to aromatic compost like my recent ginger bug).  I also have trays of fodder going on for the critters, although they're not technically in the kitchen.  One is three days old, one two days old, one is from yesterday, and I'm going to start another today.  They need to grow about seven to eight days to be useful.  (Actually I think one is four days old, and I skipped a day, not that it will matter in the long run.)

If I gather the oompf to walk back to town this afternoon, I plan to pick up onions for the dehydrator and garlic for a black-garlic project, although the priority is paying a bill.

Note that people relying on a solar still are advised to cut up vegetation to put under the plastic to increase the amount of liquid condensing on the plastic.  Also note that what he calls a quarter cup might be a bit more.

I once bought a $130 hot plate that advertised it was good for canning.  It had a dial for heat, infinitely adjustable, and was very strong/heavy.  I did a good bit of canning on it before it disappeared.

I want to do this because it's only one shelf of the dehydrator, and I can do onions or other savories on other shelves for the 4-8 weeks as the garlic simmers along.  

GenZ with ADHD and an obsession.

Thank you! I picked up Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation from a French girl at the market a couple of weeks ago.  Are you going to watch?

What's the first rule of cutting hot peppers?

What happens when you get distracted after cutting hot peppers?

ARGH!

(As an aside, the toothpaste trick works pretty well.)

I'm still looking for a true pressure canner here instead of a pressure cooker. 

While the canned chicken here tastes better than the canned chicken in the US, it's not as good as my bottled chicken.  Considering that a half-cup sized can is a very solid basis for a meal for me, I would look at a one-pint jar as something to open about twice a week.  So for a year, I would bottle at most about 40-50 pints of various kinds of chicken, 24-32 of various kinds of pork, and about 24-32 of stew beef and variety meat, these jars including meat-rich soups and chilis, etc. as well as pure cold-pack meat (and bone).  In addition, I would bottle up as many pint or quart jars of pure broth as possible.  Broth is gold.

The canned fish here is better than mine, and the tastiest kinds are rich in hunger-resolving fat as well as protein.  I wouldn't bottle it ahead of time, but if I had fish and no freezer, you bet I'd bottle it.

Miki, how do you prepare the sweet potatoes?  I would just dehydrate them enough to get them leathery and get rid of the stickiness.

https://www.hipchickdigs.com/2013/05/how-to-use-bantam-eggs/

Telling you that you don't smell it is called 'gaslighting' and is classified as a form of abuse.  It is an attempt to control your reality.  I would not get the camera, as that can open a whole new can of worms and in some places cause you legal troubles even in your own house (because it is a room devoted to his use).  It can certainly cause you social issues.  Besides, you don't need proof for something you know.  All you need is your nose and what you know.  Don't let him control your reality and make you go to increasingly ridiculous lengths to prove that the sun rises in the east.  Say that if you think you smell it, that's going to be it, and he can live with the consequences.  Give him notice that the burden is on him to keep you from smelling it, and that there will be no argument as to whether you do.

Buck and a half apiece, old enough to be fully feathered and not need a heat lamp. Of course I've had them a few weeks now and am spoiling them rotten.  (This is the only time they've come inside the house, though.)  If they crow, I have a waiting list of people who would be happy to have one for dinner, and then I can start over.