Ambergris

The post office here was disbanded.  Receiving a letter costs $6 to $10, depending.  Sending it costs also.  Some private party has bought the rights to the mail delivery and is talking about starting it back up.  We're waiting to see how things shake out.

I'm going through a lot of videos on the Three Baskets channel:  

And apparently the design I like hasn't been updated in forty years because Physics Doesn't Work Like That, and whoever came up with it got laughed out of the building.  Sigh.  So I found this https://extension.usu.edu/sustainability/research/community-solar-dehydrator-plans and a much older plan for one with a much smaller cabinet and no chimney.  I need to put the two together and draw out the result.  I want one with a cabinet half the size of this community-sized one, with a much flatter angle on the collector and with a chimney.  I'd also like room for light bulbs in case I have electricity to keep the thing going at night, assuming I can find incandescent bulbs anywhere.  I'm hesitant to try the more potent heat-producing bulbs, as easily as they break.

Various analyses on cabinet dryer configurations and building styles.  There's someone with an Indian name whose articles are mostly locked down by Springer, which is fast becoming my primary research nemesis.  I've written to the authors of other articles and requested copies directly, and of course Google has plenty of information (even though much of it is worth less than the time it takes to absorb and assess). 

I'm interested in updates on a forty-year-old New Mexico "crop dryer" design, or in a copy of the original NMSEA publication that might have more detail than these two line drawings of a finished unit --which is all I now have.  The NMSEA archives are at the UM library and have one file that might be this in "folder 22" and one in "folder 23," but so far I'm stumped as to how to get into those folders.

YouTube has a video of one that's almost like what I want, but it's in Spanish and is more up-tech than I want.  It has an Arduino thing to control the vent, which controls temperature.  I'd rather have this information in print, so I can chew it over myself and make any changes I want before those changes would cost money to make.

The naked neck (turken) is really heat resistant, and also easy to pluck.  Mine have also tended to be the most intelligent and often the tamest of the flock.

The parsley is in a mixed bed, with decoratives but also with a papaya, a beefsteak tomato, and a local tomato-like fruit that I am not terribly fond of but that produces food like mad while being totally neglected.  It looks, smells, and tastes like parsley, and the sample did not give me an adverse reaction either to my skin or to my mouth.  That bed also used to have small leaves of what looked like edible taro.  The taro I went ahead and removed, because good taro is really easy to confuse with bellyache taro, and those are easy to confuse with inedible taro.  

The sweet potato vines I'd clipped off had a few inch-long roots each, so we planted those today.   While clearing the decorative groundcover from the place one vine was to go, we uncovered a nice little parsley plant.  

The soft local potatoes with the very tender skin and lovely flavor had finally developed eyes with little bits of growth in them, so I cut them up yesterday.  I had planned to give the cuts a week to heal and the little bits that same week to grow, but my housekeeper asked where I wanted them and we discussed that they go as far from the doors as possible (we both agree they draw mosquitoes) and then I went inside to refresh my coffee cup and all without thinking she was taking that as instructions for right now.  When I came out of the kitchen, half of them had been planted. 

I had turned my foot under me, the one I banged up a week or so ago, and went down this morning.  So I wasn't as swift as I could have been.  

Also planted a couple of pieces of ginger and moved four baby trees out of their grow bags. 

The seedlings are not big enough to set out yet, and I want the garlic to put out some roots and greenery before it goes into the ground.  I have terrible luck with garlic.  I went to various stores and bought what are clearly three different varieties.  One white hardneck, one red hardneck, and one softneck.  Hopefully, one of them will do well here.  And hopefully the one that does well will also taste good.

I really hope the potatoes do well.  But if these rot in the ground, they will probably do so pretty quickly.  It's the rainy season, and they were not a dry kind of potato.  And then I will buy more and replant.

I think I'm going to give away the asparagus.  I don't like it as much as I like other things I could use that space for.

Parts of article from mid 2019:

 The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has issued several thousand DMV registration holds for non-compliant equipment currently operating in California.

In 2020, a formal standard will be enforced by the DMV where any 2004 model year or older model year diesel vehicle with a GVWR of 26,000 pounds or less will be denied registration as of January 1. Heavier diesel vehicles with a 2000 model year engine or older will also be denied.

“It is a perfect storm” according to Matt Schrap, VP of Government Programs for Crossroads Equipment Lease and Finance. “Hundreds of fleets have received letters in the mail telling them they can’t register their truck, the main thing I hear from these folks is, ‘I had no idea.’”

Currently, fleets are being prevented from registering vehicles that have been tagged by CARB for non-compliance. This is any heavy-duty diesel truck over 26,000 pounds GVWR that is not equipped with a diesel particulate matter (PM) control device from either Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or an aftermarket provider.

2008 through 2010 trucks equipped with 2007-2009 engines have factory installed PM Devices, these OEM equipped trucks are legal to operate in California until January 1, 2023 when the final standards kick in for the CARB On-Road Rule.

In the interim, vehicles older than 2008 will have had to install an aftermarket PM device on any 1996-2006 engines to comply starting in 2012. Vehicles with a GVWR of 26,000 pounds or less have had to turn over directly to 2010 model year engine standards which became available for purchase in the 2011 truck model year. (See Tables Below).

[two tables omitted]

***

For those fleets who met the schedule for compliance through retrofitting or the purchase later model year trucks, grants and incentives have helped propel many companies well past the compliance dates. Program such as Proposition 1B and the Carl Moyer Program have replaced thousands of older diesel vehicles with new, clean diesel and alternative fuel platforms.

***

So, they might have been saying "I had no idea" three and a half years ago, but it's not like anyone had a right to be surprised by these rules now.  Also, any California trucking person who "had no idea" in 2019 wasn't paying attention, since they were supposed to have been taking action in stages starting in 2015.  Chaos eight years later?  Only because people were pretending nothing was really going to happen and that they would never have to follow these rules even though they didn't bother voting to change them in all that time.  

They are not talking about a few hundred dollars in tickets.  They are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines per fleet, which can be additive per year since each given vehicle was supposed to have been brought into compliance, and also talking about refusal to register vehicles or fleets.  Think about what happens when an unregistered vehicle is pulled over for any reason.  It's towed and impounded.  Towing a big rig is expensive, as is storing it, and they don't let you unload the freight and send it on to its destination.

I just now clapped a mosquito and knocked my glasses off.  

ow

Right now you have breathing space.  Even if it does mean that you don't see the shoe that's falling, you need to enjoy the breathing space as much as you can.  When all's said and done, "right now" is all the time we really do have.  Don't waste it.

https://espressomio.ru/en/from-fruit/chto-delat-esli-fasol-gorchit-pochemu-gorchit-fasol-posle-varki-pochemu/

TLDR: You could try the sometimes condescending advice in the article for removing the bitterness.  Sometimes, however, the beans are bad from the start, being poorly grown, or were old/damaged when you bought them.  If so, there's no cure. 

Didn't Westie's daughter react to eggs fed with soy feed?  Or am I misremembering?

Anyway, when I have chickens, I have to work pretty hard to get them feed without soy because I have to limit my soy.  It's one of the things that can trigger my migraines and cause "sleeping sickness," (my name for what I get and sleep to get through, not what you'll find if you look the term up)  and it's EVERYWHERE.  I just snip it out of my diet wherever I can, like I do nitrites (sigh, so much for bacon or ham every morning) and yeast extract/MSG, and hope that's enough to keep below critical level. 

And yes, I can tell the difference when I eat eggs based on what the hens eat.  I can eat three or four eggs a day when they're mine or C's (I know what her hens eat), and not have problems, but no more than one or two a day without problems when they're cheap store eggs.

There's a question of whether it's the hormones in the soy (which is a potent phyto estrogen) or whether it's the Roundup in the soy, but that might be too political an issue to get into here.  

Quiche is the first thing I thought of.  Then white sauce (butter, milk, flour) since that's the basis of "cream of" anything soup.  Add cheese and short pasta (macaroni or shells, mostly) and you have macaroni and cheese.  Or add chopped tomatoes and crackers and bake, and it's good.

21 hours ago, The WE2's said:

I've found a 2 ingredient mix that works great for me.  1 cup of self rising flour and one cup of heavy cream.  Dump out on a floured surface and knead, adding more self rising flour if needed.  When dough becomes soft and pliable, roll out and cut.  400 degree oven for about 12 minutes. Might give it a try?

I've used this mix.  Makes a wet, sloppy batter like my granny's.  Try White Lily flour.  I don't knead or cut, though.  I do like Granny did and flour my hands, and pinch off a bit of the batter, pat it gently into shape, sprinkling a bit of flour on it to give a dry surface, and setting it on the pan with as little handling as possible.

Note that heavy cream has twice the fat of sour cream.  If you try substituting sour cream, you have to add in butter, lard, or bacon grease to up the shortening factor.

If it's a disposable lid, I put an ice pick through the middle of the top.  It comes off easy as anything once the vacuum breaks.

Mother's right: Pen first, critter last.

Six is a great start-up number, and one I go with over and over, although I've never had more than one Red Star at a time.  In Florida, I had to go for heat resistance and environmental toughness.  Over and over, the Easter Eggers (a mixed breed) came out champs.  Never got worms, ever.  Never got bumblefoot, ever.  Never got pox, ever.  Never ate garden strings or the cord from hay-bales, ever.  And you could tell which hen laid which egg.

Get a thin rail, preferably no bigger around than a mop handle, that you can wrap your hand around.

Get it before those things cripple you.

Taking the carpet up would also help.  It's loose.

Got one.  Don't use it.

Messy, very messy.  

Incredibly noisy.

Takes all kinds of fiddly work to keep it running properly.  There are user websites devoted to information the company should be putting out.  Unfortunately, you can't always tell which information goes with which generation of machine.

The company knows about various fixes and tweaks/upgrades, but sells them instead of putting them on the machine as it comes out of the box.  

Someone mentioned magnesium citrate.  This is the kind of magnesium that gives a lot of people very loose bowels.  Chelated magnesium oxide, I think, is the one recommended to be both absorbable and less likely to cause volcanic spews.

13 hours ago, kappydell said:

I am not surprised at the uptick in polio as Mr Gates' past history in Inda with trying to "wipe out" polio with vaccines for allo (sound familiar?) resulted in massive sterilazations, deaths and the development of a "super polio" bug before India govt got mad and threw him and his program out.  There are quire a few lawsuits pending thru world courts.  Ditto for African vaccine programs. Those poor victims....past and yet to be.....  

This is garbage information.

My last day at the office is Thursday.  Afterward, I'm taking an extended trip, assuming flights are available.  Suitcases arrived, so I've spent the day pre-packing, checking to see what fits and what various groups of contents weigh.  When I made my initial plans, I had no idea that suitcases had to be so tiny, or that the airline had a fifty-pound standard limit and 70-pound maximum.  Two of the new suitcases meet (or nearly meet) the 62" L x W x H size limit, so I want them to be under 50 lbs and maybe be normal price, but the third is going to cost $200 for being the third suitcase to start with, and it will get a surcharge for being oversized too, so I will be just trying to keep it under the 70 lb outer limit.  My two carry-on items will be the laptop case and a cat carrier.

In 2016, only 37 polio cases were recorded, all in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Nigeria.  Of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2 was certified as eradicated in 2015 and type 3 was certified as eradicated in 2019.  Only type 1 was left, and only in those two places.  People lost interest, programs lost funding, and vaccination got less common.  Here's the problem: people who get live virus vaccines become very slightly contagious until the vaccination takes effect, so they need to be surrounded by vaccinated people.  When they are surrounded by people who don't have any immunity, the virus shedding from the vaccination results in outbreaks (cVDPV outbreaks, which come in type 1 and type 2).  This was happening in Congo, Syria, Somalia, Laos.  Then came COVID.  From 2019 to 2020, more than 1000 cases were reported.  In 2020, four countries reported cVDPV type 1 outbreaks, 26 countries reported type 2 cVDPV2 outbreaks, and two countries reported outbreaks of both); 13 of these countries reported new outbreaks later.  In 2021, 672 vaccine type new cases were reported in 21 countries. 

 During January 2020–April 2022, a total of 1,856 cVDPV cases were identified in 33 countries.

3308 cases in 42 countries, by the way.  Up 50% in a week.  But this a minor disease, neither very contagious nor very dangerous, and no one needs to be alarmed.  Move along people.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

The first time in this post-vaccine era.