GROCERY SHOPPING!

I live on fresh food.  And by that, I mean I don't get meals at fast-food places.  I LOVE fresh veggies, fresh meat and fresh fruit.  I only keep refined sugar in the house to feed the hummingbirds. 

And don't get me wrong on the fast foods either.  I think Taco Bell Nachoes Bell Grande and steak soft tacos are great.  I think MacDonald's Big Mac is fantastic.  But I haven't had either for years.  I just think that whatever I cook is better for me.  I mean, I know what's in it. 

And, in a weird way, this relates to Dad.  Just before he arrived here last May, I had a freezer full of stuff I liked that he didn't.  He was strictly a "meat&potatoes" guy.  Hey, I'm adaptable, so I ate what I cooked for him - pork chops, or sausage or a chicken thigh plus a M/V potato and a tossed salad (an insistance I made for his health and my love of salads).  It worked OK.  I would normally slice up pork and stir-fry it with a lot of veggies but he wanted to see the pork in a whole piece, and I could deal with that.

So he's been gone a month now (and happily in the assisted living facility where they also like to cook things in chunks and offer potatoes).  Well, I decided to live out of my freezer and pantry for 3 weeks.  I used up 10 cans of soup, tupperware containers of frozen ham and pork, 5 cheap chicken pot pies, containers of cooked kale, frozen meatballs, and frozen shrimp.  It wasn't bad.

But today I went GROCERY-SHOPPING!

They say never to go grocery-shopping on an empty stomach, and I can see why.  I bought pickled beets, marinated artichoke hearts, a big bag of navel oranges, 6 plums, a big ginger root, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, grapes, a pineapple, 6 cans of soup, a couple cans of "chili beans in mild sauce", a can of white canelli beans, a can of garbonzo beans, milk, a half dozen eggs, marinated mushrooms,  and if they had had yak milk chocolates I probably would have bought them too.  LOL!

At the meat store. I bought a whole filet mignon on sale (1.5 inch thick slices) and with a free bottle of dry rub; I bought chicken thighs, a chicken breast, 3 hot italian sausages (for adding to the canned chili beans).

Three weeks of living out the the freezer can drive you to madness.  I am in a cooking frenzy of the stuff I haven't made in a year.  And next week, I plan to have large quantities of Moo Goo Gai Pan, hot&sour soup, spring rolls, char shu ding, and shrimp fried rice delivered.  Most to be frozen for "later", but some for an orgy of eating. 

I'm thinking I might want a Big Mac pretty soon too.

I weighed 163 when dad arrived and I weighed 169 when he left.  I'm down to 160.5 today.  Let the food celebration begin!

The wok is "in the building" again...

Star Trek

In the past few days, I have watched 2 Star Trek movies I never saw before:  'Nemesis' and 'Star Trek'.  I had never seen them before partly because I do not subscribe to premium movie channels, partly because I do not like going to movie theaters, and partly because I thought the Star Trek franchise had died an ugly death with the TV series 'Star Trek: Enterprise'  (starring Scott "Quantum Leap" Bakula, who I always thought was best cast as a handsome fool - I suspect he is the inspiration for Brewster Rockit in the comic strip).

So I avoided the subsequent Star Trek movies, giving up on them after 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis'. 

I have been returned to the flock!

The original Star Trek TV series started when I was 16 and well into reading serious and thoughtful sci-fi books (at 12 I had exhausted the library collection of "young adult" sci-fi and the librarian had granted me access to the "adult" books - not that there was anything very shocking about "adult" sci-fi back in 1962).  But by 1966, when Star Trek appeared, I could tell it was different from the sci-fi movies of the time.  I instantly recognized that each episode contained a social statement (perhaps a best example being the [literally] reversely half-black and half white opponents in an episode); and no, I am not really a trekkie who can recall episodes by number, name, or cast of special characters.

I was, like many, saddened when the original Star Trek was cancelled and watched it on syndication for years until the new Star Trek: The Next Generation came on in 1987.  I watched a few and quite frankly, I didn't like the crew.  I ignored it for a couple of years.  Picard wasn't Kirk, Number One wasn't Spock, etc.  Then, from boredom, I assume, I watched a few episodes and realized there was some "there" there.  The characters were more defined, the situations were more complex, and "different" wasn't "worse".  I grew to admire the new characters (and the actors who played them). 

Star Trek: Voyager was a whole new leap, but I accepted the whole premise.  Sci-fi requires the willing suspension of disbelief, and I have never had a problem with that in specific situations for a book, a movie, or a cat blog, LOL!  So given the setup for Voyager, I had no problem and came to admire the series. 

I watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with interest, but not much engagement.  It was brilliantly conceived, expertly acted, and had wonderful new characters and enemies.  I LOVED the idea of taking control of an enemy outpost and struggling to manage it.  Just as a personal note, as a minor beauracrat with some responsibilities but no authority, I appreciated the day-to-day problems (though writ larger on a cosmic scale).  I only gave up on that when Captain Sisko became a slightly paranormal messianic figure.  I stuck with Voyager til the end, fascinated with 7 of 9 struggling back to humanity (the counterpoint of Data) and the Borg (truly one of the best opponents of all time).

Then came the disasterous 'Star Trek: Enterprise'.  I tried to follow it, really I did, but I couldn't get past Scott Bakula in 'Quantum Leap".  And I actually enjoyed that show many times.  I just couldn't accept him as a Star Trek Captain.  Ever.

I never saw a Star Trek movie I didn't like.  I can't even pick a favorite.  Each one was pleasing and impressive in its own way.  I will nominate 'The Voyage Home' as the most Trekkie cult movie for all the inside jokes and interactions.  I will nominate 'Star Trek' (2009) as one of the best origin prequels.

One of the things I admire about the Star Trek franchise is the "original" characters.  The original had Spock,  TNG had Data, DS9 had Odo and Quark, Voyager had 7 of 9. 

I will place Spock out of the "unique" characters.  He is too integral to the series to be unique to any one.  So Data and Seven were my favorite unique characters.  My apologies to Dr Picard, but he was limited in his interactions.  Still, if I recall correctly, there was a time in the holodeck when he stuggled to the holodeck door to save a patient and he seemed as fully individual and sentient as anyone.

So, the point of all this is that I will wait for the latest Star Trek movie to show up on the non-subscription TV.  Or I will brave the local movie theater.  Its 50-50. 

SO!  I am sure glad I watched 'Nemesis' and 'Star Trek' this week.

Let's see Star Wars match that...

MISSING YOU TODAY MOM.

Dear Mom, gone 2 years+

My faithful correspondent over the years, teacher of cooking, lover of cats, literate jokester, player of puns, mistress of doggerel poetry, music lover, who taught me to not only read but love what I read, I miss you on this day most of all.  You taught me that anything worth doing was worth overdoing.  Every word I play with comes from your guidance.

In my younger years, you allowed my to try things I couldn't do well until I COULD do them well.  My fondest memories are when I said "Mark Do", and you let me DO.  I would not be the person I am if you hadn't allowed "Mark Do", as frustrating as it must have been at the time.

In later years, when I slowly became an adult you were my Dear Friend and I somehow became a co-equal in your eyes.

I am not quite what you thought I would be, but more than you may have imagined.  I know what you desired of me and I am not that, but I have lived a full life in my own way.  You sent me out into the world to see what I would do and I did "my thing".  I wish you could see me now.  I think you would approve.

I have always remembered that you wanted a "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" but you liked the name "Mark" best and gave me that name as the eldest child.   I have carried the name proudly but without the religious meaning.  You accepted that from my early teenage years to the last day I spoke to you and you were proud of me to the end of your days.

Thank you.

Love,

Mark

Inept At Showing Videos

I need help showing videos!  I did it once but I just can't figure it out again.  I'm not on Twitter, FB, or anything other than Blogger and email.  I can watch the videos on my own computer just fine; they work.  I just can't upload them to the Mark's Mews blog.  Can someone tell me the simple basic way to do that?    I have cool Mews videos to share and I can't do it.  ARRGGHH!  I feel stupid.

Mark,  cavebear2118 AT verizon DOT net

Planting Tomatoes

For years, I have pushed the tomato-planting season using  things to keep them warm in mid April.  The past several years I've gotten a poor harvest.  So this year, I decided to wait until the nighttime low temps were above 50F.  Tomatoes don't like temps under 50F and can die at 45F.  So I watched the 10 day forecast after the average last frost date of April 21 (around here).  There was one night at the end of April under 50F so I waitedMay 1st, the 10 day forecast said none under 50F, so I planted 4 next to the house (well, its warmer there).

Then the 10 day forecast said there would be 1 night below 50F so I waited until after that to plant the tomatoes in the far garden.  Just a couple days, may as well wait.  When that cool night was passed, I looked at the 10 day forecast again, and AGAIN there was a 40's F night in 2 days.  So I waited again.

Now there are 41/42F nights forecast for Sunday and Monday night!  So now I have to wait til Tuesday to plant the rest of the tomatoes (and peppers and cucumbers and other warm weather crops).  This is really setting the season back a bit.

It has not been this low in the nights that I can recall at this late date.  It's global warming.  Yes, you read that right.  Global warming means that, as the Earth heats up, weather becomes more unsettled and random.  Eath heat sends the weather off in more random extremes.  So don't listen to some ideological or scientifically-illiterate politician tell you that global warming isn't true just becuae YOUR local weather has been cooler.  Global warming does not mean "local warming all the time every day". 

Speaking of good forecasting, yesterday, The Weather Channel website hourly forecast said "local thinderstorms about 9:15 pm tonight.  At 9:15 pm I heard a first distant thunder! 

I'll wait 2 more days to plant the rest of the tomatoes, but I will sure check the forecast to decide if I need to cover them for a little more warmth!!!

This year, I really want to try the "wait til its warm" planting idea. 

I DID get a lot of weeding around the flowerbeds done today. A third.  If that doesn't sound like much, it was a space 25' x 8 feet, among existing flowers.  You have to walk very carefully among them to weed.

A Surprise Visitor

Poor pictures, but the best I could get from through a window and far away.  I was in the house and saw a huge bird swoop into the backyard.  I intially thought it was a turkey due to the large body size. 

I assumed that if I opened the deck door for a clearer shot, it would fly away before I could get the camera to focus on it.  I was right about that.  When it DID finally fly away, the picture I got was so blurred it could have been anything from an elephant far away to a spider on the camera lens

But when it flew away, I could see it was obviously a vulture.   I couldn't imagine why a vulture would fly between and under trees.  There was nothing dead out there; I had been at that spot not long before.

The only thing I can think of is that the spot it landed was where a tree stump had been ground in January.  I had an old bag on corn gluten meal that had gotten damp and packed hard as dry brown sugar and I couldn't break it up well enough to use it in my lawn spreader.

So, thinking of what I could usefully do with it, I remembered that wood chips take a LOT of nitrogen from the soil.  Therefore, the fastest way to break down wood chips would be to put a LOT of nitrogen on them.  Corn gluten is very high in nitrogen...  So I had dumped the bag on the pile of wood chips and pounded it down into smaller clumps.  The rains have been dissolving it into the wood chips.

I know that vultures are said to hunt by sight, not smell, but there is a full leaf canopy overhead, and the vulture came in under the trees from downwind.  I think that it was attracted by some smell from a lot of nitrogen in one spot beginning to react with the older wood chips.

But it sure was strange...

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch!

So,  I realized that I left some tools outside a few hours ago and went trotting out to put them away.  I forget the rule of never leaving anything on the steps (even the outside ones).  I had stacked some small wooden blocks on the lower deck steps.  I would have been ok, as they were sheltered by some pavers blocks I am used to being there, but one wood piece seems to have fallen over.

I stepped on the corner of it and lost my balance.  Normally, that would have been OK; I am a bit agile even when falling.  But there were those pavers and bricks stacked up.  My left wrist smacked the pavers.  My wrist is fine, (well there IS a nice linear bruise from the watch)  but my watch isn't.  Lost a pin!  The watch flops around.  So I taped it in place, LOL!  It won't win any fashion contests but it's OK until I get a replacement pin.

I know that this seems all lighthearted, but I was actually THIS close to breaking my wrist, knocking out a tooth, breaking my ankle, or putting out an eye (I found myself staring at a paver corner real up close and personal).  And my ankle is sore.  I COULD have broken it but it feels better already.  Still sore though.  I'm lucky on stuff like that.

But I've removed all the stuff on the deck stair.  If you have stuff on any stairs, do the same.  You really don't want to look at the hard corner of a paver stone from an inch away...

Soil Improvement Time!

I finally got the car onto the trailer to visit the local nursery a couple of days ago.  I wanted a LOT of good compost.  Around here, that is "Leaf Gro".  The nursery sells it in bulk with a front-loader into a trailer or pickup bed.  I got almost a cubic yard for $28.  That's about the same as $60 worth in bags at the big box store and I doubt their stuff is the same quality.

So I covered the trailer , drove it home and into the back yard, and uncovered it.  Lovely stuff (see yesterday's picture).  The first use was to add to the soil bulk in the small tomato bed against the house.

Here's the BEFORE picture.  Half-filled with soil (the old falling-down raingutters drained in there, washing soil out).   There were lots of grasses spreading by runners too.  I turned over all the soil with my leverage fork.  That's a really cool tool (more below). 

I filled it with 3 wheelbarrows of Leaf Gro and hardly made a dent in the trailer-load..    

Then I turned the soil deeply with the leverage fork to mix them.  It doesn't look as nice and dark on top, but the compost is now deep in the root zone where it should be.  I left space for 2" of bark mulch.  And I will say that the newly-sharpened shovel really went right down deep with little foot pressure.  And when hard clumps of old dirt came up, it easily cut through them.  Good tools are wonderful!

The red hose you see, BTW, normally sits on the top of the back board and runs along the fence all the way to the back yard where the rest of the veggie garden is.  It sure beats unlooping 100' of hose back near the house everytime I need to water the main garden.

The leverage fork is amazing.  You put a foot in the center and push down.  Then you push the handle back and down.  The horizontal bar provides bending leverage (hence the name) and this thing is solid steel providing great strength.  I use it to turn hard soil when a regular garden fork is too weak.  The only limitation is the depth.  It only goes down 8" because of the leverage bar.  But 8" is pretty good for most crops.  And if you use it to break up the hard soil BEFORE you add better soil, it is great too.

After using the leverage fork to break up the hard soil is when I added the Leaf Gro compost (a local product, I think) to the bed.  At that point, I could use the regular shovel to turn and mix the soil and chop up large dry chunks.  And pick out grass-runner roots.  

Since this bed is right up against the house, it is warmer there.  I'll plant some of the tomatoes there Monday and show the finished job then.  The weather forecast says the nightly lows will be above 50 after today for the rest of the season.

Tomatoes are actually tropical (sub-tropical?) vines and do NOT like temps below 50.  I've been using warming tricks for years, but this year I decided to just wait on the weather.  Between the serious amount of fresh compost and the delay in planting, and the additional sunlight from having a few trees removed, I am hoping for an outstanding tomato season (and other crops).

Trailer Time!

A front loader bucket of Leaf Pro, about 25 cubic feet.  $30 where the same in bags at the local big box store cost about $60.

The before pic for the early tomato bed.  It's close to the house, so it stays warmer.

I started to add the Leaf Pro,  The box was only half full of soil (the falling down raingutters last year dumped tons of water and washed soil out).  The raingutters have been replaced.  So I decided to fill it with half compost. 

I dug the soil deeply, then added the compost and dug that deeply.  Then I added more and dug it deeply again.  It is one of the 2 sunniest spots left in the yard.  The soil has been left alone a few years.  With the bed being half compost, if I can't grow heirloom tomatoes there this year, I will have to give up here and consider a community garden spot.

Cleaning Garden Tools, Part 3

The rules say to sharpen the cutting edges of shovels and such with a file.  But I have a grinding wheel which is just as good and faster, LOL!  We're not talking about fine cutlery here.

So, being careful to generally match the grinding angle to the original  beveled angles, I set about the crude sharpening.  You are only making an edge on one side (chisel, not knife).  LOOK at those sparks, LOL!  I had the handle of the spade resting on the floor, so the grinding angle stayed very consistent.  A light pass back and forth did a wonderful job.

I gave the scuffle-hoes special attention.  They work with back-and-forth cutting strokes just below ground level (sort of like using a mop).  The front edge cuts under weeds on the push stroke, the back edge cuts on the pull stroke.

Then it was time to oil all the metal.  I've read about that bucket of sand with a quart of motor oil poured in, but I'm not going to mess with that.  It feels like pouring oil into the flowerbeds.  The oil on the tools has to get worn off somewhere, right?

So I took another piece of an old undershirt and simply wiped the tools with it dipped in motor oil.  Then I wiped the surfaces of excess oil with a another cloth.

The post-hole digger at the top of the picture WILL get file work.  The curves are tricky for the grinder.

Fish Loyalty

Fresh water tropical aquarium fish are generally small and only live a couple/few years.   I have a 30 gallon tank, so there are about 2 dozen small fish in it (mostly tiger barbs, cherry barbs, and serpa tetra).  So it is no great surprise to me to see a dead one every so often.  Yesterday, I noticed that the male dwarf gourami of my pair had died and was lying in a corner of the aquarium.  I knew I would have to get it out soon but I was a bit busy.

What surprised me was that the female was within a couple of inches of the dead male each time I passed by.  I glanced at the spot each time I passed for a couple of hours and she was always right there!  So I just watched her.

It's not like I always saw them swimming around together, and I certainly never noticed them trying to build a nest or mate.  I'm also not inclined to ascribe complex emotions to a fish.  But she was staying between him and the other fish in the tank.  I think she sensed something was wrong with him and may have even been guarding him.

Pretty impressive for a "just a fish".