More Of Less Stuff

Each day, I keep thinking I should call Salvation Army but each day I find more stuff I can part with.  So I plan to look around another day.   Its worth the wait.  You wouldn't believe how much unneeded stuff I've accumulated in 28 years here.

Some of the stuff I've dredged out of the attic and closets are actually good stuff I'll keep.  But not much.

I have housewarming couch pillows in great condition because they've been in a closet because I don't have a couch.  I got rid of the couch and loveseat 15 years ago.  And a good story about those.  A month after I donated them, I saw an article in the Washington Post newsapaper about a poor family that received some furniture and were thrilled.  It was MY stuff!  I recognized the odd patterns on the cushions.

So giving unneeded stuff away is good.

I've made quite a collection in the basement.  A dining table that I meant to refinish and never will with 4 chairs,  stackable chairs for parties I never had, an upright vacuum cleaner for carpets I don't have anymore,  etc, etc, etc...

Would you believe I had TWO nearly identical 4" refracting telescopes?  I can part with one of those.

And there are several boxes full of kitchen gadgets I never used.  I don't exactly need the sieve that expands to fit the sink, or the strange flatware with the bright red ceramic handles,  or the ones with the walnut handles either.  Not my style and who needs 3 sets of flatware anyway.  Those are partly why I asked my family to stop sending me christmas gifts,  I have everything I want to have.

And there is stuff I bought myself that never worked out.  Like the magnetic knife holders.  And maybe someone could use that set of Ginsu knives.  I mean they are actually pretty good, but I have better ones now.

The real weird stuff was buried in the computer room closet.  A set of VCR storage drawers from a former friend.  Four sets of golf club covers.  Three tennis rackets I will never use again.  And there were the "eldercare" tub bench and tub access supports left over from when Dad was here.  I may need those things in 25 years (as Dad was 25 years older than me when he needed them), but I sure don't need them now and someone else sure does.

I'm dithering over the Christmas decorations.  I haven't decorated a tree in 10 years, but I might any year now, and those things DO have memory value.  Like the 25 pound tree stand that you can't find anywhere now.  But mostly the decorations are all a bit unique collected over years; I'll keep those.  How many people have 2 dozen fake male cardinals and bubble lights?  But the dozen boxes of regular lights and cheap glass ornaments can go.  Someone will appreciate them.  I hope.

I could probably sell a lot of that, but something in me says that donating them would give more pleasure to people otherwise without them.  And the idea of a child without much looking at colorful lights in the home (on a tree or not) feels good.

And maybe I'll include some of those bubble lights.  I remember the wonder I felt when I saw them as a child.  Better that some child wonders how they work than me keeping them in  box of memory.

Mark

Old Stuff

You ever found something you liked and it just disappeared?  I live that all the time.  What ever I like is not popular enough to remain available.  As a teen, I loved Whip and Chill.  Gone.  I love Sweet Tarts.  So much that a friend brought me a HUGE single one 3" diameter from his vacation.   My local butcher store used to have "cheesecake sampler packs".  I loved those and they stopped selling them.  I like Twisted Zin Zinfadel wine.  If it wasn't for the fact that the store kindly special-orders it for me, I wouldn't have THAT either.

Not that I'm approving smoking, but I used to smoke Benson&Hedges 100s.  No one carries them any more.  Anything I like just goes away.  I'm nearly anti-routine consumer.

I like my evening cocktail to be  an ounce of gin, an ounce of pomegranate liquor, and ginger ale on the rocks.  My version of a Singapore Sling.  And sometimes using cherry liquor.  Well, guess what?  The makers (Dekuprs) dropped JUST those 2 liquors from their line last month!

My favorite candy bar as a kid was Skybar.  It had 4 separate flavors in 4 separate pieces in each bar,  Seen any of those lately?  And the Zero Bar (white chocolate around nougat center).  Can't find those either.

I'm cursed...

Sometimes I think that if I announced that I breathe oxygen, it would vanish...

But today, I found a 7-11 store that had Sweet Tarts!  I bought 6 rolls (all they had).  And better?  They were buy-one-get-one-free!  Bet that means they are the last ever made...

Sweet and Sour Pork

Its NOT supposed to be batterred pork alone in some insipid sweet orange color sauce!

Batterred Pork is easy.  Deep fry 1" cubes of pork butt in a thick spicy batter.  Set aside.  I use a "Fry Baby".
Holds 1 pound of Crisco shortening.  Easy to deep fry small amounts in.


Cut coins/cubes of a dill pickle, green bell pepper, cherries, and pineapple.  Heat them anyway you like (saute', M/V).

Sauce:  1 cup cold water, 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1 T sugar, 1 T lemon juice, 1 T soy sauce, 2 or 3 T cornstarch.  Throw it all in a saucepan to thicken.  Viola, sweet/sour sauce for anything.  Not tricky cooking.

Drop the pickle, pepper, pineapple and cherry into the sauce to warm.  Add battered pork and stir lightly to mix. 

Now how hard is THAT?

It should look like this:

And not that orange but I added the restaurant crap sauce to my good sauce cuz it did smell a bit orangey/sweet. I wish I had not done that.

But here is what they gave me (without their orange color sauce).

Which would YOU prefer?

The local best Chinese restaurant couldn't do THAT...  Pathetic.  And they should be shunned for the awful Spring Rolls.  I actually took one Spring Roll apart to see what was in it.  Nothing!  Boiled cabbage as far as I could tell and nothing else*.

But I will say the Moo Goo Gai Pan was quite good.

*  A Spring Roll is supposed to be fancier than an Egg Roll.  A Spring Roll should have identifiable bits of shrimp, ground pork, and fancy chinese veggies like bean sprouts, water chestnuts, straw mushrooms, and bamboo shoots.  Not soggy cabbage mush.

Chinese Resaurant Food

Asiana Restaurant, Waldorf Maryland...

Ordered local 4 Spring Rolls, 1 Large Hot and Sour Soup, 1 Large Moo Goo Gai Pan, 1 Large Pork with mixed vegetables, 1 Large Sweet and sour pork.  and 1 Large Schezhuan string beans.

Disaster.

The Spring Rolls were mush in a crispy wrapping.  Spring rolls are supposed to have fancy stuff inside.

The Moo Goo Gai Pan was good.

The Hot and Sour soup was only vaguely hot and sour.  Mostly tofu in chicken broth.

The Sweet and Sour Pork was hideous.  It was just balls of pork in batter.  Nothing else.  And this particularly bothered me.  And I need to explain about that.

When I was in college in the early 70s I learned how sweet and sour pork should be made from a real chinese cookbook.  It is NOT batter pork balls in some wretched boring orange color sauce.  The idea is that there is pork balls in batter surrounded with sweet things and sour things.  Meaning pieces of pickles, green peppers, pineapples, and cherries in a sauce of sugar and vinegar.

I actually fed myself in college by making the real stuff for friends and their dates.  We guys had just been allowed into coed dorms (formerly a girls dorm) and it was a real surprise.  There were stovetops in the rec room.  I won't even mention that there was a bathtub!  But you could COOK there, and I did.

So my deal there was that I would cook a Sweet and Sour pork dinner for any guy and his date so long as they paid for enough for them AND me.  So I ate free by cooking.

This orange crap that chinese restaurants are pawning off as "sweet and sour pork" offends me with their fake orangy sauce.  But at least most of them have pickles and pineapple in them.  Not so my local favorite chinese place.  They USED to, but not now.

It got so bad that they messed up my order Friday.  I ordered several dishes, but they gave me Moo Shi Pork instead of the "Pork with mixed vegetables" I requested.  I hate that mushy Moo Shi Pork!  Admittedly, when I called them soon after they knew they messed up my order and I went back today and got the Pork with mixed vegetables for free.

Its hard to know what you are getting at pickup unless you take everything out of the bags.  And its almost that, if I check, they get it right and if I don't check, they mess it up.

Always check.

But mostly, I am disappointed.  The food sucked.  If I could make the sauces, I could do better at home.  So I'm going to learn the sauces.

Bye-Bye Birdy

The hummingbird feeders haven't shown any sign of feeding for 3 days, I guess the cool nights have sent them south.  I'll put clean nectar in them for 2 more weeks "just in case" and for any last-minute migrators.

I'll miss seeing those little aerial fighters until next Spring.

And they are going to be surprised next Spring.  I've found better feeders  (Aspect Humzinger 8 ounce - and there are larger ones) and ordered 4 of them.  The place will be filled with hummer feeders next year.

The "best1" feeders have started to break apart  from cleaning and handling.  I'll sure keep them as backups, but the Humzinger ones seem better.

Garden Enclosure Restart

Well, I decided I had to make some greater allowance for moving around the beds.  I kind of forgot there would be a wall of chicken wire all around the edge...  So the paths around the outside edges will be 2' wide and the inner ones more like 20".  That's enough to get around.

So... I took the first big step and went to the Home Depot to buy twelve 2"x8"x8' boards.  A few years ago, they wouldn't cut pressure-treated boards, but now they do.  So I selected 12 decent boards (had to look at 20 boards to find 12 straight ones) and had them cut 8 of them 7' long and 4 of them in half. 

That gives me enough boards to make two 7'x4' beds two 8' boards high. 

Here's the plan...  I have enough space cleared of the old rotting beds to build the 2 new beds.  I can then move the soil from the existing old beds to fill the new 2.  Then I can knock apart 2 more old ones and build 2 new ones, etc.

Why not just rebuild all the old beds you ask?  Well, the paths between them were too wide (wasting space) and they faced the wrong direction.  When you have limited sunlight, that matters.  And odd as it may seem, six 7'x4' beds with narrower paths give me more gardening space than the four 8'x3' beds in the same area.

Trust me on this...

So over the next couple days I'll dig a shallow trench to set the new frames in level (a flaw to correct about the old beds which were more unlevel than you would think sitting on what looks like flat ground) and construct them more sturdier (sturdily?)  And I will be adding compost to the new beds, which should get them off to a good start next Spring.  And the new beds will be higher, so there will be more decent soil for roots to grow. 

It's a lot of work, but it will be worth it.  especially since I will be able to cover 1 bed each year with black plastic to kill the weeds and nematodes and such.  Sometimes half the battle to grow good crops is to manage the soil.  Healthy soil means healthy crops.

I'll take pictures as I go. 

Garden Enclosure

I'm back at the 20'x20' garden enclosure project.  And while my initial goal was to maximize the framed bed area and minimize lumber purchases, I've concluded that I need to make some changes.

First, the framed beds were planned to be three 16'x4' beds.  And two 8" wide boards high per bed.  Second, my plan was to use only 2 of the 3 planned beds each year and let 1 go fallow (and solarized with a clear plastic cover) each year.  But even a 2" thick board will bend out over 16', so that meant annoying stakes for reinforcement.

And, well, a 2"x8"x16' board is really hard to handle.  And keeping 1/3 the growing space fallow/solarized each year seems wasteful.  So instead of those 3 framed beds, I'm building six beds 4'x7', two 8" boards high .  That means I can build all the framed beds using 2"x8"x8' boards, which I can haul home in my 8' trailer and I can actually carry those boards.  With 6 beds instead of 3, I can keep 1 bed fallow and solarized each year with less growing-space loss, walk around them easier, and build them easier.  I lose 24 square feet growing area (the 2' between the beds), but I gain 28 sq ft not being fallow each year, so its a wash.

I drew some pictures, but I just can't get the scanner function on the printer to work today (again)...   The first plan had three 16'x4' beds side by side.  The new plan has six 4'x7' beds in a 2x3 grid.  I had to draw rectangles in Word On Mac, print it out, take a picture of the printout, and upload the picture.  I'm just having a bad month with programs.

But here it is and you BETTER appreciate the effort to show it!!!  LOL!

 I spent about 5 hours fighting over several days with the usual programs to draw/scan/display, with no luck.  But it only took 2 minutes to draw it in Word, 1 to print it, 1 to take a camera picture of the printed page, and 3 minutes to get it to a small jpeg file.  Sometimes indirect ways are easier.

I need to reteach myself a lot of the programs; I don't use them enough.  And I suspect I better clean up my Mac.  It's running slower and even a Mac can get clutterred.

Anyway, I went out to dig the first of 9 holes to set pipes into to construct the enclosed garden (safe from squirrels, groundhogs, rabbits, etc).  After I dug down 4" in the 1st spot, I hit rock.  And I don't mean little baseball-sized ones.  I dug a 2' hole around that rock and couldn't find the edge.  So I tried the next spot where I wanted to set in a pipe.  Same problem.  I even tried breaking the rock up with repeated blows to it with a 5' beveled "breaker bar".  And nothing broke.  I caused no damage to the rock at all.

You never know what is under your ground until you start digging into it!  In my case, I knew from some experience that my property is a silt plain draining to a swamp.  There are pockets of pure sand, some of pure clay, and lots of hand-sized round rocks.  I didn't know about the 2'+ rocks...

I think a geologist would conclude my property used to be a river path, with large rocks just under the surface that silted over with sand and clay millenia ago. 

I can't dig those up, I can't use an auger to drill through them, I can't ignore them.

Well, wait, I CAN ignore them!  The purpose of digging the holes around the garden-to-be is merely to set the upright PVC pipes in place.  So what if I build a base of PVC pipes ON the ground instead of INTO the ground?

Instead of burying pipes in the ground, I'll make a frame of pipes on the ground with attachment connections sticking up.  And I can attach the ground level PVC pipes to the ground firmly with 2' rebar rods.

Newest problen solved...  I assume I will discover other problems before the structure is completed, but nothing that can't be overcome.  Well, solving the problems is half the fun.

The initial plan was to assemble the upright pipes and then assemble the beds after.  The plan NOW is to assemble the first 2 raised beds to establish one edge of the new layout, fill them with soil, then disassemble the other old framed beds, and clear THAT area for new construction and move the remaining soil from the older beds to the new ones as I move along.

I know this is hard to imagine without pictures.  I'll be taking many as the project continues.  Promise.

But at least I am getting started on it again and solving the problems I didn't expect.

Baseball Again

I am pleased to announce that the Washington Nationals baseball team just won the National League East Division Championship!

Even better, they did it in an away series against their closest competitor, the Atlanta Braves (and last year's champions.

Washington, DC, does not have a storied baseball history.  The previous team here (the Washington Senators) won only one World Series and played in only 1 other IIRC.  In fact, they were famous for their ineptitude.  The snarky saying about the Washington Senators was:

"First in War,
First in Peace,
And Last in the American League."

The Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, and Washington DC, the Nation's capital, was without a major league baseball team until 2005, acquiring the Montreal Expos.  They started slowly, and have become a truly "capital" team.  Their strong points are power hitting, aggressive base-running, balanced pitching and creative double-play fielding. 

Many successful teams are lead by 1 or 2 future Hall-Of-Famers (not to say that some of the current Nats won't be someday).  But the Nats are more of a collection of many really good players who work together well.  The fielding is excellent, the starting pitchers are all close in success, the bullpen is superb, and even the bottom of the batting order is dangerous. 

The 1st half of the season didn't look very promising.  They were around .500 at the All Star Break.  But they had almost half their starters out with injuries at one point and back-ups and minor league players filled in "well".  Everyone was back for the 2nd half, and they just exploded!  I can't find the stats, but they have to have played about .600 since then and that is rare.

It is an amazing change of experience for old Washington DC baseball fans.  I an SO looking forward to the playoffs...

Baseball And Other Sports

I've been interested in baseball on and off my whole life.  I played Little League baseball at ages 9-12, but was poor at it.  Well, I was a small kid.  I got put at 2nd base (which was where you put the 2nd worst player - the worst got put in right field) because I was quick "enough" and could manage to throw the ball to 1st base.  I couldn't hit.  My recollection is that the bat seldom got off my shoulder (the one hit I recall was a "Texas Leaguer" just into the outfield where no one was and Dad went wild with joy that I actually made a hit).  So I was no natural at the game.

I did make an unassisted triple play though.  Bases loaded...  I somehow snagged a line drive over my head (jump high, stick glove up, ball finds glove),  and the runners didn't know it.  I stepped on 2nd base(force out) and tagged out the runner coming from 1st base.  My one claim to baseball fame and obviously I will never forget. 

I quit the next year.  Some kids had gotten so much bigger and stronger.  I couldn't even see a pitched ball, and it wasn't that I needed glasses!  They were just too fast for me. 

Forward to when I was 18, working in a Navy office before entering College.  I had had what passed as my "growth spurt" (reaching a whole 5'6" and 135 pounds), but I had played 3 years of golf, tennis, and soccer in High School.  So I had gotten a lot more coordinated and wiry.  All the offices had slow pitch softball teams in the Navy Base league, and the Directors were always begging for employees to join the team.  Well slow pitch softball is an entirely different game!  And I discovered I had a TALENT.  With a slow pitch, I could hit a ball wherever I darn well wanted to (between short and 3rd, between 1st and 2nd, over the right fielders head, etc).  And amazingly, those "splendid physical specimens of young Navy guys*) couldn't. 

Because they were all 6' tall, 180 lbs, and they just smashed the ball blindly...  Usually straight up, or to the shortstop who always caught the ball.  And the one thing I HAD gotten out of playing 2nd base in Little League was how to manage the game itself.  I played both 2nd base and catcher in the Navy softball league, and I instinctively understood where everyone should be.  I knew when to run out to catch a relay from the outfielders, and where to throw it afterwards.  And the same when playing catcher.  It just seemed so obvious.  That's probably the only reason I played 2nd base in little league.  THAT part, I understood.


* I'm not being sarcastic.  The actual Navy guys on the team were years beyond me in growth and strength at my same age.  They had to be to be accepted into the Navy.  Any 2 of them could have tossed me around like a dodgeball. 

I mention all this only to explain that I have suddenly started watching professional baseball again.  I watched pro football on and off; the Washington team had some good years.  It hard not to admire the skills of coaches like Vince Lombardi, George Allen and Joe Gibbs.  But I don't watch football with much understanding of the game.  Same with basketball.  Both are just chaotic, as far as I can tell. 

Baseball is different.  Each player has a position.  Each player has a responsibility to act individually, but for the good of the team.  Each player has an individual at-bat against an individual pitcher and not ONE of his teammates can help him in the least.  When yous are at bat, you are basically ALONE.  You, vs 9 guys in the field trying to catch anything you hit...

I LIKE that!  In baseball, you can like hitting, fielding, or pitching.  My brief moment of time in the game, I came to like hitting best.

So...  The Washington Nationals baseball team seem set to get into the playoffs as (possibly) the best team in baseball right now.  Its been a journey.  At the All Star break, they were about .500.  They are at .574 today.  Which means they are playing above .600 since. 

The Nationals are surely going to enter the playoffs.  And I am thrilled with that! 

So why do I care?  I care because they field spectacularly.  I care because they pitch wonderfully.  I care because they hit amazingly.  But mostly I care because they seem to be the savviest players on one team since before my time!  They always seem to make the right choices on the difficult plays.  I admire that most of all!

I've never had a home baseball team to like.  I left Boston just too young to care about the Red Sox.  We lived in Virginia, which has no professional baseball ream when I was 13.  We moved to MD too far away to like the Baltimore Orioles  (my friends did, I didn't).

And in Washington DC, there was no professional MLB team between 1969 and 2004.  So I'mnew to this Home-Team stuff.  I just like the Washington Nationals because they play REALLY GOOD!!!  And I admire THAT.

So I am LOVING this season for the Washington Nationals.

Going After The Moles And Voles

I spread Milky Spore around the lawn several years ago.


Its a tiny parasite that seeks and infests insect grubs in the lawn.  And it seems to have worked reasonably well,  I saw no mole tunnels for the past 2 years.  No insect grubs, no moles!  But I saw one mole tunnel today, so I need to maybe I need to apply it again.  Or spray castor oil on the lawn.  Moles hate that stuff.  Apparently, it makes the insect grubs and worms they feed on taste vile.  Moles aren't exactly evolved to consider the taste of fish as safe food and moles have a very highly developed sense of smell.

And it isn't the moles that bother me so much, it's the voles that use the mole tunnels to get around safely underground.  Moles don't eat plants or plant roots, voles do.  But to reduce the voles, you have to reduce the moles.  No mole tunnels, fewer voles.

I have identified a lot of vole-holes.  When you see a mole tunnel and a 1" hole in it, that's where the voles are coming out to feed on the plants above ground.  So I have collected plastic covers to hold vole traps under.  They are baitless.  These aren't mousetraps that need bait.  The idea is that under enclosed covers, the voles will search around and just walk into the traps eventually.


But I think it is time to discourage the moles themselves again.  They seem to hate castor oil (as do I), and sites say that moles will leave areas soaked with castor oil.  We'll see.  I'll start from the center of the back yard and slowly work outwards.  And then spray along the fence a few times a year to keep them out. 

Part of my idea is to do something different every year that moles don't like.  If I do enough things they don't like, eventually they will leave.  And if the moles leave my yard, I can take care of the voles afterwards.

There is a mole poison, but I won't use that.  One of the cats might catch a poisoned mole and eat it.

One thing at a time, as safely as possible, and gradually...  The Cro-Magnons didn't kill all the cavebears in a year, though they did eventually.

More Energy-Saving Work

Now that the BIG DEAL insulation project is completed, I can move my attention to other energy-saving projects. I've seen charts that show the heating and cooling costs account for about a 1/3 of your total energy bill, which was more than I thought but not by a lot.  The surprise was how much hot water costs (10-15%).  That's double the refrigerator!  Now, I have my water heater wrapped up in an insulation blanket designed for water heaters, so my hot water usage cost may be lower than average.  But still, for one appliance, that's still a lot!  So...

First on the list is the water heater.  It's 28 years old, and was certainly a cheap one to begin with. 

I've been debating among a new standard energy-efficient water heater, and instant-on water heater, and a heat pump water heater.  I still can't decide which is best for ME (single person, low-volume, infrequent but frequent fast demand for cooking and dish-cleaning).  I'm inclined to the "instant-on" (heats water as it passes through the pipes rather than stores it); one medium one for the whole house and one small one for the kitchen sink.  But I'll do a final research this week.  The payback depends on the type I select.  The standard type is cheaper, so payback is faster, but costs a bit more over the years.  The heat pump water heater has a longer payback, but is cheaper to operate after that.  The instant-on type is between those. 

The choice might seem obvious in the long-term, but technology changes and maybe I'll have solar panels on the roof in a few years (see way below).

Second is replacing the basement refrigerator (which I use as a sort of root cellar for long-term storage). 

I keep a considerable amount of fresh food in the house (I don't go grocery shopping often), and my current kitchen refrigerator is good but not enough.  The previous (original 28 year old refrigerator) holds the bags of carrots, potatoes, beer, garden seeds, birdseed, and other stuff, and long term frozen stuff.  It is probably HORRIBLY HORRIBLY inefficient, so a newer modest refrigerator would probably pay for itself in just a few years.  And the electric company offers a generous rebate for replacing old refrigerators with new energy-efficient ones.  I'm guessing a 3-4 year payback.

Third, my basement workshop has four 4-bulb fluorescent light fixtures all wired into one switch.  I seldom need them all on.  Most of the time, I just need the one over the basement refrigerator.  I can separate those connections into 2 switches so only half come on at a time.

Fourth, switching more bulbs from incandescent to LED bulbs.  Any LED bulbs I use to replace incandescent bulbs will not only save money, but probably outlive me.  And replacing bulbs in the stairway fixture 15' above the floor is a real adventure.  Same with the floodlights outside the front door.

Fifth, I should consider replacing the washer and dryer.  They are over 15 years old.  I'll be checking to confirm it, but my recollection from reading Consumer Reports magazine is that the newest ones have a payback time in energy savings of about 4-5 years.

Sixth, and this one is VERY uncertain, replacing the standard heat pump with a geothermal one.  I did some initial research and most places around here like to drill holes down at a cost of about $20,000.  But there are some that seem to work just as well horizontally for $8,000.  Geothermal is VERY energy cost-efficient.  But $20,000 would take a 10-year payback.  The horizontal geothermal is slightly less efficient but needs only a 8 year payback.  But that depends on how much I'm saving with the new home insulation work just completed.  I'll have to wait to see what my Winter electric bills are now.  More research required...

Seventh and least likely, removing the 3 mature trees shading my house and covering the roof with solar panels.  I like the trees, but I'm worrying in every strong storm that one of them will fall onto the house.  Conflicting thoughts here.  I might be able to actually sell the trees (2 are oak) to sawyers.  But I still wouldn't have sunlight on the roof all day.  It's close to cost-efficient, but I can't decide.  I'll need to contact a solar engineer (not a salesman) and a sawyer who buys large trees.  But it probably doesn't make sense to do both geothermal heating AND solar panels, so I'll wait a year.

That's a new TO-DO list, but one I can deal with.