May Eve

Blessings Darlings!

Serious wind all night - serious rain (with flood warnings) for today.  I'm glad that I got all that garden work done yesterday, even tho' I'm achy today.

I'm assuming that that the leaves on the local hawthorn trees are the size of squirrel ears now, and thus that Bealtaine starts tonight.  I'm rather too old to schtupp in the fields or greenwood, so I'll have to do some other ritual actions.  For those wondering - just like Samhain is the name for an entire month, so is Bealtaine. 

Spent time today working on how I want to set up oil 'lamps' in the glass containers from used memorial candles.  Wicks will be thin strips of material from pieces of khaki material saved salvaged from pants of decades gone by (strips from material from cotton t-shirts didn't work as well, and I've no string mops).  Wicks will float on the oil  held in slices of cork wrapped in aluminum foil so the cork won't burn.  The oil can sit on top of a tea infused with herbs for the working.  The oil ... welp, while house cleaning I found a misplaced 1/2 gallon of olive oil, now WAY out of date.  It doesn't smell rancid, but I'm not about to cook with it.  So lamp oil it shall be.  

Getting the above all tested and gathering info on ideas for below the oil took up a bunch of my time today. 

later the same day ...

So the Bealtaine candle and flowers are going by the front door.  Now that it's dark, I'll do daily offerings soon.   

In Coronavirus news, tho' the numbers keep rising, states are opening.  Against all medical advice.  And if your state opens, and you don't feel safe rushing back to your job - in MOST states (mine included) you have to rush back to work or lose your unemployment.  This is why they are in such a rush to open.  To kill off more of the hostages.  

Frondly ... no, actually angrily, Fern


 

Pop corn apocalypse. Popcalypse?

Blessings Darlings!

Like most folks, my husband and I are trying to live as normally as possible during the coronavirus pandemic.  For him, normal includes having popcorn twice a week.

My husband and I are getting up there in age, and like horses - you can tell that in our teeth.   If you read this blog for a while, you know I finally had 4 teeth broken teeth pulled last year.  My husband, a decade older than I am, lives in fear of his teeth breaking.  As a result, he's very picky about what popcorn he eats.  He cares about both flavor and 'fluffy pop' ratio - he is afraid he'll grab a handful of popcorn, start chewing it, and break a tooth on a hard half-popper or totally unpopped kernel.  So the only popcorn he'll eat in the house is Orville Reddenbacher's regular (not microwave) yellow popcorn.  Even OR's white popcorn is veboten. 

Alas, I've not been able to find any for well over a month.  Not in the 2 stores that I usually buy it at, and not online.  Our jar of it is running low.  Sure, he can replace the salty crunchy carbs with chips.  But those are even pricier than the OR Popcorn, as well as fattier.  We had a 'come to Dagda' talk about it yesterday, and if it comes to it, he'll be frying his own tortilla chips out of fresh soft corn tortillas (they are totally available in the stores still, and we can make those at home as well.)  And he only needs them twice a week.

Meanwhile, governments (Federal Executive and many Republican state govs, including, of course WV) and trying to 'open the states'.  The folks who say that they are 'prolife' are so fucking happy to sacrific1e the born to the economy ... when it won't even actually help the economy. 

Did the grocery pick up thing at Walmart today.  Worked in the garden a lot, too, putting more root crop sprouts in the ground, adding straw to the potato hills, and transplanted some basil (tho' it really is a bit too early for that.) 

A container that has some pepper seeds in it, but lost it's identifying stick, is sprouting.  I have no idea what to do with them.  At least it means that some of the seeds are alive.  Alive I tell you, ALIVE!!!!

Frondly, Fern

Most seeds don't make it to harvest.

Blessings Darlings!

Today's news - meat packing is more important than protecting health care workers to our government.  

Let's turn our pagan/witch attention to something mundane that I mentioned the other day - that I have to be ready to start at least 9 seeds for every plant that I eventually want in my garden.   And even then I might have to buy the plants I want.

We all set goals for ourselves, needs and wants that we are trying to meet.  We do it at the Sabbats, we do it at the New Moons, we do it at our birthdays.  Maybe it's our culture, maybe it's how we're wired.  We . do . it .

But it doesn't always work out. 

The same is true of the rest of nature.  How many babies in a litter of bunnies, just so one might make it to the age where IT reproduces?  How many seeds does one plant put out, hoping that at least one of its offspring plants reproduces in turn? 

Not all seeds make it to adulthood.  Just like not all of our goals do.  You have to build that into your life plans.  Make back up plans, contingency plans.  Buy insurance.  COVER YOUR ASS.

Because sometimes you'll find out that you didn't actually prepare the ground right, and nothing will sprout or mature.  Or a freeze will unexpectedly hit.  Or a flood.  Or you'll have to leave one goal by the wayside because another more pressing issue came up.

Shit happens.  And it happens with extreme regularity.

If you accept that you might have to try three times as hard, invest three times the effort and time and attention than you think a goal will take - you'll rarely be disappointed.  And if reaching the goal takes that minimal amount of time and effort you originally thought, great - nothing was lost by being prepared for more time and effort.

Unexpected Garden Time!

Blessings, Darlings!

News?  WaPo has a GREAT article on 'excess deaths' since the Corona Virus started.  A base line on the REAL death toll.  Tho' it is probably still somewhat light, since accidental deaths (car accidents, etc) are going to be down with less folks on the road and such.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true

I'm feeling sluggish again today.  I mean, I got up and washed all the pots and pans, and I've got laundry going, but I'm having a really hard time facing washing the kitchen floor.  And a hard time remembering what day of the week it is.  Monday?

Well, kitchen floor is done.  And I'm contemplating possible plot twists in the Dresden Files books coming out.  As one does while washing floors.  Especially when what one SHOULD be doing is contemplating what to make for dinner.  Ooops.

Now I SHOULD vacuum.  Don't think I'm going to do that this afternoon.  Maybe this evening.  First I should work on dinner plans.  Okay - fried chicken, rice, and salad. 

I'm still not vacuuming this afternoon.  The weather cleared up, it's sunny and no rain falling, the temperature is 56 and the wind has dropped.  I transplanted turnips, lettuce, radishes, beets, rutabagas, and turnips instead of vacuuming.  While out I noticed that the red onions I let over winter are now sending up snapes.  Yummy!  In a few days I'll harvest them, marinade them, and roast them. 

Vacuuming has been accomplished.  That's it for the day.

Frondly, Fern

April Ran Away.

Blessings Darlings!

Holy cow - April has run away with out me.  Here it is, practically the end of the month, and I'm WAY behind in getting things planted.  To be fair - I'm always behind in planting.  Every single year.  But I thought that this year would be different, being, ya know, jobless.  I DID get the garden beds more prepared than usual, but I'm totally behind on my seedlings.

This is only PARTLY because the damn pepper seeds didn't sprout.  I always have enough seeds that I can start three times as many seeds as I want plants, and do that three times over.  Today I did the 3rd planting.  With new store bought soil (tho' not soil for seeds).  We'll see how that goes.  I hope it does well.  Otherwise, I'll be buying a dozen pepper plants, some sweet, some hot.  And since I'm TRYING to sprout Anaheim Chillis, I don't know if stores will carry seedlings of them, so if they fail I might end up with jalapenos.  I started both Homestead and Rutgers tomatoes, tho' I'd really rather grow  Brandywines.  But I had seeds for these two types.

I'm only after 4 plants of each of them.  So I've started 12 seeds of each, hoping that 1/3 give me healthy sprouts.  Is that too much to ask?

Maybe.  We'll see.

I haven't even filled the buckets I had the Chubby Hubby drill drainage holes in with manure and straw, much less put the sweet potato slips in them.

News? Corona virus continues.  POTUS has issued orders that doctors don't have to treat gays or transsexual people if the doctors are assholes.  The feds keep stealing PPE from states/cities, and apparently giving them to third parties to sell. And Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea, is dead. tho' for a while it seemed like he was Schrödinger's Kim. 

Oh, and there was the 'put disinfectant in people to cure COVID 19 episode. 

Meanwhile, I made a mix of the dry spices that go into Golden  Milk, and I'm adding them and some vanilla and sugar to my morning coffee.  I feel I should be ingesting that anyway, and more so with the circulatory system aspects of Covid 19.  I don't hate it, but I don't love it, either.  If I had hot cocoa before bed I might like it better in that, but I do that very very rarely. 

When I made up the mix, I realized I can't find my big container of cinnamon.  So I'll need that sometime soon.  I did find a back up small container, so I'm covered for this week.

Bread is rising here, and I made baked sweet potato 'fries'.  It looks as if the rest of the month is going to be rainy, which will further delay gardening.  Sigh.

Frondly, Fern

Deep Food Storage

Blessings, Darlings!

So, as I was saying yesterday, I have 'pantry' storage of various foods.  Enough for a few weeks of eating, if we ate only that.  But that's the little bitty tip of my food storage iceberg.  In fact, it's aimed to only supplement the deeper food storage.

Yes, I aim to have a lot of cans of four types of meat - 13 cans each of ham, beef (or beef stew), and chicken, and a fish (tuna, salmon, mackeral) assortment weighing in at about the same amount.  Note the number 13?  I'm not using that figure to be witchy or pagan - that's 4 types of meat, 13 'servings' for our family of each type.  That would be one serving of meat per week for a year.

Yes.  I aim to have enough food stored for a year.  It's not that hard, or that expensive, if you ... well, #1 if you don't have food allergies/issues or diabetes or such.  Let's get those facts out there early.

Anyway - it's not that expensive if you focus on calories, basic boring vegetable proteins, a good multivitamin, and limiting yourself to just one tablespoon of fat a day.  These are the basics.

Most of y'all already know the basic complete protein formula for humans - one part bean to 3 or 4 parts grain, preferably whole grain.  So that's what I try to bulk buy. 

Not JUST in bulk, but at feed stores.  Cuz you and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals.  And feed stores sell wheat for feed (and without added minerals or anything) cheap.  Like at $13 for 50 pounds.  That's 25 cents a pound.  Whole grain.  Stores for ever if stored well.  And, as you know from making spaghetti - cooked wheat expands into these HUGE SERVINGS.   Yes, you might want to make noises like you're feeding it to some domestic animal, if you want to cover for the fact that you're eating it yourself.  That's your call.  One pound a day will give you basic calories to avoid starvation, so get 400 pounds for  a year.  The 'extra' 35 pounds you can sprout.  That's just over $100 for a years supply of wheat for one person.

Yes, you'll probably want to 'clean' the wheat berries.  I'm sure that General Mills uses blowers to blow out the chaff.  Boomers - do you remember cleaning the seeds from our cheap marijuana in the 70's?  Yeah, you already have this skill down.  Only now you keep the seeds and get rid of the leafy stuff.

This wheat will come with some amount of bug eggs.  The wheat ground into the flour you buy would have them, too.  I just put the content of each bag of wheat into containers and freeze them for 3 days to kill the eggs, then put it all in buckets with good lids to store.  Alternatively, you can dump then contents into buckets then add some dry ice to suffocate the eggs.  It's all good.

It's pretty easy to get beans in bulk at coops.  Big bags of lentils and whatever for not too much money.  And they aren't outrageously expensive at Aldi's.  I'd be buying cracked soy beans at a feed store, but I don't like the taste of soy beans except as tofu.  I might add one 50 pound bag of that to my stores, but that would be it.  You want at least 100 pounds of beans for every 400 pounds of wheat.  That's going to be at least another $100, depending on what mix of beans you get, and where.  It could easily be $200.

Storing beans is just like storing wheat ... except beans don't store forever.  After a few years, to cook them thoroughly (which you need to do) you will need either a pressure cooker or to grind them to flour first.

We can talk about grinders some other day.

Instead, let's talk essential fatty acids.  They, like minimum wage workers right at this second working at those restaurants doing carry out, are essential and not respected.  Like minimum wage workers, they have high turnover (they can go rancid).  Unlike minimum wage workers, they are expensive.  You NEED about a table spoon of fat a day in your diet.  More than that is useful if you ever want to fry food - like to fry felafel from stored chickpeas.

Your basic cooking oils - corn, soy, canola - keep about 1 year. Six half gallon bottles per person would be a year supply.  This would cost $13 or so at Aldi.  Olive oil costs way more, but lasts two years.  So does coconut oil, at an even higher price.

Now, throw in a big bottle of good vitamins - your basic survival needs are covered.

Can you use corn instead of wheat?  Yes, it's cheaper, but far lower in protein.  You might need to store more of it.  But, oh MY - corn bread made from just-ground corn meal is AMAZING.

Can you use rice instead of wheat?  Not exactly.  White rice stores well, but, again, not good for protein.  Brown rice goes rancid due to relatively high fat content pretty, after about 6 months. 

Yes, you'll need seasonings, and salt, etc.  These foods can be seriously boring.  Salt stores forever.  Alas, herbs and spices don't.  You'll need to rotate them well.

That's the basics of survival food storage.  About $400 a person, more when you count storage containers (if you ask, I can go into that) and grinders and such.

Frondly, Fern

An Expert, who blessedly admits we don't know enough.

Blessings, Darlings!

Before I do that post on stocking up, I'm posting this -

A really good article, where the expert explains how little we know about CoronaVirus. He doesn't explain EVERYTHING we don't know, but at this point ... that would take a full book.
I'd LOVE to hear from others who can cite reasons to dispute what he says we don't know, or can't do (like the reagent problem).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-interview-two-opinion/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1-OtRZ3B7f9fMI0fqLH_T8ihYM34-Ogp5n-zUCr5KTIVl9tD2ar-c9kpM

Frondly, Fern