... enjoy!
(And enjoy shopping through The Althouse Amazon Portal, where you can get your composting supplies, like this for the kitchen and this for the yard.)
September 2, 2017
Lunchtime at the Compost Café...
... enjoy!
(And enjoy shopping through The Althouse Amazon Portal, where you can get your composting supplies, like this for the kitchen and this for the yard.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
70 comments:
Antifa broke my compost.
Now Althouse is feeding us garbage. And very photogenic garbage it is.
I am a compost freak (also a worm bin fanatic); our pile was started by my late father in law in the 1970s! We are moving next year and I plan on taking a decent sized container full of the existing pile to start the new one. CYCLE OF LIFE!
Once you pick the basil, you have to eat it within at most 2 days. I tried to save a bowlful for sandwiches and salads, but I couldn't consume it all. But most of what Meade picked I processed into pesto. It's possible to make an awful lot of pesto. It's incredible how many leaves you can put into the blender before you've got even half the blender jar filled with pesto.
Hmm. Time to make pasta with pesto for lunch. That's my real lunch.
Non compost mentis ...
Dry the rest of the basil or freeze it. I grow herbs as well - have a clothesline across one room by the kitchen; at any given time, something is hanging there drying.
That's a watermelon rind, right ? Have your apology ready. You can copy and paste from the bananapology.
"Dry the rest of the basil or freeze it. I grow herbs as well - have a clothesline across one room by the kitchen; at any given time, something is hanging there drying."
The problem with that is I don't want to use dried basil. I never buy packaged dried basil. What would I do with it? I look forward to summer when we have it fresh to pick and use and then I preserve it by making pesto, which I think is good after it's frozen.
Rotting watermelon and greens. What's next, banana peels in your trees?
I had heard of mice getting into engine compartment wiring of automobiles and destroying the wiring. But now I have a mouse in the the passenger compartment of my car. How in the world the rodent got into this part of the car is a mystery to me.
So I placed four (4) sticky traps on the floor. No activity. I then placed peanut butter in the middle of the sticky traps. The rodent decided to smear the peanut butter around the sticky area and fled the scene. And of course, left his calling card ..... various mouse droppings.
OK, this is war. I now have nine (9) traps scattered throughout the car, including four (4) new style traps called Jaws. They are impressive. Hope they work. This is getting ridiculous. Car will not be moved until we have a dead critter.
Teachers..are doing it for themselves..
When I lived in New Hampshire for a year, I parked my car in the barn and had a block heater on it.
I also kept my dog's food in the garage.
When I came home to California the following summer, I discovered the engine compartment full of dog food. The field mice set up housekeeping in the engine compartment where the block heater kept it warm and a nice source of dog food was nearby.
I was a year getting rid of all the dog food, which was under the liner of the hood and in the air cleaner of the carburetor.
No field mice were harmed in this exercise.
Ann: we use our own dry herbs (or frozen) throughout the winter in dishes where the herb is cooked anyway and not in fresh form: sauces, soups, eggs. Dry herbs from the store are often really old - the stuff we make is more flavorful and fresher.
@Michael K., mice are very bright. One invaded my son's apartment so he bought a haveaheart trap. Mouse escaped. Son deduced how the mouse did it and fixed it. Second time the mouse waited until my son picked up the trap with him in it, then escaped again.
Smart or not, when you've really had enough of them..the sound of an old-school trap springing is quite satisfying.
Congressman Jim Bridenstine has been nominated to be NASA administrator. If confirmed, he'll lose his congressional mailing privileges. The frank of Bridenstine.
I opened a metal dog food container one time (A small garbage can I used to keep them out of it) and found a half dozen baby mice that had gotten in somehow and could not get out. My 12 year old daughter and I got them all in an old towel and took them a few houses down the street and let them go.
I know. Soft heart.
Rats, however, get the stern treatment. So far the past month my basset hound Juliet has eaten three rats. Totally freaked my wife out.
She (the dog) swallows them whole. The tail disappearing is what gets my wife.
Juliet seems not to have any negative reaction.
Ha! A Basset Hound is tailor made for the nonplussed expression.
"Juliet!"
"Whaaat? It was good."
One idea would be to plant less basil next year.
Thanks, ALP. I think I'd do just as well using the pesto, which I froze with only 2 ingredients, basil and olive oil. Could put that in soups and stews, etc.
Our current dog is a rescue dog. I call her my Mexican Low Rider because she spent the first year of her life running wild on the Mexican border; has the body and coat of a springer spaniel with legs as short as a basset. She is a ferocious hunter of lizards and such in the back yard. She's also death on any fly that gets in the house. Knocks them off as they buzz against the glass patio doors. Gets one or two a week--and would get more if any of them got in the house. But unlike your average partner in a big law firm, she doesn't "eat what she kills". The dead fly lies on the floor for me or my wife to pick up.
And as for mice and such. We live in the hills in Los Angeles. For a while the neighbor next door had a palm tree of some sort which dropped hard nutlike things. Field mice would pick them up and crawl up into the engine compartment of our cars--where it was nice and warm on a cold winter night. Mechanics would open the hoods of our cars, look inside, laugh and say, "You live in the hills don't you?" The evidcence was the date nuts or fruit scattered around the engine compartment.
"...so he bought a haveaheart trap."
Slide the whole thing, mouse and all, back into the box it came in. Place in freezer. According to friends of mine at a major urban zoo, this is the cleanest, least expensive, most humane method of euthenizing small mammals.
"...this is the cleanest, least expensive, most humane method..."
Cheaper than owning a cat, that's for sure.
Mousicle
I had a golden retriever that was good at catching rats but she didn't eat them.
Basset hounds are pretty much cool about everything.
I don't post anything on Facebook, but do have an account, to see all the fabulous things my friends are doing-they are all in Ptown for the next two weeks. I have been getting notifications about "new friend suggestions" and they are people I have done on Grindr?
How does that work-we never exchange phone numbers and I generally don't know their names?
I have sad news. The rare clumber died 2 weeks ago. He was 16 and lived an amazing life. Everyone in the hood loved him. I had him since he was 12 weeks. I am going back to the breeder in Rhode Island that has a 2 year old male. There are 11 Clumber breeders in the country and 271 are registered in the AKC, compared to labs where there are over 100,000 registered. So I am going to Newport tomorrow and then to hopefully pick up my new dog.
tits.
Oh Titus, I'm so sorry! Clumbers are a such a special breed. I am so glad ypunare helping keep that rare breed going. Let us know when you get a pup.
Pardon my typo. you are...
Titus, the best dogs that ever were die, damn it. Sorry that happened to yours. You sound as though you're ready to make it up! I've got a giant Alsatian that's approaching middle age, so we'll have to get another to ease the pain when she goes.
Juliet is my fourth basset. She is a rescue as was another of them. Two I got as puppies.
She is probably the sweetest of all of them.
I cornered a live mouse in the house and captured it in a shoe box. Not wanting to serve it to Chloe the mouser, I decided to test the waters.
I have 110' x 170' pond in the backyard. I tossed the mouse in the water and decided to let it live if it swam to the other side of the pond. Lo and behold, it made it to the cattails on the other side and skedaddled into the brush. It's little head was barely visible during the swim. Fortunately for the rodent, the largemouth bass were apparently fasting that day.
Just pulled the last of the pea plants, along with several non-producing squash / cuke / melon ones. Am wondering what to do with the containers, going into Second Crop season.
It's cooler than usual here, so don't know if there'll be bees enough after seed germination to produce another crop of peas. Maybe just stick to leafy greens?
***
Spelunked around the basement to see if I could find ice cube trays in among kitchen things. Score! Started at processing Basil. There's going to be a crud ton of mint / sage / coriander; am thinking of doing the same with those.
Am a Big Jam Maker, and one of the favorites seems to be a Savory one with garden herbs in a base of white wine (usually an inexpensive, oaky Chardonnay), called 'tis. The other's of foraged apples, sometimes crabs, other times from the compact orchards that the folks of previous generations planted, and current owners don't know what to do with: that stuff's called 't'ain't.
I suspect that, between the ice cubing, the jam, and the using of stuff in salads / azerbaijani pilaf (something that pisses the Armenian 'fwb' off to no end. "It's better than my mom's."), the herbs will get their Proper Due.
Meade et al: Thank you for the havahart trap in the freezer advice. I currently have three cats, so no problems with mice, or anything else for that matter. (Don't get me Started on the "Songbird" business. What the hell is a 'Songbird,' but a nomenclature term, turned towards emotion. Sparrows are not only Invasive, but Disease Vectors.)
I live and work in a Densely Packed Urban area, where mice, rats and pigeons run rampant. Food Service brings in all manner of folks, some of whom I saw taking great pleasure in torturing / killing mice caught on glue traps.
Ann: however one slices and dices home produce, we can all agree it frackin' awesome. I am currently pigging out on a huge bowl of home grown raspberries and yogurt. Having finally figured out how to maximize this particular crop, this year's berries are Instagram worthy - if I was into that sort of thing.
Be: I have only made jam once - when our neighbor had a bumper crop of figs of the green variety. It was an amazing green color - being my first batch, it was practically a spiritual experience, it came out so damn good.
"THIS is why people get excited about jam" = first thought after first bite.
Excerpts from an article written by Robert Parry, titled "Russia-gate’s Totalitarian Style", published today in Consortium News.
[quote]
It is a basic rule from Journalism 101 that when an allegation is in serious doubt – or hasn’t been established as fact – you should convey that uncertainty to your reader by using words like “alleged” or “purportedly.” But The New York Times and pretty much the entire U.S. news media have abandoned that principle in their avid pursuit of Russia-gate.
When Russia is the target of an article, the Times typically casts aside all uncertainty about Russia’s guilt .... Again and again, the Times regurgitates highly tendentious claims by the U.S. government as undeniable truth. ....
For a while, the Times also repeated the false claim that “all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” concurred in the Russia-did-it conclusion, a lie that was used to intimidate and silence skeptics of the thinly sourced Russia-gate reports issued by President Obama’s intelligence chiefs. ...
But the Times then switched its phrasing to a claim that Russian guilt was a “consensus” of the U.S. intelligence community, a misleading formulation that still suggests that all 17 agencies were on-board without actually saying so – all the better to fool the Times readers. ...
In story after story, the Times doesn’t even bother to attribute the claims of Russian guilt. That guilt is just presented as flat fact even though the Russian government denies it and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he did not get the emails from Russia or any other government. ...
There’s, of course, another rule from Journalism 101: that when there is a serious accusation, the accused is afforded a meaningful chance to dispute the allegation, but the Times lengthy article ignores that principle, too. The Russian government and WikiLeaks do not get a shot at knocking down the various allegations and suspicions. ...
When the cause is to demonize Russia and/or to unseat Trump, apparently any sleight of hand or McCarthyistic smear is permissible. ...
What is playing out here – both at The New York Times and across the American media landscape – is a totalitarian-style approach toward any challenge to the group-think on Russia-gate.
Even though the Obama administration’s intelligence chiefs presented no public evidence to support their “assessments,” anyone who questions their certainty can expect to be smeared and ridiculed. We must all treat unverified opinions as flat fact.
[end quote]
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/02/russia-gates-totalitarian-style/
Mike Sylwester, Russia-gate seems made-up for nefarious porpoises.
But it sells well.
How do you tell someone this story stinks! A skunk could tell it stinks!?
It's a story that people want to believe. Kind of like a rom-com.
Going to look at a horse for the spouse this weekend. Actually, it's a horse we sold two (2) years ago. It's been a nice respite. Too much work and very little pleasure, especially for me (haulin' hay). It's clearly a female hobby.
Several cafe thoughts.
First. I am in the process of pulping up tons (ok just pounds and pounds) of wild plums to turn into jam this winter when the weather is cooler. We have already! so much in the pump house, but I can't stand to see it go to waste. SO I stew, sieve and freeze the pulp in quart mayo jars. It is our favorite. Next to the Santa Rosa plums, which THANKFULLY didn't produce this year5
Next: Pears, apples and quince to try to figure out what to do with. When we have an abundance, so does everyone else.
THE HEAT!!!! OMG it is hot in the SF and surrounding bay area. I mean over 106 IN SF. This is seriously bad because most houses don't have air conditioning or coolers. Many of the older buildings downtown don't have windows that can even open. Those poor people are really suffering.
"Russia-gate seems made-up for nefarious porpoises.
But it sells well.
How do you tell someone this story stinks! A skunk could tell it stinks!?
It's a story that people want to believe. Kind of like a rom-com."
What happened to Inga? (I've been away, chasing the eclipse.)
Except for The Daily Mail we have not heard much about the Obamas' lifestyle since leaving office though it would seem worthy of (at least gossipy) comment.
Looks to me to be living a little high on the hog for mere multi-millionaires.
So, what gives?
Sorry to hear about your dog, Titus.
This is an overview of Houston during the flood. It is a clusterfuck. In New Orleans they had technology, it failed, but at least they made an effort. Houston didn't even try. If you have ever seen a bunch of monkeys sitting out in the rain the first thought that strikes you is why the hell they don't build themselves a shelter, or at least an umbrella. Much the same applies here. The flow of water is not complex physics. Here's a clue Houston, it flows downhill. The bigger the hill the faster if flows. If you don't have any hills you might want to think about exactly where that water is going to go.
I would rank this as a dumber civil engineering fuck up than the Tacoma Narrows bridge, compounded by a complete absence of sane urban and regional planning. It is a fucking disgrace. Houston looks like Bangladesh without the excuse of poverty. Another embarresment for the country that put a man on the moon.
I am also sorry to hear about the passing of the rare Clumber. I can still remember Googling this, trying to figure out what the fuck you were talking about. Not what I anticipated.
Titus talked about his rare Clumber dying and going to get a new puppy a few years ago. Definitely not 16 years ago. The good Victoria in Miami was still commenting.
Speaking of the Daily Mail:
Justice Department confirms no evidence of Trump's allegations suggesting Obama wiretapped his phones during presidential campaign
ARM:
"The flow of water is not complex physics."
******************
Manipulate Navier-Stokes and Bernoulli equations in three dimensions and do get back to me on how 'not complex' it is.
ALP said...
Manipulate Navier-Stokes and Bernoulli equations in three dimensions
Yeah that's the problem here. If the fucking monkeys do ever figure out how to build a fucking house even they could figure out not to build it in the middle of a fucking basin prone to flooding.
Justice Department confirms no evidence of Trump's allegations suggesting Obama wiretapped his phones during presidential campaign
Bullshit. Just the other day someone at Legal Insurrection was talking about the number of requested FISA warrants and the number of revised requests when the originals were refused and they totaled in the 160 range (from memory). I'm not going to believe that they didn't act on any of them.
Kinda reminds of those fools in Buffalo, building homes where there is a strong possibility of a blizzard. In November 2014, it was a 7 footer, stranding thousands.
Or building over the San Andreas fault. Or the Outer Banks. Or Oklahoma City, aka tornado alley.
I think Arkansas may be the answer.
"chasing the eclipse."
Nice euphemism for "chasing with Hopalicious."
"This is an overview of Houston during the flood. It is a clusterfuck..."
How so? Houston has reservoirs, dams, floodgates, and it all drains out of the bayous to the GoM. They do have a flood control system, but it doesn't have an infinite capacity, sixty inches of rain will pretty much overpower anything. Let's see how long it takes to drain this time.
Unknown said...
How so?
Well, for starters, why are all the fucking highways under water? Two thousand years ago the Romans could have done a better job planning the roads. The residents could not have been evacuated safely because the roads were inundated.
It's not like Houston was working in an information vacuum concerning the severity of potential hurricanes, the Galveston Hurricane remains one of the worst natural disasters in US history.
https://spectator.org/fake-news-ignorant-reporters-blame-houston/
Justice Department confirms no evidence of Trump's allegations suggesting Obama wiretapped his phones during presidential campaign.
Absolutely so. They did not break in and attach clips to phone wires like in old black and white detective films.
It was the FBI national security division that did the tap, run by bill prietap, whose wife is a major Dec donor, hint hint.
The flood mitigation plan was based on intrusion from the gulf. Nit a stationary rain event
"chasing the eclipse"
Caught it, too.
I have read that Houston took a thirteen inch rainfall as their mark to estimate the 100 year flood plain. Can someone confirm?
This storm dumped 51" -- just under four times as much.
If you are bound and determined to be pissed st someone, be pissed that the Obama administration refused to allow new refineries to be built for the past eight years. The US has too many refineries in and around Houston, and not enough reserve refinery capacity even when none of them were off line.
now I dont like to rely on Robert pRey because he was the conduit for the ridiculous ca cocaine allegations, (dtamatizrd in snowfall) and the October surprise.
Parry and CIA (John Kerry gave it a patina of legitimacy with his subcommittee.)
The American Spectator article is CYA bullshit. Not all of Houston flooded so the simple expedient of some fucking town planning could have limited the damage and if all of Houston is flood prone then they should never have built it in the first place. It is no different to the billionaires building out on Dune Road and then expecting the government to bail them out for their appalling stupidity.
"Caught it, too."
Knew you would.
A glorious memory.
But now I must beg you to think about the future of our Brewers stars and implore you to continue not watching them. Remember how after the all-star break you got complacent and started watching? Now don't do that again you hear? Next day box scores only for you. I mean, with your key "participation," we might even win this series against the Washington White Nationalists.
When another 38 stormsxlevels new York, or a quake cracks up southern California, will you say the same. The 1929 and 1935 storms were the high water mark,
I haven't watched the Brewers for quite some time. Their swoon ain't on me.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows-riots-make-america-conservative.html?fref=gc&dti=953271591385492
Titus, you freak, I'm sorry to hear about your dog.
"The mild-mannered, almost imperturbable Clumber Spaniel sometimes puts on aristocratic airs. Yet he also plays the clown, greeting people with two tennis balls stuffed into his mouth and his entire rear end wagging."
What's wrong with those basil leaves?
Post a Comment