Yay! Drudge work Monday

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Yesterday I texted Kat & Miss M asking what, beyond the obvious, did “furnished” apartment mean. I then listed things that were in the apartment and asked what I was missing. Miss M responded that it needed a can opener (forgot to include in the list). Kat responded with links to sites advising folks how to set up AirB&Bs. Boring, boringer, boringest.

A bison in Arkansas

Every single one of these sites tells one that beige is the best color for everything, do not have personal items on display, for God’s sake do NOT have religious items laying about, and decorate with as much flair as a slug. I disagree. I like to see a little personality and local nick-naks or color about. Granted, a couple of B&Bs we have stayed in took this too far. The one filled with Cabbage Patch Dolls was creepy. The one featuring the bison and stuffed with so much stuff collected on the owner’s travels that you had to walk single file through the lanes was a bit much, but still, if I wanted to stay in a place with no personality, I’d stay in a hotel.

The sites about furnished apartments were the same. One of them even counseled that people who let furnished apartments are told to make them boring so if you rent one, bring your own pictures, etc. to liven the place up. Geeze.

That’s all I’ve got this morning.

Recipe: Spicy Frozen Cucumbers | You could set your calendar by it!

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This particular reposted recipe was posted August 4, 2015. Once, and sometimes twice a year Mr. Big Food and I set aside everything else to make a few batches of Spicy Frozen Cucumbers. This year, I think we still had some in February or March.

  • for the jalapeños
  • cukes wilting

Also made a batch of pickled jalapeños.

DSCN3917

Spicy Frozen Cucumbers are God’s Gift to the cucumber rich and pickle weary.

Spicy Frozen cucumbers are what you do when you still have cucumbers and cannot possibly entertain the idea of making more pickles.

Spicy Frozen Cucumbers are a delight as a salad late in the fall when you want to rekindle a bit of Summer in front of a cozy fire. (They last for months but trust me, unless you live in the frozen tundra above the Mason-Dixon line, you tire of frozen cucumbers and long for lettuce come about January. To every thing there is a season, blah blah. So we enjoy them earlier rather than later. But we live well below the M-D line.)

Believe it or not (!) they come out crispy– that’s on account of the fact that they were frozen and you eat them before they are fully defrosted.

We’ve made two double batches (i.e., double the recipe below) yielding eight plastic freezer containers of two cups each.

Pictured above is what the cucumbers look like as they await disbursement into the freezer containers.

SPICY FROZEN CUCUMBERS

4 C sliced pickling cucumbers, 3-4 inches long (about 12-14 cukes), washed and sliced thin unpeeled
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 Tbsp salt
1 C sugar
½ C cider vinegar
½ tsp ground turmeric
1 Tbsp whole mustard seeds (preferably white)

Combine cucumbers, onions, and salt in a glass or ceramic bowl, and let stand 2 to 4 hours to extract moisture. Rinse and drain vegetables well, blotting with paper towels to absorb all moisture. Combine sugar, vinegar, turmeric, and mustard seeds, and mix well until the sugar dissolves completely, about 10 minutes. Stir in vegetables carefully. Pour cucumber mixture into clean freezer containers, leaving 1 inch headspace for expansion. Cap, seal, and freeze. “These will keep up to 1 year in freezer.” To use, thaw about 4 hours in the refrigerator. Serve chilled.

Wack it upside with a hammer

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You may recall that I’ve had some problems with the Weather Monitor.

Turns out, it’s the sensor. You need to wack it upside with a hammer and wait about 30 seconds, and lookie there. There was but not longer is a signal.

Worthless piece of crap. I’ve a good mind to bang on the fence post.

This thing cost serious money. And if you search for problems with it, everyone has problems.

When it works, it’s great. But it’s a worthless piece of crap. I’m gonna go bang on it and see it I can’t bring it to its senses.

Wish me luck.

More than half-way

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  • Stuff
  • Living and work areas
  • Breakfast nook
  • Closeup

I thought the plant was a nice touch.

Not counting those that belonged to me but were residing in the Apartment, my library of crappy old books has increased by 520. I counted. I’ll get around to inventorying them some day.

It’s coming along

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The reflection on the floor is a good sign. That part of the floor has been mopped five times. That we’ve born down through four layers of filth is a testament to the superiority of my floor cleaning appatati & vinegar. When all is said & done, I’ll probably give it one last pass on my hands and knees. I understand that the new tenant will not know of, or appreciate my efforts. That’s not the point. It’s a Pride in Drudge Work Thing.

(No offense, Daughter C. You have many talents. Keeping floors clean is, unfortunately, not among them.)

The little leather loveseat I picked up at Palmer Home for $50. It was in good shape until I searched between the cushions. I’ve never see so many abandoned hairpins. Vacuum.

I think I’ll put some of Daughter C’s art on top of the shelves.

TTYL. I’m beat.

Books. They’re everywhere.

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Here. Chief among the tasks to be accomplished in advance of the arrival of the Apartment’s new tenant is the cleaning and shelving of the books. This required the thorough changing of the those shelves on the left which have spent the past 10+ years in the garage. That was a chore, as was transporting it from the garage to the cleaning station to the apartment. So was sorting through the fiction, pop culture, and miscellaneous books. At the time of this photo, I’d still two boxes of art, music, crafts, etc. books for which to find a space.

There. Yesterday Mr. Big Food and I drove to Starkvegas to help a new faculty member move into her cottage. Guess what was in the U-Haul? Boxes of books!

Everywhere. This morning we went to campus. Mr. Big Food’s department has moved to a new (actually it’s an old building) and quite superior building. Guess what’s sitting on the floor in his new office?

That’s my excuse for the light posting. Books. But that doesn’t surprise you, does it?

Where’s Frank?

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The other day SueK sent a link to a blog she’d found. A New Jersesian transplanted to North Carolina. Funny stuff. I can’t find the link but it is to a blog authored by someone who we both figured out was no more. Given that she was in NC, it wasn’t hard to find her obit. Died at 59. But since her blog was a free .wordpress blog, it’s still out there. Do her kids and grandchild– who she blogged about– know her ghost is still here?

I don’t know if you know about GAB, but it’s an alternative to Twitter. Anyhoo, there’s a guy– Frank– who was very active at the AoSHQ Gab Group. He’s gone silent. For about a month & a half.

So note.

If you have any kind of online presence, you need to make sure someone you trust can disappear you should you disappear. Not your spouse b/c the car crash is going to take both of you out.

Have a handwritten notebook of your logins and passwords so your loved ones can delete you. “My Mom, Marica, bit the dust. I am her daughter, and I am deleting her account.” You’ll get a lot of “likes” and you will not care ’cause I’m dead, but at least we won’t have to wonder where Frank is.

Sorting

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About 13 boxes’ worth

When Daughter C and the J-Man left the Farm, they left behind about 13 overflowing boxes’ worth of crappy old books. Mind, none of the books were actually in boxes when they left, they were on shelves and other surface areas of the Apartment.

Months later, one of the tasks the Farmhand pretended to do was take each book off the shelf, dust it, and put it in the appropriately labeled box(es): Philosophy, Science, Humanities, Fiction, Classics. I will not re-visit the fact that he did not do a particularly good job at sorting– even though I was sorting right along side and he could have asked– nor that his dusting skills were not up to snuff. Mr. Big Food helped moved the large bookshelf today. So suffice it to say that I am dusting and sorting 13 boxes of books. (I take that back. How does one put a gynecology text in a box marked philosophy?)

There were fewer philosophy books than I’d thought. Though it makes sense, the J-Man would have taken those. Many more cultural anthropology texts, which is good because I was low on those (j/k). A. LOT. OF. FICTION. And by a lot, I mean a lot.

Mr. Big Food came up to check on progress and see if I needed him to help. He pointed at the floor and asked, “Are all those books going to fit on those shelves?”

Of course. Somehow, someway, I will figure it out. Probably. More than likely. I am pretty darned good at it. I’ve had a lot of practice.

It’s enough to make me cry

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It is fenced in. There is fishing line randomly strewn about. I have a Yard Guard that emits ultrasonic frequencies. I have two radios tuned into noise. I spray Liquid Fence all over the freaking place. Short of putting Rocky & Missy in there for the night I am out of ideas.

Contest, con’t

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Including Old Books in Your Preps, Part 2, by Marica Bernstein
Including Old Books in Your Preps, Part 3, by Marica Bernstein

[FYI: That random “iv” is a link to a reference.]

Check out the comments. The articles have generated quite a bit of discussion. Turns out I’m not the only one who likes crappy old books.

Final part tomorrow.

He comes when he’s called!

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“Here Jack!” Or, if you are of a mind, “Here Kyle!”* And more often than not, he comes– especially if you have a carrot in your hand. The other day we drove the truck into the pasture and he came right up.

I did learn that petting him across the barbed wire was foolish and potentially painful. Also, remove fingers before he gets to the end of the carrot.

*More on the naming arrangements some other time. FYI: Kripke’s name came up.

What’s on my plate

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A. Drudge Work Monday and there’s no getting around it today. Mr. Big Food tied up one of the kitchen trash bags in preparation for the taking out of the trash and then went out to cut The Peninsula. I was employed in pepper picking. When he returned to the kitchen, Mr. Big Food discovered that one of the dogs– which is to say Missy– had decided to investigate the trash bag. When I returned with a basket full of peppers, I asked why there were coffee grounds on the floor. I was told he had locked the dogs in the Den. I will be engaged in some Drudge Work today.

B. Freezing peppers. We have a lot of peppers which is a good thing.

C. Trip to town.

D. Twenty to thirty pages of proofreading.

C. Ham radio programming. Let me note that this is not at all intuitive. There is a program, Chirp, into which one can load frequency information and so forth. (You of course need a specific driver to do this.) The program saves the file in .csv format. But the radio does not read .csv files. It only reads .img files. One would think that in the gazillion tutorials and videos demonstrating how to program a Baofeng radio with Chirp this would be the first thing to note. It is not.

D. The Apartment. In just a few weeks, someone will be living in The Apartment. It is currently uninhabitable.

E. Giving the donkey a carrot.

Giddy

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That was Mr. Big Food yesterday evening– positively giddy. He said this was his favorite time of year. Moussaka with homegrown eggplant. Stuffed green peppers. Fresh lemon cucumbers for the salad. Home. Grown. Tomatoes. What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?

I cannot argue with his sentiment.