Musings

Meet creeping jenny, sometimes called moneywort for the leaf shape. I/we paid a landscaper to put it in our yard; now I discover it’s an invasive species (native to Europe; spreads especially easily in moist soils).

The country’s largest food company is PepsiCo; it owns Rice-A-Roni, Sabra, Rold Gold, Doritos, Gatorade, and Quaker Oats.

That’s from Daniel Immerwahr’s “Beyond the Myth of Rural America,” in the 16 October issue of The New Yorker.

I say that PepsiCo is equivalent to an invasive species in our USA and global food systems.

Posted at 5:37 PM | 2 Comments »

How did I pick a picture with such story-imagining potential and not post it?

As to the story…short version…christening or elderly birthday?

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Go figure

We went to the park to stroll in the lovely sunshine, and discovered preparations underway to host a music-fest over the weekend. We saw many food trailers and whole zones of porta-potties, and two stages being assembled. This is the north one.

This was the main ingredient in the pile behind the mini-donut truck. Note that the open kettle recipe requires more water than automatic equipment. I cannot figure out why.

Posted at 7:19 PM | Comments Off on Coming events

I did a huge inhale and gloried in the scent of the few blooms on this persistent specimen as an antidote to my deep confusion over the escalating horrible mess in the Levant.

Posted at 9:48 PM | Comments Off on Counteraction

Stunned bee on redolent ginger lily.

Shoes on high, too high to smell.

Sun-dried autumnal fennel blooms. No scent; too desiccated.

Posted at 6:30 PM | Comments Off on Trio

I hadn’t seen this update before. I love the steps-then-dance addition to the hopscotch grid.

I also updated my phone and watch. Now, two of the most common things I do on my watch each take an additional step/tap. You can imagine how thrilled I am (NOT).

Posted at 7:24 PM | Comments Off on Updates

I propose that this is an excellent example of Halloween yard-decoration angst.

Posted at 7:09 PM | Comments Off on Face plant

Before the day’s Main Event, we took a wander to see the most prominent local topographic situation—the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Here on the south/west bank, there are few driving access points because it’s a gigantic floodplain, very flat and marshy until it was drained. Here’s the Mississippi just below the confluence.

And here’s the Missouri just above the confluence. We had (and you have) to imagine the roily meeting of the flows from the two huge drainages.

Here’s the focal point for the Main Event religious rites. We all enjoyed the tone the Lady Rabbi took combining the necessary Hebrew with English explanations. Lovely and moving. One point she made was that we change and marriages change and we find ways to do that changing together—I thought that was wise and rarely mentioned.

After the ceremony we adjourned upstairs for cocktails and tasty appetizers, and the sunset gave us all a lovely glow. Soon, we went downstairs for a fabulous sit-down dinner. Then the third band, the dance band, got going, and so did the crowd. The most unusual and best thought-out-gift was, tadah, flip-flops for those who wanted to shed their fancy shoes and really dance. Boy, did we dance. I think the Proud Mary lasted almost fifteen glorious minutes. Woohoo!

Fun wedding, great couple, lovely sentiments, and and and.

Posted at 11:36 PM | Comments Off on Main and other events

We arose to dense fog. By the time we came across these wind turbines, just the up-tips were obscured.

Part of our route was along the present interstate incarnation of Route 66, and we found lovely displays in a rest area that included many metal logos.

The crowning event was socializing with a bride and groom and their loved ones at a pre-wedding barbecue at a brewery. Great combination! The B&G are both scientists, geneticists in fact. Perfect cupcake decoration, ¿no?

These three images are just a sample of the variety in our interesting experiences this day.

Posted at 10:42 PM | Comments Off on Variety all day

Autumnal subsistance agriculture activity day…we made cider, which is unfermented, fresh apple juice. We all agreed that this was the most cider we had made at one time, at almost nineteen gallons.

We used this machine. Here’s where the apples are loaded. Not shown is prior apple collecting and washing. Also not shown is cleaning all the containers, and this mill.

Cranking the handle chips the apples. Gravity is crucial to depositing the chips in the bin inside a heavy-duty filter cloth.

Then, more cranking to squeeze the juice out of the chipped apples.

We created several wheelbarrow loads of compressed, dry apple chips.

The last major step is filtering the cider. This involves multiple washings of the filter cloth, as it gets clogged.

* Note that this is very different than yesterday’s Apple processing.

Posted at 7:01 PM | Comments Off on Apple processing*