Page 136 of 137

January 17, 2020 – Ready for Fall Bounty?

January 17, 2020 /

Believe it or not, what you do matters for the quantity or quality of fall harvest. Now is the time to not only start thinking about it but actually doing something about it.

Like what you may ask. For instance, it is time to start pruning, spraying (if you are into that), and seed starting for minimum cost and optimum diversity.

Pruned and trained Concord Grape vine

The grape vine I have pictured above I am training to cover the fence. It makes a great screen when it starts growing. Grapes need to be pruned to a bearing nodule. All fruiting will happen on new growth.

Remove water shoots for long term health and productivity

For fruit trees like apples, all water shoots (last years growth), damaged and diseased branches should be removed. This tree was neglected for several years before we moved in and the water shoots got multiple years growth. That creates exposure to heart wood which will eventually rot if not covered, so stay on top of it. This tree also has a fungus problem, but I don’t spray, I just cut out the bad parts of the apple. Now would be the time to treat. It takes several applications of dormant spray throughout the winter.

Lest we forget our flowery friends, Roses should be pruned to one or two main stems as well. Grafted roses can and will start shoots from the root stock causing an errant red rose belonging to the root stock to appear with your desired variety. Conventional wisdom in this part of the world is to prune around Presidents day, but I usually do it when I am pruning other things.

Seed starting is probably a whole additional topic. Suffice to say for this post, start calculating days back from your annual frost date to determine when seeds need to get started for your garden. Consider things that are difficult, expensive or exotic to grow because even at $1.99/lb for organic celery there isn’t a lot of return on investment unless you are going to do some specific preserving.

Have a great weekend and good luck with your harvest.

January 16, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

January 16, 2020 /

Well, not exactly. But as I started thinking about blog/podcast segments and what I am interested in, I think that Thursday is a great day to talk about things you might do this weekend like shooting, hunting and the outdoors.

A few months ago, my son joined a school sponsored trap team. That team is hosted by the local Elk’s lodge. One thing lead to another and I am now involved with the Elks and running the local gun range. One of the things that trap team is doing is putting on Hunter’s Safety this weekend.

Back when I was kid, I took hunter’s safety. It was a summer pursuit where my brother and I attended class for half a day for about a week at the local Boy’s and Girls club. Now, with the advent of the internet and online learning, you can largely complete the course with an on-line learning experience. That being said, most states (including mine) do not consider the online experience complete without a ‘field’ day. So that is what we are going to do this weekend.

This event is a bit self-serving because safety training is required to participate in the upcoming trap season. But, there are a lot of reasons to take Hunter’s Safety.

  • Hunting – Youths under the age of 18 are required to present a Hunter’s Safety certificate to obtain a license (in my state). Some states require adults to pass a state specific hunters safety course to get an out of state license.
  • Safety – The class covers many aspects of hunting equipment including basics of firearms and archery tackle. Knowing how the specifics operate and fundamental firearms rules makes a person more well rounded and aware of potential dangers. This event will use live fire in a supervised environment to hone those skills.
  • Ethics – Hunting is rooted in tradition. It is a fun and rewarding pursuit that brings a meal to the table with a story and a memory. But to have a positive outcome the when and where are important.

Even if you are not a hunter or a gun person, I still highly recommend these skills as a well rounded person because there are more than 200 million guns in this country and you never know when you might run into one. The NRA offers a free course for a number of states https://nra.yourlearningportal.com/Course/HuntersEdActivityInfoPage and links to your state if not currently approved.

Right now is the tail end of waterfowl and small game season, we will be getting into spring bear and turkey within a few months and the big game season is looming this fall, especially if you are wanting to put in for lottery type tags. Happy hunting and building memories.

January 14, 2020 – Making Menudo

January 15, 2020 /

I finally got around to editing the video I took last month on how I made menudo. It was such a busy time with Christmas looming that the end wasn’t quite as strong as the beginning. But you should get a good idea of what is involved. Enjoy.

Some of the best I have made yet.

January 9, 2020 – Painting your front door

January 9, 2020 /

In the Winter? Yes, as long as it is not freezing, exterior painting can be done, even in the Winter. I choose to do it now because I had the time and it wasn’t raining.

First prep the surface

To start with, it is helpful to know what you are dealing with. This door is a fiberglass door that was stained with a water-based stain. Read, the substrate is stable and the surface had some oxidation, but nothing a quality paint couldn’t cover. I didn’t need to sand or repair anything before I started

To prepare the surface, I brushed off all of the cobwebs. I also masked around the glass with some very flexible tape. I didn’t do this, but you could run a loop of masking tape around the locksets. However a careful paintbrush drawing away from the hardware on each stroke saves masking time.

I used a high grade, hardware store exterior paint and primer in one to paint. I really prefer a well known paint store branded paint, but they do not sell my preferred line in quarts and the sample size paint is not as durable as I would like. Think $80-100/gal for high performance paint.

Why expensive paint and what is the difference? I happen to know a lot about this area so here are some reasons. You want a paint that is performance tested in your climate. Not all major brands test in the Pacific Northwest for our conditions like consistent wetness. More expensive paint is going to have better hide – less recoats to get the final outcome. The additives are more durable, colors are going to stay truer, longer and not fade as quickly. Adhesion to less pure substrates is much better with expensive paint.

This is what it looked like after three coats. I will probably give it a fourth coat (not what I was hoping for) to finish this, but the overall result sure is striking. I like it so much that I am thinking I will pain the back door again this summer.

January 8, 2020 – Happy New Year; Remove Your Barriers

January 8, 2020 /
This really rings true for me

Welcome to 2020. Time to get back to work. I first heard of this video several months ago and I was struck at how much this description resonated with me and my charactere. I think that it boils down to whether you really want to do something or not and how difficult it may be.

I think that you have to be intellectually honest with yourself on that subject. Like this project for instance. I have wanted to do something like this for years, but as you can see I have made little progress. It will also be difficult to make some income, let alone a living right now.

Almost daily, while I was on vacation I thought “If I was really doing this blog as a job, I would be posting daily, despite being on vacation”. The platform is mobile enabled, so I could have done it with my phone – but that’s much harder than using a computer. So I didn’t.

“When I get back, I will have all these ideas”. I still do, it has taken me five days to get back into the swing of things.

“When I work for myself, I can arrange my own schedule”. Yes, but if you dont work during the day, you still need to do it in the evening.

Hopefully this year, I will move beyond some of my own Toolbox Fallacy. I encourage you to look critically at yours.

December 18, 2019 – Cheap Wine

December 19, 2019 /

This should go in the ‘Approachable Wine’ stream but I haven’t posted in the blog yet today, However, $4.99 at Rainbow Market is the intent of the database search so here is the review.

  • Tasting Notes – Cherry, Plumb (my wife thought), low tannins, low acid, somewhat sweet please see comments above
  • Pairing- Chicken pot pie and green salad
  • Notes: pleasant, higher alcohol than normal, pair with stronger foods
  • Ratings- 4 stars out of 5 (because of tasting and not a strong comparison yet). However one of the more pleasant zinfandels lately

December 17, 2019 Stock or Water?

December 17, 2019 /
Making stock requires a few common ingredients

Reading ‘Salt, Fat, Acid Heat’ by Samin Nosrat a few months ago, one of her statements struck me. I am paraphrasing, but the implication is use homemade stock or water if not on hand, do not use pre-prepared or store bought stock. After listening to a few podcasts and reading the ingredients, I tend to agree as well.

The good news is, making stock is cheap and easy. The biggest hurdle is time followed by the end result storage if you don’t use it all in one setting. What I am showing in the picture is two whole chicken carcasses (mostly bones and skin), onion, garlic, celery, carrots, salt, pepper and bay leaves. I also don’t get too fussy about the proportions. I try to get two carrots and two celery stocks with half an onion, but I use what I have on hand. You can save parts on hand in the freezer until you feel like you have enough offal or bones or you need to make stock for a recipe.

For best results, try to keep it under boiling, but that is really for clarity and not flavor. My style is to let it go overnight, turn it off in the morning and stick it in the refrigerator the next evening. I also try to let it cool, skim off the fat and filter the liquid through a coarse strainer if I have the time

When complete, I put about three cups in a quart jar and put them into the freezer. If I have less than three cups, I put it into the refrigerator for current use. You can also pressure can it for shelf stable storage. That is it. In the words of Charlie Papazian, ‘Relax and have a homebrew, it will be alright’.

December 16, 2019 Polymath Daily, Episode 1 – Beta Podcast

December 16, 2019 /
[office src=”https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=C6E1DFFEE482B6E0&resid=C6E1DFFEE482B6E0%2186849&authkey=AE27qSPWCUfVxfU” width=”98″ height=”120″]

Polymath Daily Podcast 

Episode 1 

  1. What is a polymath?  
  1. Definition 1: A person whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.1  
  1. Definition 2: Contributing to both art and sciences
  1. Sources 

December 13,2019 – Skills and Tools are Valuable

December 13, 2019 /
This dirty job can save a lot of money

Having both skills and tools make a lot of sense. My last call to the plumber cost about $200 dollars for him to clean out the drain. Ultimately, it turned out that he got a toothbrush and a McDonalds toy out of the shower drain (in a rental house). I was shocked for multiple reasons, the first of which I had tried to snake it already. Second, there way a cover screwed over the drain hole and last there hadn’t been kids in the place for several years.

This little snake cost $7.70 at box store and about ten minutes of time to clean the drain. I ended up buying one because my last one broke and it had been on my to do list for a while. This job could have been done without the specific tool (having the skill), but rentals frequently have these kinds of issues so having the tool is helpful. The point is, for a little cost and effort, I saved $200.

The only real consideration is probably time. I think a lot of time, people replace ‘I don’t want to spend my time doing that’ with ‘I don’t have the time to do that’. What took me ten minutes might take someone 30 minutes. In the alternate scenario, you would be scheduling a plumber, being available and paying a bill that you would probably rather not. For the most part, we have the luxury of approaching situations in that manner.

Even if you don’t know how to do something, be brave and I promise that you will feel confident in the future about such a task.

December 11, 2019 – Using Your Time Effectively

December 11, 2019 /
Fill the smoker to make the best use of your time

I was trimming the neighbor’s cherry tree that was hanging over the yard this fall and I didn’t want to just throw out the branches. So I got to thinking about what I could do with them and I thought smoked salmon. I have never attempted it in my side box smoker even though I always kind of wanted to.

This leads me to another tip. When I do the annual apple tree pruning, I always save a bunch of water shoots to later use in the smoker. It saves on waste and is perfect for all the smoking I have done.

Looking at the calendar, school is ending for the year and the holidays are barreling upon us. I really wanted to get this experiment done. As I was planning last night, I thought ‘I am going to have some extra room, I should smoke something for dinner as well’. So I got a chicken out. I think that will go well with collard greens (still in the garden) and black eyed peas.

Sure, it would be nice to have an electronically controlled smoker, but since I am going to the effort of tending the fire why not fill up the unused space? The salmon will be vacuum sealed for the future and dinner will be delicious tonight.