SATURDAY MEANDERINGS

Well, I have been to the Amish people over in the next county West of here and no luck finding a wood fired cook stove. No one knew of anything. I will say they are getting prosperous over there. Truss factories and furniture factories starting to go up pretty regular. The Amish farms are all spit shined and picture book perfect these days. The buggies on the road are nice looking and pulled by trotting horse with nice gaits. They have grocery stores way back off the main road that sell discount groceries. And they were busy. There is an auction place over there called DINKY'S and it ain't dinky at all. The place is huge! Two very, very big buildings. Five or ten acres of parking around them. They hold one auction a week starting at six o'clock Friday night and going until whenever. But no one has a wood fired cook stove. Pain and suffering. I need a stove if anyone has one and we can come to some kind of terms. The distance I have to drive will make a difference but I will pay cash on the barrel. Other folks down here are looking to buy them too and it would not surprise me if I could unload 4 or 5 of the damn things. If you have a deal then we should talk!

We have a big stainless steel kettle sitting on the stove top while some Blueberry wine finishes working. In a few days it will be transferred to a gallon just for finishing. You just pour it in the jug and put a balloon over the hole with 3 or 4 tiny holes in it and that will finish it off. We'll have a gallon of Strawberry, a gallon of Blueberry, a gallon of Nettle wine and a gallon of Dandelion wine. That should make for a rosy Winter. What does that equal, 20 fifths. I requested the Strawberry for my personal satisfaction. In the coming days we will be brewing a lot of our own alcoholic beverages. We don't drink much at our home but we like a glass every now and then. Kinda takes the rough edge off of life. I stopped at the garden and checked my beans on the way out. The damn bean leaf eaters have barely gotten in the damn things and I will be mixing up a gallon of the Handmaidens bug spray and I'll give the damn bugs a good dose. For those of you who missed the 4 or 5 accounts of how to make the spray that I already have published in this blog it is one gallon of water, two heads of garlics, and those are heads of garlic, NOT CLOVES of garlic, one well diced up onion, and two tablespoons of ground Cayenne pepper. You pulverize the garlic and the onion and then you get the water hot. When the water gets hot, you shut off the fire beneath it and stir in the garlic, onion and pepper. Then you put a lid on the mixture and let it sit for 24 hours on your stove. After the 24 hours is passed you can put it in your sprayer and go forth and spray your plants. Naturally you gotta strain the juice through a T-shirt or something or else you will have one helluva time with your sprayer nozzle getting clogged. If you wish you may use this pesticide to spice up your rice and beans. Try to do THAT with Round-up!

We have lots of gallon jugs here in the house. Old Fred buys his wine on the cheap and gets the vino in glass jugs so the wife gets all of them from him. And it ain't a whole lot of them coming at once but over a Winter's time it mounts up to some holding ability. Most of them are cleans and sterilized and filled with water for emergency situations like a power outage. It gives us a little bit of a buffer before we would have to go out and start hauling the stuff in by hand. Now, if I could only get that hand pump installed downstairs I would be in fine shape. Things are like that when you are poor. You do them when you can and not when you want to do them. Teaches you a little patience. And patience is something sorely lacking in our instant gratification world that we have become accustomed to over the years. Back in the days I was making lots of money I could just about buy what I wanted when I wanted it. Not anymore. I even had to let my truck go back to Ford Credit. But I am okay. No harm done. And if I can find a wood fired cook stove I will borrow a truck to go get it. No problem.

I can't remember if I told you that 7 banks went out this week. Six in Illinois and one in Texas. Those Illinois banks must have been playing around in that Chicago real estate market and got caught. Lost their ass. Too bad. I am so sick of bankers these days I don't care much WHAT happens to them.

My brother-in-law is going to make me a table for my grain grinder. My kitchen table is too damn wobbly to be using it as a platform for my grinder. If push comes to shove we can grind beans and corn, mix 'em up, and make a very fine mush. My friend Charles Bell told me how he had success canning butter and I am thinking about maybe getting the jars and lids to do the deed. The Handmaiden has already bought us a water bath canner and a case of pint jars full of nice good butter might come in handy one of these days. Some kind of pleasant oil to go with your food is a nice thing. We have stocked a lot of Olive Oil but I would just as soon have butter. I mean, whoever puts Olive Oil on their mush in the morning? My brother -in-law is making good progress on getting his room built and it looks pretty good to me. He should be able to get to some other projects in a couple of months.

The market is closed today so I don't have any dreary news to report from that arena. Now we can concentrate our full attention on the death and burial of Michal Jackson. The news on that front is that the burial might turn into a world event and Los Angeles is getting ready. Can't say as I blame them because the are broke as hell out there and could use the business. We are having pretty nice weather and have had nice weather all week. Should be warming up here directly and get the corn and beans growing good again.

I think I should mention that Muslims form Bahrain were in that boat that Israel high jacked on the open sea. There were released very quickly and a private jet landed to pick them up and bring them home to Bahrain, where they were given a heros welcome. Our citizen, Cynthia McKinney has to stay in jail until Monday. What the hell is the matter with our government? Why is one of our citizens being held and no hell ix being raised? I smell bank money in this. Bastards.

Have a nice, safe weekend and stay off the highways and save your money. Oh, and stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net