life in a calendar picture

gray granite cliffs line

gray roads gray sky gray clouds make
red yellow flame trees glow!

the falls in autumn

last week john took my camera and walked around the block,
then added music by 5-Track

robots vent their feelings - not!

Well they fooled me - i thought it had to do with robots!

Word of the Day for Saturday, October 9, 2010

roborant \ROB-uh-ruhnt\, adjective:

1. Strengthening; restoring vigor.

noun:
1. A strengthening medicine; a tonic; a restorative.

    A major field study of the effect of pollen extracts on the common cold and its roborant . . . effects in 775 Swedish military recruits did not give unequivocal results in relation to the prophylactic effect of the preparation used against the common cold.
    -- James P. Carter, Racketeering in Medicine

    That day, I felt the need of a roborant after my ghost-ridden night, and I swigged down two doses.
    -- William Least Heat Moon, River Horse

Roborant derives from the present participle of Latin roborare, "to strengthen," from robur, roboris, "strength."

in which i decide to take up cooking

my plan -
choose a cuisine - thai, or mexican, or indian
get a book or course
learn the vocabulary, utensils, ingredients
work through it and become proficient
that was my plan
alas
systems, discipline, linear progressions -
a wrestling match i seldom win

here's how it goes so far:
PEARS
our pear tree did its thing
many small misshapen pears.
the internet to the rescue!
aha - i DO have vinegar, raisens, sugar, garlic, chiles, spices
voila - i taste no trace of the pears in it
but the resulting chutney is a WOW!

EGGS
our fridge is full of certified organic
eggs from a neighbor's free range chickens
(read that as deeelicious eggs!).
search of index of cookbooks
aha - i DO have large cast iron skillet
+ potatoes onions oven = yumm frittata
serve with juicy orange tomatoes from another neighbor
and kale from our kale patch!

CABBAGE
a neighbor brings us cabbages
i search the pantry - 7 kinds of dried beans!
i search the internet - SOUP
amazing soup of beans cabbage and best of all -
anything else! clean out the fridge.
in goes the left over garlic-mashed-potatoes kale
peas carrots zucchini, onion tomatoes i forget what else.
we eat it for days - it gets better and better!
some goes to a sick friend - she gets better!

MORE CABBAGE
in Sun Magazine (highly recommended) -an interview
with Sandor Katz who is wild about fermentation!
a fermentation madman! his enthusiasm is contagious!
i shred up the rest of the cabbage, mash it and cover in brine.
it sits in the pantry in a jar
like some science experiment,
weighted down with a waterfilled baggie.
i'm watch it closely to see what will happen!

MAYBE NEXT WEEK
use up all those apples - yum
apple crisp - my favorite.

thrilling and ribbet

 here it is already, SHOCKTOBER in raglan - dozens of tinies gather for the Thriller dance and this year i lucked out and got in on it . mudpie is the hamster in the purple mage costume.

  the mage costume comes with a magic wand which can temporarily TURN OTHERS INTO FROGS! it was fun and nobody got mad!  tinies are the best!  here is makepeace about to be amphibizaamed!

our animal friends

 fussby continues to misbehave, chasing the chickens, pushing his ball behind the neighbor's banlines, escaping under or around the fence and getting stuck in a ditch somewhere.  mudpie and lucy try to keep tabs on him and tubeguy checks on him too but he's a free-spirit!  every time he gets borked and i have to delete him and rezz a new copy, i feel strangely sad and ponder life death the universe and everything else.

mudpie and lucy confer

in RL, as it is called, we are almost a year without a cat. i have fussby which is strange but okay, however john is alarmingly making pets of the backyard wildlife. he frequently talks to the neighbor's dogs - not so unusual - and i have often heard him talking to our resident chipmunk (s?). the possum we plan to capture and re-locate is also becoming his friend, and last night he had a conversation with a large skunk passing through our back porch on its rounds. time to get another cat!? or maybe even .... a dog?