respublica

Squirrel free?

While living on the seminary campus we always planted a vegetable garden and always nearly every vegetable was taken by squirrels before we could get to them. It was so frustrating. No place has more squirrels than the seminary.

So it was with some surprise that we realized out Collinsville neighborhood was not bothered by squirrels. I planted tomatoes in the back yard and have been amazed that they stay on the vines even when turning red. No squirrels are eating them and we've remarked at the lack of squirrels here.

And just as I write this I glanced out the dining room window and sure enough, there was a squirrel halfway up the birch tree. I guess we'll see if maybe these guys just don't like tomatoes.

The endless rotating menus

We have not eaten out at all since the virus shutdown. We've carried out only one time and that was the night we moved into our house in Collinsville and were exhausted, too tired to try and find a way to cook a dinner.

But I'm weary of having to think of what to have for dinner, we've run the gamut of meals several times over. Pasta, hamburgers, chicken, bacon. The issue is that there are foods I'd like to make but which Dale isn't crazy about. For instance, I'd love enchiladas or pita things, while he's like, ugh. He loves fish, I'm like, ugh.

What's for dinner? I just don't know anymore.

But we all have to eat and dinner for us is really the time we are hungriest and want something satisfying.

A quote for our times

I came across this quote today attributed (possibly) to Thomas Cromwell, "an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king. Cromwell was one of the strongest and most powerful proponents of the English Reformation."

"The first information is always wrong."

Now isn't that too often the truth in our times?

Now it's all hygiene theatre

This just blows my mind and it should make you sit back in your chair and wonder just what else we've been told will come to be totally wrong. Seriously, this article in The Atlantic pretty much disheartened me. The Atlantic has been around forever, it's not some crazy gossip sheet periodical which makes this new news from science more than I can take in today.

Scientists have now come to agree that the Covid-19 virus is "spread among people through large droplets expelled in sneezes and coughs, or through smaller aerosolized droplets, as from conversations, during which saliva spray can linger in the air."

It is not spread by touching things and all that obsessive cleaning we've been doing has been a huge waste of time. We should still, however, be sensible about washing our hands etc etc.

This is a fascinating article and I can't do it justice by pulling out a quote here and there, read it yourself and see what you think. Frankly, I'm going to keep up the cleaning, the wiping down. But I am going to wonder if it's just all Hygiene Theater.

The conclusion reached by this author is: "Masks, social distancing, and moving activities outdoors. That’s it. That’s how we protect ourselves. That’s how we beat this thing."

And one more thing about all this from KSDK in St. Louis. It's a "how to" on making sure your mask is correctly cleaned. If, as The Atlantic claims, masks are pretty much number one in virus safety, then we better make sure ours are clean.

It's all still very exhausting.

The loud insect noise at night

Ever since we moved back to Collinsville we've heard incessant staccato buzzing of some sort outside of our bedroom window. It wakes me up and is really loud. I've never been certain what is causing this, but it goes on all night and into the morning hours. Early on I believed it was cicadas, but the description of their sounds isn't what I am hearing. Close but not quite.

So I went to Google today and it seems the noise is coming from Katydids, also called Bush Crickets. These look rather like grasshoppers and I doubt I'd know a Katydid from a grasshopper if I walked across one, but the sounds in this video are what I'm hearing each night. And we have a large birch tree and shrubs on the bedroom side of the house nice for these guys. This night noise is new to me and while Dale can sleep through it, I find it difficult.

I wonder if I went out and shook the tree or bushes, any of these bugs would tumble out. And, I think I could be wrong and the noise is Cicadas because I just walked outside and found a big, dead, cicada on the sidewalk. The Cicada sounds like this and yes, that is what I also hear. Maybe both types are involved.

How to fold a fitted sheet a must watch

This video was made by journalist Mary Katharine Ham who has, it seems, been unable to fold a fitted sheet like many of us. Supposedly she has taken advice from her mother.  It's funny and actually seem to work out. I hate having to fold sheets, especially the bottom fitted part. The elastic in them these days is so springy and tight, anything I try to do with it springs back and falls into a big ball. Then I give up and accept the big wad as long as it's hidden in the closet.

I'm actually posting this so that I can come back to it when I need to get sheets folded.

 

It's not the seminary campus but...

Our backyard here in Collinsville is finally looking fairly good. We've had to take it by the scruff of its neck for a while.

It's the start of spider season

I may have lost track of time, the day of the week or even the month we're in, but I was suddenly made aware of the fact that August was just around the corner. This is the time when every time we go outside we walk through a spider web. Or maybe more accurately, we walk through the start of spider webs. The past couple of days that fine, almost invisible line of a spider's work brushes across my arm or face.

Sure spiders are around all summer, but for some reason they really go to work come August.

Not letting this corn season go to waste

Sweet corn season is in full swing around here and sadly, the season will be ending before we know it. There is nothing like fresh, local sweet corn in the midwest. Maybe fresh picked garden tomatoes are in second place. The past few years I've taken to getting fresh corn from Keller's farm stand in Collinsville which sits right across the road from their acres of sweet corn. You can tell when the season will be winding down by how many fields are now picked bare. I've come to like freezing and bagging corn so we have that good taste during the winter.

This is not a job for the weak, however. It takes time and involves a lot of standing and knife work. One year I made the mistake of buying a whole lot of sweek corn which they sold in huge green mesh bags. Way too much work at once so now I get 3 dozen or so periodically during the season.

The first order of business is shucking the leaves and silk strings. For a long time it was the silk that drove me crazy until someone from our church told me a good way to get most of it off while pulling down the outer leaves. You first cut a chunk of corn off the narrow end which has the tassles and silk wads. After that it is just a matter of finding a bit of seam at the top, grasping each side of the seam with your thumbs and pull down. You may have to do this again on the back side, but boy does this work. Very little silks to deal with.

The next step is to rinse off any remaining silks and drop the corn into boiling water to par-cook the ears. After that get out a bundt or angel food cake pan, put one end of the corn into the pan's hole and slice down the cob with a nice knife and watch the kernels fall into the pan. It's then just a matter of putting the corn into freezer bags.

I have to confess this is rather work intensive if you have a lot of corn, but it is so worth it in winter to pull out a bag of this sweet corn.

Which brings me to one more issue. Our refrigerator here in Collinsville has a freezer section which isn't very big, poorly designed, I believe. Bottom freezer with a couple of drawers not big enough for too much. I looked online over the weekend for small-ish chest freezers and can you believe it? Almost every store was sold out. It must have been a coronavirus type of popular thing to buy so people could stock up on frozen foods. While we were all looking for toilet paper, smarter people were buying freezers. I was shocked, I'm still shocked. But I'm going to do some freezer re-arranging until someone has a small chest freezer we can buy.

Cutting edge

Until this morning I had no idea there was such a thing as a robotic lawnmower. I've cut grass for decades in various yards every week and came to know a lot about yard equipment but this type of mower never entered my mind.

The robotic lawnmower looks much like the Roomba indoor carpet vacuum and must be more and more popular judging by the many stores carrying them. They are quite expensive however, ranging from about 500 dollars for a bare bones model up to almost 5000 dollars.  I sat for a bit day dreaming about what it would be like to have one of these until I came across all that had to be done before it would be ready for grass cutting.

You have to have a base station for charging and you have to lay  perimeter wire around your property which keeps the mower on target and not wandering off. This wire laying thing is what caused me to give up on this idea. "With one end of the perimeter wire connected to a terminal on the base station, the wire is laid along the border of your lawn and held in place using stakes that are similar to those used to pitch a tent. The other end of the wire terminates back at the base station and is connected to the second terminal."

I am curious as to how well these things cut and how long a charge lasts, however.