How to make wonderful scones.

How to make great scones: Short, helpful, video.

NOTE: sultanas are white raisins.

Picking the best watermelon

Watermelon is a summertime favorite, but how can you pick the best choice?

Here are a couple of tips.

1. 1. Like other fruits, check for soft spots or obvious visible damage to the rind, like rotten areas, and bruising.

   2. For your best chance at a sweet, ripe pick give them all a solid thump, with your fist, right in the middle of the long side. If you hear a ‘thud’ sound, it’s not quite ready. If you hear a nice, hollow sound then that is the melon for you. Test a few to notice the difference. A thud is a more full sound, and a hollow is lighter, more ringing sound. You can practice thumping full and half full plastic containers to get the hang of it. 

   Happy melon munching!
   

Campfire cooking: Why, and How to...

Some reasons I'll be campfire cooking more in the next few months:

Fun for the kids. (Simple way to get the kids happily involved in a low-tech, low-cost activity.)

It keeps the house cooler in the summer.

It's cheaper than going out to eat--by a lot.

It teaches the kids a useful skill for future camping fun; or perhaps, God forbid, survival.

It's potentially healthier than many other meal choices. 

It creates more family-time opportunities.

Time spent outdoors is something we all enjoy.

Here is a link to how to make a cooking style campfire, and some easy recipes to enjoy outside, or in your fireplace. 

Enjoy the season.

solipsistic hell

(from wikipedia) In Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger," the character Satan makes the following statement of solipsism at the end of the novella, "In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever—for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!...You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier. It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

This gets me to wonder if Twain, an atheist, may actually be quite close to the mark, so to speak. At times, it seems the road to hell is paved with solipsistics, but perhaps the lost human soul in eternity comes to a situation thinking much like what Twain describes. Alone, homeless, wandering, never to have reconciliation, or communion again.

playing at Dept. Stores

There is some reason to believe that the department store sales personnel cringe when we walk into their section. We are ready to play, but don't have the money to buy.

Goldfinch encounter

 Today on my walk I had a beautiful encounter with a baby American goldfinch. This bird is also called a lesser goldfinch because of its size.

This beautiful, bright yellow, little bird was in the grass lying there, and so still I thought it had just fallen from its nest, and was dead. Moved in compassion, I touched it, and startled it...it seemed to be only napping. It fluttered, and darted a few feet away. Perhaps it was tired from trying to fly, I thought. It was a strange thing to see. Then I thought , maybe it was hurt or sick or dying. I reached out again, and it peeped and fluttered just a bit out of reach, but seemed healthy, and though a bit nervous, somewhat uninterested in fleeing altogether. Our worlds were coming together, and we reckoned each other.

I might be able to briefly hold him, and take him home, just long enough to show such a beautiful creature to my children, and then set him off, and back to his flying practice. I reached over to him, and took him in my hand with hardly any effort. He peeped a few times, and fluttered, his heart pounded in my palm, but as I cupped in securely in my hand, and against my stomach, he calmed down completely, and even drifted to sleep as I walked home about two blocks away.

Once indoors, my husband helped me unfasten my remaining hand weight I use for exercising, and I brought the little bird over to my son to see up close. The goldfinch opened his eyes and stared, completely at ease, and looked at him. My son, was plunged into awe, and delight. I told him, he should speak in a whisper, and that he could gently stroke his head with one finger. The bird accepted the gesture with grace.

Then my son said, we should let him go, and I felt too that it was time. We had joined in a beautiful time together, and our worlds had met peacefully and lovingly. Now we wanted him to be free of us, and go on happily. 

I had some concerns in the back of my mind that perhaps I had not been a bird whisperer, maybe he was only sick, or injured. Maybe he would stay languishing in the grass, and be eaten by a local animal. Still, I placed him in a tuft of grass near our porch, and watched him. He sat only for a second, and then fluttered quickly, regaining himself. Then he flew about fifteen feet away. He rested there for about three minutes, and then continued his flying practice toward the shadow of our house. I went indoors, and back out a few minutes later to see if I could find him, and to see if he was indeed healthy enough to truly fly, but he was gone. Though our worlds met, he emerged into his world well.

What a beautiful blessing.

I found out a bit about him, including the image shown, and his bird call (once he matures) at this helpful site. I hope to learn many calls of our local birds this summer, because on my daily walks I hear them sing. What glorious creatures. This should be a helpful way to do that.

Exploring failure-awesome

So, I starting looking up these fascinating and humorous images about various failures.

The moral of this story is before you tell the world you are awesome, be awesome at spelling. Look it up, write it down, and if it's going on your skin forever, have the dude proofread it back to you first. I'm a terrible speller, and I need a fuller time proofreader, if only! But this takes the cake. I think he'll be wearing a t-shirt at the beach, until he saves the huge chunk of change to have it removed.

Mr. Fun

My husband and I went to a bike gear swap meet, and in the parking lot, this guy was there. All he needs is a friend to ride along.

It looks like he's crafted his own kaiak rack attached to his sidecar, and attached to that is a bike rack. You just don't see this sort of thing every day. It's kind of like this man has said, "I'm going to have a lot of fun, and I swear I won't need a car or a truck to help me do it." His big motorbike had full dressers too.  

Titanic - The Legos' version, my son's creation

My son has a new fascination-The story of the Titanic. He built a Lego version of it. It's quite clever. (Okay, I realize that sounds like a brag, but Nathan is 9 and has autism, and some profound learning disabilities, so this is a celebration I want to share with all of you!)

Notice the life boat on the side, the four steam funnels, and the captain in the crow's nest. lol.

Local Honey / allergy experiment update

The locally harvested honey has worked very well this season for allergies. Many are complaining of quite bad symptoms, and I'm not saying I have none, but they are minor.

I take 2 teaspoons a day. I got my locally harvested honey at a farm market down the road, for about $4 for about a 2-3 month supply, and also a nearby health food store. Sometimes I mix it in a smoothie, some milk with a scoop of protein powder, and a banana or strawberries. Also good mixed in tea.

Also I experience no side effects that I can tell. Sometimes it just seems just too sweet. But, washing it down with O.J. makes it fine.

I'm really glad I tried it, and plan on taking it until frost, usually Sept or Oct.