Flyer's diary

congratulations Texas, Florida and Missouri... three states in the US that combined are now making up 40% of the entire world's COVID-19 cases.

if you live in a country without a first amendment freedom of speech, THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS.

in the US freedom of speech now means you can get on social media and spew unfounded facts and misinformation freely without any repercussion.
 
after the apricot fiasco... great to freeze dry, but you REALLY have to like the taste to enjoy them... if overflavorful was a word, that would be a perfect definition. so i went back to old reliable bananas and strawberries. out to get some apples this morning.

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i meant to add a food storage tip to the post above, but i missed the 5 minute edit deadline.

Ball jars (the regular sort) seal airtight very well and i usually throw in a few food-safe desiccant packs that i buy. the one pictured above is more of a decorative version (i believe it holds a gallon), but still seals very well.

but be aware of the seal on storage bags. i have never found one that is totally airtight. i found a baggie of FD apples i misplaced that were about 2 months old and they had semi-hydrated. and this is in an area where we rarely have high humidity. a few days or a week in a storage bag is what i limit their use to now. when i ship some, i will double bag them.
 
i'd forgotten how obsessed the American sports news coverage during the Olympics is with medal count scoreboards.

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when the U.S. started putting pro teams into competitions (basketball, hockey etc), my interest in the Olympics fell dramatically. yes, we were all aware other countries didn't follow a strict amateur code, but watching college kids challenge the best in the world used to be a lot more exciting. to them the Olympics had a much different meaning than it is now to the primadonna, overpaid pros.
 
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"Students with larger feet have superior reading comprehension skills."

true? always be aware that facts can be presented in a number of ways to make utter nonsense sound believable.

with COViD reporting, there is a LOT of this going on.
the best advice is to listen to multiple sources.
"I am the only one who can fix your problems" is the quintessence of gaslighting.

Mistakes in Thinking About Causation
 
got a late start with my patio garden, but summer took a while to get here.
decided to diversify a bit with some flowers this year...

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the bees and butterflies are having a good time from what i've witnessed so far.

still have some herbs going...
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basil & oregano, just started...again. i have a problem of not enough part-shade spots.

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aloe... more of a medicinal, just went in, too.

...and, of course, my 2021 "crop-64" totally state (hopefully nationally soon) legal alt-herbs... ;)
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going to keep an eye on this one.

a Serrano pepper plant from last year died off, but one pepper, all dried and shriveled up still hung on to the plant, so in honor of that sole survivor, i had to see if i could start a 2nd gen ... out of the few dozen seeds... just about all of them sprouted(!), but i finally pared it down to one winner.

nature doing what nature does best.... with a little helping hand... :)
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i started keeping track of the COViD stats from our county again. in June when i stopped, the daily positive cases was well under 100... hospitalizations were 3-4 / day and the ICU and death count was zero or one.

it's taken about 10 days to get some good averages. today the daily positive case count is between 1200-1300. hospitalizations are hovering around 35 / day and the ICU & death counts are 3-5 daily.

COViD will easily dominate a large percentage of my remaining years.
wasn't really planning on this.
i hope the unvaccinated can understand the hatred.
 
as long as i keep below 177, i'm still at a healthy BMI, but like to keep a sizable gap between that and my current weight. a few weeks ago i was edging up to about 173 and i decided to get my intermittent fasting more under control (e.g. cut out the occasional 12/12 day). i hadn't weighed myself in a few weeks but decided to check it this morning. looks like i got back a bit. have to say an intermittent fasting is one of the easiest ways i've found to keep my weight in check.

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Yeah... because rape by strangers on the street is totally the most common kind of rape and rape isn't at all one of the most underreported crime, especially when the victim belings to a demographic that has historically been treated badly by police... That man isn't just a moron: he's actively evil.
 
redumblicans... by far the largest vaccine protest demographic... seem to have mixed views about woman's rights...

Hundreds of people exercised that right over the weekend, gathering near the Santa Monica Pier to vent their opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and the growing momentum toward mandating them in various aspects of public life.

One of them was Sharon Kotas, a Santa Clarita resident who said she expects to get fired from her job with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services for refusing to get vaccinated. Despite reams of evidence that they’re safe and effective, Kotas said she doesn’t believe the shots will actually protect her from getting COVID-19.

“It should be my body, my choice,” she said.
 
one of my favorite & useful kitchen tools is a food slicer i inherited from my mom. it's all stainless steel... it must be well over 50 years old... and it still operates (and looks) like it was new. i've seen some on eBay, but none that was taken such good care of... i know my mom treasured it and saw her clean it after every use. i even have the original dust cover. many Christmas hams went through this blade for perfectly sliced sandwich meat.

i picked up three Taylor ham rolls this morning ... trying to take advantage of the market's $10 back when you buy $60 worth of groceries. you can look it up, but i swear i've NEVER seen it available anywhere but NJ (where it's made) except... unbelievably... the market right across the street carries it...! well despite my ultra sharp knives, i find it hard to cut consistent slices... Rival to the rescue. it freezes well and now i have 15 baggies with 5 remarkably even slices each ready for meals.

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My mom inherited her mother´s slicer as well. I couldn´t tell you what brand it is but it slices everything from fresh bread to meat.
 
i think one would be especially useful for calorie counters. as i said, you can't beat it's consistency vis-à-vis hand carving.
 
now that the redumblican politicians of Texas have passed a law limiting a woman's right to choose, even if she is the victim of rape (Texas leads the country in that stat) or incest (a seldom reported "rape"), i thought i'd look up what a 6 week pregnancy looks like. interestingly, as soon as i started typing... "what does a pregnancy ...", Google filled in the rest. apparently it's a trending search. here is the answer i got...

"Your embryo is around 6mm long (¼"), which is about the size of a baked bean. It looks like a bit like a baked bean too, due to its curved shape. Some people think it resembles a tadpole with its little tail. There's a bump where the heart is and another bulge where the head will be."

at 6 weeks, it cannot even be called a fetus yet.

it's a pretty screwed up situation when you have a group of men ignoring medical science regarding COViD, yet having no problem in forcing their minority moral beliefs on women.
 
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sometimes i wish i wasn't as good of a cook. whipped up some Italian hot sausage w/ peppers and onions yesterday and it's getting very hard to limit a meal to only one sandwich.
 
not sure if this ever occurred to me before, but another advantage to Japanese steel... i just got done slicing four large white onions without even coming close to shedding a tear.

aside from fruit, the only meals i've put in the freeze dryer so far has been chili, but i have at least a month of that bagged. time to try something new...sausage w/ peppers & onions. i'll post some pictures of my simple recipe later today when i get out the big frying pan.

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half way there... four different sausage types... brats, hot Italian (pork), hot Italian (chicken), chicken w/ feta & spinach. i had to do the 15 sausages in two batches, so all you see are three, sans the feta/spinach ones. all made by the local grocer, so really fresh. i like to par-boil sausage. a few years back i learned the "foam" that forms is actually just the protein in the meat reacting with the boiling water.

after ~10 minutes in the boiling water, transfer to the over and 15-18 minutes under the broiler and they're ready to go.

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from what i hear it's going to be a very small convention this year, but hey... i got in...!

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