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3493. alistairconnor - 1/11/2006 6:43:44 PM Tful, I thought I recalled a discussion in which you said you had reacted against your parents' hippie tendencies. I must be thinking of someone else. 3494. thoughtful - 1/11/2006 8:52:54 PM No, only thing I can think of is i remember mentioning having been raised on organic home-grown vegetables which may have had a 'commune' note to it. But it was only that my Polish father who loved gardening was far too cheap to waste money on things like fertilizer and pesticides, when you can get manure for free down the street and make your own noxious teas to spray on plants. 3495. judithathome - 1/15/2006 5:38:37 AM Hey, we have a patio...several friends came over today and helped Keoni install these stones and sand and grout and we have a patio! It's beautiful..... 3496. thoughtful - 1/16/2006 7:14:11 PM nice treat this weekend of catching a sharp-shinned hawk in the maple by our bedroom window. Magnificent bird. 3497. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 7:59:40 PM looked a lot like this one
I took a shot but it didn't come out clearly and by the time I moved to another room to get closer, he'd moved. 3498. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 8:53:20 PM I envy you. In our suburban neighborhood we don't get any hawks or owls or other big birds except for Canadian geese and an occasional crow. Our bird feeders do attract a varienty of small and quite a few mourning doves. 3499. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 9:31:25 PM Keep the feeders going...they may attract bigger birds like the hawk or as I saw last winter, a kestrel...hungry and looking for little ones to eat. Of course it's amazing how when one of them is in the area, the birds vamoose. One little sparrow didn't get out in time and managed to hide among bushes, frozen stiff. Fortunately, (for the sparrow that is) the kestrel never saw him.
 3500. concerned - 1/18/2006 1:09:20 AM Ever have a hawk on the ground threaten you in your own front yard? I have. 3501. Ulgine Barrows - 1/18/2006 5:58:47 AM Cool birds, some cardinals have been coming around for the food we put out. 3502. Macnas - 1/18/2006 12:32:56 PM Hawks abound here, can't look to the skies without spotting one. 3503. judithathome - 1/18/2006 2:54:08 PM Troubles with the mother-in-law, Mac? ;-) 3504. judithathome - 1/18/2006 2:55:07 PM Oooops, wrong thread! 3505. thoughtful - 1/18/2006 11:31:54 PM So which should it be moties to go with my roast pork dinner...apple chutney or apple cranberry chutney? Decisions...decisions.
All my struggle over what to make for dessert and one of the guests has offered to bring dessert so I'm off the hook in that regard....though I had decided on spiced fruit compote served over angel food cake with a dollop of whipped cream...reasonably healthy and light. We'll see what the lady brings though. Nice surprise for me! 3506. Magoseph - 1/18/2006 11:34:19 PM Ill take both. 3507. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 4:16:30 PM I was going to make the chutney last night as it tastes better after it sits for a few days, but I was foiled by the power outage brought to us by heavy winds and rain yesterday.
No power, no cook.
Instead, ate cheese, crackers, wine and salad by lantern light and candle. 3508. alistairconnor - 1/19/2006 7:21:53 PM You don't have a gas cooker? How primitive. However do you manage?
Yeah I suppose you've got classy glass hallucinogen burners. 3509. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 8:53:59 PM No, in this house we have an old-fashioned electric range. We have a 4 kw generator and we have a gas grill which is fine in the summer, but not in the winter. We have a wood stove which, when we get it cranking can boil water and lots more, but last night we didn't have the energy to make the fire. 3510. arkymalarky - 1/20/2006 2:08:24 AM I have a gas stove, but the oven will not work if the electricity is out. You can light the stovetop burners, but not the oven. 3511. judithathome - 1/20/2006 2:54:28 AM Luckily, we have a 1950s stove that is all gas...even with the electricity in the crapper, this baby cooks! 3512. Macnas - 1/20/2006 10:55:34 AM My Mam replaced her 30 something yr old gas cooker before Christmas. It was going fine but the jets had degraded and there were no replacements available anymore. I looked at them and told her that her admirable idea of getting them made would cost her 500 or so, so she sighed long and sadly and the old cooker was placed, with some reverence I might add, in a corner of the workshop.
So. off she goes to buy a new one. They are all shoddy in comparison, but eventually she gets one she thinks is suitable. When it comes it's missing a fitting at the back, the retailers have included instead a note to say that one of their gas fitters must be called (and paid of course) to complete the installation.
Snorting at this naked gougery, my Mam is throwing a fit, so I wander off to a hardware shop I know, a place where you can buy a bag of flux powder, 6 horseshoe nails and a hessian bag to carry them in. I get the fitting, (and pick up a 12 inch cakeboard while I'm there, as I know Mam needs one) and on my return I complete the installation and connect it up.
Just after Christmas the electricity goes off for a day or so, and as the ignition on the cooker is electric, it's back to good old ships matches, the long timber ones she always used. The oven however, is difficult, as trying to light it with a match would result in your hand and forearm being engulfed in blue flame, as the igniter is at the back of the oven, and is a bit of a reach.
What does she produce but a taper! I haven't seen these things in many years, and watching it being produced from what looks to be a 1940's cardboard packet takes me back to her childhood, never mind my own.
Just goes to show I suppose, when the modern things in your life fail, have some of the simpler things that work all on their own put by.
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