Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts

Monday, January 2, 2012

Milky Whey and Cheese

Today I made something I never made before
Paneer

We bought a lot of milk and of course the guys didn't drink it and the milk spoiled.
Usually I just throw it out but this time I thought I'd try to make something out of it.

So I boiled it and then added a cap full of lemon juice and a few cap fulls of white vinegar.
and stirred while turning the heat off.

It was fun to see curdles form.
I didn't have muslin to strain it in but I do have sieves with tiny holes just as good so I poured everything through there and let the whey drip away from the cheese.

Et Voila I had cheese.

You know.......it smells a little like baby breath which I loved to smell from my babies after they had their milk and went into dream land.
Its a special breath you never tire of smelling, from innocence.

I tasted it on some crackers and its great but if I let it sit over night, I will be able to cut it into squares and put it into a variety of Indian food specialties, especially curries and soups.

It is low in calories and you can add spices to it like onion, garlic and spinach.
Apparently it tastes better home made than what you buy in the stores and now I know why our Indian community fills up their carts with homogenized milk.

We buy milk with less calories and if I buy homogenized my son cackles like a spoiled rooster not getting his way. But Homogenized is the best milk for people who play hard all day.

I also have whey which is sorta clearing water left of the milk.
This is used for muscle building lol
But for our purposes here, whey can be used for soup and / or
making yeast dough for bread and pizza.

I really want to make mozzarella cheese which is so easy to do but have yet to find , where to buy rennet
It must be sold in natural food stores.
I love mozzarella cheese.
But then once I find the rennet , I'll be able to try making tons of things using it.

In Canada, everything is expensive because it passes through many hands before it gets to the store and trucking costs alone are a fortune.
So if you make things at home, you make more and cut spending costs.
If you have too much stuff, friends and relatives would appreciate a bit from your cache of stored goods. They make for good presents of food baskets.

Reading some blogs I found out that the farmer is not allowed to sell you fresh cow milk.
If he does, both you and he can get into a lot of federal trouble but if you own half or a quarter of the cow, you can use its' milk but you can't buy it.
What a horrible law. It's as if they think people are stupid and don't know milk needs to be boiled. So if you buy the cow hay, you don't pay for the milk and barter milk for hay.

My husband for example, loves soudjoux.
Its a spicy sausage filling you put into casings and allow to dry.
Used to be you could find the big cow casings to make gorgeous genoa salami but here in BC ,you only find the small intestine from pigs and goats etc..
Well I found out that once you make the sausage, you don't need to dry it.

You either form patties or sausages and then freeze them.
We usually like them fried with eggs so it really makes no difference if it's dry or frozen.
But the dry ones you can put into a bag like jerky and carry it on walk abouts and eat it at will.

It's very expensive to buy in the store so home made is highly recommended. :)
Well I began the new year with cheese.
Is it a good sign?

Well now the environmentalists will say we need less cows but we still have goats lol

Have a wonderful day !!!!
-------------------------
Three handsome male dogs are walking down the street when they see a beautiful, enticing, female Poodle. The three male dogs fall all over themselves in an effort to be the one to reach her first, but end up arriving in front of her at the same time. The males are speechless before her beauty, slobbering on themselves and hoping for just a glance from her in return. Aware of her charms and her obvious effect on the three suitors, she decides to be kind and tells them 'The first one who can use the words 'liver' and 'cheese' together in an imaginative, intelligent sentence can go out with me.' The sturdy, muscular black Lab speaks up quickly
and says 'I love liver and cheese.' 'Oh, how childish,' said the Poodle. That shows no imagination or intelligence whatsoever. She turned to the tall, shiny Golden Retriever and said 'How well can you do? 'Um. I HATE liver and cheese,' blurts the Golden Retriever. 'My, my,' said the Poodle. 'I guess it's hopeless. That's just as dumb as the Lab's sentence.'
She then turns to the last of the three dogs and says, 'How about you, little guy?'
The last of the three, tiny in stature but big in fame and finesse, is the Taco Bell Chihuahua. He gives her a smile, a sly wink, turns to the Golden Retriever and the Lab and says.
'Liver alone. Cheese mine.'
--------------------------------

Thursday, December 29, 2011

New Year Clean Up

We can begin the new year by developing a new world free of garbage.
This new plastic is biodegradable and safe and the old bags can be melted at home and reused.



If all plastic was made bio degradable, which we know can be done today,
we would not need to worry about our environment.
This includes replacement of all stero foam used for meat packaging.



A great project to promote as a New Year resolution.

:)
-------------------------

I recently asked a friend, "Has your son decided what he wants to be when he grows up?"

"Yes, he wants to be a garbage collector," my friend replied.

I had to think about that one for a moment! "That's a rather strange ambition to have for a career." I finally managed to reply.

"Well," said the boy's father, "he thinks that garbage collectors only work on Tuesdays!"

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Abram Petrovich Hannibal and Alexander Pushkin

Savva Ragurzinsky and Peter Andreeyevich Tolstoy got orders from Czar, Peter the Great, to bring a 7 year old Ethiopian Prince,
(who was taken captive and brought to Istanbul) to Russia.
Peter baptized him and gave him his name, Peter, and Gen Hannibal’s last name.

Abram Petrovich Hannibal
was then sent to France to be educated in 7 languages, history, arts, science, math, geometry, war fare, etc.

In France he met Diderot.

Voltaire, called Hannibal “a dark star of enlightenment”.
Hannibal became Captain and then came back to Russia.

When Peter died Hannibal was sent to Siberia but when Peter’s Daughter Elizabeth became Queen,
she brought him back.

He became a General and she gave him land and serfs.

Hannibal married a Greek woman Evdokia Dioper.
It was a forced marriage and she began to cheat on him so he put her in jail for
11 years and later divorced her.

He then got himself a Scandinavian girl Christina Regina Sioberg 1705 – 1781
He had 10 children with her.

One of these children was Osip.
Osip had a daughter Nadezhda who married Serge Pushkin and became the Mother of Alexander Pushkin.

Pushkin was not a likeable child and his Mom sent him to his Grand Mothers a lot but he was really raised by his Nanny, Arina Rodionovna .
She loved him, read to him, pampered him.
It is for her he wrote a lovely poem.

According to the family tree , it seems there was some family intermarriage.

Abram Hannibal had a son Osip, who married a Maria Pushkin
They had a daughter Nadezsda.

Nadezsda married Sergei Pushkin, son of Lev Pushkin and Olga Pushkin

Nadezshda and Sergei had Alexander Pushkin.

Pushkin was said to have had a hot temper , gambled and loved women.
They blamed it on his black side .
Pushkin died in a duel trying to protect his wife’s honor.

Pushkins blood can be found in British Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster
And George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb6VA4Y8H_o&feature=related
Hawaiian African mix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51566o8omw0&feature=related
Plijik Babylonian music
.

How Many Poles did it take.........

Q: How many Poles did it take to determine that the Earth is NOT the center of the Universe?
A: Just one.
Nikolas Kopernik (AKA Copernicus) was Polish. Unfortunately he could not prove his theory -- which "heretically" contradicted the officially held "scientific" belief sanctioned by the "infallible" Catholic Church that the Earth was the center of the Universe -- a heresy punishable by death in Medieval Europe.
That proof wasn't secured until a hundred years later by Galileo, who had access to the newly invented telescope.
Poland was also a hundred years ahead of England with its own version of the Magna Carta (which granted ordinary citizens major legal rights of protection from the state) and a few hundred years ahead of America in being the first nation since ancient Greece to experiment with Democracy -- although a disastrously stilted form, limited to the nobility. (Sort of like the U.S. Senate, come to think of it.)

Monday, March 30, 2009

I AM

I am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVWYMl2yg1E

karaoke songs to Enjoy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCK2X1oEyP4&feature=related
walk away matt Monroe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqKCzCtiZ8A&feature=related
how can I tell her
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYd2oRPsUCA&feature=related
tell laura I love her
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mXTtThiFoQ&feature=channel
bluberry hill fats domino
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODAdw-B9dmg&feature=related
All I have to do is dream ???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70rd01Je7aI&feature=related
those were the days
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=306EBB8Mik0&feature=related
let it be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ZlvC7H2I8&feature=related
don’t cry Johnny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNDbJskVcJg&feature=related
sealed with a kiss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGIn-9pGGUk&feature=channel
chiquita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LISz7t_q4TY&feature=related
changing partners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ELyTolfhg&feature=related
tennesee waltz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swso2DEzghA&feature=related
blowing in the wind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEFH0jeqaLo&feature=related
summer wine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS6LFYU96WE&feature=related
as tears go by
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnp0XAAnQuk&feature=related
rose rose I love you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVKhwEG35bE&feature=channel_page
house of the rising sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLDaJKMoHDc&feature=related
the wedding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe0Nkt9WU6s&feature=related
river of no return

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lmN2sWt4vw&feature=channel
very superstitious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zkbKM9eBzQ&feature=related
sad movies make me cry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8hkNuR-R9g&feature=related
you needed me.

Good Morning Monday (Marlena Dietrich)


Good Morning and a Happy Monday to every one!

I was reading some comments about the old songs I put on, and it suddenly occured to me that the young people don't understand why these songs are so meaningful and why they speak so clearly to many of us over 23 folks lol

My Grand mother had these songs and I grew up with them on old LP's. but it is only later when I grew up and began trying to find out why all these old people had idiosyncracies (lol) that I started to pay attention.
I wanted to understand why they were the way they were.

Tough, strong, rarely cried, disciplined, rarely complained about pain. They would smile when you'd complain about the hard day you had and come up with something like ya... hard to push buttons.lol

They were able to close their eyes to pain and suffering.

Love meant something different to them.
They never talked about it but they felt it deeply.

In fact my grand mother taught me a few words of wisdom.
When they keep telling you they love you, it means they don't.
Actions speak louder than words.

They understood what friendship meant.
They were frugal and charitable and did a lot without you having to ask for it,
always one step ahead.
They could taste the soil and know if it was good.
They could find water with a stick and tell you where to dig.
They had golden hands and could turn straw into gold.

Every morning they woke up, was a glorious morning!
They knew how to laugh at misfortune.

They believed in saving for a rainy day, in food, clothing, medicines and they always tinkered with things, recycled.
Our people today have no respect for material things and sit feeling sorry for themselves all the time.

You listen to kids and parents talk about bullying and you wonder, how did strong people of yesterday survive? He's bullying you? Punch him in the nose. Johnny Cash sang the song about the boy named Sue.
It's a survival song.
No old person I knew wanted to die and here, we have everything, and everyone's spirits are down.

"Suicide " is heard thrown around in schools and in households and in businesses.

Seems people are not living their lives right.
They forget there are no short cuts in life. It is, what it is.

People need to be needed and appreciated and loved.
They need dirt in their lives. They need chickens and horses and a garden and flowers.
They need chores.

Only families can provide that because they divide chores and everyone feels like they are doing something good by pitching in.

This is why I feel sorry young people today, throw their old away into nursing homes, when they could have such great family evenings, finding out about the incredible lives they led and all this is going to die with them.
They have incredible stories. All you need is a campfire and a peace pipe and it could be like in the old Indian days ,except much better, with new technology.lol

My Grandfather walked amongst the bombs as they fell all around him, while every one else hid in bomb shelters.
He said: " If its my time, it's my time."
It wasn't. He was safe and God protected him.

Another fellow was the first one in the bomb shelters fearing to die. As soon as the sirens blew., he was right there, hiding under a bed, at the very bottom.

One time, before people had a chance to get there, a bomb blew through the shelter he was in and went down to the very bottom and landed right in front of his eyes and didn't explode.

They found him under the bed, staring at this bomb, insane.

That was a message sent to him, that if death wants you, it knows where to find you.

Another story was about the Germans who had the best bomb shelters and sent the other people to shabbier ones. Well seems the bombs found their bomb shelters and they provided them no safety, while the shabbier ones were not touched.

So they began to run to hide in those instead. How did the bombs know where to find the right shelters to bomb? It had to be some divine intervention. You see God speaking during these times and you don't question his existence.

Marlena Dietrich led the most fascinating life and these people should not die without every one knowing their stories because we become better people as a result.Ernest Hemingway thought that "if she had nothing more than her voice, she could break your heart with it."

Voltaire was a great man. He knew Pushkin.
My latest research has been about Pushkin. I loved his stories as well but it is when I went into his great grandfathers story...... that I found a most fascinating one. It led me deeper into Islam and slavery.
something that effects us even today.

People don't forget history. It affects and follows you in everything you do.
Schools teach but they don't teach what people need to know.
Once you put all the missing pieces together, things make a lot of sense.

How many people do we elect to lead us who don't know history enough to understand the consequences of their actions?
How many elections do we give ballots to, without knowing the people we are voting for, except what the lobby groups tell us?

You see, old people can fill in the missing blanks because they lived through it all.
They may not have education but they do have life experiences which amount to the same thing.

Where have all the flowers gone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ptqXqjsZw

Falling in love again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtLpt0N2esE&feature=related

Marlena
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUnacYzT2-Q&feature=related

La Vie En Rose Marlene
http://a-ladyslife.blogspot.com/2009/03/

Thank you God, for North America.
And God Bless the World.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER 1799 - 1837

Matt Monroe From Russia with love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Q8Zczgx7c

Born Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_89U-N-5w0g

ALEXANDER SERGEVICH PUSHKIN 1799-1837




PUSHKIN was the founder of Modern Russian Literature
I was fortunate to find his family tree which is as excellent as his own life story.
His Heritage dated back to Abram Hannibal, an Ethiopian Prince.
I hope to be able to write something about that because this would make
Pushkin a modern day OBAMA.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

BOCHSA LE GAROP

BOCHSA Le Garop

Great little bit for a penguin guard inspection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvRGeQMwhyQ&feature=related

Eddington - Harris - Grand Tarantelle

Eddington - Harris - Grand Tarantelle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtB1W5hi0kM

Enlightend Roaches.


Enlightened Roaches.

Dominick Dunne:

"Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty four hours
and too little on the last six thousand years."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had never seen a cockroach as a child. In fact, I don’t know why they are called cockroaches
since they come from the latin word
“blatta” , meaning as we know it today, cockroach.
There’s about 4000 different kinds and they don’t usually grow over 3 inches.

The first time I laid eyes on one was in Florida, on a palm tree.

This HUMUNGOUS golden brown beauty, just sat there, glorifying its gorgeousness for the world to see and it was over three inches long.
(I SWEAR)

I HAD to ask a local what this beautiful bug was. So I did.
The look I got for this question was like: “Are you insane?” and then he answered:
“It’s a cockroach.” My face must have shown how shocked I was at learning this.
To this day, I have never again seen one like it ....ANYWHERE.

I kept thinking to myself how could people have such things in their homes?

Our first newly wed apartment, was in a brand new building.
It wasn’t long before I saw bugs coming out of my bathroom sink.

I caught one in a jar and plugged up all the sinks and bathtubs and took it to the janitor,
who became increasingly alarmed because
he found them in his apartment as well.
Both our apartments were 2 floors and in between us was a small one bedroom flat.
And so began the story…….

The Janitor opened the door to that flat and was appalled to find it literally covered
from top to bottom with roaches.
He almost cried.

They were everywhere!
It was a major ordeal getting them out of the building

but ………this was how I was introduced to Buddhism. lol

The couple who rented this flat were Oriental and Buddhists, who don’t kill bugs.

We often wonder, even today, how they slept?
It was Ironic in that “The Buddha” is otherwise known as

“The Awakened One”.lol

There are around 500,000 Buddhists today who believe every living thing has it’s place and reason for being and it must be respected as all nature, so it doesn’t revolt.
Buddhism exists now for over 2,500 years.

Buddhists believe, anyone following the Buddha, can have spiritual enlightenment or awakening and become like him.

If any one ever rubbed a Buddhas belly, he would know that there is some truth to that belief. lol

The Eightfold Path teaches how to stop suffering life and learning to live it.

The Four Noble Truths teach the path that must be taken to reach Enlightenment.

I truly only began to understand all this, once I accidentally found an Enormous Buddha, sitting in a mountain, in Malaysia, in the middle of no where..... in ABSOLUTE PEACE AND QUIET.

It blew my mind.

And all this ……….because of Cockroaches…….. truly Enlightened Creatures, having lived for over 350 million years on this planet.

A Little Stock Market Humor

The Duck and the Lemonade Story

http://www.innocentenglish.com/daily-quick-break/money-jokes-2.html

Quote:
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible
is music."

----------------------------------------------------
TODAY’S DAILY STOCK MARKET REPORT:
Helium was up. Feathers were down. Paper was stationary.
Knives were up sharply. Pencils lost a few points.
Hiking equipment was trailing.
Elevators rose, while escalators continued a slow decline.
Light switches were off.
Mining equipment hit rock bottom.
Diapers remained unchanged.
Shipping lines stayed at an even keel.
Balloon prices were inflated. Oil continued it’s slippery slide.
And batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Angry Scenic Pictures

Here is a link with some extreme photos of nature.
The horizontal Twister one is something we were in, in Ontario one summer.
It was pretty scary.

http://www.noupe.com/photography/nature-scenic-photos-30-angry-soft-masterpieces.html

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

AWARENESS AND THE EXISTENCE OF WHATS IN BETWEEN

AWARENESS AND THE EXISTENCE OF WHATS IN-BETWEEN

I AM - Horses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVWYMl2yg1E&feature=related


Nothing is permanent in this world.
You travel just to come home and find that there is no home.
All traces of your life and existence have disappeared.
The streets have changed. More importantly the character of the streets has changed.
The people have either moved or died.
The school buildings have been torn down and replaced by huge structures.
The little mall you roamed in is no longer a mall.
Used to be a hill to ski on, up a few blocks.
That’s gone.
The Church burnt down.
It’s gone and even the places you worked….all gone.

VANISHED! Like it and you, never happened.

The emptiness you feel inside is overwhelming at finding out….. that you, for all intents and purposes, don’t exist and it doesn’t matter.

How can that happen?

I guess it’s like everything else in life.
Germs mutate, rivers change course,
people are designed now and not begot normally.
We destroy all the history and evidence and then spend
milleniums looking for it, to find the missing pieces, in what is now a puzzle.
Everything changes and nothing is predictable or permanent.

In Zen teachings they tell you there is only the awareness
of things happening around you.
Time and space are one and as people, we are caught in it and
flow along trying to keep busy,
like everything and every one else.

We search for happiness and learn it is begot from plain good judgement.

Good judgement is begot from experience and

experience is begot from bad judgement. lol

Everything goes full circle which means man has to be aware of bad
to become good and aware of what is good to become bad.
And this applies to everything in the Universe from the macro to the micro.
There is always a play with opposites.

People are on a journey. flowing along in that circle, of being and existence, and
depending on where you find yourself, this is what you’ll be.

Now we find out that there is new matter , something apart from Quantum Physics. That should be interesting.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090320-new-particle_2.html

Everything in our lives is about change.
Politics Science Religion Sports are all in turbulence and
this turbulence has never stopped from the beginning of time.

People are not happy because basically they just want it
to stop but instead, it is getting more and more chaotic,
bringing about more uncertainty, more unpredictability and impermanence.

We are afraid, because we get tired of chasing this change,
this turbulence, to keep on top of things and
in the end we know, it will out run us and we will fail.

Maybe this is the reason we have death.
Maybe this is deaths’ purpose.

Maybe death takes us away to a place where there is permanence, predictability and certainty,
where we can finally beget joy and peace, which we cannot find on the journey this life takes us.
Maybe death is a tangent on the circle of life, just as birth is.

Maybe death is not death, but a new life.

We don’t know where we came from and we don’t know where we will end up and
most of us don’t know where we are in this circle of life either.
So the Zen Masters must be right, in that all we do know,
is that we have awareness, we are conscious, of things happening around us, right now.

The best way to live in a world, where you only have awareness,
is to be happy in the moment of time you find yourself in.

I guess by saying this, we imply that nothing needs to be the way you think it should be.
Nor should it be, unless it is.

Awareness begets a new meaning, in that once we are aware,
that there are no laws for us, and things don’t have to be one way or another,
things will just be, because they are.

There will be only good and bad and the large midpoint in between, where you are misled,
begins to disappear, instead of being the focal point, of all that is.

Awareness brings to light, meaning understanding,
that there actually is good and bad and thus people need to decide what they want,
for themselves, and work daily towards that goal.


good <----------(M I S L E D) -----------> bad.

Working to provide food is good. Killing man for food is bad.

Giving food is good. Stealing food is bad.

Giving shelter is good. Killing a man for shelter is bad .

Giving clothes is good. Stealing or killing man for clothes is bad.

Entertaining for good is good. Entertaining to beget badness or sickness, out of people is not.

Taking drugs for health is good. Taking drugs to promote sickness is bad.

Once you simplify things, people are aware and better understand
what it is to be good and exactly why the world needs it.

Awareness itself, begins to teach people to self censor
through the theme of being good because it clarifies the fact
that no one can survive being bad
whether it be in this life or the next.
In fact, being bad would not be of interest anymore because
doubt would be instilled in the action of being bad.
The graph then changes to different ranges of good.

+Good < ----------------------------------------------- > Good-

Hmmm interesting.

Worlds Smallest Horse

/watch?v=Yf68mJQCVOg&NR=1

Monday, March 23, 2009

JOHNNY APPLESEED


JOHNNY APPLESEED

No one is really sure if our planet is changing because of CO2 emissions or because we
cut down the Amazon forest and sent it north where lumber is needed more, thus changing
the planetary weight distribution or if the planet is slowing down and wobbling because of
magnetic field fluctuations or other changes in the universe.

We do know, through various calculations, that 6 trees off set about one ton of CO2.

In Australia they estimated that each person produces approximately 13 tons of CO2 per year when the allowable rate is only 2 tons per year at most.
So if the calculations are correct, each person should be planting about 78 trees per year to neutralize our carbon out put.

So what do we do?


The best thing to do is to go out into your environment and see what trees grow naturally in your woods and
bring home seeds from these trees because they will be the easiest to adapt to the environment you live in.

The next step is to plant them in your yard, in some cool out of the way place.
Once the seedlings are large enough to survive on their own, with a good root system, go out and plant them
in safe areas where they have a chance to survive.

In British Columbia we have lots of Douglas Fir and pine cones galore.


Collecting them is fun in early spring and if you leave them in the sun to dry, they will open up and expose plenty of seeds.
You can then collect the seeds and plant them outside.

Sometimes you may use a zip lock bag to put pots in so that when you water them the soil does not dry.
The humidity will stay in the bag and keep the soil moist.
It usually doesn’t take long for them to sprout and then you can open the bag and treat them as normal seedlings.



This a great project to do at home and so easy and watching these babies grow gives you so much joy.

Once they are large enough (6-12 inches), they make fine gifts for all occasions especially when new babies are born. As the child grows, so will the tree and you will always know how old it is.

Protecting our environment doesn’t have to be so difficult if we just learn to enjoy it in a non destructive way
by replacing what we take out of our soil.

As I know we have many bikers crossing the country side, this is a very good thing for them to do.
Just hang a bag full of seedlings over your shoulder and stick them into the soil,
along the routes you travel, preferably, just before it rains, when you stop to take a break.

Every one can become a Johnny Appleseed, who planted seeds in 6 states before he died,
If nothing else, these trees will grow to provide free air conditioning to our overstressed planet.

In Toronto they found out planting trees on high rise roofs to be very beneficial both for the air and peoples health .
So………. become Legends in your own right, think green and have some fun planting.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Autumn Falcon


THE AUTUMN FALCON

Nothing pleases me more than to see the world a blaze in color and autumn in Quebec, was something to behold.
Not only were the skies ablaze but the streets were also covered like a woodland pathway.
The cool morning dew and the rising sun just added to a land, only God could create.

My Dad used to wake me up very early because there was a time limit before the morning mushrooms would decompose or be eaten by worms.
It was a true case of the early bird catching the worm and we were to be the early birds.

We’d cross the bridge off the island of Montreal and head towards farms which left large parcels of land unkempt and natural.
The farmers didn’t mind people entering their woods at that time.
The woods were thick and wild.
The soil was rich and black and you could feel and smell the life in it.

Amongst the rotting tree trunks and beneath birch trees, we would begin to collect our beloved mushrooms.
As I find out today, they are called Pidpenky but in English, the closest I came to calling them were Honey Mushrooms.
http://myweb.wvnet.edu/~roman/souvenir_sheets/hribi.html

I could be wrong. Does any one know?

My Dad always warned about collecting mushrooms you don’t know because eating them would be devastating. We only took what we knew and always made sure never to take the roots.

These particular mushrooms were excellent fried. You could never have enough and after collecting two 50 lb potato sacks full, my Mom, Dad and I would sort them right away,
clean them, wash them and put them into salt water, just in case they had any worms.
Worms were a good thing cause if they ate them, then people could.

My Mom would prepare the jars and the spices and she would then parboil the mushrooms and prepare them for pickling. All this had to be done rather quickly.
The result was the best pickled mushrooms all year round. We always had enough for us and to share.

At the same time, on week ends ,we’d go to the apple farms. They would allow us to pick our own apples.
McIntosh Apples are still the best in my book to this day.
They are red, hard, crunchy, sweet and juicy. There is no apple like it in the world.

No wonder Apple stole the name, because they know tons of people will be looking for this apple,
and they would land on their web site instead.lol
http://www.producepete.com/shows/mcintoshapples.html

Being a veracious book reader, I would always have a bushel beside my lounge chair and instead of eating food, these apples always made a great snack.

My Mom would make lots of jars of apple sauce and I would help her churn the cooked apples
so as to sort out the skins.
We’d eat it in the winter with ice cream or pork or turkey.
She’d also make the best rhubarb preserves I ever tasted and since she stopped, I never had any.

One of these trips to the apple orchards landed us a Wild Falcon.
He was beautiful, lean ,smooth, with brown feathers ,clear sharp eyes and a beak that could do real damage.
Since it was hunting season, some one shot it and its’ claw on one foot was closed so he could not use it.
It affected his hunting skills.
He was weak and didn’t put up much of a fight so we brought him home to nurse.

My Mom was a nurse by profession and she loved cleanliness. She kept her house so spotless, you could eat off of the floors.
( I am not like my Mom. Loll)
It was surprising she allowed us to place newspaper all around her beautiful wood floors so this Falcon could have a room to himself, in the house, to recuperate, instead of outside on the closed balcony.

Come to think of it, she let this Falcon get away with more than she ever allowed us loll.
Since it was around Thanks Giving, we had this huge turkey we bought to bake.
It was already defrosted so we decided to
give the Falcon a few pieces to see if he would eat.

Falcons are no fools. He saw good raw meat and he didn’t care who gave it to him.
He took piece after piece for supper. He took piece after piece for breakfast. He took piece after piece for lunch.
He took piece after piece for supper. By the end of the next day our 20 lb Thanks giving Turkey was gone but our Falcon was in tip top shape.lol

He became so friendly and strutted around the floor still unable to open his claw. We tried to do it for him but were not lucky either.
It was closed, frozen and that was that. He would no longer be able to use it.

We took advantage of being so close to nature and held him and patted him and checked his wings to make sure nothing else was broken or damaged and he was cooperative just as if he understood we were his friends.

No matter how much we covered the wood floors, this guy with his sharp eye, would find one inch some where, where the floor showed and he would shoot his excrement right there, bulls eye, missing all the newspaper lined out for him to do his business on. The whole floor was covered and he'd see a little opening and that was what he targeted.
Some how we all found it funny cause he’d never miss. lol

He’d lift his tail and shoot backwards with a dead aim that would bring the best hunter to shame.
For this entertainment we decided he was strong enough to fly and try to live his life again.
He still had lots of woods around full of nice rodents to feed on, so if he was smart, he would be able to survive or come back home to where he got free food.

We wished him well and in as much as he was a perfect guest, we saw in his eyes how grateful he was to see the world he grew up in, waiting for him.
As we watched him fly away, we knew we’d never see him again.

He had an agenda. He had a purpose. He had a place he wanted to be and
with this in mind, he flew away.

He left us with a good memory, a few laughs, no Thanks giving dinner, and an understanding that you can tame the wild but you can’t control their heart. They will always be free spirits.
In this way, this Falcon was like a human.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

LENT CAN BE FUN

LENT CAN BE FUN.

Lent is something not many people practice today but if it is in religion,
we must ask ourselves why?

I believe it is a very good practice to follow because it purges your system of meat, dairy, alcohol and fat for 40 days.
Your body has a chance to rest and not fight toxins which continue to weaken the immune system.
I may be wrong but it sure does make a lot of sense and it costs you nothing to lose a little weight,
while strengthening your character, will power and thus…. your mind.

After 40 days, your taste buds sure do appreciate life and living and of course………FOOD!!!!

My Dad was a man of many talents. He loved to tinker.
One day he decided to design his own tent camper so we could go fishing.
He got the base frame from a car (junk yards were treasures in those days, you never knew what you’d find),
took out his welder, got a few pipes to weld. Then he sewed his own tent from canvas he got from somewhere and we girls
did the interior work putting in the mattresses and pillows to make it homey.
It was quite a project and maybe this is why I love doing projects today, which does my house a disfavor.
But….. I believe a house well lived in, is better than a show case home which looks more like a place you visit
rather than a home you love and enjoy being in, surrounded by…… stuff.(Maybe I should get out more loll.)
Anyway,
My Dad had a propane tank fitted for the outside of the trailer so we could cook inside when it rained and heat when it was wet and damp.
Once all was ready, off we went.

We had great days in that camper fishing in the Richelieu River, in Quebec, in a little town called Noyan, just by the US border.
I have many good memories from that river. Sometimes I feel like Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, where that river is concerned.
It’s very historic in that it has two forts: Fort Lennox and Fort Montgomery.
Samuel de Champlain went up it and many battles took place with the Iroquois and sitting there,
one could almost feel those days as if they were yesterday.
Fort Lennox is on the Canadian side and they turned it into a tourist place where people are taken out by ferry boat.
Nice little island but when I was a kid, it was a place I’d love to drive to with my boat and run around on with my dog.
The river in those days was very clean. People used it for drinking water and the fish………….
well ……if you didn’t catch one or three on one line at the same time in a few minutes, you had to move on.

I’d do a lot of waterskiing and snorkeling in those days and was fascinated by the world under that strip of water.
We had everything. Perch, sunfish, rock fish, bass, pike, cat fish .
Once I met up with an eel face to face and we both got scared of each
other and high tailed it into different directions.
There was an old wooden bridge, we’d like to hang around to jump into the water from.
(They tore it down now and replaced it with a cement over pass, a little tooooooo high to jump off of today.)
Under it lived this huge old fish. It must have been one of the white fish people talked about.
It was about 5 feet long and if you teased it with a juicy worm on a hook, it was too smart to bite. It just lay there,
so we’d settle to come by every day and hang off the bridge looking at it.
This fish was killed in droves by people who wanted the pearl inside its’ head.
Unfortunately they would just throw the carcass away and the local people were not very happy about that.
We also had our own Loch Ness monster story.
We camped just at the mouth of Lake Champlain and this is where two fishermen disappeared.
After a thorough search, they found their boat broken in half under water but no people. Hmmm.
Since the Richelieu and Lake Champlain connected with the St Lawrence and the ocean, anything was possible.

Well, one day we went out to our camp site and found this jolly old French couple as our neghbors that weekend.
The man wore this hat full of different kind of fishing lures. He’d leave every morning around 4 am and by 8 am would return with 16 nice sized pike.
They were a really friendly couple but did not speak a word of English and my parents didn’t speak a word of French but they managed to communicate anyway.
My Dad was fascinated in how he managed to catch so many pike when at most we could only catch 4, with three fishing.
So the old man told him he’d take him with him the next day.
My Dad set the alarm to ring at 4 am but he didn’t need to cause being the fun guy that he was, the old man placed his boom box under our trailer on full blast and then turned it on.
It basically blasted us out of the trailer.
After having a good laugh at this heart failing joke, and waking up the whole campsite,
he and my Dad left and came back with some very nice pike.

So what does this story have to do with Lent??
Well, the reason we liked Pike was because my Dad would skin it and my Mom would put the meat through the grinder and do her culinary magic and stuff the meat back into the fish.
She’d sew on what needed to be sewn back on so it again looked like the majestic fish that it was when we caught it and then she’d bake it.
It would come out of the oven as proud in death as it was in life, with a wide open mouth, full of jagged teeth waiting for its prey.

When she would present it on the table, people would dishearten thinking: “ Oh darn, a bony fish to choke on.”
Then you would see their faces change in amazement as my mom gently cut the fish as she would a piece of cake.
All our visitors would suddenly become interested in knowing where she bought this fish with no bones and then we'd sit and talk fish for the rest of the meal.Loll

My parents were brats sometimes and they liked to tease people this way and it especially worked well with the priests in our church who we would invite a few times a year for dinner around the Lent period.
It made them feel so good not to have to fight with the food on their plate and made our family look good cause they thought we fasted for 40 days. lol

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Pigs Is Pigs by Ellis Parker Butler.

An extremely funny story about an argument
over shipping costs of two guinea pigs..
Originally published in 1905 by American Magazine

http://www.ellisparkerbutler.info/epb/biblio.asp?id=2149

Beyond Death


BEYOND DEATH


It is the little things which we remember about a person after he passes over.

As days go by, we have flash backs of meaningful moments, keeping us connected.
Craig Fergusen made a televised eulogy for his Dad.

He said, his Dad was a man of few words but one thing he always did was put his hand on his head.
It was a Father / son thing.
A few days before passing over, he did it again to his son and his son remembered and will always remember this touching moment.
He said this was something he always….. “liked”…….. his Dad doing and he will truly miss it.

The hand symbolized understanding, compassion, forgiveness, love, blessing, lots of good will etc….without saying a single word; without looking like a pussy.
This is a treasure he passed onto his son as our Father in heaven passes on to us.
We become very blessed and special people, when we speak less with words and more with our hearts.

We always have to remember, that the whole world is vulnerable.
Every person, even the very rough, strong and most powerful, are vulnerable.
Vulnerability is what connects us and makes us human.

As you age, you begin to understand, that the world is not about money, land, fighting and wars.
It meant nothing when you were born and it all means nothing when your time comes closer towards the end.

As you look back at your life and remember all the personal battles you fought with the people you love,
you can’t help but see the comedy in it all.
Such foolishness you fought and worried over, which…… if you had to do it all over again….. would never
even be entertained.

Today’s youth will feel the harsh words they use when they get older even more so than the previous generation, which didn’t use them as often. Every word is seen and heard from the heavens above as waves travel through space.

We miss the old and the aged after they are gone.
We miss the young even more because they lost their time on earth.
It all doesn’t seem fair.
It never seems fair and we wish that the transition was not so final.
We wish their spirits would linger on, to continue guiding us as they did when they were alive.
We wish to hear their voices and feel their hand upon ones head.
And….. maybe they do, in their funny way but we have to be vigilant to know it.

We hear them in the wind. We see them in the sun. We smell them in the woods.
They are all around us, in trees and water and life.
The sparrows, chirping and hopping so cheerily from branch to branch looking for things to eat,
look out into space but maybe they are looking at them……the spirits .........all around us.

Life lives, life dies. Life laughs, life cries. Life gives up and life tries. But life looks different through everyone's eyes.
John Oxenham wrote:
For death begins with life's first breath And life begins at touch of death

Thanks.
And God Bless.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Amerindians Taught How To Plant Corn

CORN AND THE POWHATANCORN is a gift of the North American Indian people to the world. It orignated somewhere in Central America - our traditions say it came from the sky, since it seemed to appear from nowhere, a gift to the Creator.
The gift was marked by a Treaty: Human Beings and Corn had to work together to feed the nations. Each were to depend on the other for their survival. That is why there is no such thing as "wild Corn". By the time Europeans arrived on these shores, the Original American scientists had long before domesticated Corn and bred hundreds of different variations.
The Treaty still works today: Corn is one of the few plants, perhaps the only plant, whose seeds must be planted by human beings if she is to grow and survive. One the other hand, if Corn stopped supplying its nourishment, there would be extreme hunger all over the world. Next time you eat some popCorn or Corn-on-the-cob, you can recognize the benefits of cooperation.
Corn was usually planted with Beans and Squash in the same hole, and they worked together so closely they were called "The Three Sisters". The Corn provided a stalk for the Bean vines to climb around, and the Beans returned the favor by replacing the nitrogen in the soil. The Squash spread out its broad shady leaves to keep other plants from crowding out the Corn. By observing the way the Three Sisters work together, we learn the value of productive inter-relationships of human beings.
Traditionally, we planted the Three Sisters in April, May, and June so we would have a long season of good eating. Usually the outside row od corn was dedicated to the animals, and the next row was dedicated to the use of passers-by who might be hungry. The rest of the rows were for those who planted it. This taught us how to share.
Corn can be eaten fresh or dried. Unless the kernels are parched, dry corn must be ground to flour for humans to receive its nourishment. This requires hard work. Traditionally, while people are working with Corn, they meditate, trying to see themselves more clearly, to answer the big question: "Who am I?" If you have tried to pund corn, perhaps you learned something about yourself in the process!
All parts of the Corn were used: the husks made mats, dolls, masks; the stalks could be used for fuel; even the cobs had their uses. This taught us to value and use all of the Creation's gifts.
We give a great greeting and thanksgiving for our sister Corn and to the Creation which works with her to provide her nourishment to us.
Chief Roy Crazy HorsePowhatan Renape NationE-Mail