Tales from the Larder

Yesterday my Brother took me to the grocery store. Enough food was purchased to hopefully last a month. Knorr stocks are being heavily advertised on television but they were not in the store.
Today in Netscape's What's New they listed "Ten Bad Foods that are Good for You". The foods are corn, potatoes, one egg a day, skinless chicken thighs, coffee, peanut butter, spaghetti and meatballs, avocados, and burritos. I have never had an avocado or a burrito but all of the rest are constantly on the menu. I am told that red wine is also good for you and I do indulge in a glass of ruby port almost every day.
Not on the list were two of my favorites, Italian sausage and cheeses. I could easily cut back on the sausage but the cheeses never. Cheese is milk's bid for immortality. The French, the Lords of the Table, have fifty different kinds of cheese. Cheese must have something to do with the French Paradox. They finish each meal with fruit, then cheese, then a green salad, then a lot of wine. The French eat foie gras, pate with pork fat, oodles of cream, easily a loaf of white bread a day, and have the lowest rate of heart problems in the world. I am sure that they only do these things to infuriate the English, a pastime they never seem to tire of.

Not So Great Pumpkin Season

The weather here has been wonderful. The days start cool, get warmer as the day progresses, and cool off in the evening. The leaves are starting to change color and all is right with the world. There is however, a crisis of monumental proportions looming.
There is a projected shortage of pumpkins predicted. It seems that all of the rain in Vermont washed most of the pumpkins into Lake Champlain. Give us a break! When the price of pumpkins gets to four times what it was last year, a miracle supply of pumpkins will somehow appear. The farmers in Vermont have been biding their time for many years. They have followed closely the progress of the petroleum companies and decided to strike now. Next will come the Great Cheese shortage and this coming Spring there will be a Great Maple Syrup Shortage.
There will be a new festival in Brattleboro this Fall. The Lake Champlain area will host a Bobbing for Pumpkins Week soon. Vermonters never mention the Great Conversation Shortage.
Here in Massachusetts we will continue to enjoy the halcyon days of Fall and start riveting our pumpkins to the porch railings. We anticipate a rash of pumpkin-jacking.

Long Walk

Yesterday was so beautiful that I went for a long walk. The destinations were the same as always, CVS and the grocery store. I purchased multivitamins and things with which to make Swedish Meatballs.
I am reading the follow up books to "A Year in Provence". They are not as enjoyable as "Under the Tuscan Sun" was. There is too much sarcasm and negative portrayals of the local inhabitants. "Under the Tuscan Sun" was a joy to read and reveled in the pleasures of the land and the house. The Provence books seem to concentrate on the failings and idiosyncracies of the local inhabitants. The former book was a mystical tale of joy and admiration, the latter is the wisecracking of another Rusticophobe. We get enough of that here, we don't need to go internationally to find more.

September sixteenth is so cool!

I woke up about an hour ago. I had to close the windows and put on the red flannel pajamas. The weather is appropriate as today is the birthday of someone that is very cool. My family was astounded when she was born two days before our first anniversary. She was the first first born in our family that was not five months premature, weighing ten pounds.
Irish wedding proposal: "You're gonna have a what?".

S

I awakened around four A.M. this morning. As I lay in the dark, a curious thought and problem arose. I was trying to remember the name of the ancient Indo-European language and all that I could recall was the first letter S. I kept substituting vowels for the second letter and after about fifteen minutes it came to me, Sanskrit. It puzzles me how a term that I have known for so many years could remain buried. Then a line from antiquity came to me, something that I have not thought of in at least fifty years.
I first thought of the line when I saw my Father, a man whose vocabulary was immense, struggle to remember a term. It is a line from Virgil. "The years take all, one's wits included.".
What is going on in my "little grey cells"? How can a word that I have probably encountered a hundred times in the past year escape me and then one that I have not thought of in fifty years come back?
I have one explanation that I recently embraced. I think of my mind as a fine Sheraton secretary and my memories stored in the drawers, written on fine rag paper by a gold tipped fountain pen, but sometimes when I go to retrieve one of the memories, the drawer is locked!
Perhaps I should purchase a book of crossword puzzles to give my memory a workout. Reading doesn't seem to be helping. The television will remain off except for Thursday nights at eight P.M. and Sunday nights for Masterpiece theatre.

Christmas Stocking

I recently read that there is going to be a huge shortfall in the corn harvest in America. Less corn means less feed for cattle and people all over the world. Food shortages produce some violent reactions anywhere that they happen. Americans express a mild sympathy for famines in Africa but how are they going to feel when food shortage demonstrations and riots happen in New York and Los Angeles?
America is not the world's referee, despite the opinions of Washington D.C.. We are the world's bread basket. Next to gravel, we export more food than anything else. Recently some genius discovered how to convert food into automobile fuel. Now we will be able to ride in a limosine to the cemetary instead of being carried.
I think back to Maslow's list. Oxygen, water, food, and shelter are the things we need, in that order. The Earth tries hard to provide those things but someone has been messing with the process. It could be that Gaia has decided to erase the board and start over.
SUV's, stealth weapons, and spaceships are not on Maslow's list. It could be that wool may need to be added. I read that if global warming keeps going, it is going to get very cold in Western Europe.
I don't know what the timetable for the shortages is but, for myself, I think that it is time to start stocking up for Christmas. Canned goods and white rice and doomsday supplies are definitely on my wish list. What will Christmas dinner be like when I sit down to a nice roasted Spam? Dinty Moore will be invited for New Year's Eve. Crack open a bottle of Poland Springs 2011 and let the revels begin!
The Neandertals held out for quite a while in their rock condos in Gibraltar. Who will be the next tenants?
The human race has its priorities all messed up. Rock stars and sports heroes are idolized. Our children are ignored all over the world. Old McDonald shoud be the hero we all aspire to emulate. Feed the children, make sure that your wife has a safe and secure place to live, and stop messing about with all of the toys we have accumulated. Maybe, in some future Eden, the human race will finally decide to put an Amish woman in charge of everything. Is Gaia Amish?

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago, the world held its breath. Ten years ago some radicals put the pot on the stove. The world has been boiling furiously ever since. So much death and so much destruction, so much sadness and so much suspicion, the world has gone crazy. Maybe someone at the United Nations should dial 911.

Sunny Day, Everything is A-OK

A glorious New England Fall day. The Sun was warm, the air was cool, the leaves are changing, and a Simpson Sky reigned overhead. I walked to the library, my home away from home, and watched the river raging over the dam. The water is a deep sepia from all the leaves it is accumulating. It roars over the dam and the smell of compost is in the air, refreshing the mind and the spirit.

Rain again

There seems to be more and more rain in our forecasts and actuality. The average rainfall for this region is forty inches a year. We have been getting two or three inches each day. There is serious flooding in many towns and states.
I think of the Southwest or the Sahel and realize that we are lucky. Fresh water is a blessing. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a quote about the blessings of water. It may have come from Lord Byron but I am not sure. The source will come to me hours from now. My long term memory is getting very loooong.
The spider in the water spout is wearing a life jacket. The tomatoes are starting to crack.

Rain

It has rained sporadically here for three days. I just saw some lightning and heard the thunder several seconds later. It is raining quite heavily now. The sky didn't begin to brighten until after six A.M.. The season has changed and a flannel nightshirt is now a necessity.
I just started reading "Under the Tuscan Sun". It is even better than "A Year in Provence" was. It brings on longings. It also reminded me of the introduction to the most fabulous Italian cookbook that I have ever encountered. The author wrote "If you want to experience real Italian cooking, first buy a small farm in Tuscany.". Such are the thoughts that dreams are made of.

Wisdom from the Past

My Father used to tell me "Nils, the only time that you should open your mouth is to change feet.". I recently forgot his sage advice. I hope that I have rectified that mistake.

Moving Day

It took the squirrels about two minutes to adapt to the new feeder location. I am going to have to find out if squirrels hibernate. Squirrel food is running about forty dollars a month and I am sure that will increase as the weather gets colder. If they hibernate, that would ease the burden on the budget. If they don't, I will bear with the increase. I seem to have an empathy for them. Alone, sleeping out in the cold, worrying where the next meal is coming from, I have been there but things are different now and I am thankful for it. I wish that I had more resources and could help the local food pantry. It seems evil that our government is advocating turning corn into fuel for automobiles when people are hungry in this country. This policy has only driven up the price of so many food items. Someone has gotten their priorities confused. The only way that I can see to stop the avalanche of fuel consumption and its inherent problems is to allow gasoline to go to fifty dollars a gallon and give farmers a large discount on it.
The Amish seem to be doing quite well in their lives. Food and clean water and clean air are necessary for life, SUVs are not. Our society may be heading for collapse. There are theories that the Roman Empire collapsed because of lead drinking water pipes and pewter drinking vessels.
If the environmental quagmire we live in continues, there may come a time when we look to the Amish for advice on prosperity instead of Warren Buffet. A full belly is more comforting than a full wallet. Someday we may be forced to chew on the wallet while the Amish are chewing on chicken and dumplings. Food or fuel oil, take your pick!
That is all from the Country Curmudgeon.

At last!

The days of Fall are finally here. Cool mornings and warm afternoons and even cooler nights have been anticipated for some time. All is well in this tiny little town.
I have not heard from some people that I long to hear from but they have their own lives and I remember those days of scurrying and bustle, trying to deal with the business of living. Things are slower and simpler for me now and I wish them the same blessing.
It is just getting light outside now. Sunrise is about an hour later than it was just a short time ago.
The landlord has complained about the squirrel feeders I set up on the porch. He is fearful that the squirrels might damage his new automobile. I moved the feeders to the ground several feet from the stairs. I put them under the stairs so the squirrels don't have to worry about hawks. Mister Peanut doesn't have to worry about his car now but he has another reason to worry about squirrels.
I recently purchased a hummingbird feeder and will try to set it up today. I am sure that he will object to that. The humming of the birds might interfere with his communication with the alien spaceships that are in orbit overhead. He is over ninety and still spritely and active. He will hang around until there is a vacancy in the Trinity. He is hard on his son, as he should be, and hard on his greatgrandson, as he should not be. He believes that the Democrats are trying to destroy America which leads to some interesting conversations between him and me.
I miss the rational thoughts of my children. They are three of the five people that I have respected in my life. Conversation with them consists of a free exchange of ideas and thoughts. There is not an outpouring of opinions that have no basis behind them or a litany of superstition
and prejudice. They think about what they are saying before they say it. This makes them pariahs among the rest of the human race.