our neighbor urgently fears it will. What we have is two loose bricks.
We had a chap assess it. We really don’t need another bill this year (my endodontist appointment is next Wednesday, to be followed by a dental appointment, etc) but—we did figure that rain and ice up there with a cracked flue surround do pose a future problem—to us, not our neighbor, in any sense. We have a guy with a good record on Angie’s List (which is an online review by customers) and the means to head off any problem with the chimney for the future. So we’re having a proper cap put on it and the loose or someday-to-be-loose bricks fixed.
It’s August, it’s hot, we’re walking when we can, but not in the heat of the day. I figure if we don’t go out to eat for several months (like that’s going to happen), that will pay for this, at least. If I can avoid having any more dental issues, that will help. Also helping is the fact that our favorite watering hole is having ‘cook’ issues at the moment, and so you takes your chances.
So…well, I’m learning to use this nice stove in proper fashion, and not to burn things. It’s one of those glasstops, and it’s a good range—not chef level, but a good GE range. To my delight, you can program the thing: you get yourself an oven thermometer, and you can actually adjust the oven thermostat to correspond to reality. This is the most brilliant idea since sliced bread. If I tell it 350, it’s actually 350.
We also are taking advantage of the fact we can handle garlic if it’s real garlic and not powdered. Jane ordered this at a restaurant and I can fix it at home: spaghetti and garlic meatballs: pre-done meatballs, frozen, [Costco], in a small saucepan with about a quarter cup of olive oil, half a teaspoon salt, teaspoon black pepper, heaping teaspoon of oregano, heaping tablespoon of dried basil with about 2 heaping tablespoons of chopped garlic in oil. That’s all there is to the meatballs and the sauce. Killer flavor. And popcorn chicken (frozen: Tyson’s or Foster Farms) baked with a drizzle of Frank’s Original Sauce (hotwings) over a green salad with lots of random veggies and Caesar dressing. I add a dash of Fig Balsamic vinegar to mine, but Jane can’t take vinegar. Anyway, a sample of how we avoid eating out. We eat out, get the recipe, and cook in. 😉
I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but my dentist (crown expert – teaches at Tufts Dental) has given me a prescription fluoride toothpaste that I use in addition to my regular one -basically to help the tooth base that the crowns depend on. Teaching at Tufts, I figure he knows his businessb…
You might ask your dentist about the idea. (called Prevident. Its reasonably cheap in price.)
As all here probably know, citrus and pineapple juices are reasonable substitutes for vinegar. Pineapple fig dressing sounds great to me!
Garlic is ridiculously easy to grow, though up here hardnecks do better. [sarcasm]Such a shame[/sarcasm] because they do taste better, more garlicy. I’ve got ~5# in a mesh bag from this year’s crop.
One almost never sees hardnecks in grocery stores, but Farmers’ Markets will often be a place to get started. Get a head, crush a clove or two, mash it in butter, apply to hot toast, see if you like it. (Some varieties can be quite “piquant”.)
Just put cloves in the ground in late summer, full sun, unprotected by overhanging anything. Let Mother Nature do the rest. Harvest the scapes when they curl and the heads form in May; saute or make pesto with them. Dig up their heads when the bottom couple leaves are going past yellow, then “cure” them in a shady, airy spot for a couple three weeks. Now wipe off the dirt, trim the roots, and cut the stalk short, 1-1.5″. Store at room temp in a mesh bag, lots of air. Pick some cloves for replanting, “Rinse and repeat.”
They don’t “keep” as long as softnecks, another shame, so one will have to use them up. Awww…
Remember: If your lover objects to your eating garlic, you need a better class of lover!
I planted garlic in my garden (then a combo vegie/flower garden, now mostly perrenial flowers because I can’t resist them). I would emend the phrase “ridiculously easy to grow” to “difficult not to grow.” When I have dug my bulbs up, the individual cloves —likely due to little loving care lavished by me on them— are pretty small so I tend not to harvest my garlic. Consequently, I now have self-seeded garlic in several distinct places in the garden.
Store bought is a lot easier to use, in my experience, but thanks for reminding me when the bulbs technically are ready to harvest. I should do it this year (though New England is in a drought, so they might be extra small cloves).
I think perhaps the issue is not harvesting soon enough. Hardneck bulbs will tend to fragment if they are left too long. For the same reason, hardnecks are far and away easier to peel. When cured, each clove almost always has just one fairly rigid, loose skin instead of multiple papery sheaths. That said, different varieties/cultivars do tend to have different sizes. Like rattlesnakes, in some varieties even the little ones can pack a punch–err, unfortunate comparison, that.
Oh, by the way, no garden? No problem! One can grow garlic quite well in containers on a patio. They may need a bit of supplemental feeding and maybe water depending on conditions.
Oops, it’s past time! What the heck. It’s summer. Maybe I’ll just go “skinny” for August…
I remember Mama pulling the garlic and onions, braiding their tails and hanging them from the joists in the basement. “Tommie Ann, go pick me two onions”. Down I would go and pull off two that I could reach and bring them to the kitchen.
Can’t braid hardnecks. They’ve got a rigid “scape” up the middle. But hardnecks grow farther north, tolerate colder winters, than softnecks.
Greek Question: Dryohippos or Xylohippos, for a :cough: Wooden Horse? Is either correct? But what shades of meaning would each kenning compound connote? The dryads seemed to be tree/woodland nymphs, but maybe with the suggestion of, by a stream or body of water? And I don’t know of any connotation for xylem- other than “the stiff, woody part,” the sylem. For that matter, could both be used?
Also, just because it occurred to me, it seems like nymphs, like the dryads, and satyrs, like Pan (etc.) were always female and male respectively. No male nymphs or female satyrs? Er, the Greeks didn’t consider this a glaring plot hole that needed to be addressed? Though I’d have to wonder if the female satyrs would go in for all that carousing too. Maybe so! Maybe not! Or any wailing and weeping from the male nymphs. Yes, no, maybe? Hmm. I don’t know. But the Greeks did like a good story and had no shortage of supernatural creatures like the later medieval Celts and English, so…. No, I don’t know why it seemed so important to wonder about that, but now I’m durious.
The Wikipedia entry for Trojan Horse gives this: Δούρειος Ἵππος, Doúreios Híppos, in the Homeric Ionic dialect – which suggests that Dryo is better than Xylo?
Shipbuilding wood would be the logical type used for the horse—material at hand after umpteen years of war and campouts. And that would be pine, likely. They somewhat depended on the wood getting soaked and swelling to seal the joints. The construction may have owed something to the Egyptians: the Egyptian method involved rope, and ‘cookies’ connecting one plank to the next…ironically we have better preserved Egyptian boats than Greek of that early period.
As for finding the wooden horse, interesting, but I’d say ‘ship planks’ is also likely. The sea was a lot closer to Troy then than now.
considering their location, I don’t recall there being a lot of hardwood forests nearby. More than likely, they would have used pine….even their wine was stored in pine barrels, hence “retsina”….
Perhaps the Phoenicians traded cedar to them?
How about Arabic folklore, a peri or the houri? No male counterparts……but I would believe that’s because Arabic culture is androcentric, just as Greek culture was, although the Greeks did consider certain realms to be under goddesses, whereas I don’t know of any Arabic goddesses. Ishtar was Semitic/Babylonian/Assyrian…..
Aren’t the male counterparts afrit and djinn?
possibly, but to whom are the afrit and djinn a benefit? Not the women……
Oh, I don’t know about that.
Arthurian quest story; find the answer to, “What is it that every woman wants”?
Answer: To have her own way.
I could see a djinn being all about that!
All interesting. — I was hoping for something short(-ish) and suitable for a name, such as a person’s or ship’s name. That’s why the question about Dryohippos or Xylohippos, those being my closest guesses without knowing Greek itself.Doúreios as Wood or Wooden. Hmm. I could see how that and Dryo- could be related.
Pine rather than hardwoods or cedar. Hmm, OK.Mkaes sense.
I don’t know enough about Arabic folklore for a good opinion there. I’ll have to look up “peri” and “afrit”.
A while back, I ran across the name, Xanthippus. (or -os.) meaning, “Yellow Horse” as a male name. And most early names do translate into ordinary things like that, qualities the parents (or the child or young person) want to emulate. This made me wonder if there were also Greeks called Rhodohippos or Erithryhippos or something similar for “Red Horse” (red ochre or a typical red horse, or maybe Melanohippos for Black / Dark Horse. (It’s entirely likely I’m getting wrong how the stems combine with or without an ending vowel or a leading h on hippos.) I do recall Philippos is “Lover of Horses.” Leukohippos for White Horse? Hmm. Though from what I can tell, the Greeks usually preferred some more idealistic name.
And garlic fresh out of the garden exploding with juice is wonderful.