Tuesday, June 30, 2020

The Oriole Ranch

Business in the past week has been picking-up at the oriole feeders.  After a bit of a lull the adults have been returning early morning and again before sundown.

Mama and papa birds have been tending to their young and schedule their own meals at the beginning and end of the day - bookending the tending of their fledglings.

I suspect it won't be long before the juvenile birds begin to show.

From today are some action shots of male and female Baltimore orioles and a red-bellied wood pecker.  

Incidentally - 94 digital photos taken over two hours.....






Keeping Score


Woke-up to this.

Cannot blame the county snowplow operator this time around.  This was a consequence of extra-wide farm machinery trundling-down the road.

Smacked it hard enough to split and separate the backside of the box from the rest.

Looking forward to wet mail in the future.

Geez.

Snow Plow 2, Ag Machinery 1, Mailbox 1

Monday, June 29, 2020

Stepping-up Your Gardening Bartender Skill Set


Meet Levisticum officinale – lovage - a tall perennial plant with a lengthy history of cultivation in Europe.  

The plant in the photo resides in our kitchen garden and stands about as tall as I am.

Uncommon here in the states - on the other side of the big pond the seeds of this plant are utilized as a spice (celery seed), the leaves as an herb and the roots as a vegetable.  There’s one additional use unique to this household That I will get to in a moment.  

Although it is unrelated genetically lovage tastes like celery, along with mild undertones of parsley and hint of anise. It's mild enough to use with the preparation of fish and poultry and has just enough spice to keep your cooking interesting.   

Most of you readers know that I make my own scratch tomato juice from from tomatoes cultivated in my garden.  If you use the ever-famous Uncle Dick’sTomato Juice as the foundation of the Bloody Mary adult cocktail the hollow petioles of this plant make great straws. Yup, the stems can be used as a homegrown, biodegradable (and tasty) straw. Finished with your drink – toss your straw in the composter.   

Raising a toast to backyard homesteading.

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Got Rhubarb?


The Pantry Warrior strikes again! 
 
When you have rhubarb it’s best to get on with doing something about it.  As you can see - that pan of deliciousness I made this morning has already been violated.  This is a terrific combination of tart and sweet and includes a crunchy streusel topping that should hold-up to vanilla ice cream.  Recipe is easy-peasy.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Prep:  30 mins    Cook:  45 mins   Total:  1 hr. 15 mins   Servings:  12   Yield:  1 - 9x13 inch cake

Ingredients

    1 ¼ cups white sugar
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    ½ teaspoon salt
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    2 eggs, beaten
    1 cup sour cream
    3 cups diced rhubarb
    1 cup white sugar
    ¼ cup butter, softened
    ¼ cup all-purpose flour
    Ground cinnamon for dusting

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking dish.

In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking soda, salt and 2 cups flour. 

Whisk the eggs and sour cream until smooth, add to the dry ingredients, stir and then fold in the rhubarb. 

Pour into the prepared dish and spread evenly. 

In a smaller bowl, stir together the remaining 1 cup sugar and butter until smooth. Stir in 1/4 cup flour until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle the mixture on top of the cake then dust lightly with cinnamon.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 - 60 minutes – depending on your oven.

Pro Tip – Next time I might consider a double fist-full of chopped walnuts or for added decadence maybe semi-sweet chocolate chips.  This recipe should lend itself readily to substituting sliced tart apples, sliced peaches, fresh (not frozen) blueberries or sliced strawberries.

Tweet of the Absurd


From this morning there was this retweet from President Trump.         

Included was a video of a Trump supporter in a golf cart raising a clenched fist and shouting white power.         

In the tweet - which was later deleted - the president thanked "the great people of The Villages - referring to the retirement community north-west of Orlando where the rally took place.         

As a consequence of the blatant hatefulness of this video I have chosen not to embed it in this post.  If you’re into white power and hate speech go find it yourself.  All you need to do is Google:  fifty shades of whey white power tweet.      

You have to wonder what state of mind Trump presently is in.        

I’m serious.

Nonsmoker

Doctor:  Do you smoke?      

Me:  Yup    

Doctor: Cigarettes?  Cigars?  Marijuana?
   
Me:  Mostly baby back ribs

Saturday, June 27, 2020

L'Oréal to Remove the Word 'Whitening' From Its Products

Earlier this evening I posted the following on Face Book - only to take it down after reconsideration.  Upon reflection - better to publish my musings here instead of unnecessarily agitating anyone on Face Book.  The world is already too agitated.  After all, attendance here is voluntary.  Everything on FB is pretty much in your face on a subscribers news feed.  Besides, I can always redirect back to this venue if needed on Zuckerberg's cesspool of sloppy information.
_________________________________________________________________________ 



Interesting to me was the news when I initially saw it this afternoon courtesy of a trusted friend.  At first blush my mind instantaneously flipped to:  ‘This is PC run-amok’.


Following a few moments of reflection while weeding in the garden it occurred that maybe I was letting one of my many biases cloud my thinking.  My former professional instincts have gathered a hint of rust in retirement.  And there is no longer a Bloomberg Terminal starring me in the face.  In any event, what I knew for sure was that L'Oréal is a ginormous company and that there might be more to this news than what we see on the surface.


I checked the interweb and with a few clicks learned that L'Oréal S.A. is the world's largest cosmetics company - a multinational with divisions in Europe and two additional continents. Global revenue in 2019 was about 30 billion € and they employ more than 80,000 individuals around the world.


The link at the bottom of this post redirects to the Harvard Business Review.  It is quite illustrative on many levels that much of L'Oréal’s corporate success derives from mastering the business side of multiculturalism. 


Who knew?


It is their business model.


The lesson from this news (to me at least) is that we all have triggering biases as a consequence of how we were raised, our culture, value system, etc. 


What I learned in almost 40 years of my previous life is that capitalism’s only bias is making money and that requires taking calculated risks.  And, of course, tailoring a plan and a portfolio to an individual client’s goals.  Professionals implicitly know that there is little if any room for risking the potential deleterious impact of personal biases in the very personal financial decisions of others seeking their guidance. 


Translation:  Ignore capitalism at your own peril.


There is already faux FB outrage about this announcement.  And I am hardly surprised.  What I will point out as a recovering financial guy is that it is not intellectually challenging to flip-off a 100 year-old multinational business as simply being politically correct.  It goes deeper.


L'Oréal is obviously taking a risk - and they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to take pains that this is a smart business decision. You can bet they surveyed, market-tested and focus-grouped this decision until the cows came home.


They likely know exactly what they’re doing - and why.  Moreover, attention-grabbing news like this during our troubles is basically free marketing.


Only time will tell if they got it right.


Between you and me I’d bet on them - not the laureate of random FB experts who couldn’t tell a share of stock from a brick.


Don’t take my word for this – I don’t give financial advice any longer.  I only warn of generally incomplete and useless FB content.


Call your trusted financial advisor on Monday for a professional opinion.


You may link to the Harvard Business Review here.

The Garden Chronicles

Weeded and watered the garden today.  Planted the fourth and last sowing of Blue Lake green beans and assessed the further nocturnal depredations foisted on my English peas by a marauding whitetail.

This evening I'm draping an old sheet over the row to provide a modicum of protection.

Sheesh.



Otherwise things are coming-along nicely.  The pea vines continue to bloom and pea pods have set and are growing.  The peppers have set flower buds and the broccoli (while deer browsed) appear to be doing fine.  I'll check on them daily.



We're dining-upon a variety of fresh-picked garden greens a couple of times a day.  The radishes are up and second-sowing of lettuces and greens is following.  Beets too.


Today I picked the first ripe yellow, cherry tomato.


Pickling cucumbers are looking good.  I applied an organic spray on the spuds to nip the potato bug egg masses before they hatch.  The onions are doing what onions do and the pumpkins continue to grow in their chicken wire prison cells.  

They're due for an early release.

 Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

 

American Ingenuity At Work


At the local grocery the other day there was this.     


Whoa!  Bottled adult beverage in the cleaning supply isle?  

Upon closer examination it happens to be hand sanitizer.  Seems the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the best in home-grown American business ingenuity.  Truth be told – I never would have known about full Throttle Distillery until I stumbled-across this.  

A wee bit of web surfing has revealed that in the quaint town of Trimble, Tennessee you will find the Full Throttle Distillery – a craft distiller of small batches of authentic Tennessee whiskey.    

Using locally-sourced corn the grain is ground at the distillery in preparation for fermenting the mash.  After the passage of several days the mash is distilled to produce a product weighing-in at 60-70 proof.  A follow-up distillation produces 125-135 proof authentic Tennessee whiskey.  Nice.  

Once this pandemic nonsense allows us all to return to normal lives – including travel – I’m going to add this place to my road trip itinerary.