Herd Immunity

After a slow initial rollout, as of yesterday, it is estimated that 75% of the eligible population of the peninsula has now been vaccinated.  Presently children less than 16 years of age are not eligible.  Once the kiddos are vaxxed we'll have likely attained herd immunity.

Kudos to our county health department, first responders and front line healthcare workers.  Obtaining a vaccine driving thru a fire department bay is brilliant!

I have said all along that conquering the virus is the ticket to economic recovery.

This blogger is tickled to be counted among those who have been micro-chipped.  Just kidding

Yes, there are individuals who believe Bill Gates is using COVID vaccines to insert tracking micro-chips in the general population.  For what reason there is nary a clue as I believe Bill Gates has better things to do in his spare time.  Nevertheless, these unvaccinated believers walk amongst us.

Everybody is entitled to their own belief system.

That is what makes America great. 

Always.....

 

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

The German language can be expected to outperform in the creation of new words and compound nouns and the COVID crisis is no exception to this inspiration. There is also Denglisch - a corruption of German and English - which has also seen some new words enter its vocabulary as a result. 

Germany's response to the pandemic has spawned more than one thousand tongue-twisting, multi-syllable, linguistic responses to the daily affairs of pandemic life. 

Some of my favorites are among the following:

Abstand halten soziale Distanzierung Kontaktsperre (keep your distance contact ban)

Anderthalbmetergesellschaft (one-and-a half-meter society)

Coronamüde (tired of Covid)

Coronaspeck (quarantine weight gain)

Der Covidiot (anyone who is not following pandemic rules)

Der hamsterkaupf (to panic buy or hoard)

Gesichtskondom (face condom mask)

Hände gründlich waschen mit antibakterielle Seife (wash your hands completely with soap)

Impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated)

Jetzt kontaktloses Bezahlen (contact free payment)

Mindestabstandsregelung (minimum distance regulation)

Mundschutzmode (mouth protection fashion)

Vorsichtsmaßnahmen (precautions)

Finally there is this tongue-in-cheek public service video that urges young Germans to do their patriotic duty in the war against coronavirus by just staying at home and being couch potatoes.....

It's All How You Spin It

 I can't go out because of the virus.

(Sounds weak, whiny and boring)

Try this instead:

I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from our lands.

(Sounds principled, valiant and heroic)

People might even think you are wielding a sword.

Recipe of the Day

Pasta e Ceci (Italian Pasta and Chickpea Stew)

• Yield 4 servings

• Time 30 minutes

This dish is an adaptation of a recipe that arrived in my in-box this last week courtesy of the foodies over at the New York Times.

There is an incredible number of recipes for this classic Roman dish, and everyone has an opinion on how it should be prepared. This version is more stew than soup, but it can be loosened up with the addition of more water if needed. 

It begins with sautéing onion, tomatoes, garlic and rosemary in olive oil, then tossing in the chickpeas, and smashing a few to give the stew a creamy texture. Liquid is added, then uncooked pasta, which cooks as the stew simmers (one less dish to wash). Coarsely-chopped greens are folded in right before serving. This flexible stew can go in a number of directions, so tweak it as you see fit, but don’t forget to finish each bowl with grated cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.

Ingredients

• Extra virgin olive oil

• 1 medium Stuttgarter onion from the garden, finely chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• ½ teaspoon Penzeys cracked Spanish rosemary

• ½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes

• Fresh ground sea salt and black pepper

• 1 pint of garden tomatoes, drained (reserve the juice)

• 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed

• 1 cup smaller pasta you’ll find lurking in your pantry

• 1 (8 ounce) bag of fresh baby spinach, stems removed (substitute kale, escarole or other greens)

• Grated hard cheese for serving
  

Preparation

1. Heat 3 T oil in a stock pot over medium. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic, rosemary and red-pepper flakes and cook 1 minute more. Season well with salt and pepper.

2. Stir in the tomatoes and the chickpeas, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of your spoon if needed and smash about 1/2 cup of the beans.

3. Add water to the reserved tomato juice to reach three cups of liquid. Add this to the pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and simmer, stirring frequently to assure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan, until the pasta is al dente, about 10-15 minutes. The liquid will mostly be absorbed by the pasta. (I added additional water to achieve my preferred consistency). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Add the greens and stir until wilted. Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly. Ladle into bowls and top with grated cheese and a drizzle of olive oil and serve with a crusty bread.

Pro Tip

The addition of smoked sausage, uncooked shrimp or cooked chicken makes for a heartier dish. 

 This awesome bread recipe is here.  Give it 24 hours to proof - room temp.....  

COVID Facts

I recently had the opportunity to watch a brief video of a doc from Door County Medical center explain the spread of Covid.  The interesting thing about Covid is that the amount (dose) of the virus you are exposed-can determine whether or not you become critically ill, mildly sick or are asymptomatic.  

This makes sense – because a healthy individual can fight-off a slight exposure without developing any outward symptoms of disease (and also trigger an immune response).  Exposure to a very high dose of the virus might result in a dangerously serious outcome. Of course there is a range of responses in between. 

Because the spread of Covid is dose-dependent this is the argument for social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing your hands and wearing a mask. 

Masking is not government overreach and it is shameful to have been politicized.  The use of a mask reduces the dose an infected person might spread and an uninfected person might receive. While it is not 100% guaranteed effective – it does reduce the odds of higher dose exposure. 

Of course, individual differences have to be accounted-for. Outcomes may vary for individuals that are elderly, are medically fragile or have a compromised immune system. For some individuals even a small dose can result in a seriously bad outcome. 

Until a sufficiently large-enough number of the population is vaccinated and we attain herd immunity - do the right thing – wear a mask when you cannot appropriately distance.

Suck it up people. 

Recipe of the Day

Shrimp Bisque

Serves 4

         Ingredients

• Extra virgin olive oil

• 6-7 scallions - chopped fine - white portion reserved separately from the green tops

• 1 rib of celery diced fine

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 3 T all-purpose flour

• 32 oz carton of low-sodium chicken stock

• 2 T tomato paste

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream

• 1 T chili powder

• 1 t ground cumin

• 1 t ground coriander

• 1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined – shells reserved 

  Directions

• In a covered sauce pan simmer the stock and shrimp shells for 30 minutes – remove from heat and allow to steep for an additional 30 minutes. Strain and reserve the stock.

• In a saucepan, saute onion and celery in EVO until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in flour until blended. Stir in the stock, tomato paste, cream, all the spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; and simmer for 15 minutes. Soup should thicken to a creamy consistency.

• Cut shrimp into bite-size pieces; add to soup. Simmer 5 minutes longer or until shrimp turn pink. Garnish with thinly-sliced green onion tops, chopped parsley or cilantro and additional shrimp if desired. Serve with crusty bread so you can sop-up every last spoonful of this goodness.

Pro Tip - This recipe lends itself to expansion and improvisation. Inclusion of scallops, crab meat and par-cooked potatoes, additional garden vegetables along with the shrimp would make a very hearty solstice meal for a small crowd. Pair with Oktoberfest beer and white wine.

 

Good Eats Ahead!

 I am officially out of freezer space.

Three deep freezers (of various sizes) in the basement, a bottom-drawer freezer in the garage fridge and one more in the kitchen.  Every last one is filled to overflowing with frozen fish, game and garden vegetables.  Homemade soup too.  

Most of the contents happens to be dead deer - so space will become available as the share of venison for five hunters finds its way to their own freezer in the next couple of weeks,  After which this freezer will be emptied and defrosted for next year.

It happens to be chock-full of steaks, straps, burger, fresh brats and polish along with smoked summer sausage and hot sticks.

Yum!

Deer Camp

The 2020 Deer Camp is now history so let the chronicles reflect that it was a robust attempt at a COVID-Compliant Camp.  

To be absolutely clear there is hardly a sport that isn't better-suited to pandemic precautions than hunting.  Deer hunting in particular.  Everyone is socially distanced by hundreds and hundreds of yards, outdoors and communicating by radio.  Easy peasy - right?

Alas, it is the social aspect of deer camp that makes things twitchy-sketchy.  What I have characterized as the Camaraderie Factor.  

Precisely how do you do engage in the social chapter of the interaction without turning the entire experience into a reckless super-spreader event that might mess-up the lives of your friends.

For Jill and me, virtually all of this year has featured no indoor guests under our roof to move-about in our living space.  We call it our bubble.  For sure we've hosted social gatherings on the porch or out on the driveway, in the woods or at a local park - all undertaken at a polite social distance.  And outdoors.  

Deer camp is an outdoor pursuit yet the camaraderie factor is always conducted indoors.  

Same for lodging.  Therein lies the challenge.

The proposed solution was to host the social aspect in the attached garage where everyone could be accommodated at a safe social distance and the air replaced by opening a window or overhead door.  Two hunters chose to sleep on two separate floors at a house located nearby.  One hunter slept in the garage and two hunters bunked  in the machine shed.  I slept with Blonde Dog on the couch.  The powder room was available for use of the indoor plumbing - mask requested.  

Unremarkably, some hunters in the usual group chose to take a mulligan this year - with plans to return in 2021 after a vaccine is universally available.  I take no issue with this choice as life is replete with choices.

And whataya know - it may possibly have worked out.  

The Weber grill was put to use, I had access to the kitchen, the cars were moved to the driveway and a couple of picnic tables replaced them in the garage with eight chairs and some picnic benches scattered-about.  There was the back-up coffee-maker too.  

Meals were served communally in the garage, sack lunches for hunting, masks worn when necessary, the garage fridge was stocked with food and drink and a fully-stocked bar materialized on the workbench in the machine shed.  Lube and oil on the rocks.

It was like magic.   My friends are improvisational geniuses.

Yeah, it was cold, inconvenient and without a daily shower in short order everyone began to smell like tarsal glands. 

It was a general pain in the tukus.  

Yet, it appears to have worked in a year when so much of our social life has been disrupted and deprived of us by the spread of the virus.  We hunter-gatherers remain consummately social. No?

And it you reflect-upon the situation, as grim as it may seem, you may conclude that many of our familial ancestors have endured far worse deprivations.  

Am I not correct about this?

Can we not rise to this current challenge? 

The camaraderie factor was a refreshing tonic to this blogger in particular and I suspect it was to the rest of the participants as well.

And the hunting was pretty dang good.

Nobody is going hungry this winter.

Everyone left for home yesterday afternoon following a mid-day breakfast of Shit On a Shingle preceded by a Bloody Mary Bar.

To the uninitiated SOS will cure whatever ails you.

So, on balance this year's hunt was a skinnied-down flurry of approximately 48 hours of high energy big-game hunting and reconnection.  It feels awfully damn good to have recharged my outdoor batteries.

Fingers-crossed that none of us is party to a contact-tracing effort in the next week and a half.

Stay-tuned......

Facts About COVID-19

Chicken pox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don't think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever; and maybe when you're older, you have devastatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don't just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it's been around for years, and has been studied medically for years.

Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they're going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you're going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don't just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it's been around for years, and been studied medically for years.

HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system, and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years.

Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood.

So far the symptoms may include:

Fever

Fatigue

Coughing

Pneumonia

Chills/Trembling

Acute respiratory distress

Lung damage (potentially permanent)

Loss of taste (a neurological symptom)

Sore throat

Headaches

Difficulty breathing

Mental confusion

Diarrhea

Nausea or vomiting

Loss of appetite

Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young)

Swollen eyes

Blood clots

Seizures

Liver damage

Kidney damage

Rash

COVID toes (weird, right?)

People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill.

Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths.

This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally *do not know* what we do not know.

For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity:

How dare you?

How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as "getting it over with", when literally no one knows who will be the lucky "mild symptoms" case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30 year olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died.

How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don't yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as:

Frequent hand-washing

Physical distancing

Reduced social/public contact or interaction

Mask wearing

Covering your cough or sneeze

Avoiding touching your face

Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces

The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren't immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term.

I reject the notion that it's "just a virus" and we'll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.

Protect yourself, protect your family and friends, be a good person and protect those you don’t know. We all have a right to feel safe. Put on a mask and stay at least 6 ft away!

Copied and shared — please do likewise (Thanks nurse Jill Jaeger)

Musings About The Mask

I am not scared. 

I don’t live in fear. 

My freedoms are not being exploited. 

I am not being terribly inconvenienced. 

My rights are fully intact. 

I choose to wear my mask to protect myself and my wife from this virus. 

I wear my mask because I choose to be part of the solution - not part of the problem. 

I wear my mask because I want to get back to doing normal activities sooner, rather than later. 

I miss my family. I miss my grandchildren.  I miss many things Covid has temporarily halted. 

Nevertheless, I try to be a responsible citizen governed by common sense knowing that in my own small way I may be hastening and not selfishly hindering the recovery. 

Wear your mask - or not - that is your choice. 

Just don’t criticize me for choosing to wear mine when I cannot maintain social distancing.

And wash your hands. 

Don’t touch your face. 

Don’t be a spreader.

Hoax

By The New York Times | Sources: State and local health agencies and hospitals

The body count of our countrymen succumbing to coronavirus is on the uptick. 

Over the past three days the number of dead has exceeded 800 each and every day.

In case you're wondering - that three day total is almost 60 percent higher than what it was only one week ago.

 It sucks when your cause of death is a hoax.

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.