Posted on 01/12/2013 5:04:17 PM PST by Kartographer
/johnny
I saw Hurricane Ike heading my way and it was enormous in size - that meant a large destruction field and I was going to be in it for a number of hours due to it's being so large. There was nothing I could do to stop it or move it somewhere else. All I could do was get ready for no power and the town totally shutting down for days and I didn't know how many days, no one knew that. One also doesn't know if a tornado(s) will be spawned from it. I didn't know if my house would be damaged, whether or not the two huge trees behind my house were going to fall on it. If they did, they would crash into my bedroom.
My point is, even a 1 hurricane can destroy everything you have and kill you. People who are dismissing Sandy as a weak hurricane are absolutely wrong.
Ike was in 2008 and every year that passes makes us closer to another one coming here. I hope it is many years before one comes to New Jersey and New York and the rest of the states in that area.
Years back I bought the first run of The Foxfire Books. Sounds like you’ve lived them. LOL.
/johnny
I grew my peanuts in composted horse manure last year. From 5 plants, I harvested a little less than 2 pecks of peanuts. The things grow like weeds, and I only had to protect the plants from deer and the chickens.
Gotcha. Yes those kinds of things I certainly am familiar with growing up in farm country in Iowa. That was what I was referring to homesteading, or at least that’s the vernacular out here. Or as I call it, since there are so many now out here - living Amish.
As far as deer go... um... for some reason....um... there don't seem to be any that hang out around here. ;)
/johnny
Yeah, it was pretty nasty what some FReepers were saying.
Hey, if I was still single, I’d have tried tornado chasing.
Maybe I will some day if the opportunity presents itself.
I took the SkyWarn training, but that aside, meteorology is what I have my degree in.
/johnny
It sure is. CNY is very well connected. I’m always running into someone who knows someone I know who lives where ever.
“My favorite meal is beans, fried taters, maters, a slice of onion and a big slice of cornbread with butter.”
I grew up on that and pork from two slaughtered pigs a year. Dad had a smoke house where the bacon and hams hung.
About cornbread, we had it at every meal except breakfast. I remember going to eat lunch with a girlfriend after Sunday church one time, and they had light bread (that’s what we called regular sliced bread from the grocery) with lunch and I was stunned - why would anyone want that stuff for lunch and where was the cornbread? Took a while for me to reaize other people didn’t have cornbread for every meal.
bttt
Lucky you ;) Give me your address and I'll send you a few. I have neighbors that seem to think they're "cute".
ROTFL....
/johnny
When I stayed at Granny’s we had homemade bread or biscuits with every meal. Cornbread was a treat. We made the bread on Saturday, enough for the week.
After it cooled, we wrapped it in T-Towels (made out of flour sacks) and put it in the water bath canner with the lid on. Sliced it as needed.
Favorite snack then, was to take some homemade molasses and add it to some homemade butter, then spread it on the homemade bread or toast. Wash it down with a glass of cold raw milk which was from one of the cows we milked by hand.
My parents baked cornbread most every day for the noon lunch crowd at the cafe. Trouble was it was almost always gone by the time I got out of school. LOL.
Still, I managed to get lots of cornbread and beans. One of my girlfriends had beans, taters, and cornbread every night for supper. Lots of times I would go home with her after school, and we put on the beans for supper, and peeled potatoes.
Naturally her mom would ask if I wanted to stay for supper, after being so helpful and all. She would always say we’re just having beans, taters, and cornbread. I was estatic. Then I would call and ask my parents if I could stay a little longer, and wow there you go a great meal!LOL
This recipe is for a 6" cast iron skillet. 4 servings.
3/4 cup of fresh ground corn (fine grind, if using a Corona mill, grind 3 times) 3/4 cup of wheat flour. 2 Tbsp buttermilk powder 2 Tbsp whole milk powder 3/4 teaspoon of risings (Baking powder) 1/2 teaspoon of salt 2 Tbsp whole egg powder 3 Tbsp of lardPreheat oven to 400F and place skillet with lard in oven to preheat skillet and melt lard.
Optional: 1 tsp of sugar
Mix dry ingredients well, add water to make a batter.
When lard is melted, and skillet is hot, pour excess lard into the batter, mix quickly and pour into skillet. Bake until top is light brown and toothpick comes out clean.
That's my version, anyway. It's pretty good, IMHO.
/johnny
Well, we have really bad clay soil. However, we have been working on it. My raised beds have a lot of compost, peat, and some vermiculite added, so they might do well in the raised bed.
As with all our gardening, it will be an experiment to see what works best. So far, we have had a lot of success with almost all the stuff we have tried. Except watermelons. Having a real problem with those - different problem each year. BER got them the first year.
Winter wheat has been a big success, and that’s kinda neat, since we really can’t grow most of the stuff we like in the winter anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.