Processing the Harvest

Well, a funny afternoon - I did not want to pay the $107 the parts places get for my wife's car starter - so went to the local junk yard and looked over a good 15 acres of wrecked cars and trucks hunting one. The place, a U-pull-it, it is quite a sight if you have not been - acres and acres, thirty I would guess, of vehicles sitting on wheel rims which are stood on wheel rims laying flat, acting as jack stands holding the vehicle off the ground and stable. The hoods are all lifted, the engine compartments heavily cannibalized for parts, and the ground strewn with bits and pieces. A collective of miles of rows of all manner of cars and trucks - It was a reminder of my younger days when we used to always go to these places to keep our old cars and trucks running. You bring your own tools, check in, grab a provided wheelbarrow, and go off to try to find the part you want. Starters are $12 and they will let you get another one if your one is bad - within 30 days.

Their computer said they had one compatible car (it does not say where - just the region), but we could not find it - the hunt for the model and year - with the part you want on it - is always a big chore. And often fruitless, as this hunt was. Cars are often gone but still on the computer, they cycle through as they get consumed or rusted away; you pass other people walking about looking lost, hunting their car part. Like this place but scruffier:



So I got on the phone and found an alternator/starter shop who will rebuild it for $50 - $80. using re-build shops is almost always cheaper than just buying starters, or engine heads or parts like that.

And planted sugar snap peas I had begun in pots - on the hill where tomatoes had been.

 

Hi sheal, with jenny you keep up my readership, well done both of you. And ended up going to yet another junk yard and got the starter for $30, this place they have pulled the part and have them in racks - I am about to test it with jumper cables and then put it on if OK. My wife's car is 19 years old, as is this new starter basically as beginning in 1997 a new kind of one was used. But starters should last forever ideally - us living on the salt water causes early wearing.

And her phone continues to be a hassle - the one I dropped into the Gulf. Wal-Mart keeps promising one is coming in tomorrow, and has for a week, till finally the electronics person told me this means the warehouse is out of them so could be a month till more come in. The problem with us ludditeists is all kinds of smart phones are available; but the old flip phones are almost a thing of the past. $29.99 phones that close and fit in a pocket. And so I ordered one on-line belatedly as I could have a week ago if Wal-Mart had been more truthful. Free next day shipping too.

But 1/harvesting........ (mathematical expression meaning the reciprocal) is divesting; and that is my mission, and where I have been - plowing through the stuff which has crept into the house and settled in like weeds in a flower bed. Plastic tubs, bad books - hundreds of pounds of books from book sales not worth keeping but piled everywhere - magazines too. Clothing come from my wife working charity shop sales, stuff and stuff. Even a big orbital exercise machine that sat in the kitchen and became a coat and hat rack and thing to hang the garbage bag from. Dehydrator, juicer, and ice-cream maker.....canning jars, guns and fishing gear all over, moral laxity leading to slovenly conditions and dog hair balls behind and under all.

I am plowing through it and it is miserable because my wife is a keeper where I am a thrower away. So much stuff.

Shrimp to peel for a Korma tonight - or maybe a sort of Rogan Josh with tomatoes, cardamon and Greek Yogurt instead. And a persimmon cake. A house in town leaves a table full of huge persimmons out at the street with a sign 2/1$ and a jar to put the money in. They do this every year; I talked to them and their 1 tree brings in 500 fruit a year! This is definitely still the sort of place you can still leave a jar for small amounts of money out.

 

It sounds like you're in need of a car boot (trunk) sale Colne. I presume you have those in America? It's amazing how much pocket money you can make selling off bits and pieces you have no use for.

 

When we drive out about in the country, I am still heartened by roadside veggie boxes or bunches of flowers alongside an honesty box outside of someone's home. .
A nearby dairy farm used to put out milk and cream for locals to buy but had to stop because someone kept just nicking stuff without paying. And they knew who it was too. Very sad ,
Jenny
enjoy your curry

 

No, no car boot sales - flea markets, but one has to rent a stall and then get the stuff there and then sit around. Here it is 'garage sales' or yard sales' but my road is a very inconspicuous road with zero traffic - and no wish for any.

And our Arctic blast is here - and we were fishing out on the long wall last night; great fun. The temp was in the mid to upper 30's F, 2 C and winds blasting. I still have some clothing from the North, $80 pair of one piece of long underwear, and a proper coat, then hats, sweater, scarves, waterproof leggings and no problem except for putting your hand into the water bucket to catch a live shrimp and unhooking wet fish all the time.

I really liked the ruggedness of it all, although just the norm for British winter sea fishermen. My bird bath froze over and at noon is still frozen and I plan on going out again tonight - although I am fully stocked with fish - but I can give some away. I have 20 speck trout and 12 white trout to clean in a bit - went out the night before last too. Those tubs (I buy cheap ice-cream that come in those, $6 for a US gallon - I go through lots of it) hold 9 packs. I put in one oz of water with the 14 oz fish (or shrimp) so I can squeeze out every bit of air from the bag.

edit - will not take this picture, odd




And the pogies are gone - drat, only 16 pounds of them frozen and they have moved to deep water, the chickens will be furious.



The chickens that were little puff balls when I was beginning this posting and are now laying:

 

Now I am trying it smaller, it all appears when I go to the edit screne, and before posting. Is 'trout', which is marked on the bags some terrible swear word in Albanian or something so the filters are bumping it out?

How odd- perfectly normal picture of fish being packed for freezing



The picture is clear on the draft - till I post it. Am I being limited to 2 pictures a sign on?

And now I rotated it 90 degrees - I am a bit dogged in such things



And that worked! all these three posts are confusing in they harp on about this silly picture, but it is interesting how it is working.

 

Let me try another (the above were different pictures of the same thing so it is not a corrupted photo) so here is a picture of where I fished last night, cold, and where I may go tonight - it is grand out in the freezing, lashing, wind.



edit, no that worked - some filter is keeping my fish processing photos out. So imagine the NNW winds are blasting at your back and ripping off the far wall so your float and line are scooting along from your left to your right in a sort of wind tunnel this structure creates.

Oh, and the Pie-billed grebes, my favorite bird because it ignores the laws of physics, have arrived overnight and are in their usual winter place off my porch - frozen out up North, the Loons already here.

 

Your season - in contrast - seems to have changed very rapidly Colne. It only seems a coupe of weeks ago it was still balmy for you,
Jenny

 

Don't know what's going on with your pics Colne, you should be allowed 6 per post.

You could try resizing them with our free editor here

Or upload them to photobucket first

 

Hi Zigs, I never noticed you were admin. I kind of built my life around being - well not exactly hostile, but like that without personal anger - to authority. I always got along with police though; because they are just soldiers of what ever weird and self interested bosses are running the place, and I respect soldiers. Although once, long ago, I was beaten up by police and hog tied and thrown in jail for some unusual incident. (Hog tied is where they cuff your hands behind your back, your ankles together, and then handcuffs linking those two together.) Two cops then pick you up and carry you like a big suitcase and throw you face down into the back of a police car.

But then that led to a great philosophical revelation. I hitchhiked down to California days later and visited my Special Forces Officer brother and over some beers was telling him all about it, about and; 'my rights this and my rights that' - and he jumped into my face like he would an enlisted man and told me, with that solider telling off an enlisted man:

"Shut up - You have two rights! The right to die, and the right to live till you die! Everything else is a privilege granted by society!"

And I realized he was right, in an instant I got it. Here in the West we are so very blessed with privileges granted by our society - every day we should thank our Christ for his charity, justice, and secular society he gave to our governing fathers through Christianity. And then to the men who created our amazingly fair society and rule of law and intellectual drive. No system ever invented, in any government in the world, had 10% of the decency of Western governance. (All other governing systems and religions were despotic rather than democratic)

So you see, I have a very conflicted relationship with authority. I have been around and seen it. In Iran an earlier Shaw once had the hordes of beggars collected and shot because Foreign grandees were to visit Teheran and he did not want them to see that bit of backwardness. We in the West do not do that sort of thing - as well as making almost all the inventions, literature, industry, and education - as looking at the distribution of Nobel Prizes demonstrates so well.

Wile I believe I would willingly die to fight for Britain or USA, I still have this flaw concerning the personal side of authority. Basically I dropped out of much of normal society at 14 and once on my own dropped out almost completely becoming a road freak (1960 - 70 word for my particular brand of counter culture where one lives on the road hitchhiking and living rough) - something I did not get over till I became 40 and got a job and bought a house shortly afterwards in my plan to make money as age was moving on and I was still playing at 'lost boy'. Ah, life - it is not what one always expects.

And I have used up my allotted posting and the system is slowing and it becomes too slow to type more. And I never even talked of my garden...

 

Not many folk do

It's been pointed out to me that it's possible to upload more than 6 pics at a time now, must have been in the last board upgrade

 

Well - I didn't know that either Ziggy,
shalom @colne
Jenny

 

Well then it warmed up Sunday with a balmy evening, 60 f, 15.5 c. Wind from the South, 180 degree off of the days previous, bring warm Gulf air. I had a nice time fishing, loading up as usual. Then Monday at 3 a.m. it began to cool and was a cold day with freezing at night as the winds went back to NW and brought down the Canadian air - and Tuesday, today, is 42 f, 6 C at mid day, and freezing tonight. Winds from the NW.

What it is is that the frozen North sometimes shoots an Arctic blast down - USA inland has a cold winter like continental Europe. But then the Gulf will take over again with SE winds and we are warm. I dreaded the coming of winter but it is not so bad, I actually liked my 3 nights out in the blasting, very cold, winds. I liked the feeling alive physical stress brings to one, and the machoness of being the only one who could take it (the few other fishermen giving it up because of frozen hands; wimps) (you may not have noticed it but I am somewhat competitive and macho.)

And today is cold and windy. I planted more marked down pansies, petunias, snapdragons, and some lettuce I started from seed - all in the upper garden. The library garden has fallen to the bad chickens! They are enlarging their territory as the winter makes the foraging harder. I have to feed them more as things are dying back in the cold - but still let them go hungry till mid day to make them go out and work for their living - and they do, too well.

So I am going to make a quick walk through film right now - show the change of seasons.

Harvesting sweet potatoes, white and orange - being given different citrus, and really enjoying the cream of potato soup with some crab and shrimp added, excellent. I have about 12 pounds of crab meat, 30 pounds of shrimp meat, and 50 pounds of fish fillets in the freezer. The shrimp and crab are the favorite. Fish I now give away mostly, but the easy fishing may be over till next summer, the shrimp and crabs finished definitely.

 

now I like the sound of that Colne.
It's different here - we wouldn't be risking planting out stuff like pansies, annuals and lettuce in the garden as it will be taken by a sharp frost or a north easterly wind. Yo yo temperatures play havoc with juvenile growth.
Jenny

 

I have just been out doing some things to my truck because now it is not starting - and it is cold at 10:40 pm. I have it ready to be jumped, the spare battery and charger all set if my wife needs me to run down at 5:40 tomorrow morning; in the freezing weather, and get it going. But here is the quick walkthrough.



The bananas were keeping green till last nights freeze finally nailed them - even though we have had a couple frosts earlier - they had shrugged those off. The sofa/bed thing behind me in the front room now has 6 inches of puffy quilts on it and the 4 dogs are heaped all over it, or burrowed under. I never got around to putting heat into my house so just use plug in heaters. I never heat much, like I rarely use air conditioning. I can remember in the Far North when standing around having beers in camp on the cold nights we had to keep our open beers inside our coats or they would freeze between drinks.