Mk Neal

I have two, but I wish I had just one! When we moved in, there was one tangly, thorny, rambly rose bush with tiny white rose that have no scent and no rose hips. They are pretty enough when in bloom, and bees like them. But it is an aggressive, spiny plant that I do believe could survive any apocalypse. This may be the very rose that engulfed all of Sleeping Beauty’s palace. Second year we lived here, I had the great idea to divide the rose bush and placed one half a few feet from property line, where it promptly clambered to the neighbors’ fence and reached its claws across their walkway. No matter how I dig and hack at it, I cannot get it all out, and it come back every year and sneak-attacks the neighbors.

May Lotito wrote:I use tightly woven fabric for filling down/feather: sewing three sides and stitch down the channels; fill in equal amount of materials in each channel; stitch the side shut and even out the fillings; stitch a perpendicular line in the middle; then do the same at 1/4 line etc until fillings are secured in the grids. I make a duvet cover that is 30% smaller in both dimensions and put the insert in. There is no need to use ties or anything to hold the two together because of the pressure and friction. And the resulting duvet has a lot of loft and is smaller than the flat cover. This is a hindsight though because I intended to made a full size and it turned out to be a short twin.

I also think that the duvet cover is the key to avoiding cold seams. Stuff the duvet in a cover and you have pockets of trapped air over the seams which stay warm. Besides, you need a good duvet cover to avoid the hassle of laundering the feather duvet.

What about pawpaws? Native, no real pests, smallish tree. It does put up suckers though.

Flax gel for egg replacement; witch hazel decoration.

The ostrich ferns in my yard spread further into the lawn every year. I think they actually do great in sun; it’s just that ther plants do well also so they have more competition.  They do not seem to compete well against plants with surface roots, we tried transplanting under a Norway maple and they really never thrived there.

I suspect that a patch functions as a single organism like aspens. Seems like it is rather difficult to get the first one to thrive, but once there’s a bunch of crowns they really set out runners and pop up all over.

I just tuck the edges of a flat sheet under the mattress on the bottom and sides. It stays in place (we have wool mattress cover under the sheet).

Breakfast was Stollen and Hutzelbrot plus sliced apples and Terry’s chocolate orange.  For Christmas dinner we are hosting 14. I am making fresh cranberry salad, whole baked pumpkin stuffed with wild rice, mushrooms, chestnuts and dried berries (it’s a Choctaw pumpkin grown by Blake Lenoir). Daughter is making deviled eggs and an orange-honey trifle. Hubby is making prime rib and Yorkshire pudding.

Just found this about current hydrogen engine cars and the fuel infrastructure needed for them:

https://carbuzz.com/2026-toyota-mirai-updates/

Hasn’t the barrier to hydrogen fuel adoption always been the extreme flammability of hydrogen? Remember the Hindenburg…

There has been talk about hydrogen vehicles at various points in 20th and 21st centuries, but never any commercial success. Not that I am saying it could not be done. Just that it is not a secret or forgotten technology so much as one that has been investigated repeatedly but not yet successfully developed.

I love “torshi ” Lebanese-style pickled turnips and beets. Same technique would probably be good on rutabaga. It’s a basic salt brine (de chlorinated water and non-iodized salt for best results). Torshi usually includes garlic and hot pepper for flavor.  Might switch that up for the rutabagas, maybe caraway and mustard seed?

Needs to ferment about three weeks for best flavor in my opinion.