Kathleen Sanderson

Donna Lynn wrote:

Pearl Sutton wrote:

Nina Surya wrote:
Did you get to be a vet assistant with or without diploma's? Asking for ... me!

I did vet assistant many many years ago, and it was basically "Are you a warm body that can clean cages, not freak out with upset animals, hand me things, be useful? You are hired!" No idea if that's still valid, but it used to be that way.

Same for me, basically.  I was in 10th grade and thought I'd hit the jackpot working with animals... then I found out the vet paid less than legal minimum wage because "so many people want to work with animals that I don't have to pay that much and always have a waiting list."  I did everything from clean cages to assist in surgeries.  By the time I quit to pursue extracurricular school activities I felt that I could do a spay surgery by myself, I had assisted in so many.  There were downsides though, such as too many healthy pets being "put to sleep" just because their owners paid for it and might get upset if they saw their former pet enjoying life in someone else's yard after they paid to have them killed.  I begged to take home one dog who was friendly, gorgeous, healthy and playful.  Of course my parents would have nixed it even if the vet had said yes, but the vet eventually gave him the lethal injection after we played with him and gave him love for several days after he was dropped off for euthanasia.  

That's sad. I've only ever taken one healthy dog to be euthanized, but that was because he had had some personality changes that made me worry that he wouldn't be safe, especially around children. He'd always been a really good dog, but then we moved when he was about six, and he started killing poultry (he'd always lived with free-range poultry and never bothered them), and was being so rough with our cat that he'd also lived with for years that I was afraid he'd kill the cat, too.  He was about half pit, and half Border Collie. With the pit ancestry, and with him being eight years old at the time, it was doubtful that I could have found a good home for him, anyway. But that was a hard thing to do.

I mostly feed my Rat Terrier raw meaty bones. She does get some kibble because - at the moment - I have five dogs, and can't afford to feed them all meat. They do all get some, but the outside dogs, including the LGD, mostly get kibble. This is my third Rat Terrier; the first two were mostly on kibble, though I did switch the second one over to meat towards the end of her life because she developed some allergies. That was part of the reason why I've had my current RT on raw meat from the time I got her; the other factor was that my daughter and I had been on the carnivore diet for several months when I got her (and are still on it, three years in), and I was seeing so many benefits that I couldn't just put her on kibble, which is mostly grains and legumes. She's done really well on it, including raising a litter of healthy, happy puppies sired by my brother's Schipperke (three of them are still here and just turned a year old - so much for thinking it would be fairly easy to find homes for small dogs! But I love them and will keep them forever if necessary.).

What she actually gets is a whole chicken leg quarter about every other day. On the in-between days, she'll get some hamburger, possibly an egg, maybe some fat scraps from a pork roast, or a can of tuna with a pat of butter on top of it. Once in a while she gets maybe a TBSP of dairy - yogurt,, sour cream, or cheese. She is in very good condition; she's gained a little weight since she was spayed a few weeks ago, but I don't think she's going to balloon up like some dogs do. If she wants something green, our yard has lots of grass and other green stuff, LOL! (I've never seen her eat any of that, though, while her predecessor often did.)

I sometimes have to persuade the boys (the RT's puppies, though they aren't puppies anymore) into the dog kennel for a bit, so I can take my truck through the gate without all of them escaping. A little hamburger grease or some other cooking fat on top of their kibble works really well for that - they love it, and it's good for them in moderation.

Two of my daughters are named Cedar and Juniper (my oldest and youngest). They are in their forties - those names are somewhat in use now, but I think we were among the first to use either of them. (Their dad and I met while studying forestry at college. One of our fellow students named his daughter Willow, which, after the movie of the same name, I would not use. But at the time, just before Juniper was born, I wished he had chosen something else, because that's what we'd planned to name her! Had to come up with something else - we decided on Juniper as we were on the way to the hospital to have her!).

There are other tree names that are good, too. Ash. Birch, and Spruce (I've heard of people being named both of those). Rowan is another one, maybe a shrub more than a tree, depending on where you live.

What you could do is go through plant lists and see if anything stands out to you. But as others up there have mentioned, do be careful of names that are hard to spell or that might confuse people. Juniper, for instance, is constantly heard as Jennifer, and I'd always have to correct people. My middle daughter didn't get a tree name, but she always, always has to spell her name for people, AND tell them how to pronounce it (Maranatha).

As for flower names, my dad's mother's name was Rosie Rose (a clerical error - her name was supposed to be Rose Elizabeth or something like that). And I had aunts named Daisy and Violet. Flower names have been fairly common through the ages - you should be able to do a search for 'flower baby names' or something like that, and get some lists.

Andrew Welser wrote:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
--Robert A. Heinlein  

For me, it's been difficult to hold a career path: I want to change jobs every few years because I'm getting board and want to learn something new.

I think that's a characteristic of highly intelligent people, especially males. My brothers had the same issue, especially in school. They both ended up dropping out of high school because they were bored, but did well in their working lives as long as they had a variety of things to do. Retired now, they still keep busy with a variety of projects. The older of the two is working on building me a new wood stove right now, out of an old pressure tank cut down to fit the small space I have available - figuring out as he goes along how to put in an ash tray, and the stove pipe collar, and a flat top for cooking on, and how to make the air run inside for better combustion (I wish we could do a rocket mass heater, but that would entail cutting a hole in the floor of my house and building a foundation for it - though, honestly, by the time my brother has all of this stuff figured out, it might have been just as fast to do that!). He's having fun, LOL!

This is an interesting topic. I'm a bit of a 'polymath,' and it seems like most of the people I know are. I'm going to conjecture that 'polymath' is probably the default state for human beings, if they don't grow up on modern mass media in the public education system (and often, even if they did). But sitting in front of a TV, or at a desk all day long, limits the number of skills a person is able to develop while they are young, which is when they should be beginning to develop those skills!

The only downside to having chestnuts as your primary staple crop would be that once in a while, the crop fails. Best to have several strings to your staple crop bow! But they are definitely worth having if you have room for large trees.

Rick Valley wrote:I grew up in the NE: New York, Ohio, and moved into the East Coast, New England, Maryland. I'm used to going t the Farmers Market and getting fresh roasted chestnuts, or roasting them in the fireplace. It's always fun to leave one un-pierced, so it POPS!
If you have the time,  roasting, peeling and maybe slicing them into cassaroles and stir fries. Or boil them and make cream of chestnut soup. But most definitely: Turkey Stuffing on Thanksgiving, with Celeriac and red pepper slices* that's un poco picante pero dulce. *slices must be of a size to have a reasonable stuffing texture: not too big but distinct, not minced. Dammit, I've planted chestnuts all over, and here in Eugene I don't know any trees to gather from. I'll just have to buy some.

If you don't mind a trip over to the coast, I can tell you where to find some chestnuts. (If someone hasn't cut the trees down in the last twenty years since I last gathered nuts from them.) I sprouted some, right before we moved with my grandmother over to Klamath County, but they didn't survive the winters over there. I think it's too late for nuts from those trees this year - I gathered them in September. But the nuts fall on the road, and in the ditch. (The trees are high up on a steep bank above the road - not sure you could even reach them.)  My grandmother's grandparents settled near those trees in the early 1870's - the first white family to live there; she was born there in 1913. She told me that the parent tree was old when she was a little girl, and nobody knew who had planted it; the only settlers before her family moved there were single men, who her family knew, and none of them had planted it. I've wondered if there was a chestnut-tree 'Johnny Appleseed' (Johnny Chestnut?) who went around planting trees in weird places....And when you consider that there was no road up there until the late 1920's (the settlers used the river, mostly), someone had to have walked up the river, or over several hills, and stopped on the bluff above the river to plant a chestnut.  Definitely an odd place to put one.

They are European-type.  If you want to go looking, head towards Florence. Shortly before you reach Florence, you'll cross the North Fork of the Siuslaw River; turn right on the North Fork Road. Go between five and six miles up - sorry I can't be more precise. I know the house we used to live in is at seven miles up, and those trees are between one and two miles back down the road towards town. The trees will be on your left and well above the road as you go upstream, with a pasture on the right side of the road (and just before that, the river is on the right side of the road). Just a little past the trees is a low pasture on the left side of the road, then a hill with a house on the side of it, back a ways (one of my cousins lives there). It would make a good excursion! If you hit it right, you'll probably see some nuts on the road, but you might need to park (carefully - there's no shoulders) and walk the ditches looking for nuts.

Otherwise, if you want to plant trees, look at Burnt Ridge Nursery - they have really good prices for very small trees of some varieties.

Brian Cady wrote:There are different types, which are best prepared differently:
European & American are great roasted quickly at high temperatures, after cutting through the shell.
Chinese chestnuts are starchier, typically, and best roasted slowly at low temperatures, without cutting the shell.

Below is James Nave's Chinese chestnut cooking guide:

Brian
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How to Cook Chinese Chestnuts – J. M. Nave

If you have some favorite way of cooking Chinese chestnuts, I'm not trying to change that. I'm just trying to show people how you can best bring out the flavors of Chinese nuts and get better textures. Cooking Chinese nuts the same way you would cook European or American nuts is not optimal because Chinese nuts are much denser. And if you are cooking Chinese nuts optimally, you don't need to cut the shell. Low and slow is the optimal way to cook Chinese chestnuts.
The most interesting way, and most common way, to cook chestnuts in China is to roast chestnuts at low temperatures (240F or less) for extended periods of time (60 minutes or more). Roasting at lower temperatures for longer periods of time breaks down the dense Chinese nut and fully releases the flavors in the nut. It also gives the nut a softer texture, more like an American or European chestnut. A  Chinese chestnut that is cooked at 350F or above for short periods of  time (30 minutes or less), will normally have a burnt or hard exterior and an almost uncooked interior. The flavor will not be well developed. Cooking Chinese chestnuts in this manner has led to the common belief in the US that Chinese nuts are inferior to American or European chestnuts. American and European chestnuts that are cooked at high temperatures for short periods or time will be mostly cooked and falling apart and the flavors will be well developed. Because Chinese chestnuts are much denser than American and European chestnuts, they benefit from slower more thorough cooking at lower temperatures. Their density also gives Chinese nuts greater versatility in cooking. For example, Chinese chestnuts can be used in many dishes such as soups and stews without falling apart.
To fully understand how the density of the nut impacts cooking, it may be helpful to compare cooking chestnuts to cooking beef. Different cuts of beef have different textures and densities. Tenderloin (so named because of the soft texture of the meat) is quite different than brisket. Tenderloin may be cooked at high temperatures for short periods of time. The result is beef that is soft and full of flavor. Brisket on the other hand is a much denser cut of meat. Cooking it at high temperatures for short periods of time will result in a burnt exterior and an uncooked interior. The meat will also be tough and difficult to chew. To properly cook brisket requires cooking for longer periods of time at lower temperatures to allow the heat to penetrate to the interior of the meat. This results in a much more flavorful brisket with a softer texture. Chinese chestnuts are the brisket of the chestnut world. They are exceptionally good eating when properly cooked.
Another benefit to cooking Chinese chestnuts at lower temperatures is that the shells do not need to be cut. In the US, chestnut shells are normally cut when nuts are to be roasted to allow heated water vapor to escape. If the shell is not cut, the expanding water vapor will cause the shell to explode. But when a Chinese chestnut is cooked at 240F or below, it will not normally explode because the buildup of water vapor is very slow and it can escape without exploding the shell. This also results in another benefit. When the shell is not cut, the cooked nut retains more moisture which results in a better texture for the nut. To some extent, not cutting the shell also results in a partial steaming of the nut. It’s simply a better way to cook Chinese chestnuts. Which brings up the point that Chinese chestnuts can also be cooked by boiling for at least 60 minutes. Boiling is not optimal for American or European chestnuts because the nuts tend to get very soggy and fall apart which also makes them difficult to peel. Because Chinese nuts are denser, they don’t absorb much water and tend not to fall apart after boiling, which also makes them as easy to peel after boiling as they are before boiling.

Thank you for explaining the difference between Chinese chestnuts, and American and European. My only experience has been with the European types. This may also explain why Chinese chestnuts are considered to be not quite as good as the other two by some people - they don't know to cook them differently.

Leigh Tate wrote:My neighbor gifted me with a bunch of chestnuts. I've never had them before. So except for the old seasonal song that mentions them roasting by an open fire, I don't know what to do with them. I tried one raw but wasn't too keen on that. Does anyone have some ideas to share? Recipes?

I haven't done much with them, but we have a young chestnut tree in the yard (and I'd like to put in a couple more). They seem to do well in our area. I've had some canned ones that seemed a little sweet - don't know if any sugar had been added. But I liked them. A lady at church, every fall when she has chestnuts from her own trees, brings them to church dinners wrapped in bacon and roasted. That's good! I would say, experiment. They work with both sweet and savory flavors, and are more starchy than oily like most other nuts.

Cassie Martin wrote:I don't know if they do this everywhere, but potatoes are tenacious where I live. If you miss just one or two little potatoes, they grow big, healthy plants next year. There are potatoes growing in the lawn areas where we had garden beds years ago. They could hypothetically be harvested any time, you would just need to know where they were in the winter.

Could you mark the plants with stakes?