Beloved Jest

One evening a beloved husband and wife were having a jest filled moment with each other.

And Leslie said to her husband, "I went to school in a large city, and there were 225 classmates in our grade, and at our high school graduation ceremony I graduated within 'Top-Ten' out of all my other classmates."

She said this with a smile of certainty, quite proudly pleased with the dedicated sign of achievement, and her husband smiled approvingly at his wife's impressive achievement too.

Yet he replied with less dramatic certainty.

"Well...the town where I grew up was very small (it was barely big enough to have a small mom and pop quick-mart grocery store and a few other minor store front buildings) and we didn't have very many classmates in my grade, but at the high school ceremony, I graduated within the 'Top-Eight' out of eight total classmates."

Firkin of Gherkin

"Useful Hints To Grocers" is a chapter within a book called "Everybody's Guide: Of Things Worth Knowing" by R. Moore, originally printed in 1884 in New York. 

In that chapter is a recipe for Gherkins:

"Take small cucumbers (not young) steep for a week in very strong brine; it is then poured off, heated to the boiling point and again pour on the fruit. The next day the gherkins are strained on a sieve, wiped dry, put into bottles or jars, with some spice, ginger, pepper, or cayenne, and at once covered with strong pickling vinegar."

In that book... "We are also told how to make butter and place it in a tub or firkin. It occurred to me that if one stores his pickles in a butter tub, he would have a firkin of gherkins!"

Quote from "The Two-Story Outhouse" by Norm Weis

Goat Theory

This article is actually just a side tangent extension of our previous "dandelion theory" (which has several ongoing parts [1, 2, 3]), which by the way is working out quite well this summer, so far. For we just let them brilliant colored fast growing pesky little yellow things grow to their hearts content, and whenever we get around to it...oh, in 3 to 4 weeks time, then we mow 'em down.

But we have noticed that there is one little minor hole in our newfound noble theory. The wild grasses and all the various accompanied weeds quickly reach ginormous proportion...12-15-inches tall (and taller!) in our front lawn. One section (that rarely gets mowed) had completely gotten away from, and put on a mega spurt of growth, reaching over two feet tall...man that was a bear mowing that section.

All this madness of endless lawn mowing care has a source of course...it's all caused by the endless drenching down pouring drizzling rainy damp cloudy near constantly dumps for six month straight in this broad valley west of the great Cascadia mountains, for all of those rain showers get dumped right here on this side of Cascadia resulting in an astounding degrees of luxuriant green growth (don't get me started on the bugs).

For I perceive that my general theory of inter-relativity to dandelions needs a little adjusting, for if we let the dandelions do their thing for 3+ weeks -- then the weeds and grasses all quickly joined in on the fun party, and sooner or later it all got way out of control).

So we've opted for a slight change in our great and mystical new grand dandelion theory. We'll still go right ahead and let those pesky bright yellow colored dandelions do their own special thing (as they always have) by ultra growing fast in our front yard lawn, and we'll mow it just before it gets TOO tall...virtually exactly as planned.

But we've changed our tactics for the backyard lawn (for that is the fenced in part). Our new choice of action?

We have bought a goat...yep, a billy goat (later we'll try the nanny goat theory). Initially we had thought of a female goat and knew just how useful and beneficial all of that free delicious tasting goat milk, goat yogurt, goat cheese would be. Yet it also seemed like it was gonna be more work than our general dandelion theory could bear dealing with at the moment. And that's where mister billy goat came in.

Our new four-footed hairy (and friendly) goat is presently on a very long leash in the backyard roaming in great big circles nibbling down to a short stub all of the excess weeds and grasses and dandelions. At the success rate that he is working on that project, our backyard lawn may never need mowing again.

As an interesting side thought...

Our new "goat theory" might even be a useful venture for all those lawn mowing addicts in the forlorn state of California who can now only use "electric" lawn mowers (for apparently gas lawn mowers are banned from future sales).

Instead of you always using a very very ------------- very long extension cord for that electric mower just to trim the furthest most reaches of your big backyard...why not consider our quantized "goat theory"?

Use the short electric cord on your electric lawn mower for the front lawn only. Then, purchase a friendly goat and use that likable hairy four-footed creature for your large backyard! Problem solved...no more work for you, because the nibbling creature takes care of it all for ya.

And if you bought a female goat, you could market the excess goat milk, goat cheese, goat yogurt, and make some $$ on the side.

We can just see it now...quite out of the blue...one day without muchado...something fell from the sky...all of the citizens in that economically struggling state of California abruptly discarded their much disliked electric mowers and every single home property owner (is that about 14 million?) will now have their own four-footed hairy automatic lawn mower takin' care of business.

Picture that...a state utterly void of electric lawn mowers -- instead it's plug full of likable hairy four-footed goats "takin' care of business every day, takin' care of business every way."

...that's just a little BTO ditty tune to help spur ya along.

And there'd be a well saturated retail market out there too...where every store shelf would be super stocked with endless supplies of ultra cheap, excellent quality, very healthy, goat milk, goat cheese, and goat yogurt.

And we noticed that one neighbor who lives not too far away from here has already beat us to this concept of "goat theory", and they've fenced in several goats around their property (so the critters can take care of the natural lawn care business).

Sometimes I feel like a genius, 
Sometimes I don't, 
Almond Joy's got nuts, 
Mounds don't....

Dandelions - part 3

Dangeebefiddle!

Now that we've had a month plus to experiment with the new protocol method of taking care of those pesky little fast-growing yellow flowers in our front lawn...we must say that it's a viable new method that you really should try.

We plan to continue this new method all summer long for the entire remainder of the year. As far as we see it, the new method that involves considerably less lawn mowing, which also simply means much more freedom to go out bouldering (and/or rock climbing).

Of course, it took a bit of guy-type persuasion to convince my lovely esposa that this new method is for the betterment of humanity, and it's much more than that too....

The blue jay birds that hang around our real estate castle are just lovin' all the free increase in tiny wild bugs zipping around on the front lawn (unaffected by the chemicals). It means more food for the birds, and that's an obvious plus.

No weed killer chemicals for us this year. Done tried that crazy method last year. We had tossed down so much chemi-killer last year, even our neighbors had to walk around wearing nose plugs.

Yep...less lawn mowing, no chemi-scent, more bugs, lots of more dandelions, more happy birds eating all those bugs, and more free time to go bouldering...thumbs up method as far as I can see it.

Our next analysis is to consider whether it might be worth the effort to start harvesting all those bright yellow dandelions in our front lawn....rumor is it can be used for tea or salad or something like that....

But in this sopping sopp-steroni babble-oni drizzling damp dreary endless repetitious cycle of Fall-Winter-Spring seasonal showery western Cascadia zone everyone knows that...

"April showers, brings out all of those cute little May dandelion flowers."

Dandelions - part two

The ongoing saga of dandelion madness. So, your front lawn is sprouting those pesky little bright  yellow things again lately? Let me guess...you live somewhere in that ridiculously rainy, often foggy, often cloudy, western Oregon zone — the land of lush green foliage madness that explodes every Spring season beginning in the month of April.

And today is your lawn mowing day...again...and you'll be doing it now every five days, all summer long, because those cute little bright yellow colored, down right fast growing, quickly re-seeding, fast-blooming dandelions, sure do keep your rumpsky quite busy, pretty much for ALL of the coming summer...and the whole entire saga begins afresh mainly because your beloved wife tells you, in no uncertain terms, to get out there and do something with all that "yellow".

So, as you did last year, and the year before that, you grab the lawn mower and zoom, zoom zoom, all across the lawn-skie, and before ya know it, the lawn is remarkably pristinely cut, like the top crisp thinly cut haircut on the head of a gang of "navy-seals men". And your lawn looks just like your neighbors lawn, all perfectly cut, all pristine. And your neighbors lawn looks just like the neighbors lawn on the other side of their residence. Oh boy....and your summer of fun has just begun.

Or...you can be like some of those other crazies out there, and march off to the local farm store, and grab a push cart and stroll on over to the "pesticide aisle", and load up on some spray chemicals to dump onto your front lawn. Clue: I have seen strangers there in the farm store toss heaps of containers into a push cart, darn near filling up the push cart with nothing but lawn chemicals (no box of cereal, no snacks, no Pepsi — just chemicals). 

So there you are staring at the long shelf in the farm store gazing at all the array of week killer, knowing that it'll all likely to a stout job of taking it all down. Yep, that'll git them bright yeller critters for sure. Make that lawn of yours so potent that even you can't touch it for a week or two because the smell is so overpowering that it hits your nose bud senses like a brick wall. I can imagine there ain't no live bugs on that front lawn of yours either. And there might even be one or two overdosed neighbors kids laying on the lawn somewhere too....well...you get the idea.

So...rather than juice up the old Mudder Earth planet with all that stupid pesticide weed killer just to stop some of those pesky little fast growing dandelions in your front lawn, try something completely new for a change this year.

Try doing "nothing" about the little pesky yellow things. Yep, it will likely disappoint your wife a bit (just slack it all off claiming you'll eventually get around to it cause your busy at the moment), and let the bloody lawn grow a bit taller. Let all those pesky yellow fast blooming flowers just do their madding best to your green front lawn. Then, when the lawn is...oh, about six or seven inches tall (of grass), after about two solid weeks or so...then go out there and zoom, zoom, zoom the entire lawn crisp.

Thus, your summer chores have been notably reduced. The work load is far far easier. The neighbors kids playing on your front lawn will appreciate the luxuriant grass, and the lack of toxic poisons hidden amongst the grass blades, the bugs will sure be thankful, the dandelions will go on doing their "thing"...and let those dandelions grow.....

...and suddenly you're free to focus more of your special weekend (or weekday evening) time on...yep you got that right...bouldering at your favorite easily accessible local bouldering haven near Troutdale.

DNA

Each human body has roughly 100 trillion cells and each cell in that body contains within its nucleus thin strands of DNA. Unravel all the DNA strands from all of those cells (in one human) and string each of those strands altogether end-to-end ... it would reach from the earth to the moon roughly over 473,000 times.

My own bodies got a 100 trillion cells? Woah!

Lemme see...in numbers that is something like: 100,000,000,000,000 

For example....

A million is 1,000,000

A hundred million is 100,000,000

A hundred trillion is 100,000,000,000,000

Woah!