Latin Lesson 7 is up, covering the imperfect and future tenses of verbs. Also, the answers to Lesson 6 are in place.
Sorry for the light posting frequency this week; it’s been a busy one all the way around.
I don’t remember exactly when I first met my grandmother-in-law; probably about two years ago. You never know what you’re getting into when you start meeting your intended’s family, but I remember the feeling of relief: “Wow, she’s great; one more mark in the ‘pro’ column.” I don’t know a lot about her younger years, but in the time I knew her, she was one of those women who loved to cook for the men in her family and watch them stuff themselves. I was sorry I couldn’t oblige her by scarfing down her pies and potato dishes, because she clearly would have loved it. I did my best with what I could eat, though, and she tried to accommodate my diet as best she could. Read more »
Photo from Flickr.com
We just brought home a half of a hog a couple weeks ago, so we’re feasting happily on family-raised bacon, sausage, ham, and pork chops again. My dad told me this weekend that he’ll have a few extra hogs ready to go by the first week of March, if I knew anyone who wanted some. I thought I’d write up some information about it for people who might be interested but don’t know what’s involved. Read more »
I had a moment of panic this morning when I changed from a spam-filter plugin to a captcha for my comments and registration form. Suddenly I couldn’t get anything but a blank page when I went to my blog. I had the awful thought that something might have gone haywire and deleted all my stuff, but it turned out I only needed to delete my cookies, and all was well again. Whew. Read more »
Latin Lesson 6 is up, covering adjectives. Also, the answers to Lesson 5 are in place. Enjoy!
Now that I’ve written my position paper on raw milk, I can move on to the article I had in mind in the first place: making raw milk yogurt. (As Bill Cosby said in Buck Buck/Fat Albert, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one.”) If you’re still not sure about using raw milk, or only have pasteurized milk from the store, you can still use this recipe; just watch for a special note in part 2. Read more »
First, a little milk history. Pasteurization of milk started at a time when dirty milk was a real problem. Industrialization was increasing the numbers of cows per dairy—a precursor to today’s huge 10,000-cow factory dairies—so it was becoming harder to give them all good individual care. People didn’t really understand the connection between cleanliness and disease prevention. They couldn’t cool the milk as quickly or reliably as we can today. They milked into open pails, often without making any particular effort to make sure the cow and equipment were clean, or even to keep manure out of the milk. (Look at a cow sometime, and you’ll notice that where the milk comes out isn’t all that far from where the manure comes out. Certainly within splash range.) This led to a lot of contamination, and a lot of illness as a result. Read more »
I like to give my nieces and nephews a little grief for all the electronic paraphernalia they have. They all seem to be packing MP3 players, phones, and various other hand-held gadgets these days. At Christmas, they were comparing Nintendo D-something-or-others: not only were there several of them floating around, but they seem to be in different colors and styles, so the kids can compete to have the best one on the block.
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“I know nothing of that,” retorted Brinn. “I know only that she attempted Ceer’s life.”
Without warning, Covenant broke into a shout. “I don’t care!” He spat vehemence at Brinn as if it were being physically torn out of him. “Linden saved me! She saved all of us! Do you think that was easy? I’m not going to turn my back on her, just because she did something I don’t understand!”
“Ur-Lord—” Brinn began.
“No!” Covenant’s passion carried so many implications of power that it shocked the deck under Linden’s feet. “You’ve gone too far already!” His chest heaved with the effort he made to control himself. “In Andelain—with the Dead—Elena talked about her. She said, ‘Care for her, beloved, so that in the end she may heal us all.’ Elena,” he insisted. “The High Lord. She loved me, and it killed her. But never mind that. I won’t have her treated this way.” His voice shredded under the strain of self-containment. “Maybe you don’t trust her.” His half-fist jabbed possibilities of fire around him. “Maybe you don’t trust me.” He could not keep himself from yelling. “But you are by God going to leave her alone!”
Rating: 
In this middle book of the second Covenant trilogy, Covenant decides his only hope is to create a new Staff of Law, to give him a way to heal the land without unleashing his increasingly erratic power. So with Linden, Sunder, and Hollian, he heads east out of the Land, hoping to retrace the steps of Berek Halfhand, the legendary hero who created the first Staff from a limb of the One Tree.
Since today’s a government holiday, I can’t go to the library, and neither the package I’m anxiously awaiting nor any Netflix discs will be arriving today, so I guess I might as well work and blog. Life is rough.
St. Rose is having a soup and sandwich lunch this coming Sunday, the 25th, from 11:00-4:00. It’s on the St. Rose web site, but I still get St. Rose searchers here because of my articles about it, so I thought I’d announce it too. The meal is $6/person or $25/family, and includes chicken noodle soup, ham and bean soup, cream turkey sandwiches (whatever that is), and coffee and ice tea. There will also be two raffles: a 50-50; and one for an overnight stay at Stoney Creek Inn plus a gift basket. Tell all your friends!
