Self-isolation Activities

[Ed Rooney]

 

Sally, I do have an advantage with the great Fab Four monument, living in Liverpool. I have over 100 images of it now. On the other hand, I don't have a single image of Scotland. 😉

 

[losdemas]

4 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Sally, I do have an advantage with the great Fab Four monument, living in Liverpool. I have over 100 images of it now. On the other hand, I don't have a single image of Scotland. 😉

 

 

Longer lens?

 

[spacecadet]

16 hours ago, John Morrison said:

These modern statues seem specifically designed for photo opportunities. They're on the ground, not on a plinth: down-to-earth, not grand.

 

Visitors to Morecambe pose next to the statue of Eric Morecambe, singing "Bring me sunshine"...

 

Here he is trying on my hat in today's weather..........

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by spacecadet

[losdemas]

18 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Here he is trying on my hat in today's weather..........

 

 

Wonderful. Now there is a man whose legacy of bringing joy lives on.

[Thyrsis]

On 26/04/2020 at 19:11, Ed Rooney said:

I envy you people who are gardening your flowers and veg.

 

 

 

 

 

I planted this weird looking eremurus  bulb  late last year. Little did I know then how much time I would have to watch it grow! And I’ve just realised I spelt the name wrong on the caption...doh! 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Thyrsis

[spacecadet]

On 26/04/2020 at 19:11, Ed Rooney said:

I envy you people who are gardening your flowers and veg.

You could probably get some herbs, at least, in pots. Lemon trees take a while but we get something to slice into our gin- and it tastes better.

[Harry Harrison]

My neighbour has given me 4 sachets of yeast! Hurray, I can bake some bread again. I see that the standard Doves Farm 125g pack of dried yeast (£1.15 from Doves Farm - out of stock) has sold on ebay for over £35.00.

[NYCat]

30 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

My neighbour has given me 4 sachets of yeast! Hurray, I can bake some bread again. I see that the standard Doves Farm 125g pack of dried yeast (£1.15 from Doves Farm - out of stock) has sold on ebay for over £35.00.

 

Interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine in New Jersey and he said yeast is the one thing that is impossible to find now. All you wonderful people spending your isolation baking. Yummmm.

 

Paulette

[Thyrsis]

1 minute ago, NYCat said:

 

Interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine in New Jersey and he said yeast is the one thing that is impossible to find now. All you wonderful people spending your isolation baking. Yummmm.

 

Paulette

 

I’ve got yeast, but can’t find flour!

[spacecadet]

15 minutes ago, Thyrsis said:

 

I’ve got yeast, but can’t find flour!

You may have to get a 16kg miller's sack as a few people we know are doing and doling it out. Apparently only 4% of flour is  sold at retail and there aren't enough bagging machines to package more.

At least that was 3 weeks ago, or 300 years if you prefer.

Edited April 28, 2020 by spacecadet

[Martin P Wilson]

My wife makes a sodabread loaf each weekend and I would not swap it for a leavened bread. It is very tolerant of what flour is used, at various times she has replaced some of the strong bread flour flour with: pin head oatmeal, plain white flour, and wholemeal bread flour. It is always fabulous, it keeps well but it doesn't last😋 If she made it more often I would be the size of house!

 

There are a lot of straightforward sodabread recipes out there. BTW - it doesn't need kneading or proving, so it is quick to make.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Martin P Wilson

[Bionic]

Annoyingly we’re also struggling to find flour. What is frustrating is that we have about 850 tons of milling wheat in the grain store but no way to grind it down 😠

[Marianne]

I've been baking a lot but go through flour quickly as I am gluten intolerant and it only comes in small 1lb boxes. My husband got some plantain flour and almond flour as well as the all purpose gluten free King Arthur's brand but that's only enough for a few quick breads and some cinnamon coffee cake. 

 

Was headed out to a state park nearby shortly after lunch today (parking is free after 4:30 pm at which point there is nowhere left to park so best to get out before the crowds or you often have to turn around and go home) but my car battery is dead from sitting in the driveway unused. I didn't want to intrude on my husband's work day for him to jump it. Hubby has a small sports car. Although I actually taught him to drive a stick shift years ago when we first met, it's been over a decade since I drove a stick and I decided despite having 30+ years of practice before that, this wasn't the time to try my luck, grind the gears, and find myself stranded. So, out for a walk around the neighborhood.

 

Was out earlier hoping the Blue Angels would pass close enough for us to get a peek - the map showed them heading well north into the NYC suburbs, but they weren't even close enough for us to hear them coming. An odd time to salute our healthcare workers, though it was "lunchtime" I doubt many doctors and nurses in NYC were out and about at that hour, though I'd guess it would have drawn crowds of others just like the hospital ship coming into port. But I'd have love to have seen them - a nice if brief distraction from the monotony. 

 

After my walk I actually will try to turn my "compost" pile - rotted wood and leaves piled high in a corner of the yard. I'll have to read up on how to use it. But the dirt underneath is always dark and rich looking so I'm guessing it's worth adding to the soil when I plant? Will rotted wood leave me with bad stuff - it was from a tree that we had to cut down at leas 15 years ago - shortly after a huge oak came down and we ended up with so much firewood we couldn't use it fast enough before it rotted. 

 

What's the difference between LEAF (edit) mould and compost? So much to learn.

 

One thing this pandemic has done is convince me when we move it will be to a small house and not an apartment. But I better learn to garden. 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Marianne

[The Blinking Eye]

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by The Blinking Eye
Did not like that red arrow! I share my personal story and get a red arrow? WTF judgmental much? I do have many loved ones who are elders and in nursing homes who I think about daily. Not here to be judged negatively, thanks.

[Marianne]

Scavenged my emptying pantry and made a meatless pumpkin quinoa black bean chili. (I found a recipe, didn't have half the ingredients, so I innovated, e.g. substituting a couple of sweet potatoes for butternut squash, adding garlic, and choosing a different palette of spices - not to mention using black beans instead of pinto beans). My husband, who normally treats any meal without meat or fish as a side dish rather than a real dinner, loved it and found a single serving to be very filling. 

 

While I cooked he made us Magheritas with fresh squeezed limes, which we had with the homemade humus I made a few days ago and chips (delicate corn chips, what you'd call "crisps.")  A real cocktail hour before dinner as the pot of chili simmered Nice way to wind down the day. 

 

Tomorrow we get the car towed for a new battery. No luck with the jumper cables. The car is a little over 5 years old, low mileage but I think that's about the life of a battery so I shouldn't be surprised. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Marianne

[Bryan]

Another longgggg day at the allotment beckons. A fellow gardener is marooned elsewhere by the lockdown so I am obliged to use their greenhouse as well as my own, it's all becoming a bit too much like hard work....  Rain forecast later in the day, so an early finish may be possible.

[Thyrsis]

13 minutes ago, Bryan said:

.....it's all becoming a bit too much like hard work....  

 

But so rewarding when you can pick your own fresh organic vegetables! We will have broad beans ready to pick in a few days.

[Ed Rooney]

16 hours ago, spacecadet said:

You could probably get some herbs, at least, in pots. Lemon trees take a while but we get something to slice into our gin- and it tastes better.

 

Mark, are you talking to me? Are you talking to me???

[Bryan]

6 hours ago, Thyrsis said:

 

But so rewarding when you can pick your own fresh organic vegetables! We will have broad beans ready to pick in a few days.

 

Incredible, here in the region of semi permafrost I did manage to overwinter a row of Aquadulce, and they are flowering, but not a bean to be seen.

 

Never fear our spring cabbage are finally coming to, probably ready by summer.... 

 

Peas almost wiped out by pigeon attack, had protected them but not well enough, cunning devils. 

 

So much suffering involved in gardening, don't know why people do it 🙃

[Dyn Llun]

We have rabbits that eat everything. The joys of country living.  Whole rows of young runner bean and other young, tender plants will all disappear overnight. The squirrels used to eat all the strawberries until I fashioned some removable chicken wire clad wooden frames to make a temporary cage just for the fruiting season. The strawberry bed is 6 metres by 2 so we have plenty of fruit. The raspberry bed is same size and we will have many pounds of those later on but they seem less prone to attack. The birds have a few, but not too many. At the moment I'm picking asparagus almost every day. Short season but a perennial so worth the effort and the wait in the beginning years. Globe artichokes will follow later as will tomatoes in the greenhouse and (Carolina Reaper - v hot) chillies in the conservatory. Plus salad stuff and Maris Piper spuds will crop in their time. 

 

Pete Davis

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/

http://peteslandscape.blogspot.com/

https://www.instagram.com/petedavisphoto/

[Bryan]

1 hour ago, Dyn Llun said:

We have rabbits that eat everything.

 

Indeed, one winter they even attacked my apple trees, fortunately cordons at a shallow angle to the ground and they couldn't get below to completely ring bark them. The trees survived, but they laid waste to virtually everything else. I now have plastic guards around all of the trees.  It's only happened once in the 10+  years that I have been on the site, but I recall feeling very low indeed!  Isn't there some legislation that requires UK landowners to control these pests?  The Romans have a lot to answer for.....

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Bryan

[Betty LaRue]

4 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Incredible, here in the region of semi permafrost I did manage to overwinter a row of Aquadulce, and they are flowering, but not a bean to be seen.

 

Never fear our spring cabbage are finally coming to, probably ready by summer.... 

 

Peas almost wiped out by pigeon attack, had protected them but not well enough, cunning devils. 

 

So much suffering involved in gardening, don't know why people do it 🙃

Bryan, we once owned 10 acres out of town where we kept our horses. There was a tin horse barn and rural water and electricity. We made a large garden near the barn and water. Tilled in aged horse manure and straw. Corn, tomatoes, melons, green beans, carrots, and I can’t remember what else. We put up an electric fence to keep the horses out. The rabbits got the tomatoes and beans. The turtles got the melons, tunneling in from below. It would look like the cantaloupe were ripe until you picked them and found the hole, and that they were hollow.

The corn was so tempting, the horses broke in and ate it. We didn’t get one stinkin’ mouthful of anything for all the work we did...mostly my work. That was my last garden. Only planted tomatoes since. Fewer tears if one crop fails.

[Ed Rooney]

My friend who lives near Florence had three wild boars invade her garden. You don't want to get into a dispute with those things. 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Ed Rooney

[Thyrsis]

Last year we netted the boundary of our entire garden to keep out muntjac deer and it worked. However this year an otter got through a hole (made by a fox we think) and it ate all our fish! 

Win some lose some! 

[aphperspective]

The simple act of gardening for kitchen produce seems a constant war of attrition with nature. 🙂