Household Stuffs

[sakon76]

Thursday the city ground up both the streets at whose apex sits our house. Today, they are repaving. Wonderful Husband bets some idiot will have already drifted donuts in front of our house before we even get home today.

We had a tree service come yesterday to give us a quote for managing our trees. Which includes taking one out of the corner of the kitchen garden, decisively defeating the demon bougainvilla, and severely thinning out a couple of trees that are casting the backyard into deep shade. (The house is named "Greenwood" for a reason.) Wonderful Husband went into sticker shock at the $2.5K estimate, so I told him we can get a couple more quotes then decide. But, honestly, it's within the price range I was expecting.

This weekend, he performed the admirable task of cleaning off not only the top of his desk, but also the rat's nest of cables and pluggy things underneath. Which pleases me because it will make sweeping so much easier. Now I just have to tackle mine! Someday. While he was defeating his desk, I was defeating the rose bed in the front of the house. Left to their own devices, several of the bushes have a habit of throwing 8-12' vines. ^_^;; I weeded them too, and the last couple days I've been hauling home bags of mulch to deepen the ground cover and hopefully slow future weed incursions. My arms look like I've tried to give a cat a bath. Roses, cats... much the same difference.

Did up sourdough bread last night, and juiced oranges, and made pickle spears in a half-gallon jar. Which I think is utterly brilliant because I can fit so many pickles inside! And while Wonderful Husband doesn't love them, I do. I am plotting/pondering picking up a half-dozen more. Only thing giving me pause on this is that there's only a few spots in the fridge tall enough for those jars. Space-wise is it better to have five short jars, or one tall one? Though I have decided I need to pony up and get some Tattler lids. I'm tired of taking a jar out of the fridge and finding the standard lid on it has rusted.

Comments

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

I need to make another loaf of bread... lol

I did a couple half-pints of pickled jalepenos last week, based off of Food in Jar's Unfancy Pickled Jalepenos. I have never liked pickles, but I'm trying to figure out of it's all pickles I don't like, or if it's dill/cucumber pickles. The jalepeno rings I used floated to the top at first, but when I looked last night, they had sunk back down. I have no idea how long it'll take them to cure, and I'm starting to get impatient. XD

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

I would think sinking means they've absorbed the pickling liquid? Maybe crack open one jar and try it? For her cucumber pickle recipe that I use, she says wait a week before eating, but I find they're best after three.

Also, have you tried lacto-fermentation pickles? Brine pickles taste totally different from vinegar pickles. Maybe it's the particular pickling liquid you don't like. Or maybe it's just dill, which I find to be a very strong taste. Must wash off all dill seeds before eating pickle spear!

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

A shorter time could make sense, considering I was doing rings, so it wouldn't take as long to go all the way through the flesh of the fruit. I'll wait until a week's up, at least. It's only been five days! LOL

I have no idea. All I know is that the pickles that are found with bugers/sandwiches (either in rounds on the sandwich itself, or the spears served next to them) are nasty to me and get their nasty juice everywhere and can still be tasted even when pulled off. Considering I don't like cucumbers raw either, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the culprit, or at least part of the problem. I do tend to add splashes of wine vinegar to a lot of stuff when cooking...

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

Tree work is EXPENSIVE!!! You would not believe how much it cost us to take down our two giant maples a couple of years back.

Heh. Actually, roses and cats have a lot in common....both are sweet and both are pointy.