There Have Been Some Shortages - Reprise

Last week, hardware stores began running low on snow removal supplies and by the time the last storm was over, they were pretty much out.  There wasn't a roof rake, snow shovel, or box of hockey puck salt tabs to be found anywhere, not to mention snow blowers. When Home Depot is sold out of a big ticket seasonal staple like a snow blower, you know you're having a serious winter.


The good news is, I have found a way to reuse our sock singles! In a fit of DIY, I asked Raj to rummage through his sock drawer for singles and worn out socks while I bustled off to the hardware store for a bag of calcium chloride.  Raj managed to produce 19 socks and I filled them each with a fist-sized portion of the stuff.  We raked the roofs and flung the sock bombs strategically which means aiming for just behind the bigger icicles. The sock bombs are so much better than the hockey pucks in terms of placement; the downside is, in the spring we will have 19 filthy socks sitting on our roofs like dead things the cats might drag in to our bedroom.


Everyone, at this point, except those who have the great good fortune to live in a perfectly insulated home David & Monique has ice dams, ice cycles, and way too much snow on their roof.  Roofs are collapsing all over New England, while I know of at least one poor man in Worcester who had a heart attack and died while clearing snow from his roof. Even stoic New Englanders are shaking their heads over this hard Wintah - though I still note latent pride beneath their complaints. This Wintah will go down in the record books in terms of snow fall if nothing else, and a legendary winter spawns legendary ...well... legends.

Happy Birthday, Dad! Reprise

The Self-sufficiency Quotient - Reprise

As hard as it may be to believe, besides Valentine's Day there is another equally compelling reason for the purchase of new wood splitting tools and it is that Raj and I are in the process of upping my self-sufficiency quotient in advance of Raj's departure for India.  At the end of the month Raj leaves The Fahm and travels to Delhi for the birth of Jacob and Vini's child, Raj's first grandchild. The timing of the birth couldn 't be better; Raj is also due back in India for Round 2 of his 3-part dental procedure begun last spring.

The Basement at Brimstone Manor - Reprise

Yesterday I drove to Hartford to take Raj's mom Nancy to the eye doctor.  We took the shuttle from Avery Heights to the office and aside from a brief shuttle lift malfunction, a good time was had by all.  It has been raining off and on - mostly on - for what seems like weeks so I left Hartford shortly after lunch hoping to be home before the sleet, snow, or freezing rain developed (call me crazy).

I was very much looking forward to reading more of The Namesake in front of the kitchen fire but alas, that dream was dashed moments after setting foot in The Fahm.  I heard a loud rushing sound, as if water was running somewhere; it wasn't long until I located the source. It seemed to be coming from one of the giant intake thingies near the basement door.  I knew I was going to have to investigate.

Comfort Food in the Form of Khichari (Hindi: खिचड़ी khicaṛī, Urdu: کھچڑی khicṛī) - Reprise

We have had Khichari many times since Winter set in, and today I cooked up a big pot of it to get through the storm.  I highly recommend it!

Red Lentil Khichari

1/3 cup brown rice
1/3 cup red lentils
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 medium beet or 2 cups of chopped kale or any other green your little heart desires

Masala:
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 whole cloves
4 whole black peppercorns
seeds of 1 black cardamom pod

* preheat oven to 450 degrees
* combine rice and lentils in a pan and soak in water (enough to cover) for one hour
* drain, wash, and rinse rice and lentils
* combine with water and salt
* cover and bring to boil over medium heat
* skim off and discard white foam that surfaces
* add beet or other vegetable and masala mixture
* stir and let return to a boil
* cover and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes
* place tightly covered pan of cooked khichari in oven, and turn off heat
* allow to sit for 5-10 minutes to absorb excess moisture
* serve topped with ghee (clarified butter) and 1/8 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds
* not big on butter? substitute bragg's amino acids or your favorite healthfully appropriate margarine to taste

A Mosssst Sssssurprising Morning Vissssitor - Reprise

One of the Kittehs threw up on my bedspread during the night although they were discreet enough about it that I did not wake up during the deed.  Instead, I awakened to a spreading stain, the remnants of a kibble breakfast, and a hairball.  I stripped the bed and took the sheets downstairs, headed for the washing machine which is in the downstairs bathroom.  I haven't started the load yet, but only because there was a SNAKE in the middle of the FLOOR.  

I must confess that my nerves were a little shot and I couldn't for the life of me think of what I was supposed to do, having never been trained in the fine art of SNAKE REMOVAL. It was not a very big snake, maybe between 8" - 10" long, and about as fat as a #2 pencil, but a snake is a snake is a snake so I retreated back up the stairs, collaring Tricksy on my way, and decided to call the Calvary David Oles, Justin Sobel to assist. 

David didn't answer, and Justin said he'd be down in a little bit; I got the camera and went back down to see if I had imagined the whole thing.  But no, there was STILL a SNAKE on the FLOOR of my bathroom, only now it was nuzzling up to the wall instead of lying right in the middle of the floor. A few minutes later it was across the room exploring a plastic bag.  I took pictures.

David called back and said he was walking through the field toward The Fahm in answer to my S.O.S. so I called Justin back and told him he could stand down. David picked up a stick on his way in the door, asked me for some cardboard, and armed thusly, went into the bathroom to wrangle the thing saying, as he did so, that he didn't know what kind of snake it is, and hadn't seen one like it before. I know what kind of snake it is - it's obviously a HOUSE snake.  

We took it outside and released it in the garden, right onto a nice warm rock. It is not a very smart snake because it slithered down off the nice warm rock and headed straight for a patch of snow on the ground and buried it's head therein. Now that it is no longer in my bathroom I can feel sorry for it although after David suggested that there might be more where this one came from, I didn't feel quite as benevolent.

Apparently this was my introduction to the Northern Ringneck Snake AKA the Diadophis Punctatus Edwards II, though I don't mind saying I hope I do not meet another, at least not INSIDE MY HOME.

Magic: Not in the Air but Pretty Much Everywhere Else - Reprise

Our apple tree

Morning Calisthenics - Reprise

You may have heard media hysteria that there is a storm in New England right now, a snow storm, in case you aren't sure.  Anyway, it snowed all day yesterday and most of the night last night.  Raj shoveled the front path and the path by the barn for the car last night shortly before going to bed; this morning, after another 3 - 4" fell you couldn't tell. This morning it continued to snow ever so delicately but around 8:30 I began hearing tiny castanets of ice pecking at the windows.


Somehow in the general shock and awe of our lives we never managed to get our hands on a snow blower; I wasn't surprised when the sound of castanets was shortly followed by Raj entering the room and announcing, "It's time to SHOVEL."  I cannot in good conscience stand back and let Raj do it all; it is a testament to the benefits of physical therapy that I can, actually, dig and lift a shovel, flinging snow with such abandon.  Raj tutored me in proper snow shoveling techniques: lift with your legs, not your back; use your arms to to swing and fling the snow, not your back; and stay away from the ice beasties clinging malevolently to the eaves, don't turn your back I added that last one myself.

Malevolent Ice Beasties, mid-storm, 02.02.11

After donning the 39 layers of clothing required for stepping outside in the middle of a nice rambunctious storm, I picked up "my" snow shovel and set out to beat the path from the Coal Room to the driveway into submission. Raj, already outside, had the good sense to turn the radio in The Bahn on so we shoveled and grooved with Jimmy Eat World, Sting, and The Stones.


Shoveling snow, for those of you who have never had the pleasure, is an excellent workout, especially if you lift with your legs not your back and swing and fling.  Upper body workout, lower body workout, cardio...really!  The only thing that kept me from really getting into 'The Zone' of my workout was, to paraphrase Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull, the "snot running down my nose."  It is difficult enough to reach 'The Zone' but with snot stinging (and, I was certain, freezing to) my upper lip, I just couldn't get there.  Even so, the end result is very worth it, and although unsupervised, I completed the task without injury or other mishap.

That's some damn fine snow shoveling right there

Raj dug a path from the stall where we park the car to the driveway, a task made harder by the giant drifts deposited in our driveway by the Town Snow Plow.

  
All in all, a most excellent morning exercise session!

Valentine's Day at The Fahm - Reprise

Living here at The Fahm has really had an effect on Raj and I, and our relationship - so much so that for Valentine's Day we got one another wood splitting tools! 

Raj got a splitting maul and I got a hatchet; we also got thermal gloves with rubber grips, and a pair of woolen socks guaranteed for Arctic temperatures, for Raj.  The sweetness of these gifts is not to be missed; wood splitting tools here at The Fahm represent heat and fuel and flames and comfort and survival in the event of a power failure and I think that's a reasonable definition of a Fine Romance don't you?

Veterans Day - Reprise

Originally published 11.11.09 

Speaking at Arlington Cemetery this morning, President Obama said 

"...91 years ago today, the battlefields of Europe fell quiet as World War I came to a close. But we don’t mark this day each year as a celebration of victory, as proud of that victory as we are. We mark this day as a celebration of those who made victory possible. Today, we keep in our minds the brave men and women of this young nation...who, above all else, believed in and fought for a set of ideals. Because they did, our country still stands, our founding principles still shine...That is why we fight, in hopes of a day when we no longer need to. And that is why we gather at these solemn remembrances and reminders of war: to recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace."

Today as I was out and about I stopped at Grove Cemetery in Holden with the express purpose of seeing if there are any graves therein from the Revolutionary War era, some of the "the brave men and women of this young nation...who, above all else, believed in and fought for a set of ideals."  There were, and several of them were marked with medallions indicating their status as veterans of that conflict. I also want to be reminded that I - and we as a nation - really do need "to recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace" whether on an Army Base in Texas, or in Oakland or Palestine or Pakistan.  

 

 

The soldiers buried in this cemetery were veterans of Our First War, the War of Independence.  I'm sure someone back in the day thought that war was going to be the last war, and then someone else thought that after the next war, and then the next war, same thing, and then the NEXT and the NEXT AND THE NEXT, Until here we are today, just out of one war in Iraq, just about to escalate another one in Afghanistan.

[LA LA LA HA HA HA not gonna talk about THAT in my monoblog...]

ANYI'LLSTOPGNASHINGMYTEETHINFRUSTRATIONWAY 

According to local historians, the Revolutionary Spirit of our immediate area was quite robust!

***

Hatchets, broomsticks, crow bars...those hardly seem the robust tools of war we're accustomed to these days Predator Drone but apparently when you are defending your homeland, your livelihood, your family and your future, you'll use anything that comes to hand Stones vs. Tanks, Gaza, 1949 -  . There was a time in the evolution of this country when those we now know as "Revolutionary War soldiers" were absolutely considered "terrorists" by British colonizers. Not only did they come to fight armed with farm implements but they were indignant and unreasonable too, and in the end that combination midwifed the birth of Our Nation, swaddling the Squalling Brat in Betsy Ross's flag, and giving it George Washington's wooden teeth to play with, click-clacking like castanets. 

where did that come from?!

So, uh...yeah. Let's think about ways to "recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace" before a whole bunch more of us end up wandering and pondering in cemeteries on Veterans Day...

It May Take Me a Little Time - Reprise

Originally posted SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2009

It May Take Me a Little Time to get accustomed to the sight of a man in full camouflage including fatigues, hat and face paint 

riding down the road in front of The Fahm on an ATV 

with a shotgun 

strapped behind him.

I grew up in the Los Angeles area then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, both very, very urban areas; sights such as above combination, in my experience, always always ALWAYS mean something very bad, as in hit-the-ground-cover-your-head-say-your-prayers-and-kiss-your-arse-goodbye bad. 

My initial response is typically a millisecond of wild-eyed fear followed by the cold sweat of relief when my rational mind (re)engages and remembers where I am: rural America, and when: OPEN SEASON.  That first millisecond fear response is only compounded by the fact that it is not second nature under the best of circumstances for me to assume that everything is going to be okay; adding weaponry and disguise to the mix is therefore very alarming.

This American Life - Unlike Any I Have Ever Known, Reprise

Originally posted November 2, 2010.

This American Life - Unlike Any I Have Ever Known

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my brother Greg recently; upon reflection, I think it's a pretty good thumbnail of what we've got going on here at The Fahm and in our new life, and as such thought it appropriate to share with any "City Folk" who might be reading:

"[I] receive on a daily basis practical and theoretical lessons in physics, meteorology, mechanics, thermodynamics, colloquial language, zoology, agriculture, home economics, land use, and resource management.

Living here is so physical that your brain and your body are completely occupied with that physicality - the problems solved, the solutions executed, revolve around actual physical things - things that make sense inherently: if it doesn't work, you're missing something. The physical relationship to this reality is very grounding - an experience so humbling and yet one that has nothing to do with "who you are;" instead, it has everything to do with irrevocable (T)ruths: fire burns when you touch it and you'll freeze without it, your nearest neighbor is also your best friend in hard times, 20 mph wind @ 20 degrees farenheit is really f**king cold, bears really do shit in the woods, and that one does survive 11 days without electrical power in the 21st century..."


In a nutshell, my friends, in a NUTshell.

Veterans Day

Speaking at Arlington Cemetery this morning, President Obama said

"...91 years ago today, the battlefields of Europe fell quiet as World War I came to a close. But we don’t mark this day each year as a celebration of victory, as proud of that victory as we are. We mark this day as a celebration of those who made victory possible. Today, we keep in our minds the brave men and women of this young nation...who, above all else, believed in and fought for a set of ideals. Because they did, our country still stands, our founding principles still shine...That is why we fight, in hopes of a day when we no longer need to. And that is why we gather at these solemn remembrances and reminders of war: to recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace."

Today as I was out and about I stopped at Grove Cemetery in Holden with the express purpose of seeing if there are any graves therein from the Revolutionary War era, some of the "the brave men and women of this young nation...who, above all else, believed in and fought for a set of ideals."  There were, and several of them were marked with medallions indicating their status as veterans of that conflict. I also want to be reminded that I - and we as a nation - really do need "to recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace" whether on an Army Base in Texas, or in Oakland or Palestine or Pakistan.  

 

 

The soldiers buried in this cemetery were veterans of Our First War, the War of Independence.  I'm sure someone back in the day thought that war was going to be the last war, and then someone else thought that after the next war, and then the next war, same thing, and then the NEXT and the NEXT AND THE NEXT, Until here we are today, just out of one war in Iraq, just about to escalate another one in Afghanistan.

[LA LA LA HA HA HA not gonna talk about THAT in my monoblog...]

ANYI'LLSTOPGNASHINGMYTEETHINFRUSTRATIONWAY

According to local historians, the Revolutionary Spirit of our immediate area was quite robust!

 

***

Hatchets, broomsticks, crow bars...those hardly seem the robust tools of war we're accustomed to these days Predator Drone but apparently when you are defending your homeland, your livelihood, your family and your future, you'll use anything that comes to hand Stones vs. Tanks, Gaza, 1949 -  . There was a time in the evolution of this country when those we now know as "Revolutionary War soldiers" were absolutely considered "terrorists" by British colonizers. Not only did they come to fight armed with farm implements but they were indignant and unreasonable too, and in the end that combination midwifed the birth of Our Nation, swaddling the Squalling Brat in Betsy Ross's flag, and giving it George Washington's wooden teeth to play with, click-clacking like castanets. 

where did that come from?!

So, uh...yeah. Let's think about ways to "recommit ourselves to the hard work of peace" before a whole bunch more of us end up wandering and pondering in cemeteries on Veterans Day.