A Blight on the Landscape!

Went out for a Sunday afternoon ride around the Island  about three weeks ago. Not an unusual thing, but this time we noticed that there were a few new traffic signs having been put up. It was a cause of some wonderment as to why in these places, and we thought no more about it till the ensuing Sunday arrived.

As we progressed around the Island we discovered a plethora of new sign sproutings! All over the damned place!  Not just one or two,  but on one curve/corner alone there were nine individual  signs to tell the unwary driver just how to negotiate this bend in the road! Well we began to have a few discussions as to why all of a sudden the influx of obtrusive signs.

We kept on talking about them as we started our third subsequent Sunday trip around the Island, only to find that there had been even more of these obnoxious yellow beacons of portending doom sprouting up like unwanted dandelions of toad stools! We are now totally infested with the damned things1

I would like to know WHO decided all these signs had to be put up on virtually every corner or curve and every hill, up an down the length of the Island. Was this just on the whim of some single person or group in the town? Or was it all at the behest of  the infamous DOT?

It looks like some traffic engineer came out here for a weekend and saw all these totally dangerous curves,  bends, and steep inclines and was aghast that they were not "signed up"!

I would also like to know just how in the hell all we local inhabitants managed to survive out here all these years, traveling at the maximum allowed speed of 25 MPH,  and have not all wound up in the ditches and bushes! Traveling at 40-50 MPH or more, might  cause one to inhabit those said bushes and ditches, and it has happened on occasion.

So were these signs then inflicted on us solely to warn tourists of the dangers of rounding these bends? If you are driving at 25 MPH on these roads, around all these sharp curves and mountainous inclines, and you don't have the mental processes that would allow you the reaction time to navigate said curves, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE A DRIVERS LICENSE!  You could probably have a cat nap from the time you saw the curve coming to the time you had to start turning the wheel!

So I  would like to start a letter writing campaign to our Town Council to get the damned, ugly, and way too numerous things removed from the roads! Hell you can't see the weeds along the road for the big yellow signs blocking the view!

TIFN

Cheese and Garden stuff

Well since the last wheel of cheese back there in early Feb. I have gotten the two devices to regulate the water temp and the latest attempt at a traditional Cheddar went a lot easier1 Not much faster because there are long waiting periods between each phase of the process. But this one came out really well although a little lopsided because I didn't have the press follower centered very well. But it is in the cave and waiting for at least 6 months before eating it!

Been making many more Minibed on plastic frames as I have a lot of ground to get covered with them. I have 46 done and need another36!

Have ordered and received five more of the billboard tarps. These are 11 mil thick and should last a good long time. Up to ten years so I am told. When I get through getting the tarps anchored in the dirt and the frames on them and secured, I'll be ready to go. There will be NO MORE WEEDING for me in any of the gardens! Some small ones may sprout before the actual seeds I planted germinate and take hold.

Inside the High Tunnel all is in readiness and I have planted three MBOP,(mini beds on plastic) already. I put Swiss chard in one, Kale in another, and some mixed lettuce in the last of the three. That particular;ar batch of seed was 6 years old so I don't think it is going too sprout! So in a couple of days I'll be planting some '18 seed of the same type.

Nice to have the root cellar all done and working! Have plenty of potatoes left and none of the white taters have even started to sprout! Usually have had to rub off the eyes a couple of times in past years.
The Pontiac Reds and the Red Norlands, being early taters HAVE started to sprout a couple of times and I don't think they will last till the middle of next month or so. Going to rub them off again tomorrow and see what happens.

Got 22 RIR chickens and one rooster  and am getting 23 eggs a day! Either one of them is laying two a day or that rooster has the wrong internal plumbing!!

Well I guess that is it for this time. If anyone has questions or comments would love to hear them!    TIFN

Cheese

I have gotten myself involved in the art of making cheese. Thought I'd try doing just a simple one like cottage cheese for the first outing and it worked out pretty well.

Next up was one called Quark. No not those ones flying around out in space. or going through my house at light speed. This is an old original one developed about 5-6 hundred years ago. It is also a soft one and ready to eat just as soon as you are done with the making it part. Goes good spread on hot toast with made just a touch of homemade blackberry jam smeared on it.

Now it is time to try one that actually set me on this  course in the first place. Cheddar, the King of cheeses as far as I am concerned. I guess the Queen award would have to go to Rogurfort,(sp). But back to the King. This one takes a little longer to age before you can eat it. It is called Farmhouse Cheddar, but it is kind of bland and pure white when first out of the press. It tastes like a cheddar but with overtones of feta slipped in there somehow. I let it age in a cool environment for about 30 days and just had to try it. It is a little crumbly but has started to develop a bit of a tang on the tongue. So I am eating the third quarter of that one. After rewaxing the last quarter piece, put it back in the storage place for another month or two to see what develops.

For the fourth  attempt I went for doing a Traditional Cheddar. This one is a lot more involved than the Farmhouse one. There are a few more steps to this process that eventually gives you my favorite  tasting cheese. "Cheddaring" is the actual process of cutting and stacking the cheese curds into strips, and turning them every fifteen minutes or so, all the while holding them at a constant temperature in a pot surrounded with hot water at a very specific temp.

Because of difficulty of getting the water to an exact temperature, I'm not sure how my latest attempt is going to turn out. But won't know for sure till 6-9 months down the road. Since that last time I have bought a device to immerse in the water to keep it heated and also a device that automatically regulates the water heater to maintain that oh so critical temp!

So tomorrow morning I am going to put all my new found information and gadgets to the test and will begin the second of what I hope will be a bi-weekly affair of starting a new cheese to feed to the masses, Well at least to my family. If it is eatable, I may pass out a few tastes albeit grudgingly!

TIFN

Calling a Spade a Spade

Well “The Donald” is at it again! Calling a spade a spade and Not a Heart or a Diamond. And it is just driving all the poor little snowflakes into hissy fits of unimagined proportions! Oh my God! How can he possibly say that about those countries? Well let me tell you something, In my 20 years in the US Navy I was in quite a few of those shitholes. Not up in the hills and mountain tops where all the rich or well to do’s abide, but down in the towns/cities in the poor sections. Around the docks, and the slums. Have any of you folks who are world travelers with pockets full of money, ever been down in the nitty-gritty parts of the cities you visit? Have you been down there where the “sewer system” is  a trench that runs the length of the Main Street and into the local river or harbor? Where people just walk out to the middle of the street and lift their clothes a mite, do their business and walk off right through the latest deposits in their open topped sandals? Well have you? Go too Karachi Pakistan, Mombasa or Assab,Ethiopia, go over to Cochin, India. How about into Angola to the capital city? Mozambique has a whole row of shitholes running from north to south that they call home.

These are the places that feed us all those chain migration folks! Can’t blame them for wanting to run from their abject poverty, but there is no good reason why we should accept them all when they become a drain on all of our resources, to the detriment of our own tax paying citizens.

They have migrated to enclaves here in the the US and are speedily turning large tracts of our country into the selfsame shitholes they came from. Go to Baltimore, Chicago, Places in Minnesota, and others all over this country and see for yourself just what is happening!

Go to the library and check out Toynbee’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and you can see right where we are headed if all the policies of the previous four or five Administrations are not reversed. Especially the last one where he/it was going to ,”fundamentally change the face of the US of A!

TIFN

Repair of a Linguini (inguinal) hernia!

When I first went to see a doc about the pain in the gut way down low and to the right, after he checked  it all out he turns to me and says I have a "Linguini" hernia down there. Well it kind of made sense to me cause the pasta stuff looks a lot like a plate full of guts when it comes right down to it! But it t'was an inguinal  hernia, DUH!

So off I went to the South County hospital yesterday morning. In at 0730, into the OR at 0950, and in recovery by 1030, and not one piece of spaghetti leaked out on the floor!

Now comes the fun part for the next few days till the pain goes away and then six to eight weeks of picking up nothing heavier than a gallon of milk. Kind of puts the kibosh on outside work involving raking, shoveling etc. I guess I can go ahead and screw a bunch of the pieces of precut 2x4x27.5" stock into 52 more of the minibeds for my next springs garden.

Going to actually finish a Piper Cub R/C kit that I started two winters ago. Just got the servos, receiver and a couple other small items needed to finish it.

Then on to the reloading bench to turn some of my components into real live ammo. Got to be ready when that Zombie Apocalypse arrives. Or at least a few of the gone awry snowflakes !




TIFN

Be Scared! Big Storm coming!

Well as usual in this screwy state just because Mother Nature decides to dampen us a bit, all the Weather Guessers on the tube are claiming that we are going to be in dire straits because we MAY get UP TO eight inches of snow sometime in the next 36 hours!

So I guess I'll go right out and buy a generator, a truck load of bottled water, and another of batteries. OOOH, I must not forget to go by the bakery and buy all they have!

See you later after I get all dug out next spring!


TIFN

The BIBB and Me!

I have been trying to get a post up on the BBIB as to how the folks of the Island could access this blog. All I asked was to post the Internet address for this Blog! IslandVoiceII@blogspot.com.

Well for some reason they have declined to do so on the pretext that this is a commercial site, and I assume, they think I am making money off of it! NOT TRUE! Have never solicited a dime, nor received one from all the years I ran this previously!

Have corresponded with the Aministrators twice trying to reconcile the so-called problem. I see commercial ventures being put up every single day! So I wonder just what is going on. Is this one more instance of some organization trying to stifle a dissenting voice from being heard? Maybe I should link myself with BLM, LGBTALPHABET, or others and see what happens.

Still waiting for a cogent response other than the dogmatic one I have received so far .

TIFN