Messages

391

Pond Chat / Re: trying to keep an opening in a frozen pond

« on: December 22, 2008, 02:47:38 PM »

I just looked up your town and I'm about an hour & a half north of you, so you'll probably escape the snow. 

392

Pond Chat / Re: trying to keep an opening in a frozen pond

« on: December 22, 2008, 02:44:37 PM »

I have to get out there and take some pics, but I'm still not ready for Christmas yet.

We left our falls running too. Not the big falls, just the skimmer falls, which is about 1700 gph. My little stream didn't get iced over until these below zero temps. I need to get out there and check if the pump is still running.

We made a "Bickal" deicer that does a good job keeping a hole in the ice, and I have that right near the skimmer. It's basically an inverted rubbermaid tub attached to a pvc base with two light fixtures in it.

There saying we're supposed to get another 4-12" of snow tomorrow. Are you in the north or the south of Illinois?

393

Pond Chat / Re: Water feature finally finished

« on: December 22, 2008, 02:38:28 PM »

Wow, LeeAnne, it's beautiful! Do all the rocks run from the same or different pumps? That's one heck of a big drill bit.

I like how the ponds run along your walkway, it adds a lot of interest. Nice plants, too.

394

Chit Chat / Re: Bad news from the north pole

« on: December 17, 2008, 08:41:38 PM »

Oh we are (waiting for Santa). Too bad he got hit... not! I guess my kids are getting coal. Good for them! They deserve it, those ungrateful thugs....

In reality, I love my little thugs. Desperately trying to find a Wii... 

395

Chit Chat / Re: Strange weather

« on: December 15, 2008, 06:08:39 PM »

Tell me about it! We went to a farm yesterday to cut down our Christmas tree. It was in the 50's, and the mud was everywhere. The kids were sloshing around like crazy.

This morning we woke to 5* temps, and all the rain last night turned into a layer of ice everywhere. Couldn't even get into the car.

Now they're calling for 5" of snow... on top of a beautiful layer of ice. 

My little stream is still running, but I'll bet my fish have turned into Fish-Sickles.

396

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed! BUT it's became a very good one!!!! enjoy

« on: December 15, 2008, 06:02:07 PM »

Edit:  I wonder how many ag laws we'd be breaking?

Roark

Hummm. Probably a lot. It must be highly illegal for a person to trade an egg for an egg. The government can't make much money on that, now can they? 
I suppose there is some sort of tax (confiscation) that can be applied. Or some sort of fine (confiscation) imposed for potentially transporting dangerous bacteria or pathogenic parasites across state lines (there are no good bacteria, I'm sure, according to the feds).

I usually blow the insides out of my green eggs, let them dry, and display them with other colored eggs. I'd be glad to send you one.

Yes, Diet for a Small Planet was THE book that brought about the vegetarian movement that swept in along with the hippy movement, back in the '70's.  It's been updated and revised many times, and is still considered the "Bible" for plant-based eating.  Although, the original edition's concept of food-combining has been debunked.

Back then, they said that most non-animal proteins were "incomplete," and so you needed to combine at least two types in order to "unlock" the proteins and allow them to combine with one another into "whole proteins."  So we would eat a grain protein along with a legume protein, combining them into a complete protein.  Today they say that even though proteins may be incomplete, eating a variety of them over the course of a day would provide what you need.  Besides, your body, it has been learned, can use the incomplete protein as-is, or store it until the next needed building block comes along for it to combine with.

Karen, to underline something, or bold it or put it in itallics, highlight the word and then go to the upper left, above the smilies, and click U, B, or I.

Also, my eyes aren't really "going."  It's just that danged hardening of the retina (or whatever it is) that is inevitable for us middle-aged people.  My distance sight is just fine.   Just need those readers for close-up.  About to graduate to the 200's, too.   Sad

Thanks for the underlining instructions, I never realized that option was there.

I remember that protein-combining stuff. Rice and beans. Seriously lacking in Vitamin B12... that's one of my arguments that humans were meant to consume meat. If vitamin B12 is SO essential (it is), and we can't get it from other sources (at least, not very absorb-able forms), then aren't we obligate carnivores?

397

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed! BUT it's became a very good one!!!! enjoy

« on: December 14, 2008, 03:00:12 PM »

Roarke, would you want to trade a blue egg for a green egg?

I think it's amazing that a cow can basically take the energy from the sun and turn it into such high-quality protein just by eating grass.

Gotta beware of some vegetarian advocates. Especially Dean Ornish. He once claimed that he eats foods "low on the food chain", like fish. Well, fish are actually quite high on the food chain (they eat other fish), whereas a cow is very low on the food chain (they eat grass). Size doesn't matter.

398

Chit Chat / Re: Be very careful buying the wife a gift

« on: December 14, 2008, 02:52:27 PM »

I'm getting an oven for Christmas. And an exhaust fan.

Please at least tell us the fan is for the kitchen and not the bathroom.

  Yes, it's for the kitchen. It set us back a pretty penny, as it's the kind that hangs over an island... $$$  ... and apparently the people who make those things are VERY proud of their work!

I'm really OK with this. I have not had a reliable oven for 11 years. The first Thanksgiving in this house was a disaster. The oven malfunctioned, and locked the turkey inside. And I had lots of relatives here.

Come to think of it, they haven't been back.

399

Chit Chat / Re: Be very careful buying the wife a gift

« on: December 14, 2008, 09:18:27 AM »

I'm getting an oven for Christmas. And an exhaust fan.

400

Chit Chat / Re: Canopy looking better, pix "struts" added, see splitter as requested

« on: December 12, 2008, 08:41:14 PM »

Jerry, Looks great, but please be careful!

JimMcD in SVAZ, I think it looks like #1- a handy four egg poacher. 

401

Chit Chat / Re: Didn't I ask if anybody had made wind chimes?

« on: December 12, 2008, 08:28:27 PM »

Kim, Your daughter is adorable, but looks so sad standing there with her broken chimes.
I love those chimes. Kevin and I have made several sets, both for us and for family & friends. We once met an electrician who had a ton of leftover aluminum conduit, and he delivered a bunch of pipes to our house! Nice guy. We've made chimes in regular triads (major) and ionian scale (Asian sounding).
The wood parts rot and need to be replaced, depending on the weather. It's not hard to re-string, just very time consuming.

We bought a set that was powder-coated, and it resists corrosion very well.

402

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed! BUT it's became a very good one!!!! enjoy

« on: December 12, 2008, 08:03:08 PM »

HUH?

Ditto. Maybe Mikey can elaborate a little... 

Julles, I read that book. I think that book was what caused Weird Al Yankovic to also become a vegetarian. I tried eating that way, but unfortunately gained over 30 pounds. So I guess it only works for some people.
That is my attempt to be diplomatic, because I really think that humans are 90% carnivores, based on the available evidence. "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes is a real eye-opener on the actual science (good and bad) of the past 150 years of nutrition study. How did you underline your book title??? 

If your eyes are going, you may want to consider adding eggs. Eggs are loaded with nutrients that help to prevent/slow macular degeneration, and no animals are killed in the process.

403

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed! BUT it's became a very good one!!!! enjoy

« on: December 12, 2008, 03:54:45 PM »

Julles;

You're close enough to us (about an hour) that you ought to drop Savannah an email if you need real ground beef.  We raise our own beef, and every year give away hundreds of lbs of the stuff.  We simply can't eat it all.  No hormones, no additives, no antibiotics.  It's been 6 years since we gave an animal an injection of anything *except* for a vaccine at birth (it's just flat-out cruel if you don't).  All these animals get fed is well-water, free-range native grasses, and a dietary supplement based on grains.  The resulting meat is about as "natural" as you can get and tastes NOTHING like the swill you get at the store.

If you're of a mind, come on by and you can "meet the meat".   Next-years harvest is currently chasing butterflies in the back pasture, and they're all as tame as a dog.

Roark 

 

Wow, I wish I lived near you. I have a farmer who raises his beef the same way. There is nothing like a cow that has been allowed to live his life the way nature intended, happy, eating grass.
I bought a quarter share from another farmer, and once a month he brings pastured pork, eggs, and maybe some chicken (pastured). The eggs are just amazing- bright orange-y yolks that stand tall. And they come in all different colors. Some are brown, white, speckled, even green ones from his South American breed.

Julles, are you a vegetarian for moral reasons or health reasons?

404

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed!

« on: December 12, 2008, 09:19:26 AM »

Now I know you're not supposed to cook the flax seed, but was wondering if it is added to a hot meal right at serving if that is okay as far as not destroying the beneficial nutrients.

Brian, I think you should be OK adding flax to something hot. The trouble with actually cooking flax is that heat damages the omega 3 fatty acids.

405

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed!

« on: December 12, 2008, 09:15:01 AM »

Brian, Lettuce makes a terrific sub for bread. My favorite Doc (a tireless advocate of low-carb eating) has a blog, and just last week he did a photo journal of everything he ate during the week. You can see a sandwich here- http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/photo-diet-diary/photo-food-diary-tuesday-dec-2-2008/. And if you look at the rest of his photos, you will see that it's not boring at all. He probably eats more carbs than me, but you can get the general idea.

Also, you can gently blanch lettuce leaves (till they're slightly limp), dry them between paper towels, and then they become as flexible as a tortilla. You can fill them and roll them up like tortillas or won tons. You can fill them with chicken salad, tuna salad, burrito fillings, taco meat, etc.

I'd say that the hardest thing about eating this way is that (if you like sauces) you have to cook a lot from scratch. I make my own BBQ sauce, because most store-bought sauce is loaded with HFCS and other nasty sugars. Same with most other sauces. But it's well worth the extra effort.

When my hubby started eating this way, his triglycerides dropped from 206 to 67 after only 2 months. 

I have the ground flax, but I don't use it much anymore. Only in yogurt with blueberries and a touch of DaVinci sugar free blueberry syrup. Makes a nice dessert.

Esther, there was a recent study that showed that vitamin B12 helped with cognitive ability in older people. Generally- the older people who didn't get enough B12 had more cognitive decline. Also, the older you get, the less B12 you can absorb, so it's a very important vitamin.
The best (and only) source of vitamin B12 is meat.

406

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed!

« on: December 12, 2008, 07:53:19 AM »

Joyce is correct. I think the real kick-in-the-butt for me was the fact that I studied Anthropology. I knew that all these diseases appeared after the agricultural revolution. After people started eating grains (flour). I don't know why, but it took me 20 years to make the connection. If you take any indigenous population and start feeding them a high-carb American diet, the diseases will strike within 20 years.
Those diseases (heart disease, hypertension, T2 diabetes, cancer, periodontal disease, etc) are rarely present in native populations, eating a whole-food diet.


I don't find that it ever gets old eating this way. There are a million things you can make with beef, pork, chicken, fish, wild game, shellfish. It never gets boring. You can eat bacon without guilt.

For awhile, I was afraid of bacon because of the added nitrites & nitrates. But there was something fishy about that... there are nitrates in my pond that are getting taken up by plants. Why would they be bad?
Well it turns out that there are more nitrates in an arugula salad than there are in 275 hot dogs. So, don't let anyone make you feel guilty for eating the real human diet.
Most of the negative things you hear about eating meat are bogus. The studies that show eating meat causes cancer are bogus. The PETA people have a lot to do with that, "torturing the data to make it confess".



The longest- living populations on our planet are the ones who eat plenty of fat, and little sugars. Okinawa (they eat an enormous amount of pork fat) and Switzerland (think cream & butter & cheese).

We do eat chocolate, sometimes every day. But it's usually 70% or higher cocoa with not much sugar.

Carbohydrate drives insulin levels.
Insulin drives fat accumulation and inflammation.

407

Chit Chat / Re: Who needs pockets

« on: December 12, 2008, 07:35:34 AM »

Same here, Marla. The last time we had our septic tank pumped, the guy said "there was a lot of weird stuff in there".

Probably Matchbox cars...

408

Chit Chat / Re: I have been without a computer for almost 14 hours, so ii I am neglecting AP...

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:49:15 PM »

Does your neighbor know you are also drinking his liqour and eating his Fritos?

Drink the liquor  ... but for goodness sake, stay away from the Frito's!!!!!

409

Chit Chat / Re: snow in the south

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:43:23 PM »

Al Gore must have visited your place recently.

410

Chit Chat / Re: Show Me Your Bloomers!

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:38:20 PM »

Oh I could show you my bloomers, alright! I was playing with the kids tonight and they were bent on giving me a wedgie. Of course, my daughter took out the camera and took some NOT very nice photos! They will be deleted. 

411

Chit Chat / Re: Who needs pockets

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:33:08 PM »

Awww... looks like something my kids would do. How cute!

Although I did get awfully mad at my 6 yo boy for flushing a plastic straw down the toilet today.  Not good...not good for the septic system. 

Just being a kid though. 

412

Chit Chat / Re: Looks like they found Kaylee's Body...

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:25:51 PM »

So sad. I hope that adorable little girl rests in peace. Also hope her killer rots in hell...forever.

413

Pond Chat / Re: Fairy skirt

« on: December 10, 2008, 08:30:05 PM »

WOW!

When does it arrive for sale???

414

Chit Chat / Re: SoCal: The Artic Blast is coming, The Artic Blast is coming...

« on: December 10, 2008, 07:27:47 PM »

Fair warning!!     I really don't know what to do or if I would if I could.....

But these weather people get so radical about predictions, you gotta take it with a chunk of salt.  Roll Eyes

Joyce is absolutely correct.  When weather happens, it happens and that's that. 

Nobody knows nothin'! My hubby has a saying, " It's weathering outside" . What's outside? Just "weather". 

415

Chit Chat / Re: Chain letters? Advice from Snopes

« on: December 10, 2008, 06:35:29 PM »

I have a huge issue with kids and food. They are trained at school that they need to eat whole "grains", pasta, breads, waffles, pancakes, and tortillas, all with syrup and other sugar carbage. Compliments of the Food Pyramid. Then, the school proceeds to pass out anything but whole foods, it's all processed garbage. The irony is awful- it's the health of our children that is important- not the health of big corn, big soy, and big wheat. If they get a veggie at all, it is overcooked green beans from a can. What kid wants to eat overcooked green beans from a can? Would it be so hard to pour some salad out of a bag? It kills me when I'm trying to feed them real, whole foods. Grill a steak, add a salad- that's real food. Now they are rebelling against me for trying to feed them whole, real food. Because the school says so. 

Ever try and fish out a "whole" grain from a Cheerio?     Yet, Kellogg's gets to enjoy a "heart healthy" (paid for) stamp from the AHA. Arrgh. Whole grains are indigestible! Why bother?

Sorry about the rant. 

416

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed!

« on: December 10, 2008, 06:18:15 PM »

WHAT a beautiful plant. I wonder if we could grow that here? I've tried several different types of Rheums and killed them all.

The tea looks really interesting, thanks very much for the recipe. I'll have to check and see if I can get those ingredients here at my local health food store.

417

Chit Chat / Re: Chain letters? Advice from Snopes

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:51:42 AM »

I'm not sure I know that emoticon. Does it mean "what the bleep"?

I was sort of making a comparison between: religion- waving a bible around as truth; and the food pyramid- also waved around as truth, but only true for the "believers" who ignore the mountains of science that refute it.
I guess cuz we were talking about food. 

418

Chit Chat / Re: Thread Removed!

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:46:22 AM »

So true. So what's in the tea? Are there other ingredients? I want to drink more tea.

419

Chit Chat / Two stupid quotes to make you smile

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:24:51 AM »

"Of course milk comes from cows, but cheese comes from people" -Kraft cheese commercial

"Today is September 6- just a couple days before September 8."  -Matt Lauer


Anybody else have any?

420

Chit Chat / Re: Chain letters? Advice from Snopes

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:15:02 AM »

IE: Religion is often used as a camouflage for evil souls no matter how hard they beat on the bible or wave a cross it your face. 

Or a Food Pyramid.