Month: June 2017

09:07 – It was 67.1F (19.5C) when I took Colin out around 0645 this morning, mostly cloudy. Barbara is off to the gym this morning, and working on science kit stuff this afternoon. I’ll be spending some time on studying for the amateur radio exams, which I take this week.

As we were having an early lunch yesterday, Frances called to say they were about ten minutes out. We’ve told her and Al many times they don’t even need to call when they’re coming; just show up.

Al and Barbara spent most of the afternoon working out in the garden, while Frances and I worked on getting her signed up for Obamacare, to take effect July 1st. She’s also changed her mind about going into business for herself. I’d guess her job hunt has been disappointing. There just aren’t many good companies to work for, nor good jobs available with them.

So she’s going to start a business managing parties and similar events for people at their own homes or other venues. She used to manage events at the country club, and has lots of contacts among the CC set. Many of them host parties at their homes and need someone to manage that for them. Frances has a lot of experience doing that for companies, so it’s not a big step to start doing it on her own. I offered to help her get all the government paperwork completed, creating an LLC and so on. She’s already thinking about what her business card should include.

We went out for dinner at The Pines Restaurant and then they headed back home to Winston about 1830.

10:35 – It was 68.1F (20C) when I took Colin out around 0715 this morning, overcast and calm. Barbara is around home this morning, making up subassemblies for science kits, and off to volunteer at the Friends of the Library bookstore this afternoon.

Last Thursday, the local paper reported that a group was seeking permission to build a retirement/assisted-living home across US21 from us, on 20 acres of what had been cow pasture. Neither of us had any problem with the idea. Such places are generally pretty good neighbors, and it would generate quite a few jobs for locals. I told Barbara my only request would be that they install full-cutoff lighting fixtures in the parking lot to avoid light pollution.

The planning board meeting was last night at 6:30 and open to the public, so Barbara attended. On the way to the meeting, she dropped me off at the community college, where I had a ham radio class. On our way home, around 2000, we drove around the area where the new facility is to be built. It looks like we won’t even be able to see it from our house.

I’ve always been interested in pressure canning, ever since I was maybe 4 or 5 years old and “helped” my maternal grandmother pressure can. One wall of her basement was covered with shelves that she kept filled with canning jars of vegetables, fruits, sauces, meats, and so on.

It wasn’t until later that she told me that one of those shelving sections was a false wall that concealed a narrow room the length of the basement. Her grandfather had built the house before the Civil War and made the hidden room as a refuge for runaway slaves. They passed through New Castle on their way to Erie and thence across the lake into Canada.

I always assumed she’d been canning since she was a young wife, when my mother was born right at the end of WWI. And she may have been, but it was probably water-bath canning back then. I’d always thought home pressure-canning had become routine by around WWI, but I just read an interesting document that makes it clear that it was more like WWII before it became common.

As far as I know, pressure canners were sold for home use by about WWI, but most people apparently didn’t use them. No doubt the cost was part of the reason, but I suspect the real reason was that young women tended to use the methods their mothers had taught them, which is to say, boiling water bath canning and Tyndalization (described early in the linked document).

Even with such questionable methods, botulism was pretty rare. In fact, at the time, you were more likely to suffer botulism from commercially-canned products than home-canned. I don’t doubt that a lot of home canned stuff was contaminated with botulism back then, but I suspect nearly all women back then made sure to cooked canned meats and other low-acid stuff very thoroughly, as my grandmother always did.

The thing about botulism is that the bacteria and the toxin it produces are both heat-sensitive. Simply bringing contaminated food to a full boil is sufficient to destroy both the bacteria and the toxin.

In fact, that’s true generally of pathogenic microorganisms and their toxin, with the exception of a few fungal toxins. Some of those survive temperatures of 200C or higher, far hotter than any canning process, commercial or home, reaches.

Those of you who are about my age may remember the aflatoxin scare back in the 70’s. That was just such a toxin, which was why it scared the hell out of people.

08:53 – It was 64.5F (18C) when I took Colin out around 0640 this morning, sunny and clear. It’s already up to 78.5F (26C) with another warm day forecast. Barbara is off to the gym and has a couple of meetings later today.

I read an interesting article yesterday that talked about the effect of politics on retail. It claimed that 25% of Americans make buying choices that are at least somewhat influenced by the politics of retailers and brands. That doesn’t surprise me because I do the same. I’m not radical about it, yet, but I do tend to place orders with Deplorable Walmart rather than Prog Amazon. I don’t see any point to financially supporting organizations whose stated goals translate to attempts to destroy the fabric of the US as we know it.

I don’t understand why any large organization would intentionally drive off customers by instituting policies or taking political stances that are diametrically opposed to the beliefs of many of their potential customers. Customers nowadays want one thing from retailers: low prices. Taking a political position that conflicts with politics of potential customers is foolish. Customers who agree with a retailer’s politics aren’t going to be willing to pay more because of that. Customers who disagree will either not buy from that retailer or will buy only if that retailer’s prices are lower than another retailer who hasn’t taken that political position. And that’s true on both sides of the divide.

I need to spend some time over the next week or so getting ready for the Technician-class and General-class amateur radio exams. I’m taking both the same day. I bought the official ARRL manuals for both classes. Now I just need to go through both and memorize them.

09:57 – It was 64.4F (18C) when I took Colin out around 0645 this morning, hazy and bright. It’s already up to 82.3F (28C). This morning, Barbara is watering the garden and then doing a quick house clean. More kit stuff later today.

Barbara’s friend JoAnne stopped by yesterday with her daughter, Kelsey, who’s back from college for the summer. Barbara and JoAnne stood around talking for 20 or 30 minutes, while Kelsey sat out in the grass hugging and petting Colin. He loved it, but I’m afraid now he’ll be expecting Kelsey to come over every day and give him the attention to which he considers himself entitled. JoAnne’s family recently had to have their very elderly dog put down, and haven’t yet replaced it, so I’m sure Kelsey enjoyed Colin’s attention as much as he enjoyed hers.