Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 132

Beans!

Green beans today.  Delicious raw...crunchy and green and wonderful.  I always forget how good really fresh beans are.

Home-grown meat

Goryness ahead: beware if you're bothered.   It's behind the cut

Brief history:  I grew up in farming country.   When we fell on hard times, a friend of my grandfather's brought us home-grown and home-butchered meat, which was delicious (but tough: this was during the '50s drought and the cattle that survived in the brush country had been living on brush and cactus, not good grass.)

So the concept of home-grown meat, and the way it got from critter to table, was familiar to me.

A few years ago, th

Gardening

Our garden is in that (always too brief) state when it looks like a real garden: the corn and beans are flowering, the tomatoes are flowering and have green tomatoes on them, etc.   So I took pictures and posted them over on the 80 acres blogsite.   Those of you who are envious should relax--in a month your gardens will look beautiful and this one will be mostly dead.  It's already in the 90s and has been, and the 100s aren't far away.    Then we'll be on water restriction again.  But for the mo

80 Acres: Wildflowers

More wildflower pictures are up at the 80Acres blog.

These were taken while guiding friends around the place last Thursday.   I've never seen the Brazoria looking this good! 

Writer's Block: Home Cooking

I cook for myself (and family) almost every day.   Most recently, I made a quick meal of potatoes and eggs (heating up leftover boiled potatoes and cooking them with scrambled eggs.)    A few days before, I cooked pork chops, potatoes, and had a salad partly (but now wholly) from our garden.   Before that, chicken enchiladas. 

80 Acres: pictures, flowers, new bug

Over on the 80Acres blog, I've just posted pictures of wildflowers and insects.

One or both of the insects are new on our list.  I always thought weevils were ugly, but this one is kind of decorative.

Kentucky Derby

Some Derbys are better than others. 

This was a great one. 

Sloppy track, 20 horses, and the cheapest horse in the race ($9500),  hauled in a regular horse trailer behind a pickup truck for 20+ hours to get to Kentucky from New Mexico--by the trainer--who had a broken leg--that horse so little thought of he went off at 50 to 1 odds...that horse won.   Not by a nose, not by a neck, not by a half length or a length....that horse came from far back in the pack, guided on the rail by the inestimable

Writer's Block: End of the World as We Know It

Human stupidity and greed, resulting in climate change with profound (and unpleasant to fatal) consequences to the planet and every living thing on it.

80 Acres: new species report

Ever wonder what a net-winged beetle was, or what it looked like?

I spotted a pretty orange flying "thing" yesterday and got enough pictures to ID it.   They're posted on the 80Acres blog.

On the Train Again: Alpine to El Paso

After lunch, I went back down to do some work, and at the announcement that the cafe was closing for an hour (it's where you can buy snacks and other things not included in the sleeper ticket--or, for coach passengers, cheaper food than is in the diner) I went back up and over and down again (it's on the lower level of the observation car) to pick up more water.  The sleeper comes with two 8 ounce bottles of water, but I'm used to drinking more in a day than that.  Earlier, I'd bought wate