Animal Chefs Help

 

 This beats the school cafeteria.

I have always enjoyed writing and observing the power of words. I have seen how the slant of words can make people respond accordingly. Graphics and videos help too.

My biggest beef is emphasizing body weight and making that weight a goal. Disease is not caused by weight going up or down - for the most part - but selection or rejection of damaging foods. For example, the best way to reduce the flabby-bread-belly is to reduce the number of bread loaves eaten with butter, peanut butter, jelly - or with slices of meat cheese (lots of fat and salt.

Tour the biggest grocery store and measure the number of foods which are most like fast food joints -

1. Heavily salted
2. Heavily sugared or fake-sugared (which is worse)
3. Heavily fattened up, often with plenty of salt and sweetener.

A can of Garbanzo beans can have as little as 120 mg of salt. The same can with the same livery but with the name of Chick Peas can have 480 mg of salt: Walmart vegetable aisle.

Reducing those items, which are little more than quarter-pounders with fries (bread, and salty toppings), will reduce body fat, once the addiction pains lessen. One waiter told me he lost 40 pounds by not drinking the free coke they were allowed to drink any time. 

Removing the fast food off one's grocery store menu is slow and the withdrawal is acute. It is easy to reward quitting salt by eating a bag of Fritos. 

The Answer Is Not Yuk Foods But New and Healthy Addictions

The doctor gave me potassium magnesium pills when I was low on potassium. Let the reader understand - He never mentioned bananas, which have

• Vitamin B6.
• Fiber.
• Potassium.
• Magnesium.
• Vitamin C.
• Manganese. (Harvard bananas link)
• The pills did not taste very good at all.

An apple is just as delicious as a slice of apple pie - completely satisfying with one or two large apples.

Charlie Sue always shares my apple and banana when I am enjoying them. Peach is favorite for both of us, but she walked away sadly when I offered her a perfect pear poised on her plate.

The Fun Part - Splurge on Deluxe Fresh Fruits and Fresh or Frozen Vegetables

People shift gears when buying certain foods, so really good fruits and vegetables can be especially good and nutritious. I am willing to bet (with Monopoly money) that buying the fast foods like pizza is going to cost more than a plentiful table of vegetables and fruits (top quality) with a reasonable amount of meat.

Today Charlie Sue and I shared one sausage sliced into the stew, and she finished the vegetable stew bowl with:

chopped frozen spinach

walnuts

blueberries

onions, green and red peppers,

ground flax seeds

garbanzo beans

tomato paste.

Baloney and cheese sandwich with butter? Get out! Get out!

Creation Day Today - Exercise Needed with Nutrition

The Fat-Sugar-Salt Diet has proven to be astonishingly effective in ruining the health of America - at a great financial cost in buying the chosen foods. Yesterday the pharmacy tech said, "Only one prescription?" I said, "That is why I am healthy - only one prescription, for my eyes."

Studies have shown that those who concentrate on vegetables, fresh fruit, nuts, and seeds will enjoy cascades of great nutrition and loss of weight. Many disorders - like diabetes - can be cured without needles and pills, especially useful since insulin itself harms health.

But now let us turn to the other side of health - exercise. It took me some years to realize how seductive the sugar and fat components produce such powerful addictions. When we exert ourselves, the body uses fast-acting sugar to get going, often called the glycogen (sugary) stage. That is when we have no desire to move an inch, so we make coffee and cinnamon-sugar toast - or Danish! Once that glycogen wears off, we want more sugar and even less exercise. 

We feel much better and want exercise when the fat-burning begins. That is why the start of a morning walk is odious at first on sugar and the end of the walk is delightful by burning fat. Fat is powerful and is an 8 cylinder engine compared to a 4 cylinder, rocket fuel instead of artificial maple syrup. 

High blood sugar is indicated by the constant fake need to consume even more sugar. Ice cream, colas, and breakfast and "protein" bars are one way to start the day and run into a sugared-energy slump. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman's books reminded me that strenuous exercise is needed most days, not just once or twice a week. I tried five days at the gym,  for two weeks in a row. I was much more energetic from daily exercise than using on and off attempts. 

Some food items to ignore - snacks of sugar, salt, and oil; processed expensive food; desserts; famously fat foods - white bread, white rice, milk, all cheeses, butter, cottage cheese, nutrition bars and plans, protein drinks, meats in large quantities.

Exercise

More important - exercise is most significant in strengthening bones, building muscles, and helping connective tissue in reducing injuries. Many people I know are battling bone breaks, knee and hip replacements.

Medicare offers a program called Silver Sneakers for free gym membership. That is a good way to obtain guided exercise instead of hospitalization. 

I start out each weekday on the dread-mill, a machine that makes me stare at a wall of TV screens, walking with no sound. A 30 minute exercise room has a gauntlet of machines for every body part. Afterwards, I stop at the gardening store or Walmart for more walking. 

Exercise gurus emphasize modest starts and a slow, steady increase in effort. Gardening is a good way to do extra work while enjoying God's Creation. The creatures enjoy the company. Rabbits casually walk by when I am digging. Birds remind me they have babies to feed. Squirrels run away from food and stop, flicking their tails and figuring out a quick return to the food. The more fresh water I provide, the dirtier the water features. "Aha! You are feeding the soil, so I can have more plants to feed more creatures to beautify the garden to make the snap, crackle, and pop relax my spine."

Craving What Is Good - From Ichabod the Glory Has Departed

 

 

Craving What Is Good - First Posted Here

1. As pants the hart for cooling streams
When heated in the chase,
So longs my soul, O God, for Thee
And Thy refreshing grace.

2. For Thee, my God, the living God,
My thirsty soul doth pine;
Oh, when shall I behold Thy face,
Thou Majesty Divine?

3. Why restless, why cast down, my soul? \

Hope still; and thou shalt sing 

The praise of Him who is thy God, 

Thy health's eternal Spring.

4. To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
The God whom we adore,
Be glory as it was, is now, 

And shall be evermore.

Hymn #525 from The Lutheran Hymnal

This began with thoughts about food - craving foods we know are useless, even harmful. As one medical person said yesterday, "Check just the fresh produce and frozen vegetables at the giant grocery-snacks-beverage store - shopping all done."

When certain vegetables and fruits are tried instead of the fatty, salty, sugary prepared foods, craving for the new/old foods is lacking. New incentives help appetites - fresh, delicious, removing bad ingredients, losing weight, feeling better, and startling the doctor with the blood panel results.

When lots of frozen uncooked vegetables and fresh fruits are eaten, the desire for prepared meals fades, albeit with flashes of junk-food days. I can carve a pineapple in seconds and have a blast of vitamin C, manganese, and other vitamins, with delicious flavor and fiber. Fresh food is medicine, but most pharmaceutical medicines do not really work, though they may address some symptoms.

Flipping the food diet from fat-sugar-salt to vegetables-fruits-nuts-greens will create a craving for valuable but low-cost foods. 

The Congregation

We can set aside the worth of denominations. They devour the income of widows and orphans, grow fat and sluggish with feeding themselves at expensive restaurants, and impose programs invented and recycled by apostates and blasphemers.

Is the desired outcome of a congregation "happy campers"? I heard a Church Growth expert say that repeatedly at a costly conference at St. Paul, German Village, Columbus, Ohio. I do not know if the non-Lutheran speaker has been arrested yet - so many Fuller graduates are - but the congregation went from large to almost gone in a few decades of hard work spreading false doctrine.

I doubt whether a pack of balding, pot-bellied Boomers will provide church music that addresses the craving of individuals for peace, forgiveness, joy, and love. In fact, I am still waiting for a Baptist or Presbyterian hymn about Holy Communion. Did I overlook a masterpiece?

Just as slowly starving people become listless and hollow-eyed, so the congregations have become lifeless, uninterested, noiselessly moving away. The leaders are trying to hide the horror they see in front of them, worse than losing the ice cream king to death and finding out his money solves nothing at all.

Something To Crave

The basics of the Christian Faith are simple:

1. The pan-Christian Bible - King James Version - this is the only one which is faithful to the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek - Apostolic - New Testament. Lutheran leaders should not only be ashamed but deprived of food, chased by dogs, driven out of town, and pelted with manure. The KJV is truly ecumenical while being precise and faithful.
2. The great teachers - Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz are enough for a lifetime and written for all of Christianity - not just a Midwestern abusive sect _________________ (fill in the blank).
3. The best hymnal - The Lutheran Hymnal. The apostate leaders have replaced the best hymnal with junkfood, often with their own awful "hymns."

Luther Said It First - 

And I Agree

Cubs Fans - One Day More

Growing up in Illinois, the only baseball team I knew about was the Cubs. My father was the ultimate Cubs fan, always waiting for his team to continue its winning ways through the summer. I went to games as a kid, even though we were on the opposite side of the state. When I served a parish in Sturgis, Michigan, our youth group went to Cubs games.

My favorite moment in baseball was early. I knew very little about it. I asked my father what grand slam was. He explained the bases loaded and a home run hit. I asked,"Could that happen now? The bases are loaded." He laughed, "That hardly ever happens." As soon as he said it, the player hit a home run and emptied the bases. That story was told around Moline for a long time.

Once the Cubs rain up a three-game deficit, I told Mrs. Ichabod, "One more loss and the Cubs lose the World Series." Instead, the Cubs began winning again. Last night must have been exciting for every Cubs fan in the world. A grand slam almost certified the win early, and the game ended 9-3.

One day more.


Watching baseball at the park is great, but baseball on TV has never intrigued me. I watch interesting games on the computer by calling up the scorecard and refreshing it every so often.

 Dad sponsored fast-pitch softball teams,
and we watched the King and His Court play locally.

My father was born in 1910 and experienced the drought of losses that plagued all Cubs fans. He would have needed to live to 106 to have watched these games. He would have sold his car to be at one of the games - that is certain.

 Cousin Dean posed for this picture.
We had tons of these hats to wear - and had to wear them
for cute calendar poses, no matter how old we were.

 Many years later, those paper hats were still
available for poses. Here is Little Ichabod previewing
how his son would look at the same age.

Refreshing Roses

Norma Boeckler, our artist-in-residence, wrote me a thank-you for showing how to refresh roses, in another post, so I am repeating the advice.

The moment roses and other flowers are cut, the stems begin drawing up air instead of water. To make cut flowers last longer, cut several inches from the bottom of the stems, just before placing them in fresh water in a clean vase.

Cut flowers can be put into a dishpan of clean water to hydrate them, or floated in a tub. I would do this before cutting the stems and placing them in the vase. I became an immersionist when soaking rather dry bare-root roses before planting. I also heavily pruned them upon planting them. They began growing at once and bloomed quickly.

Soaking Because
This is why soaking works. The stems and leaves take up water. When I water rose bushes outside, it is often through a soaker hose at the base. However, I still spray them down completely, to hydrate the stems and leaves. Plants are like people, as one book argued. If you feel great after a shower, so do they. The leaves and stems take up water fast, so they have a crisp look and grow better. Rose bushes are like sponges in taking up water, and they like to have their pores clean rather than dusty.

Change the Water Daily and
The decomposing process begins the moment the stems touch the water in the vase. If you looked at the water in a microscope, a lot of swimming little creatures would entertain you. Given a few days, that mildewing water will smell like death. God is reducing the death plant into new chemicals for the soil.

For maximum benefit and long-lasting cut flowers, change the water daily and make sure the vase is cleaned out thoroughly. I am much more a fan of clean water and vases than magical chemicals added.

Refresh the Flowers Again Each Day
The way to make the flowers stay fresh is to soak them again each day and pour water into the blooms. Simply spraying the flowers will help too. A very low water pressure will avoid the sink hose giving the budding a florist a free shower.

Roses have so many petals now that the bloom will cup the water and hold it in place for more hydration.

Trained, experienced, certified in Linux,
and confident in all matters rosarian.

The Butler's Pantry

Zoning or facing the shelves will make them
far more useful.

When we move I hoped to make use of the old library shelves, which lined the library of our home in Phoenix.

We made the winter a time of giving away anything useful and hauling away the rest. The last of the books were just mailed a short time ago. The Michigander said, "Throw away anything still in a box after one year." We gave away items, even a large table, all greatly appreciated.

The back wall of the Great Room (formerly - garage) was already lined with matching shelves. We just had to fix a few and clean them up.

These shelves are are now the Butler's Pantry. Tools and miscellany are banned from this area. Those items belong in the last third of the Great Room, near the Festival Door (garage door).

When we enter the Great Room, the Butler's Pantry is on the left, well lit from a new LED light donated by our gracious landlord.

The laundry area is on the right. Part of our renovation included adding framed photos where we had space.

The idea of the pantry holds food and supplies ahead so we do not run out of frequently used items.
In a small kitchen, extra supplies clog the cupboards so much that the space becomes useless.

We got used to drinking Sam's Club water, so I have four cases ahead. Thanks to the relative cool of the Great Room floor, they are always cool. If we have a big storm, fresh water is handy. Besides that, anyone working here gets water, and everyone loves free access to it. When our helper's children worked in the yard (for wages) they happily took home their water bottles.

We promote the idea of pure water being the best and most refreshing drink. Colas and juices create their own habits, so we end up buying more and drinking more - and paying more. When I worked at Walmart I was always stunned by the families hauling away cases of Gatorade. The plastic casing for Gatorade is made to sling the bottles on the shopping cart. I told my co-workers the mere thought of it gave me acid reflux. The labels of all the flavors made me laugh. And we had variations on the same, such as flavored carbonated water with fakey sucralose, in another area. Or - flavored and carbonated with no sweetener in a third area, fairly good but way overpriced.

When I buy things we need--since I am the main buyer--I put extras in the Butler's Pantry each time. Also, we now know how much we have ahead in some areas. For a time I was getting paper towels each time, thinking maybe we needed more. We had 3 cases at one point. Now the paper area is in one place and easily audited before the next trip.

When we shop together, we use separate carts. The cashiers are often confused. "Are you together?" 46 years - Mrs. Ichabod says. "Please don't complain in public," I respond. Sometimes we double up on the same thing, so that goes in the pantry.

I have a post in mind about cleaning tips. I was the store's self-appointing cleaning expert. That was as much fun as working in baking supplies and condiments.

Roses Like To Be Trimmed and Watered - More Than Most People Allow

John Paul II -
he got an honorary degree at Notre Dame,
so we are alumni.

I picked up some groceries at Walmart and saw cut roses for $5. Daisies for $5 or roses? - Not a tough decision. I looked over the various roses and pulled out some that looked fairly good. Retail roses do not last long in the vase, so I wanted the ones that looked fresh. I had a plan.

Roses are considered a thorn bush, but I think of them as sponges. Cutting roses after a long rainstorm is difficult, if the shears are not sharp and scissor-like, (The anvil cutting shears tend to crush rather than cut. They are better for small branches and tough plastic packages.)

I brought the roses home, got out the shears, and cut inches of stem away. The stems draw up air rather than water when going through the trauma of retail, from packaging to bringing them home. Cutting a few inches off is a good start.

I also cleaned the vase, which reeked of rot and mildew. I hear various tips about cut flowers. Changing the water daily makes them last longer, but even then, the forces of decomposition fire up and slimy mildew forms inside the vase. Scrub, scrub, scrub, detergent, rinse, scrub, scrub, rinse, rinse.

I paid $5 each for two Paradise roses.
Roses around a maple trees are far more attractive
than weeds and maple tree suckers.

Key Step
I use the sink sprayer and sprayed the roses all over, stems, blossoms, leaves, I would toss a bunch in a tub of cold water if they looked like they needed it. They looked completely refreshed when I put them in fresh water in a clean vase. Mrs. Ichabod loved them. I will repeat the fresh water and the cold shower today and Sunday morning.

Outdoor Roses
Our helper and I transplanted 8 roses from the front and backyard. The next step after planing a group,  is to water them thoroughly and prune them. Watering washes the soil down among the roots to remove air spaces. It gives the roots a start, because the new root growth will stabilize the plant and feed it. Pruning makes the roots grow even faster, even when the established plant seems unharmed by digging and replanting.

By watering I mean spraying all the upper parts of the roses so they get a real shower for their branches, not just water for their roots. I will repeat that on the second and third days too. Our helper did the first watering while I did another chore. I said, "Do not spare the horses."

A FB friend and I were discussing  bare root roses versus potted ones. I like to order bare root ones because I can choose exactly which ones I want. But potted ones are just as good, in spite of what rose snobs say. The three steps to have great roses are:

1. Prune
2. Water
3. Mulch.

Our 8 KnockOut roses became a neighborhood  wonder last year. They were all potted, dug into holes in the lawn, then mulched, watered, and pruned. Every time they reached 6 feet tall, they were pruned to 3 feet tall. We had dry spells so I gave them cold showers with the hose on the waterboarding setting. That dislodges dirt and loose flowers that need pruning anyway.

Veteran's Honor simply glows red
in the garden. The cut roses are splendid
and fragrant in the vase.

Bare Root Rain Soaker

We have added a memorial row for the main rose garden, with three more bushes planned, perhaps two more in the maple tree rose garden.

When the bare root roses come, I will soak them first in rainwater. I used to be skeptical about the soak, but I saw the value when I planted 20 at once last year. I had the rain barrels full of water and needed to open packages while planting and digging. I felt like the sorcerer's apprentice the rest of the afternoon, with dreams of every rose I wanted planted turning into a nightmare of digging, soaking, pruning, sorting, watering, measuring. 

The roses took off beautifully, better than I ever saw with previous efforts. 

If rainwater is not available, the other solution is gray-water (recycled in some homes from the wassh water) or tapwater left in the barrel at least one day. Chlorine evaporates out of city water, and chlorine is hard on plants. For the best results, use rainwater first, gray-water second, and soaker hose when there is no other way.

Mr. Lincoln has long, long legs,
magic beanstalk growth, fragrance,
and low cost.