A Parlour for a Plague

A good varmint rifle would have served you well.

I tried sugar-free recipes but they weren't as reliable as the ones with sugar. My grandmother sometimes used to make jellies without pectin but I don't think you can do that with grapes. So I'd use Certo and a good amount of sugar. Who knows, I might get back into it one day.

Have you made grape wine? I've made a few good wines with wild fruit — choke cherries, rose hips, wild apples — but I never tried using my grapes. I like big tannin-rich Cabernets and I knew nothing I made could even come close to what I was looking for. I've never had a homemade wine that was anywhere near as good as what I can buy in a bottle. Funny, my experience is that it's the opposite when it comes to beer.

Yeh, when I still drank I made a number of really good sour cherry and choke cherry wines. These were really flavorful cherry flavor with only a hint of sweetness.

We used to carry em in these leather botas under our arms when we went skiing. Wed get progressively more hammered as the evening went on. My grandfather used to make a"ZStrechuyn" (have no idea how close I am on that name). Hed make it out of slo gin and doctor it up with dry grape ferment and a high alcohol yeast.(Its the same stuff that they use in making Dogfish Head wine porters. The sweetness of sloe gin was cut and the alcohol dropped and It had a great taste and a sneaky attack.

Since I was a hemistry grad studentI had all kinds of lab equipmnt to make wines, glass carbouys, fermentation funnels, gooch filters and old vacuum pumps. (IT was always nice when the sediment was removed how the wine flavors improved). I gave it up when my wife left me and I given a job and fellowship at another U. Geology and winemaking would kill ya,

Yes I had a vine that was grown from a cutting of the vine at Hampton Court. Very, very dry indeed.

Neighbors might not have appreciated that sort of nocturnal activity, as satisfying as it would have been. Dogs were another alternative. And electric fencing. But I used a Hav-a-hart trap, a plastic garbage bag, and a car exhaust to dispatch them.

And so it was that NYC said "time for a nap!"

restaurants, bars, food serving places are now takeout or delivery only. No seating allowed.

Gyms, movie theaters and other entertainment spots are closed.


It has been worrying me that many of the people who are going to be stopped from working during this time, have no real resources, depending on a regular paycheck and in many places on tips.

What’s sxsw Chai?

Well, bugger.

Raccoons sound a major adversary! We have to net here because of Corel last, mainly. They get anything peeking through the nets, will fight to get under nets and succeed in ripping some apart

We also have rabbits and possums.

I was hulling almonds a couple of weeks ago and the insect/arachnid eco system in the almond trees was something to see!

We have lots of snakes, too, which I assume are harvesting small mammals but which don’t seem to affect our rabbit numbers

If plants could pass gossip down the centuries!

How’s things in the old dart, izzie?

Our government has announced access to a higher than usual benefit for casual workers....but since the unemployment benefit is way below poverty level, they isn’t going to help much. Also, from application to payment is running at about 4 months before the epidemic

"Everything in Australia can kill you"
-- Bill Bryson

HOLY CRAP, I see the EU has asked Ford Motor and Rolls Royce to stop making cars and switch over to making ventilators for the nar future.
Apparently the real problem will be the number of available ventilators in hospital ICU's so our bodies can hal from the virus before we suffocate.
I wonder how much ventilators cost??

Not everything can kill you. The rest of them just wish they could.

Sits with this a minute.

In Italy, because so many people are ill, at sixty you will not get access to ventilation. Looks like it’s not only older people at risk

Let’s hope they make them fast

This from people with grizzly bears and too many guns!

Rackety-coons, oh my Dog. In Ontario, the raccoon populations is, officially, three per square kilometer. But that's skewed by Tranna, in which the raccoon population is 150 per square kilometer. The city issued green bins (for vegetable waste, yard waste other than grass clippings and leaves in autumn, doggie and kitty poo, etc.) which were touted as raccoon-proof. Soon, there were dozens of vids circulating of raccoons opening the green bins. A city spokesman began the official response by talking about "raccoon-resistant" green bins. Doubles speak à la the Plump administration. Them critters is intelligent, adroit and largely fearless.

Actually, although I'm almost seven years old than The Girl, people routinely underestimate my age. I tell people I'm 69, and most don't believe me. She's just sending me because I'm up early every day, and she lies abed . . .

we got two of em on A2K? knowthat?