Molly Goatwax

The Box of Bad Ideas

Note the padlock and the "Suggestions" box label. I've bored holes in it so that I can put a whiskey soaked cotton ball inside it for the aroma. It has a bit of poem:

Permeable

Perishable

You stink too.

It will be deivered for the cigar box show tommorrow.

Puttering, pottering and painting

Today while Hubby and the younger daughter rallied for sanity, civilty and bacon, I made a red lentil artichoke soup from this recipe, more or less. Kitchen variants included less onions, one can of diced tomato rather than two, adding a couple of the last small hot lemon peppers and a can of chicken broth with more water. Again, this could be so easily vegan without the chicken broth. I also brought in three of the pepper plants I didn't farm out til spring and placed the remaining potted herbs against the south wall for wintering. They are perennials, they should be good. In between all that, the Box of Bad Ideas went through final assembly. The sides of the support went from orange to chile pepper red. Picture tommorrow!

Busy

The beavers outside my office may be working just as hard as I am inside, as evidenced by the trees lining the entry drive to our business park. Behold!

 

That's some pricey scenery they're chewing up.

Dilemma

Can't find the strings of light up eyeballs.

The persistence of misperception

I'm putting Virginia Thomas' concept of an "olive branch" into The Box of Bad Ideas.

As the leaves skitter

I saw a boy on stilts

wearing a broad black hat

and a striped blanket for a cape

lurch up the sidewalk.

A girl in a globe skipped next to him

practicing for Halloween.

The Secret Lives of Goats

A few weeks ago I attempted a bit of crowd sourcing to ask you, my readers, to comment on what you may imagine goes on in a goat's private life. Underwhelmed by the response, with a bit of research I uncovered these tidbits; a goat named Maria was targeted and killed in a drive by shooting in Santa Fe, some goats in the UK were caught after binging on hallucinogens, there are a number of goats taped chugging beer, and there is actually a farmer in upstate New York recording the secret lives of his goats plotting the overthrow of the farm machines on a webcam when he's not around. So there may be some substance to your suspicions that goats are not so different than you and I-if you're from Baltimore. Finally, there is this picture I stole from the internets;

Dam Goats.

Yum yum and ho hum

This afternoon I made a very velvety fennel and leek soup from this recipe. I did not have any Pernod so some of the seeds from the fennel in the potted plant garden went into the cauldron. This could be made vegan very easily with the substitution of vegetable for chicken broth. It was well worth getting the blender into play. I also fetched from the cobbler some purple clogs with the German cork soles replaced...I felt like a cartoon of myself putting them into the trunk of my SAAB and cranking up the public radio. Then I went on to make plans with a pal to take over her sun room for the next six months to winter the pepper farm. I didn't used to be such a bore and don't really much care, anyway. On to the squash soups...

Playing with concrete

For sleeping with the fishes, once again the younger daughter and I ventured forth to help make reefballs. Last year we unmolded them. This time our crew was casting them. Working from a manual put together by an intrepid Boy Scout, we pinned the molds to boards, oiled the interior walls, placed oiled balls inside and filled them with wet concrete we reinforced with silicates and fiberglass. We banged the molds with rubber mallets to release any air bubbles and they'll sit for a week until released. The sun was bright behind the school's gym and it was hard work.

 

This really cool photo courtesy Coral Reef Alliance, although ours will be sheltering marine life in the Chesapeake Bay.

Movin' on up

My new office has three large windows past which duck families parade, I'm told. The computer on my desk has top end speakers and a dual screen monitor. I sit in a massaging chair, but I did't check it out today...I'll get around to it.