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Where is the Random Thread of Randomness stuff that doesn't belong in other threads thread?

For as much as I bitch about America in 2025, I infinitely prefer living in the age of supermarkets to having to kill and clean animals and process produce. Did I talk about the chestnut harvest yet? Spend a couple hours a day for a month, picking the nuts off the ground. Spread them out in the basement for a month to get rid of the rotten ones and the ones with weevil larvae, sorting through them for the ones larvae have bored a hole out of. Then you get to carve "X's" on each shell before chucking them in a 400F oven for 15-20 minutes. Then, when they're cool enough you get to shell them and throw away any that had weevil larvae in them that didn't bore their way out. Then you have to eat them before they spoil.

Today was the apple harvest. I've got a tree that grows little brownish apples, about the size of a big cherry or a small plum. So the only thing they're good for is apple butter--which they're great for, but before you can make that you have to sit and cut out the cores on all the little bastards. It is tedious and miserable. And then, once the've cooked down in the crock pot, you get to fart around with canning. Ugh. I tried my plum pitter on them and it *sort* of works, but not really. So it's back to the knife. Hmm. if I had a metal tube around the size of the barrel of a pen and the end was sharp, I could put it over the core, hit it with a hammer and BAM. Done. Hmm. Is it worth going and hunting through the junk drawer? Hmm.
 
Ok my computer isn't loading CKLT's pics yet. So I think it is the same as I had last night-cloud cover and nothing! Just kidding, I hope there are some awesome pics up there!
 
Mirah said:
Ok my computer isn't loading CKLT's pics yet. So I think it is the same as I had last night-cloud cover and nothing! Just kidding, I hope there are some awesome pics up there!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I tried again last night, sat out in a nearby cow pasture for over an hour randomly taking 10 second exposures while a pack of coyotes were baying not very far away. Got nothing, last night was a complete bust. Probably worth the effort though, and I didn't get eaten.
 
The neighbors are having some outdoor contracting work done. So I'm stuck with my dog, watching them out the side window and periodically "I KILL YOU!" barking at them. :/ My old dog, for all her foibles and quirks, you could tell her someone was friendly and she'd listen. This one won't have it. She knows who belongs in the neighborhood and who doesn't. It's good, I guess, but tiring.
 
I love that that reggae Skull Shaver jingle was so addictive that they had to get rid of it.

At first I liked it but it was too catchy and would get stuck in my head so it didn't take long before I'd mute the TV, change the channel, or even plug my ears and go "LALALALALA" until it was over. And I must not have been alone because first they ditched the reggae beat and not long after it looks like they completely ditched the lyrics too.
 
You know dogs have an insane sense of smell, but once in awhile you get a demonstration (there is a little yuckiness at the end of this story). Out walking The Dog this morning. Not one of her regular patrols, but a route she's taken in the past. Going from one developed area, the road dips before going over a bridge for a creek and coming up in another developed area. Brush and swamp for about a block in between. As we're approaching the bridge she wants to cross the street. I don't think she's ever done this but it still basically fits with a route she likes to take--usually we cross over once we're on the other side of the bridge.

Well instead of crossing the bridge, she wants to go into the woods. She's a good dog and I spoil her so I let her off the leash so she can explore. She probably smells some poop or garbage or maybe some kind of critter in the bushes. But instead of stopping, she heads off into the woods, periodically looking back to see if I'm following. I grumble and curse but the route looks passable. In fact it looks like it is probably an animal trail. She turns left as she heads deeper into the thicket. Probably 150-200' from the road, she stops. I get there and it is a dead deer. It probably got hit by a car and made it that far before dying. It was there long enough for scavengers to have made a good start on it but not long enough to be stinky and disgusting. I couldn't smell the thing, standing right over it. She sniffs around it a bit, pees on it, and reverses her trail back to where we left the road to continue her patrol like nothing happened.
 
Chestnuts are incredibly overrated. Nat King Cole and Mel Torme can fuck right off. This is my first earnest attempt at maximizing my chestnut harvest and it has been a learning curve. Probably had to throw about 70% of the harvested nuts out because weevils got into them. Then I threw out about half of the first batch I roasted because they got moldy. This time I did a smaller batch and did not soak them in water before roasting like a lot of the instructions suggest. So far no mold, but the majority of them are too hard to enjoyably (or indeed safely) eat. I may eventually figure them out but they're a pain in the ass. I was thinking about attempting to use the black walnuts for something other than wrecking my lawnmower blade this year but they're at least as big a pain in the ass as the chestnuts.

My second year of making apple butter is proceeding slightly better but I've got to figure out the consistency. A lot of recipes recommend blending them, which I scoffed at, but if you don't you get big apple chunks that don't spread well at all. Last year I used my ancient blender but it hasn't been used in ages and from teh smell and the smoke I think the motor is dying. "Plunge" blenders are, like, $140 so I picked up a Hamilton Beach electric mixer for $22. Did a preliminary test and it has promise but it also promises to be a messy job so I set it aside for now. But I guess I'd better refresh my memory on canning because that probably has to happen this weekend. Then I should be set for jam for the year. Not like the plum trees where I had jam and wine and pruns and everything else I could think of with plenty to give away, but I may send out a couple jars as gifts this year. And maybe the tree will keep growing so I'll have more every year.
 
I have never had a chestnut. I have also never had a chocolate cobbler.



I AM MAKING THIS TOMORROW.
 
During the early 2000s short hair phase, I wore my hair short. I started wearing it longer in the 2011's (or whatever we're calling that). Then the 'rona happened and you couldn't get a haircut. After the 'rona ended you still couldn't get a haircut because all the decent, competent barbers quit. So since 2020 I've been doing this sort of cycle: I cut my hair. Then I decide I want a majestic, late 20th century/local TV anchorman mane, so I let it grow out. Then I may or may not catch Tim Allen in episodes of "Home Improvement" and "Last Man Standing" and realize how he looks younger when he's older but has shorter hair, and I go back to a more modern cut. I'm approaching a cut cycle. Right now I've almost got enough hair to make a little bobcat/cottontail ponytail. I realize it would look better shorter but also that it *might* look *majestic* if I can just let it grow out. But on the other hand I tire of sweeping hair off of things I don't want hair on.
 
THINGS THAT GO ON A HOTDOG:
Yellow mustard.
Relish.
Possibly chopped raw onions.
Maybe sauerkraut.
Maybe fried onions.
Chili? Cheese? Peppers? I guess.

But NEVER ketchup. Ass to mouth is more appropriate than ketchup on a hotdog.
 
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