design

everything is designed for something,
ever wonder why why no one does vodca shots with a brandy snifter ?
just try it
then you will get why it is a bad idea,

the goal is to figure out what something is made for,
then you will have a better idea of what is really going on

grain beetles / ozone

grain beetles are very annoying
and you can get rid of them all kinds of ways,
but I had no idea that ozone killed them so well,

I left an ozone generator running when I was gone shopping,
and I found 2 dead grain beetles when I got home,
they were clearly trapped in the plastic dish I found them in,
but they normally wonder around for a month once they get trapped,
but not with ozone everywhere,
just remember, ozone kills everything.

hindi names

so I have been talking of using sorghum flour and chickpea flour to live on,
but many people don't know how to cook with them at all.
the trick to finding recipes for them is to know the hindi name

chickpea is chana dal, and it's flour is called besan
sorghum is jowar,
lentils are dal
atta flour is a fine ground wheat that leaves most of the outer parts of the grain

most of the indian food does not need fancy things like refrigeration, and it tastes good,
and you are more likely to be able to grow the things to make it,
it has an entirely new set of things to work with,
and you don't have to spice it up at all,
some of the flat breads they have work very well as a base for pizza or cookies,
but any way you go,
it helps to know the hindi names so you can search for them and find the good recipes

just look on the bag,
it says it is good for bhajias and pakoras, and kaddi


so I searched for bhajia recipe
and found
http://indianfood.about.com/od/vegetariansnacks/r/bhajias.htm
but I am not going to use gram four (can't have gluten)

so I searched for bhajia recipe besan
and found
http://www.ruchirecipes.com/RecipeDetails.aspx?Recipe_ID=832
some new thing I can eat and had no idea it was out there a bit ago,
and it is all from things that I can grow and needs no refrigeration 

so I think that knowing hindi names for things is super helpful

shopping

so I went out for my yearly food supply run over the weekend and just got back,
I wanted olive oil (got 6L) and good rice (30 pounds), got some other tiny things as well,
I also ended up getting 24 pounds of chickpea flour at the indian grocery store for $24 that I had not idea they had until I got to the store

it leaves me wondering if most people know how very low price food is to buy right now,
even good food is so very easy to get (if you go to the correct places),
if you ever grow your own food, it will make you think about easy it is to just go buy food right now,

on the trip I visited friends,
it was wonderful to see them all again,
I had forgotten how much I miss them, 
I have wonderful friends

one of them even decorated breakfast

waiting for spring

need something to do while you wait for spring ?
learn how to deal with an ice storm
http://www.naturalblaze.com/2014/02/lessons-to-learn-from-tech-age-ice-storm.html
I am so glad that I don't live somewhere cold,
but strangely I am still ready for an ice storm.

good luck to everyone that is cold out there.

cold weather adapting

cold weather adapting is something you can likely do if you try,
just go read the story of this peanut
http://jandlgardens.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=242
peanuts usually require warm nights to grow,
but it is only due to people not growing them in areas where it is cold at night,
the trick is to just keep trying growing them in colder and colder areas,
and it will pay off at some point,
people did it with tomatoes long ago, and it worked great.

guides

there are all kinds of quick guides to timing and spacing for growing plants,
here is my favorite, but I tend to think they recommend a bit deep for most things,
http://www.harrisseeds.com/Storefront/download/vegseedplantingguide.pdf
more here,
http://www.harrisseeds.com/Storefront/t-PG_Info_OtherGuides.aspx

lots of seed companies have handy guides and tips on there websites,
so go look for them

here are the peas sprouting

 with a screen to keep out the birds (they will eat them all with out a screen)