Most people really have no idea what makes me tick.  If you want to talk politics, it really is not about Politics.  If you want to talk about religious beliefs, it really has nothing to do with Religion.   Let me give you some idea how I really feel. You might think Kennedy was the best the Dems ever had to offer. I think everything went haywire under a previous Democratic president, Harry Truman, who inherited the job from a really good Progressive administration under FDR. From there, it went steadily downhill and has never recovered. His biggest sin was creating the CIA and gave it a free rein with no oversight. Dwight Eisenhower had some good ideas, but he dumped a real mess in JFK's lap. JFK tried to rectify it and was determined to rein in the CIA and make it accountable to the president, but of course, the result was the CIA, under Allen Dulles, who Kennedy had fired as head of the CIA, took him out. Any president since that day, does not dare to buck the flow, as they quickly remind him what happened to JFK. You might also mention Ronald Reagan, as if he was the best the Republicans had to offer since Abraham Lincoln. He was in actuality, one of the worst, both politically and economically. The first thing he did, was make a deal with the Iranians that was the biggest scandal we ever had. He was the first American to win the presidency by colluding with the enemy. I suppose, that is where Trump got his ideas from. Secondly the day after he was sworn in, he brought in Donald Rumsfeld, who quickly got Aspartame approved by the FDA. Rumsfeld was also responsible for telling us he had lost track of 2.3 trillion dollars, 4 days before 9-11, and that is why one of the "planes" hit that area of the Pentagon where those records were kept. He single handedly ushered in the Age of Terrorism under GWBush and brought us into Iraq to depose Sadaam Hussein under the guise of going after weapons of mass destruction. No wonder, Trump, today is going after Iran under about the same pretexts. As for economics, it has been proven many times over that "Trickle Down Economics" does not work.  If you give the wealthy more money, they simply hoard it. You want to stimulate the economy, you give it to the very poorest of the poor, and they can not afford to hang on to it, so they rush right out and spend it, and that money gets used over and over and over and that is the real way you stimulate the economy, and many Democrats have proved that, then the Republican gets in and it goes away. One of the best examples in recent history was when GWBush wiped out Bill Clinton's surplus in his first four years as president, largely by fighting two wars without paying for them with any sort of taxation. Not to mention, of course, FDR taking us out of the Great Depression brought on by Herbert Hoover. And Obama, by the way, had us cruising again, briefly after Bush gave him the mini depression of 2008. I blame GWBush personally for my loss of two homes because of that housing crash. No, my friend our differences are vast, but they have very little to do with Left vs Right. That is where the real ruling elite wants us. Fighting across the aisle. The Bible tells us these days will bring Mother in Law vs daughter in law, etc etc. Myself, I have five daughters. Two of them are Trumpers and two are strictly anti Trump. The fifth sort of rides the fence. I can't myself personally see there is any middle ground. As Winston Churchill once famously said, "If you are not with us, you are against us." If you think I stand where I do out of ignorance, you, yourself are poorly informed. I listen to literally thousands of videos on hundreds of subjects. If the video is nine hours long, I sit there and watch all nine hours of it. I read extensively, not just the 66 books of our Biblical canon but many of the 81 in the Ethiopian version. Many of those books were in the Hebrew Bible before they were eliminated by Constantine and others in about 350 AD. I also read tons of non Biblical literature, including Sumerian, Accadian and Babylonian writings predating the Bible by thousands of years. I may be easily the most well informed person you have ever met. I am very open minded and will listen to anyone's point of view. In some cases, I have already pretty well made up my mind and I am not open to hearing any more hair brained ideas about certain individuals, and one of those, I am sorry to tell you is Mr Donald J. Trump. If only 1 tenth of what I am told is true, he is not fit to be President of the United States. He thinks he has already been exonerated in the Epstein Files. I don't believe he is so poorly informed. I have to believe, sooner or later he will get his just desserts, probably in the first year after Democrats win the mid-terms in an avalanche he will finally be impeached.  I know this post sounds highly political, and, admittedly, I believe there are more good liberals than there are good conservatives, but I maintain that the ruling elite own both parties and they really do not care which party wins a particular election.  A good example was the 2000 Presidential election between Bush and John Kerry.  They were both "Bonesmen".  No matter which one won the election, the American public lost.   As Jesse Ventura told us many years ago, the day he was sworn in as Governor of Minnesota, The CIA had him in an office explaining the facts of life to him.  What in the world does the CIA have to do with the Governor of Minnesota?  Well now you have some idea who is really in charge.  If anyone wants to buck the flow, they are reminded of what happened to JFK.  If they could take him out in front of thousands of people on live television with no consequences, what chance do you think you would have trying to fight them? We are no longer a Democracy in this country,  We are an Oligarchy, where the really wealthiest 1% make and enforce the rules.

RawKneePees BLOG

 I have been reading back to some of the posts from back in the Day.  It was a lot of fun for a couple years when there were five or six of us pumping something out every day or so, and there were people who read our BLOGs and commented.  Sometimes the same person would come back several times to see what else we had to say.  I particularly enjoyed one RawKneePee posted about some gal that had been reading his stuff.  I will quote the entire BLOG here, but the title of this Blog is a link to alll of RawKnee's BLOGs.

I was able to read your post and I could have even went in there and changed something, but I could not see a place I could make a comment.  I am working with a computer that used to be Donna's and I have been wanting to create myself a Login instead of always opening hers.  Well, I finally figured out how to go in as a Guest, and there was nothing there, not even a browser, so the first thing I  had to do was download Firefox, and then I started getting myself in there with a lot of new favorites, starting with my Gmail account.  Right away, Gmail wanted me to download Chrome, so now I have that on here, too.  I got both the Plarium and the Online Guy to load up but I could got get in with Facebook, or Facebook Klondike.  I still do not have that figured out, but then I decided to try Blogger and Lo and Behold, it popped right up and I did not have to do anything at all.  It just worked.   I sure do have a lot of trouble figuring out how these tarnation computers work.

 

 Hello, it's me.  I thought I might begin to blog again, but there is a learning curve.  And so it begins.

Today I am attempting to learn to make sourdough bread.  I have done this before, even made my own starter a couple of times over the years.  It should not be so difficult for someone who learned to make bread at the tender age of 9 years.  I have failed time and again to produce a nice bubbly bread.  I was trying to use my knowledge of experience with a nice yeast dough. 

I recently got a starter from a friend, added 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of bread flour and mixed well, let it set over night and this morning, finding it bubbly and active, I added the same amounts again.  Then I went to my laptop and read the instructions on two different sites, by two different bakers.  The process seems quite different from making the white bread I grew up with.

first issue, there is no sugar, no shortening, and no milk, just water, flour and salt, and of course the starter for the rising agent.

Instead of a stiff dough that you begin to knead after the initial resting period of 20 minutes, this recipe, says I should stretch and fold the dough in the mixing bowl, pulling and stretching and let it rest 30 minutes, then repeating the process every 30 minutes for 3 or 4 sets.

To my dismay the texture of the dough is very sticky and there is no way I can use my fingers to stretch and fold the dough.  After 3 sets with a spatula, i thought, I have to add flour, if I am ever going to get to a point of using my hands, so I added about 1/4 cup of flour, and began another 30 minute resting period.

So now after 3 hours, the dough is still very sticky.  I have to wait another hour, according to the recipe, then I should be able to turn it out on a floured board and fold it into a square, and then take the opposite corners and fold them over the center, forming it into a round loaf and gently turn it into a pan lined with flour or corn meal so it will not stick.  Still no oil is used.  I don't understand how I can make a loaf out of it. 

 I will refrigerate it overnight as instructed.

It is 7:30 AM and the bread is in the oven.  

Now I plan to take a picture and add to my blog.  Another curve in the learning to Blog, since my pictures are stored in the web and my phone is my camera.

So that turned out ok, but still, I'd rather bake bread as I learned as a child.

Well today is below zero for the first time this fall, December 9th, 2011.
The greenhouse  is heated with a wood air tight furnace with forced air draft, temperature of water at 110 , shuts off the blower until the temp drops 5 degrees.

The water circulates into the greenhouse, first through a heat exchanger to heat the potting room, then into the finpipe under the potted plants.

 A temperature probe in a pot of soil, regulates the opening and closing of a valve, so the plants don't get too hot.  Soil temp never gets up to 60 in the winter.  Plants like it cool, I get chilled as the air temp is much cooler. 
Today is forecast for sunny and warming up.  I can then work out there keeping the plants happy.
The barrel is growing a potatoe or two and last week I put Leeks in there.  They should like the cool weather and produce some edible plants in a few weeks.

Meanwhile I anticipate more veggies from the cool realms of the winter greenhouse.
My favorite at this time is Swiss Chard which is 2 seasons old.  I continue to harvest when I need some greens.  I expect it to bolt one day, but so far so good.  These plants are from the seed mix called Bright Lights.

One more picture before I finish today, (I am making up for 2 years of neglecting this blog)

This is 2 parsley plants growing in the ground bed.  there's enough here to keep my Spaghetti sauce flavored  and my breath fresh for a year.  I nibble it fresh, just like a rabbit.

Potatoes in a Barrel

This is a clean peeled New Potato. I rubbed the skins off with my fingers.
New in more ways than one. I grew this potato from seed. The seeds that form in the fruit on the vine, the little fruit that looks like a tiny green tomato. It is therefore genetically unique. It took 3 years to get this eating size potato. The first year 2007, only marble size tubers formed before the vines died back. I saved the largest and grew them in the garden summer of 2008. That time I got some nice roundish very smooth russet colored potatoes. Most of them are in storage, but a few in the barrel were left to sprout last fall in the barrel in the greenhouse. Today as I looked at this vine, I wondered if there might be tubers forming. Sure enough, this fine shiny potato is the first harvested from the plant you see below. It is a new variety. I dug it today On February 11th in Northern Minnesota. Didn't even have to dig really, I felt it with my finger tips and slipped it out of the peat soil under the vine. You see the plant here in a 50 gallon barrel.
Ok, but it's not cheating. It's just taking advantage of a good situation. High humidity and just right temperatures for growing. Inside a greenhouse that is. Not much else to do outdoors this time of year.

What is this then?

A sweet Potato? Wow eeeee
A whole barrel of them. I just regret I didn't take a photo of all the vines.

As you can see the tubers aren't all so large. The heat in the summer really helps the plants put on vines. the next time I will leave the vines on into the winter and let the tubers all mature as the one above.



Hey, I discovered a great way to grow potatoes and Sweet potatoes. I think you can do it, too.
Garlic did great in the barrel last year. I have some garlic started again this year along with the potatoes. We'll see how they develop..

Maybe this will work for you. Using a light peat and compost soil keeps it relatively light, but full of vines and spuds you won't want to move it. So set your barrel in a sunny location where it will really warm up quick and plant as early as you can. good luck and happy eating.

Barn's of McCrea Township

When my neighbor Mark Sinn said he wanted to see pictures of our barn before it was lowered, I had so much to say about it, I decided to start a blog on it.
So today, I will start by showing the barn in question and will try to add pictures each day of different views of the barn and the lowering of it.
This barn is located on the Morkassel farm section 28, McCrea Township, Marshall County, MN.
We think it was built in about 1910. this photo is of two ladies we don't know for sure, but may be Myrtle and Caroline, daughters of Gulick Morkassel who built the barn.
This photo contains the same barn. Helen is wife of Andy, son of Gulick who built the barn and the three children are their's. Paul, the baby is my husband.