Brew

Coffee. It seems you either love it or you don't like it at all. I've liked coffee since I was quite young. I felt that at times I was drinking too much. I even quit totally for a time but I just could never find a satisfactory substitute. Postum, a grain beverage, didn't seem to satisfy. I'm not big on tea, herb or otherwise. A little is fine but not as a regular, daily drink.

A few months ago I was reading a book, I believe a western. The characters had run out of coffee and they were using roasted chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) as a substitute. I mentioned that to Darryl. I believe he did a bit of research and he decided to try them. He had been roasting his own coffee beans in a hotair popcorn popper so he used it to roast some chickpeas. He gave us a cup of his brew and it wasn't bad. So, we purchased some garbanzos and began roasting and brewing up some "chickpea coffee." I found that we like a blend, about 3 parts chickpeas and 1 part coffee. It certainly doesn't contain a lot of caffeine and is quite a bit less expensive.

Chickpeas are very high in protein content and are used in many ways. They are used even for many medicinal applications--bronchitis, constipation, diarrhea, dypepsia, flatulence, snakebite, sunstroke and warts to name a few. WARNING: numerous articles state that chickpeas have been used for hundreds of years as an aphrodisiac.

Enjoy a cup!

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I'm a lawbreaker!

I have found on several websites that in Kentucky there is a law on the books that states that a person must take a bath once a year. I was unaware of this law when we were finishing up our house and we installed a walk-in shower. We have no bathtub, so I have not been taking my yearly bath. I hope the "bath police" don't come knocking on the door. None of the sites I visited spelled out what the penalty was. I suppose it might be banishment from all public buildings or shunning by all of ones friends.

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Two Story Outhouse

I mentioned in my profile that I was born and grew up in Illinois. Following is a bit of trivia that you might find interesting.

I was born and grew up in Moultrie County, Illinois. Our shopping and association was with the town of Sullivan, for the most part, but we received our mail through the post office at Gays, Illinois. We visited some friends there from time to time but we had little association with the small community. Reading a bit of the early history I found that the small community was established in 1855 and was originally known as Summit. It was apparently named Summit by railroad officials because it was the highest point on the rail line between Terre Haute, Indiana and St. Louis, Missouri. In 1861 the name was changed due to confusion in mail delivery since there was another town in Illinois named Summit. The name of Gays was selected. I could find no information as to where that name came from.

In 2005 the Illinois General Assembly passed HR0543, a House Resolution, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of Gays. Quoting from this document, "WHEREAS, Since its beginning, the Village of Gays has had restaurants, grocery stores, shoe repair shops, tile and brick yards, meat markets, blacksmithing and wagon making, hardware stores, feed mills, a cream station, garages, a filling station, beauty shops, radio repair shops, a bulk plant, and bottle gas retail; in its early days, there was a succession of several doctors; the Village also has a two-story outhouse, and visitors from all over come just for the novelty; and..."

Yes, Gays is known for its two-story outhouse. Several web sites on the internet give a bit of information on it and show pictures. It was built in 1869 for two second-story apartments above the S. F. Gammill general store. The top floor was used by the apartment dwellers while the bottom floor was used by patrons of the store. The store sat vacant for a number of years and was finally torn down in the 1980's. The citizens of Gays decided to retain the outhouse as a historic landmark and it is now an official state tourist stop and even has a road sign and a historic marker. In the early 1950's an uncle and his family lived in a building just across the street from this "skycrapper," as some have called it. The Gammill store was still in business then and the outhouse was still in use. I don’t know that I ever used it but I did visit it and "checked it out." As many web sites point out, the "materials" released from the second floor would fall behind the wall of the first floor

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Fresh radishes and salad greens in December

After completing the work on our house there was a small quanity of sand left over. I decided the grandkids needed a sandbox. I built a box out of treated material that measured 6 feet by 8 feet. The kids loved it. I don't think that love extended to their mother, Anne, since sand seemed to stick to clothes, end up in pockets, etc. and was carried into the house. The major problem that was encountered was that the cats found the sandbox to be a BIG litter box. That just wasn't pleasant or healthful for the kids, so the sand was removed and I had a big box to do something with. I filled it with soil, built a framework and covered it with clear plastic making it into a small greenhouse. I used it last Spring to start some garden plants. I am trying to use it now to extend our growing season a bit. I planted several types of "greens" earlier this fall and have harvested a few items.

Wednesday afternoon I pulled several radishes. I saved the most tender looking leaves and added several turnip leaves. This made a very good green salad with a bit of oil and vinegar dressing. Hopefully we will have chard and spinach before very long, as well as more radishes and turnip leaves.

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Mush

Almost everyone is familiar with mush which is usually made from ground corn. I guess that is okay but I was introduced to mush made with wheat many, many years ago. I hadn't had any to eat for quite some time until this morning. Oh, it was good! To make it I ground some wheat, the wheat berries just as they were combined in the field. Yesterday we cooked a couple cups of it in water, just as one would cook rolled oats, etc. Some of that was our breakfast with honey and fresh cream on it plus some canned blackberries. Of course we cooked extra so there was some left over. This was put into a rectangular dish and was placed in the fridge until this morning. Connie sliced it into slices about 3/8 of an inch thick and fried them in a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet on the wood cook stove. With some good maple syrup it is just hard to beat.

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Stalagmite of ice

I have a couple of poly tanks under the back deck to hold rainwater from the roof of the house. When they are full of water it runs up and out of an overflow pipe. We had a bit of rain a couple of days ago, the tanks are full and a bit of water seems to continue to overflow. When I went out this morning I discovered that a stalagmite of ice had formed on top of the ice that had frozen on the bucket being used to catch some of the overflow of water. I thought it a bit unusual to find an inverted icicle.

Garry

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Heating with wood

We heated with wood back in the 70's while living in Illinois. The little box stove we used was one my father and I salvaged from a junk pile on a neighbor's property. It might not have been very efficient but we managed to keep from freezing and we saved a bunch of money not having to buy fuel oil or propane.

Wood is readily available here in the area of Kentucky in which we live so we opted to purchase a wood burning heating stove. We were not aware of the changes that had taken place in the way stoves were being made, mostly because of government requirements for efficiency. The stove we purchased was a very nice looking and solidly built unit but we soon found that it had some design problems. One thing we didn't think about or know enough about when we bought the stove was the desirability of an ash pan. To remove ashes while keeping a fire going required one to take out a lot of good, hot coals. There was also a tremendous amount of ash that got into the air and settled on everything--curtains, the table, etc. One thing that we had been able to do with our old box stove was to do some minor cooking, i.e. a pot of beans, etc. The way in which the stove we purchased was made no cooking could be done on it.

We liked the heat from wood, the lack of high heating bills, etc. We decided this past summer to get another wood burning stove but one that would not only heat our home but would let us do some cooking and one which had an ash pan. Darryl and Anne had bought a stove a couple of years ago that they were very happy with and with which we were quite familiar. So, we chose to buy a stove of the same kind. We hadn't been aware until we were preparing to order our stove that Danny had also decided to make the same move we were making.

To make a long story short Danny and I were able to drive to the Kentucky factory of the company that makes the stoves we bought. Although the units we obtained are made in their Canadian plant they stocked several at their factory about 80 miles away.

The stove we purchased is the Bakers Choice. It does a very great job of heating our home and we are doing quite a bit of our cooking on it. That saves a great deal of electricity. For tonight's supper I cooked small pieces of venison heart and then made milk gravy on the top of the stove while Connie baked biscuits in the oven.

Below is a photo of the stove taken from an internet site.

Garry

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