Buy stuff

You may have noticed that there are ads on this blog. These are there in order to generate money to make it somewhat worth my while to keep updating the blog. There are two kinds of ads Google Adsense which I very little control over (though I was able to block all Monsanto ads from showing up on this blog, much to the dismay of the people at Google who tell me how to best get people to click on the ads here and have written me many many notes telling me I am not a great capitalist because I block certain corporations from appearing here. Too bad, I have standards that are not negotiable)

I also have products from Amazon that I am selling through this site. These, unlike the Google Adsense, I have full control over which items will appear on this blog. And today I updated my offerings to include non book items for the first time.

There are now 3 non book items
Food Inc-this is a must see film if you do any eating at all in this modern world. For the savvy locavore there will not be much new (though I was still shocked by a lot of this film because you so seldom see graphic images of our industrial food stream). This movie was nominated for a 2010 Academy Award, BTW

Zyliss Salad Spinner-if you are getting into eating locally or just love salads your kitchen is not complete without a salad spinner. I use mine many times a day. It is a Zyliss spinner that is at least 12 years old and still going strong. It is not like the model listed here as mine has a pull string (which they do not seem to make any longer-Amazon does list the pull string type as out of stock and not getting any more)

Excalibur Food Dehydrator-this is the BMW of dehydrators. This model is their largest and will do around a 1/2 bushel of food. I use mine heavily and love the results. I highly recommend this product

A note on some of the the books
The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook is excellent, I have a copy and have learned much. If you are a farmer and want to be truly profitable get this book and make a better living you need this book in your library. I give this a hearty thumbs up

The New Organic Grower Another excellent book, a classic on how to set up and run a small diversified organic farm. Eliot Coleman is a master market gardener and a really good writer. this book, more than any other got us up and running and we still refer to it a lot. If you are a market gardener or serious organic gardener this book should be in your library

New Titles From Amazon

I have posted 4 new titles and a DVD. The theme this time is cooking. I have listed 3 cookbooks. 2 of them, Moosewood and Silver Palate I own and use a lot and one, Simple Foods I would like to own and use a lot. These are good cook books to have if you are cooking a lot of whole and local foods.

Fast Food Nation is a must read for anyone who cares about what they put in their bodies. It is scary and it is full of fun facts and history about industrial food. I have read this twice and it is probably time I pick it up again. This book was a heavy influence on me as far as becoming a locavore.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a DVD about the guy who started and runs Angelic Organics near Chicago, one of the largest CSA's in the USA. This was shown on some PBS stations but none that I can get. I have been told by many people I respect that this is a great flick.

So click on the Amazon links and buy a book or DVD and educate yourself about food and farming all while supporting a small Ohio farm

Lucy & Eugene get a DVD Player (finally)

I got package full of interesting DVD's from my brother for the Christmas/solstice season, 5 in all.

But we did not have a DVD player with which to view them so we went to Richmond and got a Coby™ DVD player from REX for under $31 (including tax).

Long time readers of this blog may remember that in November 2005 we had a visit from my brother Scott and during that visit, among other things, we bought a DVD player from the local Wal-Mart box store. It turned out to be a very evil DVD player (See My weekend... & Purging the Evil for the story about the last DVD player and all the ensued) so it was returned (partly because the TV we had at the time was too old for DVD players, partly because the damned thing seemed to be cursed).

now that we have a much newer TV we can now use DVD player technology and we had been discussing buying a DVD player for a couple of months (since we got Fran's TV). When we got the package of DVD's in the mail we figured it was a sign to go out and purchase one.

And so we did.

We decided to buy at REX because it is a local company (based out of Dayton, OH) and also because it had cheap players whereas Wal-Mart had them for about $90 and HH Gregg was not much cheaper. All we wanted was the most basic unit we could find and REX had that unit. It was so basic we opted to pay five bucks more for one with an LED display. The sales guy answered all our questions but warned us that this unit played on DVD-/RW disks and DVD+/RW disks. But he also assured us that the DVD+/RW disks are almost never used.

So we drove home happy with our new purchase.

We get home and I find the DVD's my brother sent and damn it to hell, all but one was a DVD+/RW. So without reading the specs on the DVD player box we start planning the return of yet another DVD player. At least this time no pets were dead on the road or furnishings stuck where they ought not to be. but before we get too far in our return the DVD player plans I wander over to the box and read the specs and find out the unit will play DVD+/RW disks-Yay!

While I cook dinner, Eugene hooks up the player to the TV set and by 8pm we are watching one of the DVD my brother sent. we put in man on the Moon, about Andy Kauffman. We get the menu screen with sound and color and everything so we know we have the thing hooked up correctly. press play and get the movie itself but no sound. I figure out how to get English subtitles so for a while we can read along. but it ain't the same as listening. So we try this is Spinal Tap and with that we get a strange voice over of the band in recent years describing the "documentary", strange. I am curious to see what other surprises await us with the DVD's. Still have Heathers, the History of Violence (which I have not seen) and American Splendor (another one I have not seen and I hope is watchable because I have wanted to see this since it came oout about 18/24 months ago. It's about a guy named Harvey Pekar and I have a friend named Pekar but I do not believe they are any relation).

That is our most recent adventure involving electronics.

My Weekend: The good, The Bad, The Indifferent

Shiva helping on the farm
Boy, it has been an eventful past couple of days.

Some bad things have happened and some good things have happened in the past 48 hours.

The worst thing to happen was losing Shiva the cat on the highway last night while we were out eating with my brother, Scott, who is visiting from Brooklyn, NY. Shiva had been with us around 8 years. he was our gardening cat. He loved to follow us out to the gardens and hang out with us while we worked. if we worked too long or too hard he would distract us away from work and get us to play with him. He was unique and will be sorely missed. So the three of us spent the late evening in shock and toasting the cat. He was buried this morning and a sugar maple sapling was planted on top of his corpse.

Better is the fact we bought a new bed and box spring today. we have been sleeping on a futon on a board for our entire relationship (and I was sleeping on it for about 10 years before that). But of course we could not have the bed event go smoothly. The first trouble started at the mattress store when we could barely get the mattress in the van and had to tie the box spring to the top of the van. we got about 2 miles down the road and one of the ropes came loose. So stopped at the Lutheran Church on US 40 in Richmond, In and tied the thing back down and went on our way to Radio shack to buy an adaptor for a new DVD player (more on this in a sec). Got the adaptor and got home with no problems but a bit of stress.

Got the box spring in the house and wouldn't you know it, it would not fit up the stairwell. So as I write this Eugene and my brother are working on taking the lintel (plus a lot of plaster and most of the door frame) off of the door in hopes that this will give us enough room to get the box spring up the stairs.

Now the destruction is over and the BS is halfway up the stairs (yay!!!).

In better moments this weekend we went to our last regular farmers' market and did alright. It was a busy market traffic-wise but not a lot of buying going on. It seems it was Miami University's Parents weekend so we got a lot of parents coming to the market with their college aged kids. Hopefully this means we get more student customers next season now that they know there is a Saturday market.

The best thing to happen this weekend has been my brother visiting and seeing the new farm for the first time and plastering two walls that had gotten water damage this past spring. now we have some fine looking plastered walls with no mold or paint peeling off of them.

Finally, we bought a DVD player at the evil Wal-Mart Sooper Center and now find it will not work with our antiquated (read 6 year old) TeeVee. We can buy a $50 adaptor at Radio Shack but that is nearly twice what the DVD cost and it may be better to buy a new TeeVee (though the one we have works fine and does not need replacing) or may have to return the item to Wal-Mart and get our money back and remain a VHS family for awhile longer.

While were doing this the cat was being killed, yet another bad Wal-Mart memory. A favorite cat killed and a useless DVD player-Great...

The bed has made it upstairs, the house is full of dust and plaster, the lintel over the stair doorway looks like hell but, by Gawd, the deed is done and we will have a real bed to sleep upon for the first time in our marriage. It will be nice to wake up not stiff and in some pain and well rested.