My Crataegus pinnafitida tree ( 山楂 ) has finally yielded a proper crop of haws. Does anyone happen to know how to make the wonderful candied haws that people eat in East Asia around this time of year?
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The parable of the Irn Bru spray.
This is a story about simplification. My ex-wife is one of those people who hoards. She kept innumerable caches of worn-out or outgrown clothing, and angrily resisted any efforts to give them to charities. As I find time to clean various corners of this rather battered house that is, at least for now, home for our gentler and smaller family, I keep discovering new stashes of very old clothes.
There was one stash, though, that was out in plain sight: the Red Mending Rag Sack. I think it started life as the canvas cover to a beanie bag chair, but long ago it became a destination for irreparable items of clothing that, because of fabric or fasteners, were potentially useful as parts in restoring some other garment. It wound up in the dining room one day, when I was shifting furniture. Someone sat on it. It settled there, by the kitchen door, and never moved again. Being central, it became a wonderful method of disposing of Things That Deserved To Not Be Thrown Away - just open the flap and stuff them in, an act of mercy. Little by little, it grew and solidified. Of course we couldn't get rid of it--it was Useful and Worthy, and besides, people did sometimes sit on it when it wasn't piled high with other things. Years passed. It grew.
But a fortnight ago, the fridge went into death throes. Grumbling about how divorce is expensive because you only have half as much money and all the responsibilities, I ordered a fine new fridge. It would sit, as the old one had, just opposite the huge Red Mending Rag Sack. First, I had to clear out the old fridge and sort out the stuff stored on top -- some of it very old and mysterious. And when I went to clear out the very first items, the helpfully stacked tins and cartons of juice and such, a heroic tin of Irn Bru leapt from the very top of the stack, fell onto a child's trainer, and somehow ruptured.
The resulting spray fan of sticky orange soda cut a precise vertical line across the room. It hit the cooking aprons. It hit the doorframe. And it sliced into the venerable Red Mending Rag Sack with a penetrating edge of, well, Irn Bru. I tried to dodge while grabbing the cheerfully orange, beholed, tin to prevent further damage, but it caught me from bum to spectacles as I hurled it, still frothing, into the garden. After a round of choice expletives and some speculation as to whether my ex really had cursed us, I fetched soap and water to clean the wall, the carpet, the chair, more wall. The aprons went into the laundry. And the Red Mending Rag Sack sat there, smugly absorbent. There was no way to clean that. It Would Have To Go.
For the first time in years, I tried to shift it and discovered that it was actually rather heavy. We had crammed a remarkable amount of Things To Forget into that bag, and compressed rejection really does weigh a lot. With a combination if grunting, heaving, rolling, and canny tricks known only to older people making do, I got it out the back door and into the garden where it promptly sat looking Pointedly Abandoned.
The child who usually sat nearest the Red Mending Rag Sack was, to begin with, a bit upset. He'd become accustomed to leaning his chair back onto it. We considered options. The other children came into the discussion. Before the Red Sack, there had been the much loved Tatty Couch. What if I committed, as an enlightened parent who listened to their children, to putting a couch back there, once we could afford it? It was an acceptable solution.
So the next day I booked a car from the car club and took several bags of old children's clothes to Barnardo's. Then I fetched the wheelbarrow and braced it so that I could lever the Red Mending Rag Sack up, wheel it along, and half tip, half heave it into the boot. At the local recycling point I was told to lob it into a general skip for incineration -- fine by me! -- but awkwardly, though I used my best "lifting heavy object" technique, I simply couldn't hoist it high enough to get it over the edge. Fortunately for me there, a bloke with a very expensive pickup was flinging away hundreds of pounds worth of cycling accessories right next to me. I asked, and he helped hurl the thing into the skip.
@mossbeard educate me if this is a goofy take, but surely the last thing we want broken down into its base elements is plastic, its full of toxic chemicals is it not?
@BigTittyBimbo@kolektiva.social
The idea is to break down the complex molecules (that might otherwise break down into tiny toxic bits, microplastics) into much simpler ones that are useful in other biological processes - fungi are really good at breaking down tough molecules like lignin (the structural bit of wood) and it turns out some can do the same for plastics that would be toxic if they don't get broken down.
I buy tahini in big 3kg tubs. It goes into hummous, pancakes, noodles, salads...so yes, 3kg tubs. Today I opened a new tub and spent 30' very carefully stîrring it. The tahini settles in transit, and you need to take a big, strong spoon and verrrry carefully draw up the dense caked stuff on the bottom and mix it with the pale oil on the surface. It takes a fair bit of strength and if you slip, sesame oil slops everywhere. So it's quite a meditation: slow, controlled movements requiring considerable force, over and over, until the whole tub is full of golden-cream oily tahini properly mixed.
This time I thought a lot about all the good people in Palestine who love tahini and right now don't have any place safe to stand and slowly blend tahini, who don't have any food, who don't have any place safe at all, who know so much more than I do about all the wonderful sweets and healthy dishes you can make with this tahini, who are being killed in ones and twenties and hundreds for reasons too awful to comprehend.
I am stirring the tahini.
Nepal's supreme court moves to protect Lumbini, a Buddhist sacred site and refuge for endangered cranes, from runaway industrialisation.
In good fediverse form, I am multiplying.
There have been some significant and unexpected changes and challenges that mean I have been, and will continue to spend much more time looking after my kids (among other things). I haven't been collecting brightly interesting or provocative nuggets to post from @yetiinabox@todon.nl, which is my usual account; and it means I have a lot to work though and it's likely to leak into my writing.
I'll post more reflective thoughts here. I'll try to keep the 'yetiinabox' persona for the nuggets.
Hiti
हिति , in Nepāl Bhāṣā, is the word for a shared community water tap. Even in modern Newar cities, these ancient structures still pour out fresh mountain water piped through ancient underground filters and conduits. They are a place to wash, to talk, to drink, to meet the locals: a nourishing, refreshing social-ecological place.
Automatic federation enabled