USMB Coffee Shop IV

Just a quick dispatch from the Crotch of the Tri-State.

It's my favorite time of year. The air is crisp. It's hoodie weather. We've had our typical amount of rain since August, but our quota of 60 clear, cloudless skies per year is made up between mid September and late October. The rest is a scattershot through the summer and whatever the Good Lord permits.

The Apple crop is top notch this year. Due to our topography, cropland is best served growing a fruit crop. Strawberries in the late Spring, peaches and nectarines in mid summer and apples of every variety in the Autumn. No prairie or the billiard table flatness of northwestern Ohio.

I took Mom, her 87th birthday is in February, up to Peace Valley Orchards. Nestled in the north central part of Columbiana County, Peace Valley innovators have created their signature Apple, the Buckeye Gala. And it's like eating a glass of cold, sweet cider.

I voted early this year in person at the county Board of Elections. I wish I could have taken pictures. The masks, the hand sanitizer, the cool iPhone gizmo that took my temperature. It was historic. It deserves to be documented.

Meanwhile, a socially distanced and fully masked Movie Night at the East Liverpool Area Community and Learning Center is thriving! Last Thursday I screened All the King's Men as part of the Politics in the Movies month. The movie proves the more thing change, the more they stay the same.

And so we beat on, like boats against the current. I wish I had said that first.

Welcome back Nosmo. I've really missed your little anthologies. I still think you need to put them together someway in a book or just write one. I think it would sell.
 
Happy Sunday everybody. And here's your mental exercise for the day:

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My brother came in with an armload of snow last night and asked about if I had seen the little, flickering lights, what are they? I suggested that they were various reflections from his headlamp. He told me they call such sparkles "pogo-nip" in Nevada. When I went out for wood this morning, I recognized the first light snow of the season. What he calls pogo-nip we call ice fog, which happens at below zero temperatures, here. Guess Brother's got his first Alaskan snow and I'll be going back to work in the same...
 
We didn't eat many racoons when I was a kid but 'possums and squirrels were on the menu.

Haven't had pussom but got one eating my chicken eggs, I may!

Honestly, coon is awesome. Much worth a try. I also love groundhog woodchuck but they aren't bothering anything so I leave them be. Brown tasty meat on coons, like the googoo comes out a roast beef when you cook it.
I've had beaver and porcupine up here. Both are pretty flavorful and an acquired taste. Have to peel the beaver tail like you would if you were preparing moose tongue.
Haven't had either. In Maine porqs were protected cause such a good survival food. Now I have heard beaver tail is very good. I would eat both. Like tongue too, was beef, ate lots moose meat never had the tongue. The meat was given to me each season they must have ate the tongue. Try to win a moose tag in Maine, get a tag once every 18 years.
 
I voted Tuesday at 2:00. My war is over. Now I can see how a typical German living in the outskirts of Berlin in late April 1945 must have realized. The war was over for them, but there will still be a couple weeks of fighting before the end.

So I declare myself immune of political ads, yard signs, banners and partisan flags, ball caps, bumper stickers and bullshit. It's a truly empowering state of mind. Another good reason to vote and vote early.

Yesterday I drove up Ohio State Route 7 to the best of the county's cider mills. The French go nuts for Beaujolais. A wine best drank fresh. The Italians buy out the first pressing of succulent olives releasing their oil.

Denizens of the upper Ohio River valley will seek out the first pressing of sweet apple cider. None of that grocery store cider shipped in from a factory for us! A gallon of apple cider at the cider mill store will set you back five bucks. A half bushel of apples at the orchard goes for $8.00, dumplings with home churned vanilla ice cream are $4.00

One ancillary treat that goes along with a visit to the orchard and the cider mill is the drive there and back. The two lane highway winds up and down the steep, wooded ravines. Across Little Beaver creek, a nationally protected wild waterway, and to the Terminal Moraine.

That's where the glacier that scooped out the Great Lakes stopped and melted. And all that melting, flooding, constant water scoured out what was a vast plain into steep ridges and deep valleys.

Thank you, Dr. Nosmo for the geology lesson.

But it's really a glorious part of the country especially now as the hardwood forest is strutting its colorful stuff. Oaks, both red and white are shedding bushels of acorns. The squirrels are having a field day.

Plums, pears, peppers, the last of the tomatoes before our first frost, and late sweet corn are piled at farm stands. Cabbages and potatoes and squash are fresh from the fields.

This is a really great part of the country this time of year. Give us ten weeks. Then you would consider spending a day in jail before an afternoon here!
 
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My brother came in with an armload of snow last night and asked about if I had seen the little, flickering lights, what are they? I suggested that they were various reflections from his headlamp. He told me they call such sparkles "pogo-nip" in Nevada. When I went out for wood this morning, I recognized the first light snow of the season. What he calls pogo-nip we call ice fog, which happens at below zero temperatures, here. Guess Brother's got his first Alaskan snow and I'll be going back to work in the same...
In that case, drive safely, gallantwarrior. ♡
 
Good Monday morning, all. Supposed to get a steel building today to get storage for my little charity quilting habit. It was making it hard to get around in the mansion. <giggle>
Good Morning greetings, Beau! I wish I could afford a nice steel building, perhaps later. Right now, I'm happy to have gotten some roof on the barn, combined with tarps stapled on the frame, I now have a decent place to store some hay. Better ventilation and access than trying to drag it out from under tarps on the truck. Brother and I will be getting another truck load of hay and he'll stack it for me. By the time I need more hay, I should be doing much better with the hip.
My brother has expressed an interest in quilting. I'm a poor guide, at best, and we've had little time. I told him about you. If you think you might want to take on an apprentice, let me know.
 
I have a ten year old nephew who is the most interesting child of his age I've ever known. Jhett plays point guard for his middle school basketball team, in spite of being the shortest boy on the floor. He holds a straight A average and is curious about everything.

He chose to be baptized, full emersion. Something that captivated the Scottish Presbyterian contingent. For the dramatic impact for sure, but mainly because Jhett chose Christmas Eve morning to do this. The chill of the water with the late December air gave our clan concerns.

So I am pushing on with my plot to endear him to me as I am endeared to my sainted Uncle Ducky. I've told you about Ducky before. Hero of my boyhood, aside from Pop, Ducky was larger than life. Six foot four inches stands out among a family of endomorphs. He had a chest like an oil drum and a head that looked as if it fell off the label of a canned ham.

Ducky had a collection of cool stuff. His years serving our nation as a Shore Patrolman in the U.S. Navy yielded a treasure trove in the imagination of a boy. Campaign ribbons, hand cuffs and a leather blackjack about the size of a turkey drumstick. He unveiled his treasure trove to me when I was a lad of ten.

Now, with Jhett, I'm giving him the opportunity to shine this Christmas. Which one of you grandmothers, aunts or moms wouldn't love a handmade gift from your wee bairn? I got Jhett basket weaving kits so he can make his grandmother (my sister-in-law) and his great grandmother (Mom) a brand new car! No, silly. Baskets.

Jhett chose the design, something called a melon basket, and he's got two months to get them done. Thenladies will be charmed, Jhett will learn a new skill and hopefully have some fun.

And I might be remembered with a grin on the face of a kind man fifty years from now.
 
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I absolutely hate it here at these apartments. I can't wait to get the fuck out. I wish home would call. That is where I belong. I refuse to live here and then die here. It's awful.
Their rules and policies suck. They gossip about everyone here. MrG is now known as a perv because he told one of the nutbars she looked nice while they were in the elevator. I'm supposedly the mean one here because I told the nutbar she was a nutbar. When I go outside for a cig, most get up and leave, not because they have interacted with me but because RUMOR has it I am mean. The halls stink of poop and trash because each level has a trash chute and nobody ever cleans it that works here. I HAVE to go spray the hell out of it with vinegar/water with my mop. Nothing I can do about the shit smell from so many being incontinent. It's hot. Still high 90's. Gets cold at night, but the heater won't be turned on for all of us until we all VOTE on when to turn it on since they can't have air and heat going at the same time.

I have no nature to enjoy and you all know how much I NEED nature. Birds that nest in bushes...some idiot asshole with clippers that lives here and is NOT the gardener, whacks it down. Stray cats get trapped and hauled off. Can't fee birds either..they make a mess, but hummers are ok they said. The noise is awful. Loud trucks and cars constantly coming and going..motorcycles too, at all hours because we are right next to the main drag that folks from neighboring towns have to use to get to and from Yuba City. Its constant. For some odd reason, I don't mind the train and the conductor that likes to lay on the horn for up to 2 minutes straight but it wakes MrG up every time it comes thru...which is many times a day and during the night.

I loathe it. Hate it. Wish I never moved here. It's worse than being homeless, which I would rather do but MrG can't handle it again. Almost killed him the last time so..I'm stuck here. Until home calls. Whenever that will be. And if I don't off myself first from the major depression that has settled in that I had semi under control.

End of rant.
 
I absolutely hate it here at these apartments. I can't wait to get the fuck out. I wish home would call. That is where I belong. I refuse to live here and then die here. It's awful.
Their rules and policies suck. They gossip about everyone here. MrG is now known as a perv because he told one of the nutbars she looked nice while they were in the elevator. I'm supposedly the mean one here because I told the nutbar she was a nutbar. When I go outside for a cig, most get up and leave, not because they have interacted with me but because RUMOR has it I am mean. The halls stink of poop and trash because each level has a trash chute and nobody ever cleans it that works here. I HAVE to go spray the hell out of it with vinegar/water with my mop. Nothing I can do about the shit smell from so many being incontinent. It's hot. Still high 90's. Gets cold at night, but the heater won't be turned on for all of us until we all VOTE on when to turn it on since they can't have air and heat going at the same time.

I have no nature to enjoy and you all know how much I NEED nature. Birds that nest in bushes...some idiot asshole with clippers that lives here and is NOT the gardener, whacks it down. Stray cats get trapped and hauled off. Can't fee birds either..they make a mess, but hummers are ok they said. The noise is awful. Loud trucks and cars constantly coming and going..motorcycles too, at all hours because we are right next to the main drag that folks from neighboring towns have to use to get to and from Yuba City. Its constant. For some odd reason, I don't mind the train and the conductor that likes to lay on the horn for up to 2 minutes straight but it wakes MrG up every time it comes thru...which is many times a day and during the night.

I loathe it. Hate it. Wish I never moved here. It's worse than being homeless, which I would rather do but MrG can't handle it again. Almost killed him the last time so..I'm stuck here. Until home calls. Whenever that will be. And if I don't off myself first from the major depression that has settled in that I had semi under control.

End of rant.
Gracie, we don't have air, heat is supplied when stoking the heater, but I have Nature in (over)abundance. I understand why you hesitate, but will always welcome you.
P.S. By the time Brother leaves Saturday, I will have a hot-water shower indoors and a new propane heater installed. Still pretty homestead primative but workable. I so wish I could offer more.
 
I absolutely hate it here at these apartments. I can't wait to get the fuck out. I wish home would call. That is where I belong. I refuse to live here and then die here. It's awful.
Their rules and policies suck. They gossip about everyone here. MrG is now known as a perv because he told one of the nutbars she looked nice while they were in the elevator. I'm supposedly the mean one here because I told the nutbar she was a nutbar. When I go outside for a cig, most get up and leave, not because they have interacted with me but because RUMOR has it I am mean. The halls stink of poop and trash because each level has a trash chute and nobody ever cleans it that works here. I HAVE to go spray the hell out of it with vinegar/water with my mop. Nothing I can do about the shit smell from so many being incontinent. It's hot. Still high 90's. Gets cold at night, but the heater won't be turned on for all of us until we all VOTE on when to turn it on since they can't have air and heat going at the same time.

I have no nature to enjoy and you all know how much I NEED nature. Birds that nest in bushes...some idiot asshole with clippers that lives here and is NOT the gardener, whacks it down. Stray cats get trapped and hauled off. Can't fee birds either..they make a mess, but hummers are ok they said. The noise is awful. Loud trucks and cars constantly coming and going..motorcycles too, at all hours because we are right next to the main drag that folks from neighboring towns have to use to get to and from Yuba City. Its constant. For some odd reason, I don't mind the train and the conductor that likes to lay on the horn for up to 2 minutes straight but it wakes MrG up every time it comes thru...which is many times a day and during the night.

I loathe it. Hate it. Wish I never moved here. It's worse than being homeless, which I would rather do but MrG can't handle it again. Almost killed him the last time so..I'm stuck here. Until home calls. Whenever that will be. And if I don't off myself first from the major depression that has settled in that I had semi under control.

End of rant.
Gracie, we don't have air, heat is supplied when stoking the heater, but I have Nature in (over)abundance. I understand why you hesitate, but will always welcome you.
P.S. By the time Brother leaves Saturday, I will have a hot-water shower indoors and a new propane heater installed. Still pretty homestead primative but workable. I so wish I could offer more.
MrG refuses. Says he'd die there in the cold. But I will tell you this much..if anything happens to him with his wacky heart...I'm heading your way by myself.
 

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