That poster is part of a campaign by USDA Food and Nutrition Services, aimed at recruiting applicants for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as "food stamps."
It must be working. Since January of 2009 the number of Americans living in poverty, statistically speaking, has risen 6 million to almost 16 million. And today almost 46 million Americans are on food stamps, up 14 million over the same period.
Yes, times are tough.
Last week we learned that the USDA made an agreement with the government of Mexico to increase participation in the food-stamps program among Mexican nationals living in this country. As if that weren't enough of a puzzler, few days earlier the House Minority Whip opined that food stamps is one of the "most stimulative" things that our government can do for the national economy.
You read that right.
I'm sure that taxpayer-funded assistance, when used according to directions, helps keep individual Americans and their families from going hungry. You won't convince me, however, that a ballooning and much-abused entitlement program is making our nation stronger.
"Our environment is full of way too many temptations. This is one temptation that isn't really necessary."
(Henrietta Davis, mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, one-upping HRH Michael Bloomberg of New York City by proposing to ban not only large-size sugary drinks in the Cambridge area, but also -- brace yourself -- free refills. Oh, c'mon now -- so that's a proper role for government? What the hell is wrong with these people?)
HRH Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban large servings of sugary drinks was presented to New York City's Board of Health today. These political appointees voted unanimously to allow the proposal to proceed to a public hearing on July 24.
By itself that's not worth reporting -- not here, anyway. No, what's truly stupefying is how excited Board members were about HRH Bloomberg's idea.
A handful of examples:
"'Why stop here?'" (Health Commissioner Thomas Farley)
"This does not solve all problems, and there's plenty more issues to take up." (Board member Pamela Brier)
"We're really looking at restricting portion size, so the argument could be...what about the size of a hamburger or jumbo fries?" (Board member Dr. Michael Phillips)
"There are certainly milkshakes and milk coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories in them, and I’m not so sure what the rationale is not to include those." (Board member Dr. Joel Forman)
"I was thinking about the typical movie theater with a 32-ounce drink and 32 ounces of popcorn -- the popcorn isn't a whole lot better from a nutritional point of view than the soda." (Board member Dr. Bruce Vladeck)
We could've predicted this -- unelected bureaucrats, people who haven't met a regulation they didn't love, greasing the slippery slope.
See where we're headed?
I hate to keep kicking this steaming pile, really I do, but the news is teeming with rancid rhetoric worth passing along.
Now, if we can agree once again that it's Liberty (not the Big Gulp) that's under attack, we can go straight to the idiocy of Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast. Here's what he said on Saturday:
"There's only one way to say something like this, and it's loud and proud and without apology: I wholeheartedly support Mike Bloomberg's war on sugar. It's unassailable as policy. Refined sugar is without question the worst foodstuff in the world for human health, and high-fructose corn syrup is little better. We are a fat country getting fatter and fatter, and these mountains of refined sugar that people ingest are a big part of the reason. The costs to the health-care system are enormous, so the public interest here is ridiculously obvious. Obesity is a killer. Are we to do nothing, in the name of the 'liberty' that entitles millions of people to kill themselves however they please, whatever their diabetes treatments costs their insurers?
"We have this 'liberty' business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the public good, God bless him, I say."
"It's a policy designed to guide people toward a certain kind of behavior. This talk of 'freedom' is absurd."
That, my friends, is nothing short of breathtaking contempt for personal responsibility. Tomasky makes it clear that he's afraid to meet life's opportunities and risks on his own, preferring to be swaddled in a blanket of government regulations.
His bald presumption that "we have this 'liberty' business completely backward in this country" is so false as to be laughable -- truth is, as a nation we're moving away from Liberty. His wish that government engage in "rebalancing individual freedom and the public good" ignores the fact that our individual liberties aren't merely eroding -- they're on the verge of collapse.
In other words, Tomasky and his anti-libertarian cronies rest their case on irresponsibility and lies.
This is the same ideology that routinely disarms law-abiding citizens, infringes constitutional rights and outsources personal defense to government authorities. It stifles excellence by promoting equal outcome and calling it "equal opportunity."
It "confuses the distinction between government and society," holding that each of us is entitled to government-approved and taxpayer-funded nourishment, housing, education, employment, healthcare and financial security, from cradle to grave.
Michael Tomasky, following his idol HRH Michael Bloomberg, carries the standard for those who would see this great country, which owes its very existence to courageous Founders who stood for Liberty, once and for all destroyed.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is running this full-page ad in today's edition of The New York Times, challenging HRH Michael Bloomberg's proposed large-soda ban.
I ask again: Is it possible that this is what it takes to finally push New Yorkers over the edge? For cryin' out loud, People -- get 'hold of yourselves, pull together and get rid of this assclown!
For a moment, try to ignore that the specific target of HRH Michael Bloomberg's latest nannying is large servings of "sugary drinks." Instead, think of it as manifest ignorance of Liberty in general -- because that's what it is.
With that in mind, check out what HRH Bloomberg said to MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Thursday:
"We've got to do something [about 'obesity']. Everybody is wringing their hands saying we've got to do something. Well, here is a concrete thing.
"You can still buy large bottles in stores. But in a restaurant, 16 ounces is the maximum that they would be able to serve in one cup. If you want to order two cups at the same time, that's fine. It's your choice.
"We're not taking away anybody's right to do things. We're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup."
"It's not perfect. It's not the only answer. It's not the only cause of people being overweight -- but we've got to do something. We have an obligation to warn you when things are not good for your health."
"I would just like to force the consumer to hopefully move over to the less fattening drinks and everybody will be better off."
That's one of the most un-American, anti-libertarian rants I've heard in a very long time. As I said of HRH Bloomberg in November of 2010:
"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is...an arrogant son of a bitch who treats the U.S. Constitution like a menu, and for whom patriotism is little more than a hat he wears only for certain public appearances."
Again, it's not about soda pop -- or, for that matter, about trans-fats or firearms or smoking. It's about Liberty.
If you ever forget that, just remember what HRH Bloomberg said:
"We're not taking away anybody's right to do things. We're simply forcing you to understand...."
Get it?
"If you offer me an apple and a candy bar, I'll pick the candy bar every time. I'd rather you'd only offer me the apple."
(Erin Burnett on last night's edition of CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront," expressing her personal support of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's efforts to dictate what his pliant subjects eat, drink and do.)
[Here's Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest assault on Liberty. Why the citizens of New York haven't yet rid themselves of this Enemy of The People is beyond me.]
Bloomberg administration proposes ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces
New York Daily News / Thursday, May 31, 2012
Mayor Bloomberg is a big soda scrooge.
After taking on smoking, trans-fats and restaurant calorie counts, Hizzoner has yet another health hazard in his crosshairs: oversized sugary drinks.
The city is working on a plan to ban large soft drinks and other sweet beverages in eateries, theaters and most other venues, City Hall announced Wednesday.
The new rules, which could take effect next March, would prohibit cups larger than 16 ounces of any liquid that contains more than 25 calories per 8 ounces. That targets sodas, sweetened ice tea and energy drinks. Diet sodas and milk-based beverages -- even calorie laden milkshakes -- will remain lawful.
"Obesity is a nationwide problem, and all over the United States, public health officials are wringing their hands saying, 'Oh, this is terrible,'" Bloomberg told The New York Times. "New York City is not about wringing your hands; it's about doing something."
The ban will extend to food carts, delis, even concession stands in stadiums and arenas, but not supermarkets and grocery stores, according to the administration's proposal.
Cups bigger than 16 ounces would disappear from self-serve fountains in fast-food joints, although refills would still be allowed.
The anti-sweet drinks crusade got a bitter reception from the beverage industry.
"There they go again. The New York City Health Department's unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks is again pushing them over the top," said Stefan Friedman, spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association.
"The city is not going to address the obesity issue by attacking soda because soda is not driving the obesity rates," he argued.
Some New Yorkers also thought the plan will fizzle out.
"He can try, but he can't stop people from getting what they want,” said cabbie Morshed Chowbhury, 27, of Jackson Heights, Queens. “Some days I can't survive without coffee or big sodas."
Victor Diaz, 24, was more receptive to the upcoming regulation.
"It will all depend on the person. But at least he's trying to help New Yorkers eat better," Diaz said of Bloomberg.
He added that he just opted for a Gatorade rather than a Big Gulp on a recent run to 7-Eleven, seemingly not realizing the sports drink will also be banned under the proposed program.
The mayor, who some disparage as Nanny Bloomberg for his plethora of prohibitions, has been waging a lengthy war against the soda scourge. During his time in office, he unsuccessfully lobbied for a state soda tax and tried to stop he purchase of soft drinks with food stamps.
The administration is planning to push the plan through the Board of Health, the same body that authorized restaurant letter grades and calorie count postings. No additional authorization is required, sources said.
If the big-drink dryout will pan out, people will still be able to buy a double dosage.
Helen O'Connor, 40, from SoHo, said she plans to do just that.
"He's going overboard," she said of the mayor.
"If I can't buy one big drink, I'll buy two smaller ones."
by John L. Russell, Jr.
What will farms be like 50 years from now? How will the average farmer live? Will there even be farms?
Dr. James Bonner, professor of biology, California Institute of Technology answers yes to the last question.
He says people will still be eating food and plenty of it. They won't be taking their daily supply of energy directly as electrical current nor will they be satisfied with a pink pill.
But of course farming will change radically by the year 2000. The silo, farm house, and the old red barn will be replaced with sleek, modern, streamlined, air-conditioned structures filled with electronic equipment.
Growth regulators will control the rate and type of animal and vegetable produced. Chemistry will make possible producing three-pound broilers in eight weeks instead of 11 and 2,000 pounds of beef will be produced in the same length of time it now takes to make 500.
Frozen sperm irradiated in nuclear reactors will furnish mutation offsprings stronger and better for bigger market prices. Farmyard manure will still be used but will be supplemented with sewage sludge and waste products.
Weeding crops and worrying about diseases or insects will be a thing of the past, and even the weather will be controlled by satellites.
Computer and photo-electric sensing devices and programming on magnetic tapes will allow farmers to plow, sow, cultivate, and reap several fields of crops at the same time. By simply monitoring at the console of a television receiver, robots will do most of the labor.
All timber will be cut electrically to any shape desired by a form of electric charge -- thus cutting out the double processes of sawing and planing. Electricity will be furnished by collector plates that will soak up the sun's heat to provide energy for your own little electric power plant which will operate the many electrical appliances around the farm.
The farmer clothes will be very different 50 years from now. There will be no weaving or knitting. Fabrics will be poured in liquid form from giant pastry tubes or rolled into large sheets and cut in tremendous quantities. But you will be growing the very products from which these new materials are made.
From the central electronic center in your home or office, you will be able to see on your closed circuit TV all that goes on anywhere on the farm without leaving your easy chair. If you want to give orders, you will simply use your intercommunication system or your pocket telephone.
You won't be shipping your goods long distances any more. With the coming of automation there will be no need for people to congregate in big cities. Farmers will tend to "live in" rather than inhabit the countryside; farms will be near their markets in smaller cities of around 10,000 which will be self-sufficient and independent.
No longer will any farmer have to do without city luxuries. The typical farm house of the year 2000, powered from a small local atomic power plant, can have heating and cooling systems, germicidal lamps, water and sewage systems and many other things.
Charles H. Weaver, vice president in charge of atomic power activities for Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and Francis K. McCune, vice president for atomic business development of General Electric Company, both see the typical home 50 years from now with an automatic control center that will take the labor out of housework and provide a very easy and rich living for all.
With a magic wand the furniture can be dusted. Floors and furniture will be scuff-proof and indestructible. You will have wall-sized TV in color and 3-D.
Your electronic oven will prepare food in seconds. Dishes will be washed in a soapless, super-sonic wave cleaning chamber and automatically put away.
John L. Burns, president of the Radio Corporation of America, foresees the miracle home of tomorrow being run by a pushbutton household electronic center. This center will get you up with the chickens -- if you still want to -- close the windows, start the coffee going, cook the bacon and eggs, and what all else.
Frederick R. Kappel, president of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, predicts you may be able to make cheap phone calls anywhere in the world when satellites begin to take over relays.
Going to town to shop will be unnecessary. The wife will just dial a department store on her TV and a salesperson will hold up the various articles.
You can buy your farm equipment the same way too. After making your decision, just press your charge plate into a machine. An electronic eye then goes into action and the price will be telemetered to central billing at the store's main office located 100 miles away. Central billing will automatically mail you a bill at the end of the month.
Spray washing will be used to clean both people and laundry, eliminating expensive plumbing. A pint of water an hour is all that will be required for the average farm house, and this will evaporate into the air. Sewage will be disposed of chemically on the premises or turned into valuable fertilizer.
All your vehicles, including farm machinery, will be powered by atomic energy. The vehicles will require little maintenance and will need fuel only once a year -- if that often.
With almost totally automatic farms, there will be plenty of time for travel. Supersonic jets and rocket airlines will be popular and cheap to fly by this time, so you can spend the weekends in Europe.
See you down on the farm in 2000 A.D.
["Farming in the 21st Century" appeared in the August/September 1960 issue of The National Future Farmer. John L. Russell, Jr. also wrote The Shape of Things to Come, a book published by the Popular Mechanics Company in June 1960.]
"If a bake sale is going on, it's reported to [Montgomery County Public Schools] administration and it's taken care of. You can't sell Girl Scout cookies, candy, cakes, any of that stuff."
(Marla Caplon of Montgomery County, Maryland's Food & Nutrition Services Department, explaining the strict enforcement of the state's ban on bake sales in public schools. Similar rules are imposed on school fundraisers in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Texas.)
"If we didn't have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go. But this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long, healthy life."
(Massachusetts State Sen. Susan Fargo, chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health, explaining why the state will ban fundraisers selling "non-nutritious" food in public schools beginning August 1st. Under the new regs, Massachusetts schoolkids won't even be allowed to give cookies or other "unhealthy" treats to classmates on their birthdays.)
My new shipping-and-receiving job is going fine, thank you very much. On September 2nd I mentioned using the opportunity to justify buying a knife especially for the purpose. I ended up buying two.
The Tim Wegner-designed Blade-Tech Ratel Lite (retail $24, street $20, made in Taiwan) features a saber-ground, 1-15/16-inch leaf-shape blade of AUS 8 stainless steel. It's a lock-back, with textured scales of fiberglass-reinforced nylon and a reversible pocket clip.
The second-gen Spyderco Chicago (retail $65, street $41, made in Taiwan) has G-10 scales, replacing a now-discontinued carbon-fiber version. Its flat-ground, 440C leaf-shape blade is two inches long, held open with a liner lock. The wire-style pocket clip is reversible to accommodate either left- or right-hand carry.
Fit and finish are good on both knives. Perhaps the Blade-Tech is a touch stiffer, the Spyderco slightly smoother, feeding my perception that the latter is more refined (for lack of a better descriptor). After two weeks of hard use in the warehouse, both blades have held up well -- the AUS 8 and 440C are, I found, durable and easy to maintain.
I should mention here that the pocket clip on my particular Ratel Lite started out extremely tight -- secure is one thing, but this was something else entirely and, from what I gather, pretty common.
A short loop of paracord, threaded through the lanyard hole, was required to facilitate an easy draw from my pocket. Eventually I modified the bend of the clip by stuffing a thick stack of cardboard under it and leaving it that way overnight. That fixed the problem.
Despite having been conceived as EDC or "suit" knives that sneak under annoyingly silly "two-inch-max" laws, both the Ratel Lite and the Chicago have performed admirably for me as box-cutters. I have no complaints, practically speaking, about either.
That's not to say that I don't have a preference. Sure, it's possible to buy two Ratel Lites for the street price of one Chicago, which certainly makes the Blade-Tech the better value. But the Spyderco is the better knife, in my opinion, for several reasons.
First, I find the liner-lock quicker and more natural to use. I also like the grip -- not just the feel of G-10 slabs, but the way that my fingers index to the handle and the choil formed when the knife is open. And finally, the flat grind and thinner blade make it a better and more versatile cutter -- 1/8 inch (Ratel Lite) versus 3/32 inch (Chicago) may seem like a nit, but the 25% difference shows up big in performance.
I'll keep and will continue to use both of these knives. I lean toward the Spyderco, but your mileage (as they say) may vary.
Back to the Backwoods
One steamy Saturday three years ago, my wife and I fled a raucous gameday scene for the relative calm of the Thornville Backwoods Fest.
We reprised that trip yesterday afternoon, minus the hot weather and tailgating. (This year the Buckeyes played late, away and badly, getting spanked 24-6 by Miami.) Our experience at the 2011 festival was virtually identical to what I described in 2008 -- wonderful.
We returned home refreshed, toting a pound of wildflower honey from a nearby village, a quart of syrup drawn from maple trees next door to the festival grounds, and a big ol' bag of fresh cracklings (a.k.a. pork rinds) cooked in a iron kettle over an open fire.
Local is best. Life is good.
While Mrs. KintlaLake was out of town on business early this week, I gathered two dozen ripe Roma tomatoes, cut them into quarter-inch slices, sprinkled them with Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy Blend and dried them in our new food dehydrator. The process, which took about 36 hours, yielded a marvelously sweet-and-savory result.
For now I've stored them in a wire-bail jar. I'm sure they'll find their way into soups and pasta dishes -- if, that is, I can resist snacking on them as-is.
This morning I picked a pocketful of yellow pear tomatoes, halved them and began drying them as well. I skipped the seasoning for this batch, and I'm anxious to see how they turn out.
I also harvested our first five habanero peppers, along with 15 long green hot peppers. Both got my refrigerator-pickles treatment, the cold brine supplemented with peppercorns and garlic cloves.
Considering the late start, damn, this has been a great season.
More than two dozen tomatoes, harvested from the garden yesterday morning, finish ripening on stone windowsills in our kitchen. Over in the fridge there's a tub of chunky salsa fresca, made with home-grown tomatoes and hot peppers, along with a bowl of cucumbers-and-onions salad marinating in red-wine vinegar.
Out back, the garden is a rat's nest of ridiculously productive plants and unreachable (but harmless) weeds. Our cuke vines are withering at the base but still setting fruit, about half of it small and stunted. We'll have a modest crop of peas from a second planting. More long green peppers are on the way and, obviously, three tomato plants are giving us more than we can handle.
As I hoped, we'll have a late-season bounty of habanero peppers.
I don't recall ever being this gratified with a backyard garden. As autumn approaches and takes hold I'll clear some of the beds, prepare the soil and plant wintering crops. The cycle never ends.
Recently I did a different kind of "planting" (so to speak) that'll bear fruit after the Labor Day weekend. Although I didn't mention it here, I took a temporary warehouse job a couple of weeks ago, filling in for four days at the shop my wife manages.
To my surprise, I really enjoyed the work. Apparently I proved my worth to the rest of the crew, too, because the corporate office called Mrs. KintlaLake this week and offered me a full-time position.
My first day is Tuesday.
Such a tape-and-boxes proposition requires a proper knife, of course. I rummaged through the blades I own and didn't find what I was looking for, exactly, so (naturally) I had a good excuse to go shopping.
After surfing KnifeWorks for a while, I picked up a Blade-Tech that fills the bill. The Ratel Lite is inexpensive, small, one-handed and equipped with a pocket clip -- perfect. I'll offer my impressions here once I've used it for a week or two.
Between now and the moment I punch the clock on Tuesday, however, I'll reach down and pick up "the longest continuous thread in the fabric of my life" -- Ohio State football.
It's been a rocky off-season, to say the least, an agonizing time for life-long fans of the Buckeyes. Just yesterday, three more players were suspended for the first game.
Tomorrow, the bullshit will end and football will begin.
Life in Buckeye Nation will get back to normal. Traditions cultivated over 122 years will resume. All will be well once again.
Like a storm leaves the air clear and fresh, scandal may have stripped OSU football to its essence. We have a new coach, an interim coach, a young coach. Expectations for this 2011 team are modest. Critics are likely to be uncharacteristically forgiving.
In other words, the pressure in Columbus is as low as it'll ever get.
This is one football season that everyone should be able to enjoy. Mrs. KintlaLake and I will settle into our seats in The 'Shoe tomorrow at noon, intent on doing just that.
In yesterday's much-ballyhooed (but patently inconsequential) Ames Straw Poll, Rep. Michele Bachmann won a squeaker over Rep. Ron Paul. Stealing a piece of their thunder, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas announced that he, too, wants to be President.
Never mind what you hear from giddy conservatives -- neither development heralds the defeat of Pres. Barack Obama. So far Bachmann and Paul have polled poorly in a hypothetical matchup with the incumbent, and Perry will show that he's incapable of shedding the perception that he's nothing more (or less) than George W. Bush II.
Worse, and despite thumping the "Liberty!" tub, all three of these GOP hopefuls pander shamelessly to (so-called) "social conservatives" -- white evangelical Christians, mostly, whose ideology couldn't be more antithetical to Liberty.
Barely a week before declaring his candidacy, Perry led 30,000 in a "Prayer-Palooza" at a stadium in Houston -- a sitting governor keynoting a camp meeting. Even Paul, arguably dean of the small-government movement, has been sucked into the anti-libertarian abyss on abortion and other issues.
Considering the weak Republican field, this is not good.
"I may not be the gearhead I used to be, but I'm still plenty redneck."
Those aren't my words -- they came from my smiling wife as we sat along a curb in nearby Reynoldsburg last night, joining thousands of others to watch the annual Mopar Nationals "Brice Road Cruise."
The air was thick with tire smoke. Some of the onlookers, many of them children, laid down patches of water on the pavement, hoping to lure a good burnout. Drivers were more than willing to oblige, a token police presence having little effect.
Either you get this sort of thing or you don't. We had a ball, and besides, dropping by the Brice Road Cruise was Mrs. KintlaLake's idea.
I married a redneck gearhead. Somebody pinch me.
Ohio's state flag appears on a new postage stamp, released on Friday. It's part of the "Flags of Our Nation" series and, since I'm a born-and-bred Buckeye, it's a source of pride.
Yet another harvest shot, this haul from midday today -- nine large cukes, five peppers, two Romas and five yellow pear tomatoes.
I'll end this roundup with the way our weekend began -- at the Huntington Park Hoedown, a benefit concert held Friday evening at the home ballpark of the Columbus Clippers.
We arrived at the will-call window just before the gates opened, fetched my media badge and my wife's field pass and made our way to the visitors' dugout to deposit my photo gear. Local solo artist Chris Logsdon took the stage first, followed by Jonalee White and her band. Both treated the crowd to typically great performances.
McGuffey Lane, by far our favorite local band (and the source of our comp passes, by the way), was next on the bill and didn't disappoint. My wife and I adjourned to the parking lot for a smoke after their set.
When we returned, the reunited Exile was onstage. Of all the acts, we figured, this was the lone take-or-leave proposition.
Boy, were we wrong.
I don't remember the last time I was as blown away by a performance. I mean, here was an '80s pop-turned-country band showing chops that had the show's other musicians gathering, awestruck, behind the stage. Exile's a capella rendition of "People Get Ready," the Curtis Mayfield classic, had the ballpark so quiet I swear I heard the outfield grass growing.
Seriously, people -- if you have a chance to catch Exile live, with all five of its founding members, do it. I promise you won't regret it.
Hoedown headliner Pure Prairie League, over five hours after their sound check, closed the show with a high-energy set, including three of my favorites: "Early Morning Riser," "Two-Lane Highway" and, of course, "Amie."
Photographically the night had me wishing for faster glass and steadier hands. But incomparable music performed in a great venue, on a clear summer evening that saw a full moon rise over the Columbus skyline behind the stage -- it doesn't get better than that.
It's a damp, overcast morning here at KintlaLake Ranch. Seems like a good time to catalog some unexpected finds.
In one of my Urban Resources posts I surveyed The Other Economy,
that rich source of goods and services operating outside the conventional marketplace. My family and I have been "shopping the roadside" a lot lately, turning up bargain after useful bargain.
I've regretted parting with my Black & Decker Benchtop Workmate since leaving it behind when I moved back to Ohio ten years ago. Introduced in the late 1970s, the Benchtop model eventually was discontinued, so if I wanted to replace it I'd have to explore the secondhand market.
I discovered this one (above) earlier this summer at a garage sale halfway down a narrow alley in our village. Other than a few stains and a little rust, I found it in excellent condition, complete except for a pair of original-issue L-bolts that clamp it to a bench.
The price: just $3.00. Two carriage bolts, two flat washers and two wingnuts, purchased at the local hardware store, put it on my workbench for a grand total of four bucks.
Because a man can never have enough vises (or vices, for that matter), at another garage sale that same day I picked up this "hobby vise" (left) for two dollars. It clamps to the work-surface with a thumbscrew and will come in handy for a variety of small projects.
Speaking of The Other Economy, our village held its annual flea market last weekend. It's not a big event, just a coupla dozen canopied tables piled with household castoffs. My wife and I came home with a three-foot chocolate rabbit (brown plastic, actually) that'll grace our front porch next Easter, and a 1960s-vintage glass-and-chrome teapot. Together, the two items cost us two bucks.
I spent one more dollar, that on an old Boy Scout "contest medal." These awards were introduced in the late 1920s, as I understand it, but they'd been retired by the time I became a Scout myself.
Wanting to get a better fix on this medal's age, yesterday I examined it with a magnifying glass. Other than the word CAMPING cast into the front, the pendant bears no markings. Stamped on the clasp at the top of the ribbon, however, is PAT. NO. 2,795,064. A bit of web-sleuthing unearthed a copy of the original patent for the clasp -- applied for in 1953, granted in 1957.
So the clasp, at least, probably is as old as I am. A buck bought me a keeper and a pleasant exercise in discovery.
I love beer -- and I mean good beer. Sure, I'm willing to throw back my earthly portion of mass-produced barley pop, but I prefer beer that has actual flavor.
In a corner-store lager, for example, I enjoy an ice-cold Rolling Rock. If I had to choose a favorite, without a doubt it'd be Rogue Brewery Dead Guy Ale. And as you might expect, I'm especially partial to small-batch local brews, like those from Columbus Brewing Company.
Recently I learned of Rockmill Brewery, located in nearby Lancaster, and its Belgian-style ales. As the story goes, Rockmill's founder discovered that the well on his family's farm produced water with the same mineral content as that found in Wallonia, Belgium, and that served as the inspiration for four unusual ales.
Mrs. KintlaLake and I savored a bottle of Rockmill Dubbel over a plate of summer sausage, sharp cheese and apple slices (this isn't a beer one serves with nachos), and we came away truly amazed. It's strong (6% to 8% ABM), full-bodied and fruity, as well as pricey ($16 for a 22-ounce bottle) -- and worth every penny.
Great beer, brewed barely a stone's throw from home -- that's as good as it gets. There's a bottle of high-octane Rockmill Tripel in my fridge, and I can't wait to pop the cork.
Finally, of course, our vegetable garden offers up discoveries almost every day -- take this green-and-yellow beauty (below) that sprang from one of the "volunteer" vines I mentioned last week. At about 12 inches long, it's the largest gourd that's set (so far). Our unintentional crop continues to spread, so there will be more.
Around 6pm today I emerged from the humble KintlaLake vegetable garden with our first two Roma tomatoes, six yellow pear tomatoes, more than a dozen carrots, ten long green hot peppers and another monster cucumber, this one found hiding among the carrot greens.
I've been sending a photo like that one to Mrs. KintlaLake almost every morning these days. By the time it shows up in her e-mailbox she's been at work for an hour or two, and she looks forward to my sharing what I've discovered in the garden that day.
Today's bounty: four cucumbers, bringing the harvest (so far) to nearly four dozen; and 24 carrots, some quite tiny but all sweet as sugar.
(As I type this, the outdoor temperature here in our village is 95°F. Coupled with 64% relative humidity and a dew point of 81°F, the "feels like" temp -- that new-fangled "heat index" popular with TV meteorologists -- is a brain-broiling 117°F, and we haven't yet seen the hottest part of the day. Time to focus on something cooler.)
In last Saturday's post, I waxed righteous about re-using a vintage Ball canning jar. I've put up three more quarts of pickles since then, each in a jar left behind by our home's previous owner. I've also done a bit of sleuthing about their pedigrees.
That clear Kerr Self-Sealing Wide Mouth jar (above) arguably is the least interesting of the four. It offers no clues as to its age but, judging by the other jars we found, it probably was made in the 1960s in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.
The quaint-looking Mom's Mason jar was made in nearby Columbus by Home Products. a division of Ohio Container, in the mid-1970s.
This blue Atlas Strong Shoulder Mason was made in Wheeling, West Virginia by Hazel-Atlas, which ceased production in 1964. I suspect that this jar may date to the 1940s or 1950s -- but that wouldn't make it the oldest jar rescued from our basement shelf.
Nope, that distinction (so far) belongs to the blue Ball Perfect Mason mentioned on Saturday. Its markings testify that it was made between 1923 and 1933.
These vintage canning jars aren't just worth keeping -- they're damned well worth using.
