Random Musings on Eating and Food-waste
by Alex Jokela
I could not help but think of Mr. Wu, from HBO's series Deadwood. In the series, Mr. Wu was the go-to guy for disposing of unwanted bodies. Mr. Wu would feed the corpses to his pigs - the pigs would leave nearly nothing behind.
I was standing on the back steps of the house, watching two of our hounds have a mid-day snack; they each had half of a rabbit head. Three of our four dogs eat a raw diet (the fourth dog has digestive issues and requires a higher fiber, lower fat diet than what is provided by raw). Throughout the winter months, we tend to have issues with rabbits. It has not been particularly bad this winter; we have actually only had the live-trap out for a brief time in January. The one and only rabbit caught this winter was from in January; humanely dispatched, it hung in the garage - frozen - until this past weekend when I quartered it up for the hounds.
Early Riser Sunday
by Alex Jokela
We got a jump on the day; a 4:00 AM jump. The hound we are fostering for a rescue, has had back issues (slipped disc). We have been taking him to a chiropractor in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. We missed our appointment yesterday - Melissa, my wife, has been fighting a cold. The good doctor said he could squeeze us in today. There was a caveat to today, however - it had to be either at 7:45 AM or after 4:00 PM in St. Paul. We are in the Duluth, MN area, and St. Paul is roughly 2.1/2 hours south of here. We picked the morning run.
An Insipid Saturday
by Alex Jokela
"It tastes strange.", the wife said. I would agree, the fresh loaf of bread, minutes from the oven, had an off taste. It did not rise properly, either. It kept rising, then falling, rising and then falling; not enough gluten, is my guess.
Aesthetics and Assembling Hive Boxes
by Alex Jokela
Often, I mull over how I plan to assemble something. When I was building a cherry and walnut desk for my study, I went so far as to design the entire piece of furniture in AutoCAD. I even wrote a Perl script that utilized the golden ratio to optimize the layout of the pieces of the wood that would comprise the top of the desk.
Spring for a day
by Alex Jokela
We awoke yesterday to a brisk morning; -13F (-25C). The car was stiff and air felt slightly damp. It was cold outside; it was 4:30 AM.
My wife had to be into work early and since we carpool and work at the same place, I was headed in with her.
My office has no windows and is technically underground (http://bit.ly/bbZlRx); a mid-morning meeting had me heading above ground to an office with windows; much to my surprise, the sun was out. The snow was also melting.
Bee puns and hive parts
by Alex Jokela
The apiculture world is ripe with puns, and I will admit that I am not immune from putting some really awful ones to use. All throughout the week, I would bring up bees or bee-culture things with co-workers; always throwing in a pun worthy of a resounding "boo!" (not the scary kind of boo, but more of the booing of one off of a stage).
Think spring; gardens and bees
by Alex Jokela
I was doing well with minimal spring fever until we were dumped on by a large snow storm Christmas Eve; an unpleasant mix of wet snow (totaling 24") and rain. The usual cold snap after the snow froze things solid; many a snow-thrower shear pin were thrown in the ensuing cleanup.
