So, Friday night at T&E - great dinner and I got a present and some excellent advice!!!

The present:
It’s a live culture of sorts that turns milk into yoghurt (stuffed with all the good stuff of course, no preservatives, anti-biotics etc etc). I got the bottle full, the pic on the left is after I harvested it – my next batch is in progress.

Now I must admit, even after I got the demo the other night, the woosh sound the bottle makes when you open it is still a tad disconcerting. I was told that the taste is slightly sour, but quite pleasant. After having done the harvest I was less than enthused – one is taught from an early age that stuff like this is not on.

So after giving myself a peptalk (actually I could not think of a reasonable excuse not to trust my best friend, and I can’t lie to her face about NOT actually trying it) and having a stern look at myself in the mirror, I ate some. It was indeed quite lively, but actually VERY good. I’m having some with my oats tomorrow!!

The advice:
I recalled an incident a couple of years back with a fairly famous local musician I got to play on my birthday. It suddenly dawned on me how absolutely silly an argument I had with him about a certain aspect of the arrangements, how insignificant the impact on me actually was (it felt like the a part of the sky fell on my head at the time) and how absolutely brilliant having him there for the evening was.

The advice was to write him an email, saying just that. I did that knowing he quite possibly forgot about the incident and me a long time ago already. Maybe I’ll never get a reply. Maybe he’ll give a polite reply and swear at me in front of his PC ( the little I know of him I actually seriously doubt that ) or maybe I get to buy him a drink someday and have a laugh about it.

We’ll just have to see, but it’s some of the simplest & best advice I got in a long time.

Slow waaaaay down
Some of my tantra “homework” is to take time eating. Making it special and taking time with it, feeling it. I know I’ve been chasing the wind. After H&A feeding me, making me sit at home & watch a DVD (on a Saturday night?!? ) and the short one’s (who I’ve grown to love a lot!!) stern words to “look after yourself Emile”, I thought it best to do just that. They say the smaller people get more violent and I quite like the compliments I’ve been getting about my age lately. :-p

Finished all the housework (even watered the garden – it might be a cold tomorrow!!) , dropped by the shops, had a quick row at the gym and sat myself down to candle light, awesome music by Tony Cox, that ultimate of sophisticated gentlemen’s drinks (ice cold soda & a squeeze of lemon – you should not have to ask!!) and smoked salmon with lemon & black pepper in the one plate, soy sauce in the other. Charlie seems to not want to keep wasabi in his sushi bar. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I think there some merit to this idea of slowing down. I feel relaxed. I’d still like some company, but apparently I can survive without it, and so far it’s looking like I’m going to be in some very good company on Sunday…   

If you want to make a “drop the match and walk away” fire, skip this post – drop by the Freestate around August on a day with a light breeze, around midday (so the frost is gone) when there’s no snow around and then try your luck. You can even go to the Cape, there they’ll look the other way when you use gas to start your fire

I’ve always had the impression that anthracite is the real deal when it comes to home heating, so I decided to give it a go

First things first, you’ll need some supplies:

• Hardwood
• Stuff to make the hardwood burn. If you’re in the Cape using gas might be an acceptable method. I like to use a little bit of firelighters & charcoal – an excellent way to get the wood going.
• Temperature gauge – steel cup with water in. You may laugh at this, but I found it most useful. It also doubles as a humidifier. 
• Poking and prodding tools – the steel stuff, not the Facebook kind. 
• Anthracite. 
• Matches or the ability to communicate with wood along with a sales pitch that inspires cult-like devotion and ultimately self-sacrifice.

Knowing it was going to be a hard to light the anthracite I made starter-fires from very my first attempt on, with  limited success. So I approached Dr Google and to paraphrase what he said: “Light kindling to start a small fire. Use that to light your hardword fire. Stoke your hardwood fire until you have a bed of coals approximately 3 inches deep, else your anthracite will not burn satisfactorily”

Google has spoken, so I went in search of really good hard wood. These things can be scarce: I suspect the devil uses all the “krans mopanie” to stoke his own fires leaving very litte for us mortals, but I managed to win some in a card game

Once you’ve got your ingredients & tools in place get that hardwood going. Make sure your thermometer is on the stove and filled with water. I like it when the whole stove starts making this gentle rumbling sound and water bubbles along at a good rate – I’ve managed to evaporate a 3/4 cup in the time the hardwood took to make coals. Good time to put on some Jethro Tull.

hint: Use purified water, it leaves less of that white residue
which can be hard to wash off if you’ve been re-using the cup.

When your hardwood made a bed of really hot coals, start adding some anthracite, not really any more than a scoop at a time. Make sure not to linger too long while the door is open, if your fire is any good they start popping and shooting off sparks in all directions. Wait at least until the popping phase has passed before considering to add more, and then only if the ones you added before are clearly burning – it’s quite easy smothering your fire at this point.

If after adding the anthrasite the fire looks like it just won’t take off (and here you’re thermometer is your best friend, you’ll clearly hear how well your fire is doing by listening to how fast it’s boiling), go on to you knees. You can pray for it, or alternatively look at your fire from below through the ash door – I recommend the latter. If you can’t see the fire glowing, the ventilation slats are clogged. Choose your weapon and start rattling it from below until all the ash blocking it has fallen through and you can see the fire’s glow.

hint: I’ve found that even with the anthracite properly lit, it was not quite
as hot as my hardwood fire at full blast, but it still made the water boil steadily.

Repeat.

Start closing the big flaps, in the end all you’re going to leave open is the small vent holes. I’ve made a fire that gave of significant heat for 10hrs from about 5 scoops of anthracite. Adapt to your taste.

Next time:
I’ll chop the logs a bit thinner. This will make them turn into coal quicker and if their of uniform size they’ll all be ready at about the same time. I’ll organise a shovel with a longer handle – it’s quite unpleasant touching the sides of the door opening with your hands.

Upside:
You get to play with fire and hopefully not wet your bed (Terms and conditions apply)
I like making fire and watching it.
It lasts really long once you’ve got it going well.

Downside:
It’s not a one hour job. My hardwood took over an hour to start resembling coals.. In other words: You don’t bag a chick and tell her “Hey Hey baby I’m gonna light you a fire”.  If you reword that you might have better luck.

“Making fire 101″
A course I present in an effort to help along the domestication of my fellow man-animal. Below one of my top students, we’ll be progressing to soft logs in our next session.
 

It’s probably not the best thing to be counting down the hours until the weekend like this, but I’ve had suck a lekker weekend and the next one looks to be even better.

This past weekend I went climbing with Tam & Clifford, a really pleasant morning out. There’s this climb called “R.I.P.” named so after the small commemorative plaque at the start of the climb for a guy who fell to his death there many years ago – this obviously freaks the beginners out a when they notice this. It is a beautiful route: really easy with big moves on big holds, the sort of stuff that’s very satisfying to do and gets one hooked on climbing.

A fireplace, five friends, fine food & wine
Saturday night Annie treated us to her fine curry once again. I probably should not say this out loud but last night I realised that I actually have a couple big pots, they are just not in the kitchen where one would normally look for them. One is packed away with my camping gear and the other in a box that I have yet to unpack. So thanks El & Takkies, but I probably owe you a beer for turning around and bringing yours.

I’m in serious danger of becoming a domesticated man animal despite my concerted efforts to the contrary. Last night as I (enjoyed) washing the dishes I could not help but smile thinking back to the good time we had.

30 seconds – Ms Galaxy – good one! I thought someone was going to get hurt there

But after a corneal transplant to correct a serious visidailn problem, the father-of-three has suddenly become obsessive about the cleaning.

In fact, so profound is Mr Palmer’s new-found devotion to housework  -  to the delight of his long-suffering partner, hospice worker Sarah Gadsby, 45  -  that he believes his transplanted cornea must have been donated by a woman.”

“The late donor of Mr Palmer’s new cornea will remain anonymous so he will never know for sure whether it came from a woman or not, although he is in no doubt.
‘For some reason seeing the grime gets right on my nerves.’

‘It started as a joke that I must have been given the cornea of a woman but I really do think it’s true,’ he said.

‘There’s a reason why men don’t clean like this and I think it’s because we just don’t see the dirt, but I see it everywhere I go.’”

Must be, he seems to be babbling like a woman too <dodge>

I very much prefer this version, as long as she did not have an operation too and used to be called “Steve”