The Gloves Should Always Be Off

by 5:55 pm. It has 179 Comments.

After Obama was elected, it was determined that the previous administration, whose crimes were at the time consider unprecedented, should not be investigated and prosecuted. And I agreed with it- Obama wanted a fresh start and didn’t want to poison the well. Then the Republicans shit in the well, poured lsd and and jet fuel in it. And now we are faced with an even more lawless administration.

The Republicans, seeing that they never get punished for their misdeeds, went full ahead on their crazy crime spree, and now are appointing one of their own to prosecute the lawkeepers:

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), President Trump’s pick to serve as the next director of national intelligence, has made his name in Congress as one of the GOP’s most dogged critics of perceived anti-Trump bias at the FBI and in the special counsel’s investigation of his alleged Russia ties.

Ratcliffe, who was first elected to the House in 2014, sits on the powerful House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, both of which are investigating President Trump for suspected financial crimes, foreign collusion and obstruction of justice. It is from that perch that Ratcliffe last week steered one of the more memorable Republican exchanges with former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III during public hearings, accusing him of violating “every principle in the most sacred of traditions” of prosecutors by writing “180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided.”

The next time a Democrat is in power, full speed ahead and some motherfuckers need to go to jail. You can start with soft targets like Wilbur Ross if the decrepit fucker is still wheezing. Not only take the gloves off, but throw them away or these ruthless motherfuckers in the Republican mob will just keep on keeping on.

And, of course, ITMFA.





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I Think I Am Addicted to Canning

by 11:06 pm. It has 30 Comments.

Sooooo… I finished dinner, carved the chicken and picked off all the meat and put it in the fridge for chicken salad, and then threw the bones in the stock pot and started cooking it down into stock. Then I can make some chicken lentil soup tomorrow.

And as I was doing it, I started to think- can I can soup instead of freezing it? And I googled it, and you can and it is quite east. So basically, send mason jars and lids, please, so I can continue with my new addiction.





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West By God Virginia Representing

by 8:16 pm. It has 114 Comments.

It pisses off all the right people, and I get a ton of people who always say something when they see my subversive stickers. Beercan chicken for dinner:

Chicken came from a buddy down the road- was moist as hell. Grilled the corn in the husk and picked the tomatoes while it all cooked. As I noted on the twitter machine, I am eating 5-8 tomatoes a day now and still freezing a ton. Some summers I get sores on the inside of my mouth from eating too many. Totally worth it, though.

Truck Fump!





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In Case You Ever Wondered What A Bushel of Peaches Looks Like Processed

by 9:32 pm. It has 107 Comments.

Remember the other day I went to the orchard and got a bunch of peaches? These peaches, to be exact:

Well, I turned them stem side down, laid them all out, and let time do it’s job for a couple days, and today I processed them all. Lemme tell you- a bushel of peaches is a project. First you have to sort them (perfectly good, a few mushy parts, half rotten). Then you gotta wash them. Then you gotta quarter them while leaving them on the pit, and scald them for a minute. Then an ice bath. Then when in the ice path, you gotta slow get the four quarters separated from the pit without ruining the fruit (the skins come off in the process). The videos I watched had these ladies with tiny hands who were able to just massage them with their palms and they would come apart. I have bear claws, so it was a little harder.

I then put all the really good quartered peaches in sterilized jars. The not so good ones but still edible I threw in a pot for jam, the skins and the pits went into a separate pot for jelly. While I was adding a simple syrup to the jars for canning, I cooked down the jam peaches, got the canner up to a boil, and started cooking down the peels for jelly. For half the canned peaches, I used just a raw sugar. For the other half, I used a monkfruit extract so I can give a bunch to dad to take to South Carolina over winter and have with his cottage cheese in the morning. He doesn’t know this, and it is going to be a surprise, so don’t tell him. If you are worried he will see it in this post and ruin the surprise, don’t worry- he does not read this blog because “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO USE SUCH FOUL LANGUAGE YOU HAVE A BETTER VOCABULARY THAT THAT AND WHY ALL THE VULGAR IMAGERY AREN’T YOU ASHAMED TO WRITE LIKE THAT WE RAISED YOU BETTER WHAT IF MY FRIENDS DO A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR JOHN COLE AND FIND YOU AND THINK IT IS ME!”

At any rate, the whole thing took about 6-7 hours, and here are the results:

27 quarts of canned peaches
12 jars of peach jam
and not showing, about 8 jars of peach jelly

I ran out of steam and didn’t feel like filtering the jelly through cheesecloth a half dozen times tonight, so it is in the fridge and I will do it tomorrow.

All in all, it was a fun project. Two of the canned peaches did not seal, so I put them in the fridge and will have some tomorrow. If the prices drop, I think I might get another bushel and make more to give away to friends for the holiday. All told, this was about 80 bucks worth of produce, jars, and sugar, and I think I turned it into over 300 dollars worth of value.

I also quartered three more gallon bags full of tomatoes and put them in the freezer. I’m up to about 8 gallons of tomatoes and maybe 1/3 through the season. Sauce and salsa day is going to be a long one when I do it.





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Good Day at the Orchard

by 3:14 pm. It has 62 Comments.

Today was (and still is) a beautiful day- 70 degrees, breezy, blue skies, especially since the last few days it has been hotter than the surface of the sun. The orchard called me (I had left my number) and they had a bushel of peaches ready for me, so I grabbed Breyana (my traveling partner) and off we went. We first mad a pit stop at a diner in Washington, Pa, called the Doghouse Diner, which is a nice little greasy spoon kinda place. I had two eggs over easy, some corned beef hash, and some hash browns, and Breyana ate an Italian sub bigger than her head:

We then ventured forth to the orchard/farm store, and I picked up my peaches, and a bunch of stuff for neighbors (corn, cabbage, etc.). Guess what I am doing tomorrow:

And just as a reminder for those of you who live out west or in urban hellholes, here is a reminder of what it looks like to live in a rain forest and it is green and lush (and will stay this way until October):

If you embiggen the photo, you will notice that the sunflowers back by the shed are now approaching 7-8′ tall. And the willow tree has doubled in size since last year. Also, check out these cherry tomatoes from the garden- they look fake they are so beautiful!

Finally, a bonus Rosie picture:





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