The dog days of summer

"A sanctimonious, sneering one-liner, no matter how bogus, is seen as straight talk, while a calm, well-argued response is seen as canned and phony.” - President Bill Clinton

August is here. The days are getting just a bit shorter, and we are starting to think about fall. Next thing you now it it’ll be Halloween.

But first we have to get through the rest of the summer. Its hot again. We had a break for the last week, where it was almost really comfortable….but the heat and the humidity are back.

We took the opportunity of it not being '“next to the sun” hot for a few days to work on the ‘ol Casa del Crack. We built a wall and some shelving for our canning jars.

Who can tell me what’s wrong with this picture? Anybody?

Anybody…..anybody…..Bueller?

If you guessed “some dipshit wired the hot and the neutral to the same terminal”, you win. This kind of asshattery is exactly how buildings burn down. So….I had to fix that shit post haste. I’m still not exactly sure why this outlet didn’t work (that’s humor).

Once that little hiccup was fixed I proceeded to hang the wall.

I’m not the best drywaller on the planet, but I’m damn sure better than most of the work I have seen around here. And…I don’t just mean the house. Once that was done and sanded and mudded again, I threw up a coat of primer and got to work on the shelving. We will do a floor later.

Oh yeah, for those of you who haven’t been here, this is the entrance to the Fuhrerbunker and the boy’s room. This area is the “butlers pantry”. We figure it’s a good spot for canned stuff because the temp is a bit more stable here and it’s not prone to freezing like the bunker. We also keep the deep freeze in here.

Isn’t the backlight kinda cool? I thought so. LED strip, so it’s like really cheap to operate and will last for a long time. I ran out of connectors and had to solder the last two strips in place. Yay.

Well, you can’t have a canning shelf without jars on it….so we filled it up. I immediately became depressed looking at all those empty jars. Time to bust out the canner and get busy.

In honesty, it’s that time of year for this kind of thing. Stuff is in season now, and we put up for winter just like every year. Soon we will put Bambi into the freezer. Not the stripper from down the way, the Disney character. Way less disease, and it’s Kosher. Insert parable of the grasshopper and the ant here. Or something like that. I also want a sweet little lamb. And some chickens.

So far this week the kids have helped me put up 14 pints of jalapenos and 7 jars of pre-made pintos. I want to do some garbanzos later this week too. If you buy cheap dried beans and can them up (about 1 cup of beans per quart) you can season them anyway you want and they are ready to go once you open the lid. Better than store canned, and you know exactly what’s in it. To be very clear here I will insert my standard disclaimer :

Seriously though…. if you’re going to can things and have never done this before, or if you aren’t sure exactly what to do…seek instruction from someone who knows. Always follow the correct procedure laid out in the USDA Canning Book or “The Instructions”. Seriously…buy the damn books and do it right. Don’t hurt yourself or someone you care about.

If you are going to can anything except fruit and Tomatoes you will need a pressure canner. (according to the government a Tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit. Seriously there is a supreme court case about it).

I’m still required to mention that if you buy anything I link from our Amazon page, we will receive a small commission. Your price stays the same.

BUY SOME OF OUR CRAP.

Anyway…

We did our usual “burn stuff on the fire” whilst swimming thing Wednesday night…

Yes, my kids can start a fire with a spark. Can you?

It was really nice tonight. The weather cooled down for the evening, and the water was awesome. The Wife and I rode the hogs to the beach and The Boy drove the rest of the crew.

The wife made up some stuffed mushrooms to cook on the fire and I cooked up some sausages. to paraphrase Ferris Buehler “If you have the means, I do suggest you try it”.

The kids start school next week, so its the last few days of break for them. The Wife will have her 25th birthday this coming Friday, so make sure you all wish her a happy birthday.

I guess that’s it for this week. Continue to be awesome to each other, and don’t let the man get you down.

Until next week, here is your meme to either make you laugh, or get your blood boiling. I’m fine with either way really.