Nocino, take 2

A couple of weeks ago I bottled up some Nocino.

Something that had concerned me was knowing when the walnuts were ripe enough to use. In France they harvest them mid-June, which seemed way too early to do here.

My favorite cooking blogger, David Lebovitz, wrote an article on Nocino himself, just last week. In it, he described a little more clearly, the condition of the walnuts they use in France (see, he lives in France). Plus, he posted a couple of photos.

I determined I'd picked the walnuts too early. sigh...

So, I waited, and today seems like a good day to pick them. Now, the walnuts have a very thin shell - it's just a little tough to cut through with a chef's knife. Plus, the walnut meat is starting to show a skin - just like the pictures in Lebovitz' post.

Anyway, I just bottled some more. Yum!

Home Depot

Home Depot. What can I say?

I want to like you, for a big company you treat your employees well.
While I generally prefer the local (smaller) hardware stores, some
times your huge selection is what I need.

But, I've got to say, your employees know about as much as I do about
home repair, and that's something in between diddly and squat.

I'm sure there are a few crusty old men who retired from their jobs at
65 who work at Home Depot for something to do and a little pocket
money. They probably know something, but I always get the people who
talk knowledgeable but end up giving me bad information.

The latest saga was our exterior water spigot. It's one of those
frost-free kinds that turn the water off 12" from the handle,
hopefully eliminating any problems from cold weather because there's
no water in pipes outside the foundation of the house.

So it's leaked. For two years, maybe four. But it only leaks when the
water is on, so not that big a deal. That is, until we want to go
on vacation - we can't set a timer on that spigot because it'd leak like
100 gallons of water a day, which I just can't do.

Last year, maybe the year before, I went to a Home Depot (b/c the
local hardware shop didn't carry these spigots) and asked where I'd
find the parts to fix one.

Ok, now before you get all snarky on me. Yes, if I'd just done a
little thinking - I'd have realized it's probably just like every
other spigot in the house, and since I've repaired leaks in bathroom
spigots a couple of times, I should realize it's the same principle
for the exterior ones. Heck, I'm pretty sure I've even done it for an
exterior one (at my old Portland house). That's not the point.

As I was saying, I asked where I'd find the parts to fix one. What
was the response? Oh, you can't fix those, you have to replace them.

WTF, how stupid! But, we live in the throw-away economy in America.
And it *is* a Home Depot employee telling me you can't fix them but
can only replace. So I checked out the replacements: something like
$30, but there's 4 lengths of 2 different sizes each. Oh, and bonus,
they're often soldered.

I don't know how to solder. It's supposed to be straight forward, but
I'm not going to start out by soldering *under* the house, in the spot
furthest from the entrance to the crawl space. Oh, and I'd have to
learn how to *un*solder the original. So... not happening.

And paying some crack showing plumber $60/hour to replace the one
thing just seemed excessive.

So I stalled, and it wasn't a big deal, until the next long vacation
where we really wanted to water the plants in the front yard...

Over the 4th of July I mentioned the leak to my dad and he said to
just take a crescent wrench to the faucet and open it up.

So I did. Lo and behold! It's just like any standard faucet. The
guts came out with a simple twist. Great, now I was on somewhat
familiar turf, I could see the washer I needed to replace.

Into Home Depot I venture again.

The first guy I get tries to help, but doesn't know a lot. He calls
for the "plumbing" guy, and a second guy starts trying to help (not
the plumbing guy). While waiting we're actually trying to get the
handle off the fixture (I didn't have enough time to do that before
leaving the house - Simone had a class to get to). The handle is
crusted on because of all the water that had flowed over it every time
we turned it on. So, we're mucking with a vice and a wrench and
eventually some WD40 (that was the trick). Then, how to get the
washer out? It's turned to hard plastic, and is just chipping away.
Meanwhile, the two guys helping keep mentioning how they don't know
where the washers would be for this.

Finally the "plumbing" guy arrives and declares that they wouldn't
have any washers that fit. We could probably find some whose exterior
dimension fits, but the hole in the washer would be too small. I
question the "expert" saying, "Really? I'd figure these things would
be kind of standardized." The expert knowingly says, "Nah, these
frost-free spigots are all unique. Here you go, some washers that
should fit - you'll just have to bore the hole out."

This is where I made the same stupid mistake, trusting the Home Depot
people.

So I left with some washers whose holes were too small, and some
graphite tape, which happens to be made for exactly the leak I
had... (if only we hadn't picked apart the old washer).

I take my findings home and sit down to try to drill out a larger hole
in a rubber washer.

Ever tried to do that?

It's not easy. First, you can't grip the washer too tightly or the
hole you're drilling will be very oval. But, if you don't grip it
tightly enough, the washer just spins away. And I don't have a drill
press, so it's tough to even drill in the center...

I'm getting frustrated because the damn washer is just not going to
have a good seal because I'm jury-rigging the hole, and it's not going
well. The graphite tape might save me, but it just seems so hacky.

The $60/hour crack-showing plumber is starting to look better by the
minute.

Luckily I'd just installed a new dishwasher.

Huh?

Yah, I'd just installed a new dishwasher. And there were some
left-over parts from the various hoses and adapters that either came
with the washer or I'd bought. There were even two washers.
Hmmm... maybe I'll take a look at those. The first one is way too
large, no chance. The second one ... boo-yah! It was nearly
perfect! It was a flat washer, and the fitting wanted a beveled/cone
washer. Easy enough to fix with a couple swipes of the exacto knife.

I put some of the graphite tape on for added security, tightened down
all the fittings, turned the water on and presto! No more leaks.

So, Home Depot. I'm not listening to your experts any longer. They
can tell me where stuff is, but that's the extent of it. I may take
an hour searching through the 100 washers you have hanging on the
rack, but I'm going to find the right one next time because, contrary
to your expert opinion, it exists.

Simone Has A Bike

We went garage sale hopping two weekends ago and found Simone a bike.
A beautiful purple bike with white wheels and a white seat. It's a
tiny bit too large for her, but she's long enough to stand over the
frame (which was always the ruler we measured bikes by as kids).

We took our treasure home, washed it up real shiny, put the training
wheels back on, and headed over to the nearby school to give it a
whirl in their parking lot.

Simone was pretty interested in biking and started to get the idea of
how to pedal the bike (she gets stuck with the pedals vertical because
she's not pedalling quite fast enough) - but as soon as another car
showed up with two kids and their bikes, she was very excited.

We've since gone biking a couple more times, and just this past
Saturday she had her first fall. We were cycling in the neighbor's
driveway (no cars) and she went off the pavement into the grass. I'd
caught her the couple of times earlier but decided to see what
happened. She quickly came to a stop and teetered to the grassy side
and fell over. Not quite sure what happened, she stood up, started to
pull on the handlebars and then decided that the fall was scary enough
that she wanted Momma and was done with biking for the day.

I know, mean Poppa.

In the past, Mary and I had talked about whether to use training
wheels or not and we both agreed that we'd prefer not to use them.
However, with Simone's current age and disposition toward the bike, I
don't think she'd be interested in the least in the bike if it didn't
have the wheels.

It's a new learning adventure.

All ready to ride

Splashing In The Rain

Metal Minerals Scarcity and the Elements of Hope

This presentation is worth a read. In a nutshell, the problem of peak oil applies just the same to a bunch of metal minerals. Think of copper today, it's already getting more expensive, not drastically, but enough the folks steal wiring out of houses...

Anyway, check it out:

If policy does not change, the ongoing growth in global consumption of metals will cause shortages, aggravate energy scarcity and obstruct the transition towards a sustainable economy.

Technology alone is not going to save us. A holistic approach to the vast underlying problem of exponential growth and overconsumption requires involvement of various disciplines. “Using less” requires nothing less than some form of managed austerity and involves disciplines like psychology, philosophy, law, finance, economics, system dynamics and politics. Nate Hagens has explained during the discussion after this presentation that we need to understand and implement all that we know about human behaviour for any solution to stand a chance of becoming viable (see the recent excellent work by Nate Hagens).

It does make me think, perhaps we should be taking all those vacations and doing all the things we take for granted now, because life may change pretty drastically in the next 10-20 years.

Nocino

A friend of mine told me I should make Nocino. I'd never heard of it, but I like doing weird food things, so I looked it up.

It's essentially a green-walnut infused vodka (with some other flavors like cinnamon, clove, lemon). Simone and I picked a bunch of green walnuts from the trees down the street last night and I chopped them up and tossed them in some vodka.

Now I have to wait 6 months, or, as some some report, an entire year.

Brass Monkey