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I trailered the new mower to the mountain house Thursday. The mower did shift an inch so thank goodness I lined the trailer sides with cardboard - no metal on metal rubbing occurred. The trip was uneventful except for a big T-storm that hit just as I started to cross the mountains. Wipers were on as fast as they would go, I had to put the defrost on because the windshield was fogging up, I was crawling at 30 mph and still having trouble seeing the “S” curves. Coming down the other side was marginally better.

My cousin thought he spotted me coming through town at the bottom of the mountain, but decided it wasn’t me because of the red mower in the trailer ... LOL! He was surprised to find out it WAS me with a new mower.

Yesterday, I spent going through the mower manual, trying to figure out how to adjust the seat and control ‘arms’. It is obvious a relatively tall man put the mower together - seat is all the way back & backing up was barely possible because the control arms were hitting me in the chest (boobs!) when I pulled them back to reverse. The arms were on the highest setting & I have taken them off & reattached as low as they will go - big improvement :-)

MWH:
I parked the utility trailer in the pole shed after unloading the mower & discovered a #@$%& groundhog is digging in 2 places. I do not have my trap or a snare with me so dealing with GH will have to wait a week or so.

On the front porch currently ... shaded, nice breeze, great view. Lots of campers & vehicles with canoes, kayaks & fishing boats going by - the river (about half a mile away) is a happening place.

Once the sun is at a lower angle, I’ll do some mowing - too intense right now if not in the shade.

Full “Flower” moon today:

https://www.almanac.com/full-moon-may

The pistol was an ‘emergency’ situation. I didn’t have time to run get my 20 gauge, which for sure would have been ‘no miss’. My SIL was closer, so she was able to grab her pistol & get to me before the groundhog broke for the pole shed. The Collie was so funny ... not a hunting dog. The old Brittany Spaniel would have been all over that groundhog. I was yelling at the Collie “get it, get it” and she was barking & bouncing at it, feinting a bite (groundhog feinted back), then she’d look at me like ‘well, now what?’ I’d yell again ‘get it get it’ ... this went on until I had the pistol & could shoot it. My SIL was really shaken up - didn’t want the dog getting hurt & couldn’t shoot it herself.

I shot one last year with a pistol after my SIL’s dog cornered it up against a big pine - weird situation. Then I trapped another in the pole barn with some fresh figs. It was a live trap, but we do not practice catch & release. I haven’t seen one since. The heavy damage I described at the barn happened years back. We periodically get one showing up & generally, my brother shoots them with a scoped rifle (don’t have to get but so close!) or I trap them.

They have undermined the barn at our flatland house to the point we have collapsed areas, they caused a leak in the pipes & screwed up the electric wires. Of course, as you mentioned, they are pretty good at destroying gardens & getting into things like our fig bush. I have no tolerance for them.

I didn’t get a list, but it appears he’s on amphetamines, stimulant drugs that speed up messages between your brain and your body. His pupils are so dilated, his eyes look like black holes - another reason for sunglasses. He’s likely on drugs prescribed for ADHD (Adderall, Ritalin) & maybe others.

A couple at church, who are pro-Trump, have a son who is a pharmacist. The son told the parents, after the SOTU speech, that the pharmacists all know what list of drugs FJB is on.

Even if drugged up, I think Trump’s mere presence will have FJB in ‘angry dementia’ mode and the ‘look’ will be ugly. Already, in certain public appearances, the ‘ugly/angry’ has reared its ugly head & amping FJB up on drugs to be able to ‘debate’ won’t keep it from happening.

The GC also has ‘slots’ on the sides where you can insert wooden stakes vertically to make higher sides .... you could add boards or plywood horizontally attached to the vertical wood & really have sides (puppy stroller? LOL).

First bouquet that I had in the house all week - took one to mom just like it with more blooms on the bush!

I have a Gorilla Cart ... love it! It rolls well since the tires are pneumatic. Mine has the dump function AND it has a handle that can be turned into a hitch (perfect for LB, an ATV, etc.) .... looks like this one:

I use my GC all the time & I've hauled it to the new place a couple of times to ferry stuff from the trailer to the house/shop.

My niece got lucky & found one on FB Marketplace for $35 - the people were moving & didn't want to take it along. She got a DEAL, that's for sure!

“Home” again, home again, jiggity-jig ....

Back to the flatlands for a couple of days.

Mower:
Trailered LB back today & the slow leaking tire will be coming off tomorrow evening & going to the repair shop Tuesday for a new tube. Something is ‘clickety clacking’ & I think I see what it is ... if I can’t tighten it up or if I can & that’s still not what is making the noise, I will have the bro take a look.

Wildlife:
Friday, spotted a groundhog scuttling across the front yard, tree to tree, trying not to be out in the open too long. It disappeared into the overgrown lot next door that has a falling down shed on it. The shed is hard to see it has so much stuff growing around & up on it. I suspect that is where ‘home’ is for the groundhog. If I see any holes around our buildings, it’s going to be ‘war’ and I don’t mean live trapping.

Went to dump some tree debris (trimmed more branches that were in the way when mowing) and almost had a heart attack ... a doe was just behind the debris pile and when I pulled around the side & got off the mower, she “exploded” out of the brush & jumped the fence into the neighbor’s field, then was flagging that white tail as she ran for the woods. I probably about gave her a heart attack as well - she hit the fence going over, but seemed ok - usually they clear those fences with plenty of room to spare.

Flowers:
Oh those peonies ... I am SO in love with them. The shades of pink are just fabulous ... no one does color like Mother Nature. I brought some home for mom - I’d sent her a picture, but she needed to see the real thing.

Birds:
Saw the bluebirds catching insects in the yard & flying up towards the sycamore tree. I am sure they are feeding young, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint where they have their nest.

Recipes:
Made Chef John’s green beans with bacon. Since I didn’t want to simmer them on my gas cooktop for an hour & a half, at the point they were to ‘simmer’, I transferred them to a pre-heated crockpot. I had them in there for at least 2.5 hours, so they did take a bit longer, but they were very tasty ... when you eat leftovers for breakfast, you know they’re good.

Next couple of days will be busy - mowing here, trading in two old golf carts on a newer one for mom, mailing a baby blanket to a cousin who just had her first kid (and probably the last) at age 41 ... shocked us all. :-) I’ll be ‘on the road again’ probably by Thursday.

Another cover story for the death jab.

************

Prion diseases are no joke
The people ‘in charge’ don’t know what a prion is...

https://jessicar.substack.com/p/prion-diseases-are-no-joke

UPDATE JUNE 7, 2022: there are 42 reports of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in VAERS now.

UPDATE JAN 1, 2022: there are 24 reports of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in VAERS now.

Luc Montagnier claims to have detected five cases of prion disease in young and healthy people in temporal proximity to COVID-19 injectable product administration. I stand behind his claim.

There are, in fact, 6 cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease reports in VAERS as we speak (write).
The first report was filed in February and the onset occurred within 2 days of the injection. The latest report was filed on June 1st, 2021 and the individual was dead within 6 months of the injection on January 27th, 2021.

Prion diseases manifest in the presence of prions that cause normal proteins to fold abnormally and thus destroys their normal function. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a type of prion disease. In the case of CJD, otherwise known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder, this happens in the brain. Death from a prion disease usually occurs within a year.

Prion diseases are rare with 300 cases reported in the U.S. per year,2 so the fact that there are 6 reports in VAERS in the context of the COVID-19 products may, or may not, be very telling. Time will tell. The average age of the individuals who filed VAERS reports is 67. Sporadic CJD tends to develop later in life, usually around age 603 so this might actually represent 6/300 individuals who might have succumbed to CJD anyway. But… might? Who wants to make a decision so big on a ‘might’ in the context of an exceedingly curable disease like COVID-19?

Human-created prion disease outbreak has happened before. A CJD health scandal occurred in France in the early 1980s where 120 children died from CJD following receipt of an injection of pituitaries harvested from elderly people in a retirement home.”4 So it’s not unfathomable that these products are the reason for the CJD occurrences due to lack of true safety monitoring along the development pathway.

My personal opinion with regards to prion diseases is that they are scarier than anything. Scarier than Ebola. Way scarier. Impairment of normal functioning of necessary proteins is equivalent to dissolving from the inside, which, speaking of Ebola, is what happens. But Ebola is not fatal in every single case. Prion diseases are. There’s no getting out of it once you are in. Brain = over.

Once again, this information needs to be addressed and assessed by doctors, parents, nurses, policy makers - everyone.

Go Luc.

Just tried out the new EGO trimmer. It is very powerful, batteries charge in less than an hour, but it is HEAVY (huge battery). I knocked out the ditch, culverts & end of the banks near the driveway in just over an hour. Sun was out & so are those blasted gnats! My arms are shaking so they got a workout! Front of property looks great (my reward) & I think 90% of the vehicles that went by waved :-)

It has rained all week - got in 3 hours mowing yesterday & today, before afternoon storms, is my only other window - rain coming in tomorrow & a rainy weekend.

LB’s ‘slow back tire leak’ is getting faster. I think I am trailering it home unless I can find someone to help me tomorrow (guy who services mowers - if he can do tubes while I wait). The big problem is I need an impact wrench to get the tire off, otherwise I’d take it off & just have the tire/tube to take somewhere (farm bureau will put in tubes, I think).

Peonies are in full bloom here - most gorgeous peonies I’ve ever seen.

I am taking a card table with me when I go to the new house today .... we have a 2-person ‘bistro’ table up there, but I want to have some relatives over for dinner, a particular cousin & his wife. We’ll have more room with the card table. This won’t happen this week, but I’m working on getting to a point when I CAN have some folks over ... mom packed all the plates, glasses, etc. & they’re in the garage in boxes “somewhere” so I’ll be looking for them this week, mowing grass, & trying to get a raised bed together. It will be a busy week - going to hear a book author speak Saturday (he wrote a book about my first cousin 3 times removed, Civil War era) & then Sunday is a small family reunion at a state park that was originally in my grandmother’s family & where a CW battle took place while they lived there - the state park folks invited us. Whew! Trying to get a foot in the path by 4:00 .... :-)

Capers are considered a “fantastic substitute for olives”, but they are already in the recipe! Personally, I think you could probably just leave the olives out. If you search ‘substitutes for olives’, I don’t think I see anything else I would use (pickled onion, mushrooms, pickled carrot, etc.). I did see jarred artichoke hearts a few times & they would add some salty, pickled goodness, if you like them.

For my recipe, I used a can of ‘just olives’ - green with no pimiento. They were really ‘flat’ - next time I’ll use some in a jar that have some pickling aspect.

Some folks hate the prunes ... for those, I saw people substituting apricots and also dates (I love both, but like prunes, too).

Darien Gap is a major route for illegals - Michael Yon talks about it a lot. If it can be closed down, that will be huge. Sure, they’ll find other ways, but it will cut down on the volume, considerably I would think.

Michael Yon - Secrets of the Darién Gap | SRS #101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-cKQ-emN6Y

Summary from video:
Michael Yon is a Former Green Beret, Author, Photographer, and War Correspondent. After serving in the U.S. Army Special Forces, Yon retired his rifle in favor of a camera. He began his journalism career in December of 2004 in Iraq, covering some of the World’s most complex conflicts and war zones. His writing and photography lead him to over 100 countries during his 20 year career. Most recently, he’s been in South America covering an unknown path for illegal immigration into the United States: The Darién Gap.

The Darién Gap is a region that connects the Southernmost part of Panama and Northern Colombia. This area has become the preferred way of travel for hundreds of thousands of migrants since the late 2000’s. The Darién Gap is largely unregulated and only maintained by a faltering assortment of NGOs and smugglers. In this episode, Yon breaks down how the region functions in illegal immigration and the growing threat it poses to U.S Sovereignty.

The Chicken Marbella turned out very well. My only issue was time managment ... I had planned on dinner around 7 & we didn’t get home until almost 8 (visiting next door with the recent graduate & his parents/sister). The chicken was in the fridge marinating (from the night before) so it was cold. I should have left it out an hour or two to get closer to room temp. I did crank the oven from 350 to 375 and it took almost 2 hours for the 8 thighs to get to the point the meat came cleanly off the bone.

That being said, the smell while cooking was wonderful and the chicken itself was quite delicious. My mom really liked it ... thought it was a rich dish that you would only get in an expensive restaurant (probably true). The hardest part of making it is chopping the garlic - the rest is measuring & dumping ingredients in for the marinade.

I would recommend Chef John’s version of this recipe. Silver Palate (the original) & Ina Garden (updated) have versions, but Chef John uses chicken thighs so the pieces are all the same size & finish roasting about the same time. Also, chicken thighs just don’t dry out like breast, drumstick meat. His instructions are also better, IMO.

https://www.allrecipes.com/chef-john-s-chicken-marbella-recipe-8350241

One other recipe of Chef John’s I’m probably going to try this week as a test run for having company to dinner at the new house is this one:

Slow-Cooked Green Beans
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/233794/slow-cooked-green-beans/

My company will be country folk used to simple fare/comfort food & these beans look like they will fit the bill as a side dish. If you read the reviews, people just love these beans! This dish looks very similar to Greek Green Beans with Tomato (Fasolakia Yiahni) which was always my favorite dish at the Greek Festival that’s held here every year.

There is a farmer’s market near us at the new place that has 3 gardens just to sell produce. I’ve bought eggs from them & can’t wait until the garden items start coming in - I’m sure they’ll have corn this summer.

A Blessed & Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

If you don’t want to wait for fresh corn, two 12 oz. packages of frozen corn (microwave & cool) will work ....still very tasty.