STEM Tuesday: A 4-H Veterinarian

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A rabbit the size of a cocker spaniel

August is County Fair month.  I mean to go every year. With all that intention, it’s been a long time.  This year I went.  4-H nostalgia washed over me. The cows, the pigs, the rabbits.  The cookies, the pies, the veggies. This week, I’m interviewing two blue ribbon exhibitors for newspaper feature articles.  The 11-year-old scone baker, started 4-H when she was six!

Maybe all that nostalgia is my eyes stopped  National Geographic’s “Why Animals Make Us Better People.”  Dr. Pol is a 73-year-old veterinarian and star of The Incredible Dr. Pol television show. He grew up in the Netherlands, but lives in rural Michigan.  Hey, that’s where I grew up.

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Throw Back Thursday: First Day of School

Even if the long shadows of August didn’t remind me of the first day of school, the posts […]

Becki and Renée: Two Women with Style

becki Utley - 1Style is more than the way a woman looks or the clothes she wears.  It’s more than the way she carries herself.  It’s about who she is.  A couple of weeks ago, I got a chance to sit down with Becki Utley, and extraordinary woman.  She’s got style.

I found Becki almost by accident. Her Facebook Page popped up by some algorithm in the system. What a great idea, I thought.  People post “ISO” (in search of) what they need, and others post what they have to give away.

It all started when Utley needed things to help a friend. She tried Freecycle, but items got snatched up so fast, it seemed pointless to Becki. She decided to take matters into her own hands, so she started a Facebook page. Now she and Renée administer their Page together.

Becki began “rehoming” her baby clothes and furniture when she decided four children were enough for her. That was a little over two years ago; when she still lived in the affordable housing.  Now, she and her friend, Renée average 30 to 40 hours a week picking up, sorting, washing, and distributing clothes, furniture, and supplies to those in need. Renée has five children. The women also provide resource referrals for people who need assistance.

They have one rule:  Nothing gets re-sold. It’s all free.

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STEM Tuesday: Waste Not, Want Not

Good Golly! I had no idea we wasted so much food! $165 billion/year; 20 pound/person.

[tweetthis]According to October 2015 Sierra Magazine, 30% of the food in the United States ends up in dumpsters.[/tweetthis]

This video will take about 1o minutes of your time.  Even the first 3 minutes will make and point, and make you laugh.  I bet you’ll enjoy the whole thing.  I did.

 

I remember when Mom looked watched the grocery store for blackened bananas to go on sale: perfect for banana bread.  She got windfall apples to make applesauce.  Cider came from blemished apples.  We joked that wormy apples made protein-rich cider.

For our part, we try not to waste food.  I can’t remember the last time I had to dump an unrecognizable leftover because of the blue fuzz. We eat leftovers. What we don’t eat fresh, we cook, preserve or freeze. This time of year is a bit stressful with all the veggies ripening at once.  We  use bones for soup stock. We can also donate to the local food pantry.  We also put fruit and veggie scraps in a compost bin for next year’s garden.

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Gratitude Monday: Mud, Memory, and Mosquitoes

I know I said it before:  I love Monday’s.  So filled with possibilities.  After an unplugged weekend, I’m […]

Photo Friday: Mother-Daughter Look-Alike

Our county fair had a mother-daughter look-alike contest. Here are the Third, First, and Second Place winners: They […]

A Little Lipsense

I need things simple. For many years, I put lipstick on in the morning, and by the second cup of coffee, it was gone. Some colors worked.  Some colors worked some time. Some lipsticks changed colors before fading out altogether.

body parts 3As I got older, [tweetthis]a funny thing happened to my lips. I could no longer tell quite where my natural color started. [/tweetthis]On closer examination, the color receded, so the edge of my lip seemed to disappear.  I had a hard time determining where, exactly, my lipstick should go. Have you ever noticed that?

Now I use Lipsense.  I learned about Lipsense, of all places, on a vacation to Sedona. A bunch of vacationers got a chance to try on Lipsense and wear it for a day before we made a purchase.  Loved-One and I got a kick out of seeing Lipsensed women hiking the many trails of Sedona. The representative said Lipsense is what movie stars wear.  Maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s a sales-line.

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STEM Tuesday: I’ll have onions with that

Onions on a neutral, mostly white background
Onions on a neutral, mostly white background (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my favorite books is The Science of Cooking, by Editors of Cook’s Illustrated and Guy Crosby, PhD.  Loved-One got it for me for Christmas.  I love that he appreciates my nerdiness.

Here’s some interesting things about onions.

You know how recipes tell you to mince, chop, slice, dice, julienne onions?  [tweetthis]Different ways of cutting an onion actually make them taste different. [/tweetthis] As the knife blade cuts through an onion, cells get ruptured. (I bet the first thing you looked at under a microscope was an onion. What? You never looked under a microscope? )

The intense flavor in an onion happens when

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Gratitude Monday: It’s all good (okay, it’s not all bad)

First, everyone (except me) complained about too much rain. It was too cool to recognize summer. Next, we […]

Photo Friday: Day is Done

Two different perspectives of the end of the day.  Both make me give a deep sigh of contentment. […]