Cop Car's Beat

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Summary of the week

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/21/2021

It is well that HH is as organized as he is. It really helps him. Today he has a social engagement (to see old friends from 50 years ago, one of whom has come to town) and an appointment with his audiologist. That being the case, HH brought his penciled schedule for the day to me last evening to see if he had missed anything. He had noted the time at which he was to leave the house to meet his old friends at McDonald's, the time he was to leave McDonald's for home, etc. Right on! Unless HH starts getting more anxious about the whole thing, I plan to go to the gym this morning. I should return home before HH needs to leave, but I don't plan to go with him. McDonald's is less than one mile from our home.

How can we be so wasteful? - 6/22/2021

The item, below, is from News for Nerds.

Amazon Labels Millions of Unsold Products For Destruction, New Investigation Finds (theverge.com)73

Posted by msmash on Monday June 21, 2021 @01:39PM from the closer-look dept.

Amazon marks millions of unsold products for destruction each year in the UK, according to a new investigation by British television program ITV News. From a report: ITV found stacks of boxes marked "destroy" that were filled with electronics, jewelry, books, and other new or gently used items in one warehouse's "destruction zone." The news outlet caught the practice on camera while going undercover at the Dunfermline fulfillment center in Scotland. It says it tracked some of the goods to recycling centers and a landfill. About 124,000 items at Dunfermline were labeled "destroy" during a single week in April, according to an internal document obtained by ITV News. Just 28,000 items were set aside for donations during the same period. About half of all the stuff that's trashed are things that people returned, a former Amazon employee told ITV. While the other half are "unopened and still in their shrink wrap," the ex-employee said.

 

Sidenote to Bogie: I recall your telling me about wastefulness when you worked at Brookstone. I think it pales into insignificance when compared with the magnitude of Amazon's wastefulness.

 

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/23/2021

 

 

For the first time since February, 2020, I got to see my friend who lives in a retirement village in northwestern Wichita. Hunky Husband took Elegant Friend and me to lunch at the Bricktown Brewery, a restaurant just a few blocks from EF's apartment. EF and I failed to recall how large portions of food are at that restaurant and each of the three of us took as much food home with us as we ate.

 

We lost our ISP (Cox) - 6/26/2021

 

 

As I was trying to solve a "no audio" problem with my computer software, this morning, I lost Internet connection - at about 7am. Since Cox has been laying some sort of cable in up along the main street that is about 1/3-mile to the west of us, I checked that our Wi-Fi was working and chose not to panic; but, I did check up on it every once-in-a-while. Hunky Husband and I just returned from the public library where, for the first time in 1.5 years I checked out a couple of books (both fiction, this time). In logging the books into my Excel spreadsheet, I note that I now have Internet connection - at about 2:45pm. Yay! HH is going down to his computer to check on his incoming emails.

 

I still have no audio. (Yes, the speakers are plugged in, powered up, and producing sounds.) The Troubleshooter software checked out my system and found nothing that it could fix - even after it reinstalled the audio drivers. I updated the System BIOS which, likewise, produced nothing. I don't much use the audio; but, it would be nice to have it back. 

 

Unlike previous times, HH has been choosing to go with me for most of the errands that I run - whether he drives or whether I drive. This is new behavior.

 

P.S. Weather - 6/26/2021

 

We received 1.6" of rain overnight. That cooled us down a bit, even if it raised the humidity. It was rather nice doing yardwork this morning - pulling millions of weeds and gathering branches downed by the wind.

Some days things go well

At about 11pm yesterday, I placed an online order with WalMart. They immediately sent confirmation with the information that the order would be split into two parts - one to arrive today, the other to arrive tomorrow. Good. This morning, I received another email saying that the item that was supposed to have arrived tomorrow would be delivered today. Well and good.

Hunky Husband and I drove up to Wichita to leave a box of stuff (mostly family's Xmas cards) on Dudette's front porch. As we were leaving her place, I texted her that we had left the box. (We knew that, although she works from home these days, she had wall-to-wall meetings today.) A few miles down the road toward home, HH's phone binged to let him know that he had a message. Dudette had acknowledged retrieving the box. (No, HH didn't read the text. He handed me his phone to pick it up.) A few miles farther down the road, there was a loud ding. I ignored it thinking it was a different type of notification on HH's phone. When the loud bing repeated a couple of minutes later, it dawned on me that the bing was telling me that I had received a voice message on my own phone. Digging my phone out, I saw that I had received a couple of phone calls from an apparently local number. I would have, as usual, ignored those calls were it not for the fact that I had also been left a voicemail. In order to pick up a voicemail, I must delete the phone numbers that had been displayed.

The voicemail was from a (young-sounding) woman saying that she was trying to make a delivery to me from WalMart, but had not been given my address; thus, she wanted me to return her call to provide the data. Oh, me. She was smart enough to not rely upon my phone to tell me who called and gave her phone number, verbally. The big question was: could I remember that number long enough to call her back. Victory! I contacted her, gave her our address, and our journey proceeded. I checked the front porch upon arrival and...there was the package - one bottle of olive oil. I shake my head that someone was actually dispatched to deliver that single bottle!

The photo at the top of this posting is one that was included in an email that I received from WalMart confirming delivery. Cool beans.

11/20/2020 - An idea from me, a poor cook

 

Hunky Husband must have his dessert after most lunches and dinners; so, I try to keep him supplied. Some years, I've made him a gift of home-made goodies, promising to make him a batch of cookies or a pie each month for one year. In parallel, I've been trying to sneak better nutrition into his foods - especially since he is prone to making breakfast bars his staple, consuming at least two each day. (I consider breakfast bars to be disguised candy bars.) Sneaking the nutritional ingredients into HH's foods has become easier over the past couple of years. HH is no longer a picky eater. If I put the food in front of him, he will eat it - wow! For instance, the other day, I made macaroni and cheese where the sauce for a 6-serving casserole contained one cup of a chopped salad (much kale and broccoli stems) and mushrooms. He liked it.

The idea I thought to push, today, is the addition I made to HH's pecan pie that I baked yesterday. HH prefers pecan to any other pie and prefers pecan pie to any cake in the world.

Prior to pouring the filling of the pecan pie, I put a layer of plumped raisins down on the crust. This comes under the heading of sneaking in nutritional value. As one can see in the photo, above, the raisins re-distributed themselves - floating up in the filling. The big surprise, though, was the taste of the filling after I baked the pie. My recipe calls for 1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract. I had absent-mindedly used orange extract, instead. It added a bit of extra tang.

I would love to have a slice of HH's pie; but, I just get to lick the knife. Too much sugar makes me ill. (HH says that there is no such thing as too sweet - that "too sweet" is an oxymoron.) Of course, it did not occur to me to photograph the pie while it was still whole and pretty. (Before you ask: I don't "do" pie crusts. The above crust is one put out by Marie Callender's, sold in the frozen foods section of food markets.)

Cop Car's Chow - Pecan Pie

                                         Beat, lightly: 2 large eggs

Add & continue beating, just to combine: 1 cup corn syrup (light or dark)

                                                            1 tablespoon wheat flour

                                                            1/4 teaspoon table salt

                                                            1/2 cup granulated white sugar

                                                            1 teaspoon vanilla extract

                                                            2 tablespoons molten butter

Pour batter into un-baked, 9-inch pie shell.

                                Top batter with:    1-1/4 cup pecan halves

Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, cold with whipped cream, or at any temperature, alone.

Note: I use deep-dish, commercially produced pie crusts to prevent run-over.

Tip on keeping pie crust edges (or pizza dough edges) from burning: brush crust edges with plain water before placing the pie into the oven.

Week in Review - 10/30/2020

Our family members do not normally exchange greeting cards for Halloween. However, 2020 is not normal. I blame that fact for WichiDude's and Dudette's having sent Hunky Husband and me a really cute card. It lights up and it plays a recording; but, I did not make a video. A still photo (below) will have to do.

Within the past couple of years, our neighborhood has been gifted with a couple of new neighbors whom I've mentioned in previous postings. They are welcome additions to the neighborhood and have gone out of their way to bring a sense of community to it. For instance, Adam & Krista (next door - with the new fence) and their small children, distributed pumpkins throughout the neighborhood about 10 days ago. Krista's parents live on a not-far-distant farm and had grown the pumpkins, bringing them to town to share.

Unfortunately, I did not think to take a photo of the pumpkin sitting on our front steps, where the neighbors placed it; but, I did take a photo of some of the pumpkin sauce that I made from half of it. The other half has been cooked up and is being/will be used in various casseroles and breads. I cannot tolerate wasting food and the hard freeze that arrived last night was forecasted, so I beat it to the punch.

As you can tell by the update of contents and date on the lid, I am not only frugal when it comes to food, but also frugal with things. I re-use lids on jars of foods that I expect to use within a few weeks and to keep refrigerated until use, not really caring that the seal may fail.

Not failing, was another new neighbor from a bit farther down the street, Cathy. It was she who picked most of the cherries off of our little cherry tree this year. At the time, she left a lovely cherry cobbler on our front porch for us. Saturday, she left us a jar of cherry jelly and a loaf of her home-made, whole-grain bread on which to smear the jelly.

Although I have not usually eaten breakfast for the past several years, her bread and cherry jelly just could not be resisted. Sunday morning, I spread a little butter on a couple of slices of the bread, gently warmed them in a skillet to a nice, lightly-toasted state, and spooned jelly onto them. The bread tasted fresh-from-the-oven.

As we were expecting the deep freeze to move in, last night, I took a photo (below) of the tropical plants that had taken root from the pot I had over-summered in the basement escape window well. The photo also includes a volunteer redbud seedling and the two hostas that I had planted there in 2019.

This morning, the scene was captured in the photo, below. Soon, the leaves will die - as will the roots of the tropical plant, in all likelihood. The toads and frogs have burrowed into the sand for the winter.

Unexpectedly, we had just enough snow for me to be able to gather enough from our patio table for a bowl of snow ice cream. It was rather icy, so not the best; but, at least I got a bowl! (When I thawed the snow/ice in the rain gage, I measured 0.51" of liquid. We've had another two inches of rain since then.)

Speaking of beating the weather to the punch, I also gathered in our last two tomato plants during the past few days, placing them in the garden cart in the garage until I had time to strip the green tomatoes from those vines. I used very nearly all of those green tomatoes in putting together a batch of green tomato relish. Below is a photo of the three full 1/2-pint jars of relish. There was a fourth 1/2-pint jar that was nearly filled; but, I started using it at dinner, this evening (Monday).

Having never before made green tomato relish, I pulled two recipes from the internet and used them as a guide. Since it will be at least eight more days until I will make it to the grocery store (it only has special old-people hours on Tuesday mornings and the streets are rutted ice at this point), I had to make do with what I had on hand - part of a green pepper (substituting three banana peppers from our garden for the rest), for instance.

I was pleased to note that the relish is delicious!

Oh, yuck!

"Oh, yuck!" was what popped into my head when first I read the header of the item, below, from Slashdot.org. Of course, I would be in line to try out the product. I postulate that should I try it out on Hunky Husband, he would (not knowing its origin) pronounce that his portion was gristly.

 

3D-Printed Plant-Based Steaks Could Arrive In 2021 (engadget.com) 27

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday July 02, 2020 @06:00AM from the what-to-expect dept.

In 2021, Israeli startup Redefine Meat plans to launch a 3D printer that will allow customers to produce plant-based flank steak at home. Engadget reports: Redefine Meat says that through 3D printing, it's able to create plant-based meat with the same "appearance, texture and flavor of animal meat," according to its website. Texture specifically seems to be the 3D printer's hallmark achievement. "You need a 3D printer to mimic the structure of the muscle of the animal," Redefine Meat CEO Eshchar Ben-Shitrit told Reuters.

3D printing differs from other methods companies have used for reproducing meat taste and texture. Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat use combinations of plant-based proteins, oils and binders, like methylcellulose and potato starch, to achieve a realistic texture for their ground beef and patties -- though the texture of ground beef is arguably easier to achieve than that of steak. Atlast Food uses mushroom fibers to emulate animal tissue in its meatless bacon.

 

Cherry Crop 2020

I posted a photo of our North Star Cherry tree abloom this spring, here, and posted about the cherry crop of 2019, here. Today, I'll post photos supplied by our neighbor down the street showing the cherries that she picked yesterday, and this morning, from our little tree. She, Wonderful Hostess, had invited us to attend an outdoor pot-luck-style barbecue that she is holding in her spacious back yard this evening. In telephoning our regrets (my not having felt well for a few days, the horrible heat spell we are having - about which she didn't know when she planned the shindig, and our old-people-reluctance to tempt fate in even an outdoor setting), I mentioned to WH that our cherries had suddenly all ripened a couple of days ago and that she should pick any that she cared to have. WH took me up on the offer and you can see her bounty, below. Of course, we were totally oblivious to her presence at our tree; but, she emailed that she had disturbed the birds at their breakfast, this morning.

Yesterday's take:

 

This morning's take:

Hunky Husband just came in from his morning jog. He wouldn't be much wetter had he jumped into a swimming pool. I was smart enough to get an earlier start - carrying buckets of water to the dogwood trees. (I wasn't early enough to catch WH at her cherry picking, though!)

ADDITION OF 6/7/2020 2:01PM  - Payback

Wonderful Hostess left me a voicemail several minutes ago, letting me know that she had left us goodies on the front porch. Have you ever seen a finer looking cherry cobbler? (I'll note that WH was sharp enough to use a double, disposable, pan for the cobbler.) I can hardly wait to taste it; but, must wait, of course.

Wonderful Hostess included a thank you note in which she lamented that she misses being a farm wife as she had been for 30 years - before moving to town. She is a wonderful neighbor who has provided a sparkplug to our community since moving in last year. We are so happy to have her here.

HH BBs

Hunky Husband will put up with nearly any food I set before him - as long as he has breakfast bars (BBs) on hand. He alarmed me last week by declaring that he was out of the BBs that he preferred and he would be running to the grocery store to buy some. I was able to dissuade his hurried trip, in favor of buying them during our every-2nd-week shopping trip. He grumbled; but, I've put up with grumbling for enough years that it doesn't signal the end of the world to me. In the meantime, the CDC has recommended that we all wear non-professional masks AKA face coverings; that is, the kind of "mask" we can make ourselves - saving the N-95 masks for those who are frontline medical care/fire fighter/security force workers. Today, since HH is not one to don a mask, I did our weekly shopping, alone, going during the hour after the old-people set-aside hour, when I thought it would be (and it was) less crowded. People were sparsely dotted inside the store.

Yes, I wore a mask - the one that I had made for HH (similar to the one shown at New Project but with the backing comprising two layers of HH's old handkerchiefs), not having gotten my own mask sewn. I tend to judge such face coverings harshly; but, as they say, I guess one is better than nothing - if only to signal to others that the wearer is taking COVID-19 seriously. At any rate, my approach to shopping was strategic. First, I chose to go to one of the two Walmarts in Derby rather than to Dillons. There is a "Neighborhood" Walmart just one mile south of us that is smaller, quicker to get through than is the large Dillons store that HH prefers, a bit over a mile north of us. Then, I planned to leave all of the non-perishable items in the trunk of my car for a few days to allow any viruses time to disassemble themselves; thus, I would check out as two orders - one of the perishables, the second of the non-perishables. It worked like a charm.

This (photo, below) is the trunk of my car with all but one bag (containing HH's BBs) of non-perishables. As you can see, they actually had toilet tissue on the shelves - one package per customer. It did feel a bit peculiar, my not taking my reusable bags into the store; but, it had been suggested that COVID-19-wise, it would be better to use the single-use plastic bags for the foreseeable future.

The photo, below, shows five boxes of HH's favorite BBs (all that were on the shelves) and one box that I picked up, believing that they would "do in a pinch". BTW: It turned out that HH was exaggerating (or, perhaps he just didn't see them on our shelves). He still had three of his favorite BBs (not boxes, but individual bars) on hand.

Not only am I giving the viruses on the non-perishables time to disassemble, I'm giving the viruses on a package that FEDEX delivered yesterday time. It isn't obvious from the photo (below), but the side view of the box is wedge-shaped. Presumably, the box contains my long-awaited manual treadmill. I didn't really want to leave the box on the front porch, in case of rain and/or high wind. (We got the high wind, I can tell. The driveway that I had spent so much time sweeping clear of detritus from our cottonwood tree is, again, covered with such. Oh, well, I won't catch COVID-19 while laboring outside, will I?)

Today's Wichita Eagle carried a photo of a safe hay bale.

ADDITION OF 4/8/2020 - Logical Explanation

Unfortunately, I don't recall which news network carried it last night; but one of the TV news teams aired a short piece on the toilet tissue shortage. The investigative reporter told us that, although there may have been a small amount of hoarding at the start of our taking COVID-19 seriously, the real reason for the shortage follows this logical path:

1. During "normal" times, employed people spend about one-third of their time at work and non-employed people spend time at gyms, stores, restaurants, and such. The toilet tissue that people use in those locations is, in general, single-ply, thin, and made from recycled materials.
2. During CORVID-19 times, many of the employed people are spending 100% of their time at home. The toilet tissue used in homes is, in general, multi-ply and made from virgin materials.
3. The toilet tissue demand from homes cannot be replaced by the toilet tissue excess available due to lagging sales to businesses.
4. Toilet tissue is a low-value, high-volume product; thus, in general, no one in the supply chain stocks a bunch of it in warehouses. In fact, toilet tissue is one of those "just-in-time" products.
5. Because of #4, manufacturers pretty much produce "exactly" the right amount of product. They have no excess manufacturing capacity to open new production lines because that would tie up capital in such equipment and the low-value, high-volume toilet tissue would "never" pay back the investment.

It had, when I first stopped going to the gym, occurred to me that toilet tissue use at home would increase by a tiny amount; but, it didn't occur to me that there would be no excess production capacity to fill the increased demand, nor did I give thought to the effects of so many people's now being sequestered at home. I suppose that the same sort of logic applies to many of the other items that are on shortage in the stores, today, be they paper products or other products. The investigative reporter mentioned the glut on the market of frozen French fries.

Week in Review - 2020Feb22

We had just enough snow a couple of days ago that I was able to enjoy two bowls of ice cream before the sun started melting the snow down. The snow ice cream didn't turn out as well as had the one bowl that I enjoyed the week before; but, poor snow ice cream beats even Häagen-Dazs® in my judgement. It surprised me that this later snow ice cream was NOT the better of the two. The differences were two: this snow was powder snow gathered at 22 degrees Fahrenheit (previous snow was wet, at 32 degrees), and I had to use whole milk (had previously used 1% or 2% fat milk) The photo, below, is from five years ago; but, once you've seen one bowl of snow ice cream, you've seen them all.

This past week I've concentrated on data mining the "diaries" left by my parents. (This is not a short project. During the week I managed to complete data transfer for two years. Of course, I'm still working on Dad and Mom's diaries from the 1930s!) The data are then recorded in my Excel records. I don't know why I do this. When I die no one will look at those Excel files and I can hardly expect to live long enough that the worth of the records is all that great, even to me. (I do refer to those files, on occasion, to see when something occurred or where someone lived at a given time.) I am being reminded/told of stuff that I had forgotten, gotten confused, or never knew. For instance: I asked Elder Brother during his visit a few weeks ago, "Since Mom never had headaches, how was it determined that she was deathly allergic to aspirin?" His answer was that he thought our mother did have headaches and he was unaware of her allergy. Well...I was on firm ground about the allergy. It was on her "Medic Alert" tags and in her records. But, she wrote in her seventies about having bad headaches - sometimes for a few days at a time; so, I was wrong in my "remembering" her telling me that she never had had a headache in her life! Perhaps Mom merely told me that she had never had a migraine. EB agreed that Mom was the only member of our family who did not suffer migraine attacks. Below is a photo of the "diaries" (actually, most of the books are "planners") in one of the boxes - after I had removed a fist full of papers and newspapers.

Below are a couple of photos showing the sorts of notes that my father left in one of the "diaries" (from 1960) that he had used in which to keep miscellaneous notes to himself. On a very few of the pages, Mom had made entries of actual "happenings" of those days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The page on the left is seen to be the legal description of a piece of property - on which stood the house in which Dad's mother lived in a tiny village in southwestern Missouri. The two pages shown in the photo on the right are notes that Dad took while studying the private pilot licensure kit that I had given him for his birthday in the late 1970s or early 1980s (on the left) and a sketch of the platting of the area in which Dad and Mom lived in Kansas City MO. On other pages are notes that Dad took about using my HP-19C, which I got in the same 1970s-1980s time frame. Since the "diary" is dated for 1960, one can see that Dad used that book for note-taking over a goodly number of years.

As I mentioned in a comment, on the 17th the neighbor set metal posts for the back part of his fencing. This morning, he brought in rolls of chain-link fencing to set on the post (photo, below) - which will probably be done, today, since the weather is supposed to be sunny and in the 50s.