Taste Like Chicken WE Feb 24 & 25

Thanks for the start, Chele. The MG recommends against planting the green bean seeds and covering with plastic. That would most likely kill the seeds (it's a process called solarizing that we often use to kill weed seeds in garden beds). My recommendation would be to plant a bit deeper than he normally would (maybe 1.5") then cover with a really thick (like 4"deep) hardwood mulch or cedar chips (they sell those cheap for outdoor bedding in dog houses), and perhaps straw on top of that. A hardwood mulch or chips would be better than pine bark due to pine being acidic. That should let the seeds germinate and still be protected. However, he'll need to watch the temps as he sees the green chutes emerging and cover with old sheets or blankets if the temperatures get below 40°. Being in a raised bed might keep them a bit warmer than if they were directly sowed in the ground. Do you have a little room downstairs that you could put up a metal shelf and add a grow light so you could start some seeds? That's what I rigged up and it's worked well for the last several years. I just decided to add the heat mat this year and we'll see how that goes. I hope your weather guessers got in wrong on today's forecast. The coconut oil was the main reason I never bought Beyond Burgers for home, but after tasting how salty they were, I didn't like them anyway. I hope the new ones will be much improved.  We were fortunate that the wind died down just before bedtime, so we had a quiet night. It's already ramped back up, however, and we have another wind advisory for today. Fortunately, she has fallen asleep so that will help when the heavier gusts kick in later this morning. If she doesn't have her naps, she tends to get cranky. Not crazy about the eye drops so far. My vision stays blurry for about an hour after I use them. I found a different Refresh gel product on Amazon that I'm going to try. It has the same active ingredient as the one I found at Walgreens but no glycerin, which I think is the problem. I'll need to be really careful to use the ones I have early when I have to drive somewhere, like Monday and Thursday this coming week.

Linda, how did you sleep last night? I hope there were no more loud, unexplained noises and Minni didn't decide to have play time in the middle of the night.

Did you get wind like we did, Kathy? I think I saw that your temps are cooling off a bit. Anything going on there DuhSantis wise since he crawled back from Iowa with his tail between his legs? He gets no mention at all on our local news these days. I noticed on our sample ballot for Super Tuesday that there were a lot of convention delegates pledged to him, which I found really surprising--almost as many as the orange one, in fact. Did you see that TN and VA attorneys general won their lawsuit against the NCAA?

I thought I would post before I pull up a YouTube exercise video. I changed out furniture covers and those are in the dryer. I also went through my shelf of dried beans and put ones in jars that Dale bought this past week. I think we're going to be eating a lot of cranberry beans because somehow we ended up buying a lot of those. But they're a favorite and I have some soaking to cook tomorrow. More baseball this afternoon, with the Vols and Giants both playing. Baseball season is definitely here. We watched a UT game during dinner last night. Arya gets her dinner first and then sits with us in the dining room while we eat. She usually brings a toy with her. Last night the toy she chose was a baseball. Like Dale said, "if you live in this house you have to love baseball". Happy weekend, All!

Kathy, thanks for the recommendations on dealing with the effects of the new gel drops. I have been using Blink, among others, and just picked up a new one last week. I keep the TheraTears vials in the car and use them when I'm driving at night and on Thursdays when I am behind the wheel for so long. I am beginning to think that largest contributor to what I'm dealing with right now is the continuing dermatitis, even though it's not as bad as it was a month ago. I'm trying to be more diligent about using drops--any drops--more often than I have been. I guess DuhSantis has selective amnesia. His name (and several others out of the race such as Ramaswamy) are still on our ballot. There was an interesting article in the NY Times where they interviewed Nikki Haley Republicans about who they would vote for in the general election if it turns out to be Biden vs. Trump. They seem to be struggling just like the rest of us.

Glad you're feeling better, Linda, regardless of why things have improved. I think kneading more could be a key to making your rolls smoother the next time. Definitely let us know if that works. The poke test sometimes isn't a reliable indicator. At least they were edible, which you weren't sure they would be. I'm using Systane as one of my drops and they work about as well as the others I'm using. I didn't realize they had a gel, but that's not the one the eye surgeon mentioned, so I guess I didn't notice. The problem with those HVAC contracts is that they don't make anything on them unless they talk you into buying other things. It's all about upselling. Did Minni sleep through the night? Loved your shoutout meme. I think we're all there. Thanks for the mushroom article. Chestnut mushrooms are similar to wine cap mushrooms, which I've grown. We mushroom geeks know that all mushrooms are medicinal, but some aren't necessarily medicinal for humans. I've never tasted chestnut mushrooms, but they are supposed to taste nutty.

Chele, like Kathy, I wondered how much snow you got. We're a bit chilly today, so I guess you are, too, but are expecting a warmup tomorrow.

It's been a busy and quite frustrating day so far. Arya has oats for several days, I cooked beans for the soup I need to make for Dale, and we have clean workout clothes. We also have fresh bread. I spent an inordinate period of time trying to get a form printed out on my aged printer (which Dale ended up doing on his printer) and then attempting unsuccessfully to scan it. I spent an hour updating software and working with apps before I finally gave up and ordered a new printer, an HP Envy 7255e. Has anyone seen the movie Office Space? If so, remember the scene with the fax machine. That's what I'm tempted to do with my current printer once the new one arrives. Using the sledgehammer on it would be quite satisfying but I'd just have to clean up the mess after I smashed it to smithereens. I even updated Windows 10 and, of course, my browsers didn't work right after the update. The worst one is always Firefox, so I decided to switch all my default tabs to Brave and only use Firefox for YouTube videos because the add-on when I want to download a video is so much better. If I could give up technology today I think I would. After looking at the weather forecast for the week, Dale will be doing his trail run tomorrow and I'll go to iTone on Wednesday. It's also supposed to rain on Tuesday, so I can work in the greenhouse that day.