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I see how parboiling could remove phytic acid but soaking just goes inward. I think it falls in the "they say" category rather than science. I guess that's why soda helps. BTW in chemistry class we referred to them as acid and base but I think alkali is creeping in nowadays. Alkali used to be more specific than base.
 
Spicoli, there's only a few weeks near the end of Feb/early March when the weather makes the sap flow such that it can be tapped. (Cold cold nights, warm days up above 40. Maybe also something to do with sunlight, I'm not sure.) So you're going to wait a year either way.
 
Spicoli, there's only a few weeks near the end of Feb/early March when the weather makes the sap flow such that it can be tapped. (Cold cold nights, warm days up above 40. Maybe also something to do with sunlight, I'm not sure.) So you're going to wait a year either way.
Ok, I don't get the cold part. It should flow like a River in the Summer?
 
If there are no screws, I myself would not try to force it. It may be embedded with foam, caulking or cement and that will just add to your problems. Just use shims to straighten your walls. Understand that most houses are never square. You just do the best you can to disguise the error.
Yeah, as I looked at it I came to that conclusion. I think moving it would create more problems than leaving it as is and trying to square the walls up around it as best as possible.

Made Chili, short on Tomato though, so I added a can of Enchilada sauce. Well, first off, I'm not a huge fan of the tangy taste of Enchilada Sauce, it works better with a Corn Tort to soak it up. My general dislike for said sauce is why the can said 2017.

Now, one will ask "Should I use 6 Year old Enchilada Sauce"... I didn't. It could get interesting in the digestive system tonight. At worse, I might meet Jesus, in which the conversation will go " Yeah, you're dead, and I'll show you your life and even the future, but first off, the can SAID IT WAS 6 years old, what were you thinking Umkay?... Did you forget to chill some Mexican water? I think I'll send you back to see if you do THAT again!"

No gut pain yet, so I think I'm good.

I was going to make some Instant Pot Swedish Meatballs, but the first step was to combine Beef and Pork and other ingredients and roll them up... No way to drain all the grease... I can't do that, my cardiac system would say NOPE.
I didn't even know they sold enchilada sauce in a can. Never been that big of a fan of them though. Sometimes the taste isn't as good after the "best by" date, but as 68bucks said, if the can isn't bloated, it is usually ok. I had to toss a bunch of bloated cans out from my pantry.
Experation dates are generally for flavor reason. If the can wasn't bloated you'll be fine, probably.
Yup, you beat me to it. LOL.

Today I meant to get up and clean but I was in zombie mode. Cats had knocked something over and I almost fell down trying to pick some of it up and somehow cut my finger on something I picked up (no idea what). I noticed the tub stopper had slipped out so maybe the gases from the sewer were making me tired. I don't know. I still need to clean up and take the trash out. Tried to get my brother to help me with it earlier but he ignored me. I need more light in the front room to be able to clean anything up, but none of the lights in there work. So, I can clean in the kitchen tonight and then in the front room when the sun comes up.
 
I didn't even know they sold enchilada sauce in a can. Never been that big of a fan of them though. Sometimes the taste isn't as good after the "best by" date, but as 68bucks said, if the can isn't bloated, it is usually ok. I had to toss a bunch of bloated cans out from my pantry.
I didn't know they sold it in anything but cans. I have never had a can bloat, but have bought dinged ones in a multi pack from Costco before. *They* say that it's okay if it's not a major dent or isn't along the seam, but *They* won't be the ones with Botulism poisoning, so I don't use them.

I did have a Plastic jug of Salsa bloat in the fridge once, thought that was odd.

I'm going to look into freeze drying food, and do some DD on the machines, not necessarily this brand..

https://harvestright.com/home-freeze-dryers/
 
There was a ridge so I couldn't get my craft sticks to go where I wanted them to so I need to add more reinforcement to the top of my drawer thingy, but what I put in is helping a little bit.

I added more shims to my wall.

I finally got ahold of someone to get a new AC condenser. I'm waiting for a callback. They said with installation and a 10 year warranty it's $5700+ for the outside unit. They offer financing but we'll probably pull from emergency savings and we need AC back. I'm waiting for the callback to set up the installation appointment. He said they can do it Monday but he needs to get the address. I hope he will call back soon.

Edit: He called back. Tax is already included in the price. $5741 and they are coming from about an hour away. Said they'd call Monday morning to make sure they have directions. Apparently this company specializes in rural service.
Great news!
 
Thanks, but I would forget that by tonight because I can't do it. Just like I can't grow Oranges like Havasu, I'm not going to store that info. Knowing me, I would try to tap a Maple in the middle of Summer.
I think maple sap gets bitter or something in summer.
 
I would guess in the summer the sap just doesn't flow as much because there's less temperature differential. Maybe there'd be less sugar in it? But that would just mean you'd have to boil more of the water off to get syrup. I can't see why it would change flavor.

Today I boiled 10 gallons of it down into about a half-gallon, which is enough to share with two neighbors and a friend and still have a lot left over for us. It took me ten hours and maybe 1/6 cord of wood, which is pretty much everything I had before I brought home those cherry logs yesterday, plus some hardwood scraps my neighbor donated. I was outside feeding that fire all day. Every single thing I was wearing smells like a campfire. I don't want to look at a grill or a fire for at least a week. The syrup is amazing though, must be all that satisfaction.
 
Oh I just remembered one thing that might change the flavor of "summer sap": bacteria. If you leave sap out for a while unrefrigerated bacteria can grow in it and they give the resulting syrup a kind of sharp tanginess that is not really pleasant. So unless you had little mini-fridges hooked up under each tree and could run your lines through them into the containers inside, your sap would all go bad and get that taste. In late winter you don't have to worry about that.
 
There's a special place in Hell reserved for spammers / scammers... I get texts almost daily from "Netflix" or "Amazon", which I don't belong to... "Recovery your account immediately click link bellow"

It's like an insult, the morons don't even take the time to make sure it looks legit and is spelled correctly. As an American, I deserve top notch educated Scammers / Spammers!
 
There's a special place in Hell reserved for spammers / scammers... I get texts almost daily from "Netflix" or "Amazon", which I don't belong to... "Recovery your account immediately click link bellow"

It's like an insult, the morons don't even take the time to make sure it looks legit and is spelled correctly. As an American, I deserve top notch educated Scammers / Spammers!
The misspellings and stuff might be there to weed out smart people. The scammers target people who are too stupid to tell the difference. I think I saw Bruce Schneier (security expert) promote that theory once.
 
Well, I don't know why a security expert would think they would want to weed out anyone instead of trying to target everyone. It sounds like he was being sarcastic.
 
My sugar maple tapping a couple of years ago didn't work as I was too far south for the warm/cold pumping action. I only got enough sap to make about a tablespoon of syrup. Google will explain it.
 
Well, I don't know why a security expert would think they would want to weed out anyone instead of trying to target everyone. It sounds like he was being sarcastic.
Well I just spent too much time trying to find his article about it, to no avail. I probably am not remembering the keywords right. It's a theory I've seen in lots of places, Bruce Schneier is just the most prominent person I've seen discussing it. He wasn't being sarcastic. The idea is they don't want to waste their time with people who are going to be suspicious and eventually not fall for the scam, or worse, report them for it. They want to narrow it down to the most gullible and easy-to-confuse people, which correlates strongly with people who can't spell or use grammar correctly.
 
Well I just spent too much time trying to find his article about it, to no avail. I probably am not remembering the keywords right. It's a theory I've seen in lots of places, Bruce Schneier is just the most prominent person I've seen discussing it. He wasn't being sarcastic. The idea is they don't want to waste their time with people who are going to be suspicious and eventually not fall for the scam, or worse, report them for it. They want to narrow it down to the most gullible and easy-to-confuse people, which correlates strongly with people who can't spell or use grammar correctly.
I hadn't thought of that, they may be crazy like a fox.
 
Those scammers particularly like to target elderly people who are less aware of scams and tend to be easier to fool. A lot of people from older generations were taught to trust too easily or taught that a person's word meant something so it might not occur to some that such scams exist. And some people aren't as good with technology to understand how it works. I rarely check my texts but I have a ton telling me I need to secure my paypal account-- I don't have a paypal account linked to my cellphone. I also get stuff about paypal for an e-mail address that is not linked to paypal. And I get that scam thing about Amazon. I have to go through and delete delete delete delete.

I got up early and did more cleaning. The guys from the AC place were running a bit late and had hell making it down the back roads. Apparently they didn't get the memo to avoid those roads. They are very narrow, twisty, & full of pot holes. They also have wooden bridges with low capacity. They were shocked to see wooden bridges still in use. I directed them to go the other way because it was safer. One of the guys has a sister with 16 cats so he was not bothered by all the cat smell in the house. They were all very nice gentlemen and made sure the new AC unit was working properly and that the old unit was still good, there were no leaks, ducts were all intact, etc. Got it to go down to 50°F to test the cooling and it worked. Mom turned on the heat after they left to warm it up.

The guys fortunately wrapped up before some sort of fires either in town or outside of town started up and the whole area and town were blanketed with smoke.

The cow stayed away but the dogs and one of the cats investigated the installation process.

They offer a maintenance plan to come check up on stuff regularly that we can sign up for if we want.

I did more cleaning while they were here and then had to run to the store because something Mom wanted (that she said she didn't want me to get more of last week) was out at home. Had her write a list on my phone using the S-Pen and got everything but one item they were out of. I got my brother to put the parts from rockauto into the truck for me so next time I go in I can get the truck worked on to replace the CV axle and wheelbearing.

My whole body is so sore now though. Tomorrow I'm going to take a shower and get some bloodwork done. Appointment Wednesday-- although, I might reschedule for when I'm not so sore. LOL.

Currently sitting with my feet propped up and my orange kitties snuggled together. Rupert was holding his head up looking at me a moment ago and just flopped his head down. I think he's as tired as I am. LOL.
 
The guys from the AC place were running a bit late and had hell making it down the back roads. Apparently they didn't get the memo to avoid those roads. They are very narrow, twisty, & full of pot holes. They also have wooden bridges with low capacity. They were shocked to see wooden bridges still in use. I directed them to go the other way because it was safer. One of the guys has a sister with 16 cats so he was not bothered by all the cat smell in the house. They were all very nice gentlemen and made sure the new AC unit was working properly and that the old unit was still good, there were no leaks, ducts were all intact, etc. Got it to go down to 50°F to test the cooling and it worked. Mom turned on the heat after they left to warm it up.
It’s nice to have a brand new HVAC!
 

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