A chance meeting in the check-out lane

There I was, standing in line waiting until the guy in front of me was finished checking out so the person at the register could go into the "cage" to collect the items I had ordered on-line.

Looking into the guy's cart, I saw that he had a bewildering assortment of center-fire ammunition. Then, looking at the counter where the "associate" was scanning boxes with a bar-code reader, he had even more. Judging by the stacks that I saw, he was buying somewhere between twenty and thirty boxes of ammo.

Venturing a guess I asked "Restocking the deer-camp?"

Shooting me a glance to see if I was actually interested he said "Nope. I am doing a marketing survey to collect honest-to-God prices in stores."

He was a dapper gentleman about three inches shorter than I am and dressed a in quality-but-not-new sweater-vest and "layers" of clothing that would be equally at-home in the woods, the humidor at the local cigar shop or the faculty lounge.

Unlike most people who meet me for the first time, he gave no sign that he noticed my speech-impediment, peg-leg, glass-eye, halitosis, body odor nor the fact that the left side of my face is caved in due to a childhood case of the yaws.

"So, why are you doing that?" I asked.

The Game is Afoot

Cutting to the chase, there are people in high places who are hell-bent on enacting California-like laws that prohibit ammunition made with lead (Pb) bullets. Michigan is one of the states that will be targeted earlier rather than later.

Russ was volun-told to collect data regarding ammo prices from a cross-section of stores. He was given a "market basket" that ranged from Federal Blue-box .243 Winchester to .375 H&H Magnums loaded with TSX bullets. The selections spanned the universe of hunting bullets and all were "high runners" for their respective market niche.

Russ kind of shrugged his shoulders when I mentioned that there was a lot of chaos and working at cross-purposes now days.

He told me "The DNR realizes that almost 1/2 of their budget comes from selling hunting and fishing license and another 1/5th from Pittman-Robertson taxes from the sale of ammunition. They are also very aware of a marketing study done by Southwick and Associates shows that the entry of new hunters and shooters into shooting sports is severely throttled by the high cost of ammunition. It isn't impacting just the wanna-be hunters. It also has a chilling effect on mentors and their ability to provide effective training for the new hunters they are responsible for."

"On the other side, there are people on the Environmental Quality side of the DNR who are thrilled by the idea of tripling or quadrupling the cost of ammo and forcing people to either use lead-free ammo or to simply stop hunting."

"And nobody is talking about lead-free .22LR ammo. What is that going to do to older rifle barrels made from softer steel? Nobody knows. A lot of people either don't care or they see it as a stealth way to get pre-1968 guns out of circulation."

The DNR is cutting their own throats. If they saw a 75% decline in a combination of license sales and Pittman-Roberts funding, they would have to lay-off between 30% and 50% of their work-force. Since they are a Union shop, the lowest seniority workers (the ones working the shittiest jobs) would be laid off and the higher seniority workers would have to be redeployed to fill those undesirable-but-critical jobs and shifts.

A few words of hope to start the day

...two immutable things...we who have taken refuge (in the promises of God) might be strongly encouraged to hold fast to the hope that lies before us.
This we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm, which reaches into the interior behind the veil (of death), where Jesus has entered on our behalf as forerunner...   Hebrews 6:18,19

Presented without comment

 

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Perhaps Claesz last painting before his death, a snuffed candle, cards representing chance, a spilled wineglass, a pocket watch, a skull and femur, a lyre without strings and a flute and a book opened to "Mort".

Pieter Claesz was born approximately 1597 in Belgium and died in 1660 in North Holland.

He was famous for "Still Lifes".

Claesz was chosen for this weeks artist because of recent conversations about food. Each item in his still lifes were symbolic: Citrus fruits were signs of wealth, grapes were decadence, wine was revelry, oysters symbolized sex, candles indicated passing time, bones and tipped over wineglasses indicated mortality and unexpected death and so on.

Pocket-watch in right foreground. This is circa 1640 and was the iPhone 20 level technology of the time. Also a key on a ribbon. Look at the detail on the decorative chains on the spilled, silver goblet.

A close-up of the picture shown above.

Knife in sheath in center foreground. Walnut behind it symbolizing masculinity (Juglans regia: God's testicles). Salt in background indicating zest or savor for life. The small berries are currants.

Hazel nuts on left corner of table. Chestnut still in husk on right-rear corner.

Neck of a violin and bow in left background. Exquisite work on the reflection of the silver wine decanter.

Weight-lifting notes: DL 135 x 6 raw, (205 x 6) x 3 straps, (215 x 6 ) x 1 straps, 227.5 x 2 straps (PR) Total 6245

East of Paris: A little bump on the noggin (fiction)

Jana slowly regained consciousness out of the mist she was floating in.

A steady beeping. A muted hissing that rose-and-fell. Smells like the dentist office.

The light was odd...luminous and diffuse...and her arms felt heavy. Turning her head she saw that the red numbers on the clock read 4:23 AM. Jana NEVER woke up that early in the morning. Looking toward her arm she saw tubing and wires snaking out from beneath the blankets and over the railing that would prevent her from rolling out of bed.

As her mind cleared, she remembered that her bed did not have railings. Patting with her right hand, she could not find Gwain.

WHERE WAS GWAIN?

Turning her head the other way she saw a figure standing at the foot of her bed, looking at her chart. He was indistinct and fuzzy. Clearly her contact lenses were not in.

“Where am I?” she asked the anonymous figure.

“You are in the hospital” the figure replied in a man’s voice.

“I kinda figured that out” Jana replied. “Which one? And why?”

“I have a few standard questions that I need to ask you before I can answer your questions” the man deflected.

“What is the last thing you remember?” the man in the white jacket asked.

Jana could now hear a man cursing and using foul language. He was very loud and very angry. His voice faded as his gurney rolled past the door of her room and continued down the hall. Jana had flash-backs to the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

“I remember that we were getting ready to go to a meeting” Jana said.

“Who is ‘we’?” the man asked.

“Gwain, my husband and I” Jana answered. “Oh my God! Were we in a traffic accident? We were running late. Is Gwain OK? WHERE IS GWAIN?”

“Your husband is fine. He has been sitting with you every day. He went back to the hotel to sleep” the man reassured her.

“Do you remember what this meeting was to be about?” the man pressed.

“I certainly do” Jana said. “Our house was being condemned so they could build a solar farm. In fact, every property on the square-mile where we live was being condemned. Something about the property be optimally placed for pushing the power to the grid. All of our neighbors were meeting with an attorney to contest the condemnation process.”

Jana could see the silhouette of the man’s head nodding as he picked up the cordless keyboard and entered some information into her “charts”.

“I don’t know if you have spent much time in the hospital but there can be no expectation of privacy. You are something of a celebrity. Most people don’t survive what happened to you” the man told her.

“What DID happen to me?” she queried.

“According to your husband, you slipped on some icy steps and hit the back of your head. Your husband claimed that you said you were fine except for some ringing in your ears. He said that you started to slur your words as he was driving to the meeting...He chalked it off to a concussion and drove you straight to the closest Emergency Room.”

“Lots of people bump their heads” Jana said. “Why does that make me a celebrity?”

“You had inter-cranial bleeding exacerbated by the blood thinner you have been taking. The location of the bleeding put pressure on the parts of your brain that regulate blood-pressure. Let’s say that you provided a lot of different specialists with a very exciting time.”

“So, which hospital am I in?” Jana wanted to know.

“You are at University of Michigan’s main campus” the intern or resident informed her. The University of Michigan was an honest 80 miles from Asphodel.

“When can I check-out?” Jana asked.

“I can’t answer that, but a lot depends on if we can find a step-down facility that offers the therapy you need to get back on your feet. You were put on waiting lists as soon as you left surgery.”

Jana reached up and felt bandages on her head...and surmised that she had no hair left.

The last thing she remembered was grabbing her purse and pushing the door to their house open…. 

***

Mama Duck waddled out of her room followed by a dozen baby-ducks. Such was life in a teaching hospital. The doctor/professor pontificated in medical jargon, totally confident that the patient would understand no more than a slab-of-beef on ice in the butcher shop would understand what the butcher was saying.

Obviously, the Professor either didn’t know or didn’t care that Jana was fully capable of converting the Greek and Latin terms into everyday English. Jana didn’t have a lot of super-powers but a 99.9th% vocabulary was one of them.

After three reviews by three separate Mama Ducks and ducklings and countless anonymous medical people floating in-and-out of her room, Gwain was finally allowed to enter her room.

Jana teared up. She learned that he had faithfully showing up for three full weeks and sat with her for ten hours a day, not knowing if she would ever regain consciousness.

She could not see that Gwain’s eyes were also leaking tears.

“I want to go home” was all she could say.

“First, we have to get you better” Gwain said.

He couldn’t bear to tell her that the Eminent Domain hearings had proceeded at the speed-of-light (as these things go) and their home had already been bull-dozed.

There would be plenty of time to tell her later. He and God had a lot of conversations about that over the last few weeks.

“What do you think about spending the rest of the winter in Texas?” Gwain floated a trial balloon.

Next installment

(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved

 

---Note to my readers---  

I had a request for some fiction "...to fend off cabin fever."

I am not in a position to make any promises. It will either grow "legs" or it won't. I hope to publish Tuesdays and Thursday and then migrate to a M-W-F installment drop.

---End Note---

What ARE the space requirements for three weeks of food?

 

These two boxes were side-by-side on our kitchen countertop and they illustrate the difference in volume of a ready-to-eat food and a basic ingredient

I made some quick calculations to estimate the space requirements to store three weeks worth of food for one person. A few items from three different classes of foods were selected to illustrate trends.

Cooking from scratch vs. convenience foods

Patrice Lewis over at Rural Revolution wrote a great post about the Importance of Scratch Cooking.

In her post, she talks about why basic ingredients are better choices for storing in your pantry than convenience or ready-to-eat foods. In a nutshell, basic ingredients are shelf-stable, inexpensive and versatile.

Additionally, basic ingredients are compact relative to the fluffy, air-filled ready-to-eat confections that have packaging that is designed to crowd competitors off of the store shelf.

Sticking with the FEMA recommended three weeks of food, 3000 Calories per day of Jiffy Mix (and nothing but 100% Jiffy Mix) takes up very slightly less than one cubic foot and cost you $52 at Walmart.

This "milk-crate" is used to transport firewood in from the kindling pile.

To help you visualize that, the standard "milk crate" has interior dimensions of 12" by 12" by 10" tall or is 0.83 cubic-feet. A standard bushel is 1.25 cubic feet.

Store-brand oatmeal takes up 2.1 cubic-feet and would cost you $56.

3000 Calories a day for 21 days of lard (and only lard) requires 0.3 cubic-feet, wheat berries requires 0.8 cubic-feet and one-pound boxes of dried spaghetti requires 1.0 cubic-feet.

3000 Calories a day for 21 days of Kellogg's Corn Flakes (and only Corn Flakes...no milk or sugar) or Rice Crispies would require 6.6 cubic-feet of volume and cost you $178. While that sounds expensive, the same number of calories from McDonalds (Egg-McMuffin meal with extra Hash Browns and a Quarter Pounder Meal for lunch and dinner every day) would cost $504.

For canned goods, Chub Mackerel (a fatty fish) requires 3.6 cubic-feet, Chili beans require 3.8 cubic-feet and Beef Stew requires 4.4 cubic-feet.

Summary

This short post is a good illustration of how "preparing" is a life-style and not a hobby you can pick up and put down.

Preparing meals from basic ingredients is not only less expensive than meals from ready-to-eat ingredients, they are also more compact and use less space in your pantry. Furthermore, you have more control over how much sugar, salt and other ingredients go into your mouth and the mouths of your family.

A very short story

Aovoc eased onto the bench and held up a hand, ordering a mug of the coarse, local red wine. Every day is a marathon when you are a stone mason working outside during the summer.

Three young women with perfect skin, flashing eyes and glossy hair were gathered around the only other table in the establishment. Their eyes kept darting his way and looking him over. Like most stone-masons, Aovoc was extremely lean and muscular. As the artisan leading the crew responsible for the exterior ornamentation of the new temple, he was deeply tanned and he exuded an aura of calm leadership.

Aovoc tried to ignore their chattering. This brief moment he stole to drop into the wine-house on his way home was the single moment of peace he would get today. Otpoon, his wife, had given birth to their first child a month ago.

It was not to be.

Aovoc was raising the mug to his lips when the most daring of the three exclaimed "We are getting ready for a party and we need a strong man to help us!"

Aovoc took a slurp before putting the mug down on the stone table-top. Aovoc recognized the three girls. Not that long ago they had been eleven and scrambling like goats over the large white boulders that tumbled into the sea. Now, just a few short years later, they were nubile, young women. Everything matures more quickly on islands, especially islands with few resources.

The daring lass bubbled, "You can help me carry things from the hollow while these two" she said, gesturing at her wing-men "can decorate the tables."

Aovoc pondered for a second and then responded. "Otpoon will be jealous because she doesn't feel beautiful right now. I will do it on one condition...that the girl I work with be the ugliest of the three of you."

And then he turned his attention to his mug of wine while they sorted out who of the three was the least attractive.

They were still angrily bickering when Aovoc dropped the token on the table to pay for his mug of wine. They didn't notice as he walked out of the shade and back into the sun.