Allyson

I’m watching the snow melt outside. It’s SLOWER than watching paint dry. Ah well. It’ll be gone soon, and then I can get to work on outdoor stuff. For now, it’s time to plan the outdoor garden space, and decide which things are getting direct sowed. In other words, which things go right into the ground (or raised bed/outdoor container/plant tower/etc) versus those that get started indoors because they’re too delicate for the cooler weather?

The first seeds that I’ll be direct sowing will be radishes, beets, carrots, peas, and spinach. These are all hardy crops, and they like the cold and damp that come along with early spring and late fall. They’re also staples around here. Well, not the beets so much. I like them, but most of the rest of the family doesn’t. That’s fine; more for me.

You’ll note that the beets and carrots and radishes are all what we call “root crops.” This means the edible part is under the ground. Generally speaking, for early spring crops you want to look for ones that say, “Plant seed outdoors as soon as the soil can be worked.” This means that a late frost in the spring won’t destroy your plants, and that’s a very good thing when you live in the northern part of America, or any part of Canada. Most root crops can be planted early, but always check the seed packets (or online if you don’t have the packets).

Before you can sow seeds directly into the soil outdoors (regardless of whether it’s in the ground, in a raised bed, or in a container of some kind), you have to prepare the garden bed. This takes several stages, and is best started as soon as you can get into your garden area. I can’t yet, because we still have snow deep enough to cause issues and I’m not shoveling out the garden. You can speed this up by covering your garden beds with black plastic each fall right before the snow flies. This keeps down on weeds, and also allows the beds to warm up earlier. Once your beds are defrosted and workable, you can begin planting. This is one of the main joys of any kind of raised bed.

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I’m going through some personal stuff right now, and it’s been rough. Some of the responses I’ve gotten to my last few posts have left me feeling raw and frustrated, and unsure of what to do and say going forward. After some long talks with Chris and others, I’m writing this to try and get some general thoughts out that I hope will help you guys and me.

First and foremost, if something is labeled “From Behind Enemy Lines,” then I am doing just that – talking about the Left, FROM the Left. That is what I’ve been asked to do, when I’m posting under that banner. I’ve been asked to give a Left perspective, or at least a “more Left” perspective, so that you guys can learn and to be sure that Vine isn’t an “echo chamber.” I am going to be more obvious in it, adding FBEL at the top of posts that are “representative Left” or “explaining Left” so that they stand out.

So my last post was about the memes I’d seen floating around, and in particular, about the Trump 2028 one. From where I’m standing, there are three groups of people. First, we have the far Left. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, and nothing you or I say is going to change it. I ignore them. Second is the group of “normal Left” or what I tend to call “thinking Left.” These are people who have chosen willfully to be Left of center, but are self-consistent, thinking, and reasoning. I might not LIKE their reasoning, and I may think it’s false in the grand scheme of things or missing important points, but they’ve shown me that they give actual thought and consideration to their position. I have many friends in this group.

The third group consists of people like me. We were a little Left of Center, if you asked us. People on the Right just lumped us in with “The Left,” and the Left considered us oddities and “too far Right for comfort” but generally tolerated us. We are no longer “a little Left of Center.” We are deep state Right, at this point, because the Left has shifted so far Left that we’re not even close anymore. Some, like myself, have chosen to take the couple of steps Right to join the rest of you under the Conservative tent, albeit in our own little corner while we acclimate. Others are dithering out there on the sandbar, wondering where the hell the tide went and why it’s so fucking cold these days.

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If you live in any of the Plant Hardiness Zones that are 1a through 6b, then you need to know how to start your seedlings indoors. This is something that can be a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work as well. Doing it right takes effort and time. The end results are worth it, though! Of course, you could simply buy “starts” (ie seedlings) at your local farm store, but what if TEOTWAWKI has happened, and there are no more farm stores? That’s right, you need to know how to do this.

There are various methods for starting seeds, but the one I’m going to talk about today is indoor sowing. The basics of it are fairly simple: fill containers with soil, add seeds, care for them, and voila, you’re ready to plant as soon as the ground is warm enough. This can give you as much as 45 days of extra growing time for vegetables, and that gets important when you’re in New England or any of the northern states.

Common plants to start indoors include tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, eggplant, kale (and other large, leafy greens), sweet and hot peppers, cabbage, most flowers, and most herbs. This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but I picked the most common ones to start indoors. Tomatoes are definitely the most popular, with peppers coming in a close second. All of these plants will transplant well from indoors to your outdoor garden later in the spring and early summer.

On the other hand, there are a variety of plants that should NOT be started indoors. The reasons vary, but generally speaking it’s because they either grow quickly, have incredibly sensitive roots and will die if transplanted, or they like the cold. Common plants that go direct to the garden include beans, beets, carrots, radishes, some lettuces, peas, squash, corn, spinach, and root crops like potatoes and sweet potatoes.

The first thing you’re going to need is a list of what you want to grow. For a typical first garden, I suggest the following: bush beans, peas (either snap peas or shelling, your choice), tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini (if your family likes them), broccoli, kale and/or cabbage, spinach, and one or more of beets, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. It seems like a small list to me, and it may seem huge to you, but this is a very small but decent kitchen garden for a first year. Add to that your herbs, and you have the beginning of a new hobby that will engulf your life.

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Larry Correia of Monster Hunter warned about the Dem’s white signs from Trump’s speech yesterday. He said they would live to regret using white signs, because they’re so easy to manipulate into memes. He was right. This picture says it all (and says the truth, where the originals probably didn’t). This is a good meme. First, it’s true. Anytime a meme can highlight truths (harsh or otherwise) it’s good. There’s nothing nasty about this, BECAUSE it speaks the truth.

I will say, whether I agree with it or not doesn’t matter. In this case, I do, but I’ve seen a few lately that I didn’t agree with. But when the message that comes across is intelligent, funny to at least some, and not innately harmful/hateful to large portions of people, I think it does a necessary job. There’s a reason that America and some other countries have had political cartoons for a long time. We need to see satirized versions of ourselves to make sure we keep our egos in check.

I have a strong opinion that if a meme like this causes you to get upset, a meme that doesn’t attack someone’s weight or call them names, then you ought to take a good look at yourself. Over the past few years, I’ve done just that. Getting butthurt happens to all of us, once in a while. If you find yourself feeling that way over the meme of the week, it’s time to look at the old brain and decide what’s going on up there. Dislike of a meme or political satire or commentary should mean you just scroll on. There shouldn’t be any big emotional bugaboo over it.

But then we have this. I have real problems with this one. First, it’s insulting on a whole other level. It implies several things to me. First, it says that American voters are so dumb that they’d attempt to have Trump in for a third term. Second, it says Dems are pushing hard for a Trump third term (and while I might agree many of them are stupid enough to do so accidentally, this one’s over the top). But most importantly, it gives the impression that the Republicans don’t care about the Constitution.

As a note, this was being passed around happily by Conservative friends. I asked them why they would have such a poor understanding or respect for the Constitution, and was met with crickets. That upsets me almost as much as the meme itself. I ask myself… why does this meme burn my chaps so badly? Why am *I* butthurt over it? The answer is, I would not be if it were being passed around by Dems as a way of attempting to make the Right look stupid. I would laugh because it meant the Dems didn’t understand the Constitution and the reason for term limits. But when it comes from the Right? Yes, this one hurts.

As someone dipping their toes into Constitutional waters, who is learning what it means to be a Constitutional Originalist, this makes me outraged. While I understand that Hamilton felt we ought to let Presidential candidates run as often as they wanted, that was a very different time, and a people who were (sadly) less divided than we currently are. Back then, the average length of time in office was two terms, similar to what we have today. I believe the 22nd Amendment was a good idea (and that it ought to be applied to all politicians, but that’s another political rant), and that if we want to be strong Conservatives, we must uphold that idea of two terms being the limit. Washington had the right idea; after two terms, it’s time for the President to retire back to his farm.

Don’t put out shit like this, folks. It’s just wrong. And while I know most of you don’t care what the Left thinks, this is just the kind of crap that they love to pick up and parade around, and that they can easily prove was created by someone on the Right.

Planning out your garden beds is important, because where you put your plants matters. Some plants can’t go near one another. Others love to be close together and help one another. It’s a complex dance, and you need to learn a lot to do a good job at growing enough food to at least supplement your stores.

Luckily, garden beds can be made out of anything. As I mentioned last week, I have beds made out of planks (sort of the standard, and one I actually would no longer suggest), buckets, bins, and tires. Some folks will tell you that tires leach chemicals that can get into your veg, but I have not seen any real evidence of that. Most of the leachable chemicals in the rubber are gone long before tires end up in landfill (which is where you can usually find them, often for free). All items used to grow stuff in should get a good wash before use, and anything small enough to allow it should get at least a rinse every year. I find using Dr. Bronner’s soaps (peppermint or tea tree) work best because they’re biodegradable, won’t harm your plants, and are concentrated so you don’t need a lot.

In-Ground Garden

If you have a very large, square (or rectangular) sized patch, you may want to just till it up and use it as-is. It would be a miniature farm field, basically. With no sides, it takes longer to warm up in the spring, but it allows you to rearrange your garden each year (which is good, as you don’t want to plant the same thing in the same space, year after year). When making a very large garden of this sort, you will need to put down rocks, stones, or planks of wood to walk along between rows. While you can just leave the ground as it is, you will find that weeds come up very quickly and will threaten to overtake the whole garden. Also, walking on the dirt compresses it in ways that can negatively affect your plants. Walking on boards or beams, or on a brick path, will keep the garden from being compressed so much, while also keeping weeds down.

Generally, you want to make an in-ground garden into rows and/or blocks, depending on what you’re growing. Vegetables like peas, beans, and tomatoes are best planted in rows. Potatoes, squash, and corn do better in blocks. You can plan out the garden to keep companion plants together, and keep your veggie foes apart.

Requirements for an in-ground garden are a large, regular shaped space with enough sun, and the ability to till the soil in some way. While tilling can be done by hand, it’s not easy. You can rent or purchase a rototiller at most hardware stores these days, and there are expensive ones and cheap ones.

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This image came across my Facebook page this morning. It had the following rant attached:

Copy pasta:
Signal boosting.. CN: mentions the actions mandated by Ohio law to be taken by a doctor on the body of a girl suspected of not being “female enough” to play sports on a girl’s team, which plausibly verge on sexual assault.
——–
This is my daughter. She just turned 9. Here is why I would never allow her to play middle or high school sports if we lived in Ohio…

A few days ago, the Ohio Republicans passed a change to state law that was snuck in at the last minute, under the guise of “protecting” girls sports.
Am. Sub. H. B. No. 151 (various versions of it are here)

This law allows ANYONE to dispute the sex of an athlete on a school team. There are no safeguards in place to ensure that this is not used maliciously. Girls who do not look feminine enough, girls of color, girls who are “too good” are likely to be the biggest targets. But any girl could be targeted. Maybe someone doesn’t like her parents or maybe someone wants to make sure the opposing team doesn’t have enough eligible players.

So what does a girl have to do to prove she is a girl? First, the physician has to examine the girl’s external and internal reproductive anatomy. I have to emphasize that this will impact girls as young as 5th or 6th grade, ~10-11 years old. A year or two older than my daughter.

Step one to proving your correct sex is female: A doctor will need to spread open your labia and examine the size of your clitoris. A clitoris that is “too large” could be a sign that you are intersex and not female enough for sports. Step two to proving your correct sex is female: A doctor will then insert one or two gloved fingers inside your vagina, while pressing against your abdomen with their other hand, so they can feel your uterus and ovaries. This will likely be quite painful for these young girls, and extremely traumatic. There is no medical reason to do a pelvic exam on girls this young, absent any signs of a problem. This is sexual assault and will traumatize these girls. That is by design. This part of the exam would probably be covered by insurance, depending on how it is billed. But these next two steps would likely not be covered for most people. Step three to proving your correct sex is female: Your blood will be drawn and your testosterone levels measured. How much testosterone is too much? Unclear.
Does having “high T” give girls an advantage? No, not always. But this bill leaves no room for nuance. Step four to proving your correct sex is female: Your blood will also be tested to see if you are XX or XY. Except not everyone is XX or XY and there are XY women who have no advantage in sports because of the nuances of their genetics, but that won’t matter here 🤷🏻‍♀️

This bill offers protection from retaliation for people who report an athlete they suspect is not truly female. There is no requirements that they make these reports in good faith. There is no protection for the athletes accused of lying about their sex. Any athlete who suspects they were “harmed” by an athlete who lied about their sex can sue that school district. If that athlete’s parents are unwilling to have their daughter sexually assaulted, or cannot afford the testing, the district will have to pay $$ to the accuser. So from an administrative standpoint, you basically have to require that all female athletes do this testing in order to play interscholastic sports. Otherwise your district is in danger of having to forfeit games and losing litigation if you don’t have this paperwork up front. Interscholastic sports in Ohio will only be accessible to girls whose parents are willing to subject them to sexual assault and very expensive and unnecessary bloodwork.

Congrats to everyone trying to “save” women’s sports from your trans athlete boogeymen. Is winning the most important part of high school sports? Because setting aside the incredible trauma and expense caused by this bill, at the end of the day, the message is that winning is what matters the most. That’s not the lesson I want my daughter to learn from sports.

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This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending, vending at, and cooking at the Northfolk Nightmarket in Phillipston, MA. This was its first year, and wow, it was amazing. I did pretty well, and I had a blast. Since this event is Viking themed (though “fantasy” Viking more than historical, they delved into the mythology of Beowulf in a day-long roving play), I decided to both dress as and cook as a Viking woman would. That meant coming up with meals that could have been served in Grylla’s mead hall. I decided to make a pork roast with apples, and a green soup. The soup was delicious, but the pork… It was divine. The following was food for about four or five people (but we were hungry from being out in the cold all day).

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb pork loin, plain
• 4 apples, rough chopped
• 2 red onions, rough chopped
• 24 oz beer or ale (light, NOT dark)
• salt, pepper, oregano, marjoram, about 1/4 tsp each
• 1 tbsp dried rosemary

Get your fire quite hot and make a good bed of coals to cook in (alternatively, set your oven to 350° F). Over a quick flame (stove burner set to medium high), heat up some olive oil and toss in the apples and onions. Saute them until they begin to soften, but before they start to crumble. Place the pork loin over the vegetables, and sprinkle with the salt, pepper, oregano, and marjoram. Add in the beer, a little at a time so it doesn’t bubble over, until the pork is almost covered (you may need to add more beer later if you don’t cover your pot). Sprinkle the rosemary liberally over the top of the roast, and pop it over the coals for 2 hours.

Check on your pork every 30 minutes or so (or every time a patron asks you what you’re cooking and why does it smell so damn good?), turning it so that every side spends time under the liquid. If the liquid boils out, add more beer or some broth. Continue to cook until the roast is ready to fall apart when poked with a fork. If you’re cooking it in the oven, cook for 2 hours at 350°, then an hour hour or so at 250° while lidded, for the best result.

Remove the pork from the liquid and slice into coins. Using a slotted spoon, pull out the apples and onions and serve them alongside the pork, with a side of rice.

Notes:

I used old apples I’d found forgotten in our crisper drawer. They looked like apples that had been sitting around since autumn, which worked well for my event. Because of that, they were a little older, a little softer, and a little sweeter than a fresh apple. I highly recommend this, because the result was incredible. This came out moist, and absolutely bursting with the flavor of the beer and rosemary. It has a little bit of a sweet immediate taste, with a lovely savory flavor that hits you after.

If you can, I really do recommend cooking this one in cast iron over a fire. It was really easy, and it was very showy for when people came walking by. But the smell of it, and the slight background taste of smoke and ash, just really came together.

I will also say, we didn’t eat it with rice when we were at the market. We ate it with our fingers, dribbling juices into the snow and ice at our feet, and giving no f*’s. LOL… It was just so good!

It’s time to start thinking about gardening. This is not just a pleasant skill that yields tomatoes. It’s a post-apocalyptic skill that is absolutely necessary. Have you ever tried just hunting and gathering? If not, don’t bother; there’s a reason we cultivated plants. Learning to garden now, when we have ample food at the grocery store (because even a lightly stocked grocery store is ample, quite frankly), is imperative. This is not a skill you can learn after the fact. The learning curve is so sharp that it requires early adoption and constant practice.

There are lots of easy plants to grow in a new garden, and I’ll talk about them next week. This week, I want to talk about planning. First off, it’s the best part of this part of winter (the crappy, cold, damp, windy part). You get to huddle near the fireplace and look through seed catalogs (on or offline, your choice), and dream. Dreams are seeds of the mind, after all. Stage one of growing food is literally dreaming about it.

Make a rough map of your yard. This is important because there are several issues that you need to address:

• Where in your yard gets full sun? partial sun? no sun at all?
• What’s the type of soil you have (sandy, rich, damp, clay, etc)? You may have to amend your soil to grow anything, so you need to know this in advance.
• What kind of garden do you want to try (raised beds? containers? little pots? big pots? half an acre plowed by hand?), and how can you do it to best utilize the sun you get?
• What is your Plant Hardiness Zone? Find out on the USDA website. As an example, I’m 5b, which means something. More on that later.
• How much time do you want to spend on your garden? Remember it’s not just planting. You also have to factor in weeding, watering, fertilizing in some cases, weeding, helping plants with frames or structures, weeding…
• What will you eat? Don’t bother growing something you know your family won’t eat unless you have a very good reason for doing so. Plant what you’ll eat.

When you pick out your best spot (with 6+ hours of sunlight a day, if at all possible), you’ll want to sketch it out in a notebook or using a computer program. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life so I use programs online. There are several:

• The Old Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner (7 day free trial)
• GrowVeg (this is the one I used when we had a big garden)
• myGarden Planner (okay, free, not as intuitive to use)
• VegPlotter (nice, limited free option, inexpensive if you decide to use it)

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It’s tough, being new to the Right. I have a lot of Left habits that need to go. I was in the process of getting rid of many of them anyhow, because they no longer served me, but it’s becoming important.

The Left fights everything with emotion. Don’t agree with a legal standing? Cry at it. Have a problem with a cop or a sheriff? Scream and flail your arms. Care to protest oil drilling, farming methods you disagree with, or a politician’s third wife? Lay on the road and have a tantrum.  They revel in their emotions, and I struggle with it. A lot of why I moved “right of left” was because of this behavior.

The Right tends to make claims that they’re entirely fact driven. It’s not true. A good portion of the Right seems to want to base their facts on a book written by human beings (however inspired) over a thousand years, translated (badly) many times in the interim, and tend to cherry pick the parts they want to use. While I consider the Bible to be an inspirational writing, likely inspired by the Divine, I have enough theological training to know that it wasn’t written by God (or Goddess, or whatever). It’s a great book to use as a moral compass. It has a great outline of moral and ethical laws that apply to a person individually, and specifically to the Jewish (and later the Christian) people. But it isn’t fact. It *contains* facts in some places, but it is not, itself, fact.

That said, the Right does a much better job of putting together coherent factual arguments. They are much less likely to let emotions interfere with their stance. I don’t expect to see someone on the Right break down in cringe-worthy tears because they’re being questioned about something.

I struggle with emotions. I am an emotional person. I grew up in a household where I was forced to sublimate any emotions I had. As a child who was being verbally and emotionally abused, I quickly learned to stifle any emotional response. When I left the house of horrors I grew up in, I decided I would never squelch my emotions again, and so I set myself up to emotionally vomit on everyone around me. While it was important that I learn to emote in a healthy fashion, that was NOT the right way to go about it.

So when I’m talking with someone on the Right about things, and I know that I have a good argument, I sometimes lose track of the words I need. The emotions I feel are overwhelming, and I react rather than act. I have the ability to create logical arguments, but if I care about the outcome, my emotions tend to get in the way. This is an ongoing personal issue that I’ve been working on for years.

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Chicken and dumplings are a staple in my house. They’re something in between a soup and a stew, and I usually get silly and call it Stoup. They’re incredibly easy to make, though it takes a bit of effort until you’ve learned the method. It’s filling, delicious, and you’ll get requests.

Ingredients for the stoup:

• 6 to 8 oz of uncooked chicken per person
• enough water to cover the chicken
• salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and rubbed sage to taste
• 1 medium carrot, diced small
• 1 small onion, diced small
• 1 large rib of celery, diced small
• a teaspoon or so of butter, margarine, or olive oil
• white wine to deglaze the pan

Ingredients for the dumplings:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg

The chicken for this recipe can be done in two different ways. First, you can use bone-in chicken pieces and make it like “pulled chicken,” meaning you cook it, then remove it from the water and shred it up until it’s the size of bits you like. Second, you can use boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, in which case you’re going to cube your chicken into bite size pieces. Regardless of which method you choose to use, you should sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper, then brown it in a cast iron pan (separate from the one you’ll be making the broth in). Make sure to brown all sides, but remember it doesn’t need to be cooked through. The full cooking happens in the water.

While you’re browning your chicken in batches, add enough water to a pot that it will cover your chicken when it’s added. It’s okay if you don’t get quite enough in the pot; you can add more after. You just want to get enough in there that you can start heating it up to a boil. As you finish browning chicken parts, put them into the water. Make sure there’s enough water to cover all the chicken completely, but not much more, and then lower it from a boil to a simmer. Add in your spices, about a teaspoon of each for now. You can add more later if needed.

As your chicken is simmering, dice up your carrot, onion, and celery. Add a bit of fat to the pan you cooked the chicken in, and saute your vegetables until the onions are soft and beginning to clarify. Add a tablespoon or so of a dry white wine to the pan, and stir and scrape well with a wooden spoon. All of the stuff you scrape off the bottom of the pan is “fond” and it’s what makes your stoup delicious. Add the veggies and fond to your chicken and broth.

Make your dumplings. Add the four and salt into a medium bowl. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, whisk together your milk and egg. Add the liquid to the flour, and mix until it forms a dough. This should be a soft and relatively smooth dough, with very elastic qualities. It may be a bit sticky or tacky, but it shouldn’t stick to the counter when you’re kneading.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s smooth and elastic. Keeping the counter lightly floured at each stage, you should then roll out your dough so it’s as thick as you like your dumplings to be. If you like your dumplings to be fat and fluffy, you’ll want to roll them out to about a half inch thick. If you want them more like noodles (my preference), roll them to under a quarter inch, basically as smooth and thin as you can manage without the dough sticking to the counter. Cut your dumplings into strips, squares, diamonds, or really any shape you like. you can use a dough cutter, or a knife, or even a rolling pizza cutter. Use a bread scraper to lift the noodles off the counter, dust them well with more flour, and let them rest and dry a bit while the rest of the food is readied.

When your chicken is thoroughly cooked (about an hour, or longer if you like), pull any boned parts out of the broth. Shred, if you like, and return the chicken to the broth. Bring the broth to a low but steady boil, and begin adding the dumplings to it a little at a time. I usually add about a handful of dumplings, then stir and let them begin to cook. This keeps them from sticking to one another. The flour on the outside of the dumplings will help thicken the gravy in your stoup, too. Cook the dumplings until they’re tender. This can take anywhere from five minutes to 20 minutes, depending on how thick they were rolled and how dry they were when you started. They should be solid throughout, with no doughy interior. Thin ones will taste like fresh noodles (which is essentially what they are).

If you find that your gravy isn’t thick enough, add a little water or cold broth to a tablespoon of cornstarch, stir until well combined, and then add a bit at a time to the simmering stoup. Repeat until you reach the consistency you prefer. Add in any spices you like, and if you want a fancier look, top each bowl with a sprinkle of fresh minced parsley.

Serve your chicken and dumplings over a pile of mashed potatoes, rice, or on their own in a bowl with a spoon.