2/12/2020
(Above: Bread for some delicious sandwiches. Pictures of the final result are bound to be added after my return to Jacobhouse this evening.)
Active Summary: After completing the early morning routines, I wrote for another half-an-hour, worked on my macroeconomics class for about forty-five minutes, prepared bread dough for tonight’s dinner, visited with Brimage, Padre & Wag for a little while, and then concluded the morning activities by finishing the process of weeding around the garden / harvesting greens for lunch.
(7:49 PM Update:) This afternoon’s activities included: baking bread (turned out fantastic), various farm activities, filling compost bags, visiting with Madre at her workshop container and planning the piping for the drain / water inlets (for washer machine), and then returning to Jacobhouse and cleaning up the bread-making supplies. During this lattermost activity, I found that my sink drain had leaked a very small amount on the right side. This prompted some exploration where I switched some parts around and got it to stop leaking. However, I also determined that I would look up better-quality/sized sink parts so as to prevent future incidents.
TIL: I encountered many interesting facts while working on school today, amongst which I learned of the many inadequacies of Gross Domestic Product calculations* and an interesting labor statistic that went as follows: “Since 1900, the length of the typical workweek in the United States declined steadily from about 50 hours in 1900 to about 34 hours in 2017.” The people who are pro-GDP say that this reflects an increase in quality of life. Those who are anti-GDP say that this reflects a decrease in work availability.
Commentary: I have only been back for about four days now, and already, I have noted significant weather-related anomalies**. The first night back and the ensuing morning it was cool out with temperatures residing in the high 40s. By contrast, yesterday morning and this morning – this morning especially – has had temperatures in the upper 60s with it being right at 70 degrees Fahrenheit as I walked out of the door to go perform the morningly beef check with Padre***. Though I enjoy these warm temperatures quite a lot, I do not think the garden outside of Jacobhouse feels the same way.
The broccoli, spinach, and even the arugula in my garden have all begun to bolt/flower. The peas were downright battered by an unnatural 60 mph gale just two days before my return (though they are doing well enough now). And the two gardeners that came by to look at Jacobhouse’s fertile little lot of vegetation admitted to their gardens performing similarly due to the unnaturally warm weather conditions.
(9:43 Commentary Update:) I have just returned from making tremendous sandwiches at Oldhouse. The ingredients went as so: homemade bread, washed shredded mozzarella cheese (to take of cellulose non-caking agent), arugula, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue cured pork sausage (fried in a skillet then dressed with olive oil, honey, and oregano), and a little bit of butter. I first melted the cheese onto the bread in the oven, then added the arugula / sausage / sausage dressing mixture / butter onto the toasty and cheesy bread.
Final Note: Now that I have completed the garden-neatening process, I can now begin contemplating what the next morning activity will be. I think I may be helping with some ditch / drainage hole digging for Madre’s workshop container.
*The GDP is apparently calculated only through expenditure figures or income figures. This automatically limits the GDP to only include recordable transactions. Thus, all tasks of the do-it-yourself category (e.g. washing your own car / building your own house versus going to a car wash / contracting a builder) are not accounted for in the GDP.
** Yes, I know weather is not the most stirring of subjects, but as I have stated before, it is very interesting to compare weather from one year to the next, just like how scientists used Thoreau’s notes about flowering dates / pond thaws to track climate change in the Northeast United States.
***Those are very near summertime temperatures!