smitty55

First thing to check is the thermostat on the wall, see if you can hear it click when you turn the temp up.

The latest In-Fisherman has a good article on Last Chance Muskie. One section is on casting to structure to target spawning Cisco and Whitefish. The next section is on the Art of Trolling where again they mention lures that mimic Cisco, Whitefish and Suckers. Next section is on Jigging up Fall Monsters and the last section is on Dragging Meat where they slowly move along ith a bow mount with large 15-22" suckers using quick strike rigs under large foam floats that release on the hook set. As usual the have their recommendations for lures and rod/reel combos with all rods in the 9-10ft lengths.

A lot of your pics the critters are staring right at the camera, I figure they can hear the shutter.

Lucky kids. I made up two 1 gallon batches of brine last evening that spent the night in the fridge. 1 cup of coarse salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp #1 cure, black and red peppercorns, bay leaves and rosemary from my own plants, cumin, dried thyme, one garlic bulb and 3 tbs of pickling spice in each batch. Bring to boil and then cool overnight. Today I spent too long having to trim and cut up two large pork loins as I cursed the meat cutters who did them up. Couldn't turn them down though at $1.99lb. All loaded into 4 large ziplocks and in the fridge for4-5 days before rinsing and drying overnight and then into the Big Chief smoker till 130° or so, likely around 5 hours. I'll be set up with back bacon for the year I figure. Taking a break now and then I'll be into cutting up tomatoes and putting them through the hand crank press, it works real good, no skin or seeds in the sauce. Not sure if I posted a pic of it here before.

Yea I still have quite a few jars still left from a couple of years back. Had two different people tell me it was the best salsa they'd ever had. I told them it wasn't so much the recipe as it was the tomatoes. My own fresh garlic helps too.

Yea I'm still getting lot's of huge tomatoes this season but for some reason I'm getting some with black spots that definitely aren't blossom end rot, not sure why. The stem ends aren't as clean as normal either. I'm wondering if its because my watering schedule isn't as consistent as it should be or possibly an excess of nitrogen ferts from the chicken manure and alfalfa tea I was using. I thought I would have a water supply where I have them planted this year but that didn't work out due to plumbing issues in the farm house basement so I've been trucking water over to water 24 plants. Truck is down atm too with a blown power steering line so I'm using the car now. These ones are from my latest pick, the front 3 are over 2lbs and all the rest well over a pound. Time to start making tomato sauce.

It certainly pays to shop smart and pay attention to your receipts and the cash while they're scanning. I just came across this receipt from a couple weeks back while cleaning out my plastic grocery bags before putting them back in the car. I have bins full of them as I never used to throw them out. So this was from Freshco, I bought 18 items and every single one was on sale. Total sale was $63.69, total savings was $50.52 and I also earned $8.50 in points. Bottom line is that I saved just over 51% on the regular price of 114.21. I always stock up on items I regularly use when they go on sale.

You must be a Snoopy fan lol.

For a vehicle there is a certain procedure to follow to check for parasitic drain and the same practice should work for your boat. Make sure everything in the boat is hooked up but turned off. Disconnect your main negative battery connection and put multimeter leads set on mA between the battery and the cable. For a vehicle normally what would be normal current draw is in the area of 25 milliamps (.025A) Again, in a vehicle if the draw is much higher than that then what you do is start pulling fuses one by one until hopefully the current draw drops down to normal when you pull a specific one which will isolate the faulty circuit. In your case on a boat I would think that current draw should basically be zero or very close to it and if not it will be much simpler as there are much fewer circuits for you to isolate, so if you read 100mA for example disconnect your different units one at a time until the current draw drops back to zero or close to it and that will tell you which circuit is causing the problem, whether its bad wiring or an internal issue with one unit or even a switch for that matter. Good luck.

Much of it is the variety but I do make sure to pinch every sucker (indeterminate) so that the only flower clusters are ones that grow off the main stem. Plus I plant them around 18" deep so that stem develops a lot more roots to help feed those large tomatoes. If I were to let suckers grow it would suck up energy to produce tomatoes and they would just break off from the weight anyway. I also provide as good a growing condition as possible with plenty of nutrients and organic matter, never any chemical ferts. I don't really do any flower pruning so I'll get 4-5 clusters per plant depending on when we get first frost. I've had them up to 10 ft tall some seasons.

Those are huge for sure. When that happens it's usually a result of fused blossoms where a genetic glitch results in two ovaries in one blossom. That's a huge amount of canning, I generally do a couple dozen at most each year of sauce seeing as I'm on my own now.

I've never seen them for sale anywhere Terry. I was given ripe tomatoes from Greek immigrants back in the 80s that were part of the night cleaning staff where I worked and have been saving seeds ever since. I can't even find a variety name for them online, when I asked John Damianakos what kind they were all he said was Greek. After all these years of keeping them to myself and giving the odd plants to friends and neighbours I'm thinking I might start selling seeds. I traded some this past spring to an organic seeds seller for some heirloom German Pink seeds and while they weren't bad they still couldn't compare to the Greeks both in flavour and growth so I won't be growing them again. The tomatoes themselves aren't really marketable, they have very thin skins and don't take kindly to a lot of handling. A buddy I gave some plants to gave some to his sister a few years back who had a stand at a farmers market and she told me she sold some for $3 each. They're a high maintenance plant that need to be grown a certain way for best results but it's certainly worth it in the long run.

I know there's a good number of gardeners here. So I've been growing these heirloom Greek tomatoes for over 30 years now and saving seeds. Best tomatoes I've ever had and that includes for canning as they are so meaty and full of flavour. They are a large tomato, over a pound is common. So I went to water them yesterday evening and found a huge one. It wasn't quite ripe yet but it was starting to look funny around the stem so I picked it. Biggest one I've had in a couple of years at 2lb 4oz. and 6" across, looks like my feeding regime this season is working well. Also included a pic of what the inside looks like.

Most of my life I have always fried them in tons of butter and some spices. The one thing though was that they soak up so much of it that at times the inside would almost get a bit mushy with all the extra moisture. Last night I did them again with the schnitzel method and fried with a butter and bacon fat mix and I will never do them any other way again. The outside dark brown coating was nice and crunchy while the inside was light and almost fluffy without any excess moisture. The smoked bread crumbs add a great touch of flavour. Definitely recommend that method, panko bread crumbs would work well I'm sure and could be spiced up as well. I'm a bit surprised how many neighbours aren't mushrooms fans, the one guy that always will take one is up at his cottage for another week. Looks like the dehydrator will be getting a good workout.

So I figured I better do a little trip on some local country roads I've seen puffballs on before. Near the end of my tour I see this white spot in a pasture I had got some in before. Grass was a bit long so I couldn't get an good idea of size but it looked wide and I didn't think it was a rock. So I hop the fence as it was much closer than using the gate up the road. With all the grass I didn't spot it until I was fairly close and it was OMG that's massive. So I do the bongo drum test with the flat of my fingers and it sounds good so I pick it. Damn thing must be around ten pounds I figure. Lots of fun I tell you trying to climb and cross a page wire fence with one arm but I finally make it without wiping out or dropping it. So I make the rounds of some neighbours to see who wants some if it turns out good. Being a long weekend 3 of them aren't home yet, 2 aren't interested, 2 say sure they'll try it and another buddy can't make it today. So it's in the basement fridge till tomorrow when I'll slice it and know for sure if it's good but I figure it will be nice and white. Pretty sure it's the biggest I've ever picked, 16" across, 13" tall and 9 lbs. Just amazing.

I guess the cool nights and rain have been enough to set off the puffball season. My daughter showed up with a puffball she found while walking the unmaintained road, unfortunately it was past it's due date and getting soft. Undaunted I popped by a neighbour's place that I know usually has the odd one and sure enough there were two of them on his lawn that had just popped up this past week. One was a bit misshapen and will need some trimming but still in decent shape and the other was nice and round. So after checking with him I grabbed the odd shaped one and I'm sure looking forward to having that with a nice steak tonight. I use the schnitzel method to cook them, a nice thick slice dipped in spiced flour, then in egg wash and finally in my own smoked bread crumbs and fried over medium heat in a mix of oil and butter. It's the best way I've ever had them. So this one was 8 1/2" across and just over two pounds. When I tap it with finger tips it makes a nice boomp boomp sound so I know it will be great and pure white inside. So if you're a fan it could be worth a little drive around checking out ditches, fields and fence lines, they grow very fast and quickly get over ripe. They can also be cut in chunks, dehydrated and then powdered to use in thickening stews and gravies. Cheers

Obviously desperately shilling for indigenous votes considering voter turnout in 2022 was 43% and she won by less than 200 votes. So much for canvassing on homelessness, affordability and housing. Sure, lets give an entity legal voter status, yea that makes sense. SMH

Yellow Garden Spider

So while not directly about the spread I may try it on this anyway and I didn't want to start a new thread. My daughter phones me late this morning and says dad I picked up a treat for you at the farmers market in Carleton Place but she wouldn't tell me what it was. 15 minutes later she comes in carrying this flat bag and pulls out the most amazing looking rectangular loaf of fresh baked this morning Focaccia bread. This lady who bakes it creates a picture on top of the loaf with mostly veggies from their farm. The loaf was so soft yet dense with good weight. Turns out that the texture and flavour of this bread beat the looks and was safe to say the best I've ever had. No way I was going to take it all after her paying $15 and delivering it to me so I cut it in half for her to take it home. We both tried a piece right there and it was awesome. Well go figure when she got home she had to get into it and ate it all in one shot with not even butter on it. It was so good she couldn't stop. Well I still had a 1/4lb of pulled pork left over from the Smokebox so I knew what I was having for lunch. I sliced of two long slabs from the loaf, spread some of their home made BarB sauce on one slice and opened up a jar of hot mustard sauce I had recently bought at a local street fest. It had a good bite so I just put a light smear on the other slice of bread. I added some bacon fat to the pork and nuked it for 40 seconds, it came out sizzling hot and made for a nice thick pile on the bread. Well I make some damn good sandwiches but this bread along with that meat and those condiments put this one over the top, best I've ever had. Too bad they're not open tomorrow or I'd be getting more pulled pork. I do have some smoked boneless thighs in the freezer that I'm thinking will make an appearance though. So if anyone here is in the CP area Saturday mornings or at the Parkdale market in Ottawa Wednesday evenings I couldn't recommend this bread any stronger, it's that good. Cheers https://www.flyingmoonfarm.ca/

Another experiment for me that will certainly be on the list for each year from now on. This should appeal to all the garlic growers in particular. I am now down to growing 100 hardneck garlic a year. Each year I'm always looking for something to do with my garlic scapes that I harvest in mid June. I store them in plastic grocery bags with some wet paper towels in the basement fridge and they last a real long time. So with around 75-80 left I decided to experiment and make a spread/dip with them and it turned out great. So far I've had it as a veggie dip, on crackers with smoked oysters and smoked sardines, mixed in pasta after draining it and before adding my Puttanesca sauce and garlic shrimp and today as a spread on a sandwich with some fresh from smoker pulled pork I got from a local food truck called the Smoke Box that I swapped for a bag of smoked bread crumbs. So out of all my scapes I ended up with 4 cups of trimmed and chopped. I took 2 cups of that in the food processor down to a finer grind, removed it and then added 1 large vidalia onion and a over a cup of chopped wild leeks and ground them down before adding them to the mix. Then I took a half pound of feta cheese, a block of cream cheese, whipped that up and then added a good grind of black pepper and a good 1/4C of EVOO to the mix, enough to soften it up so it will just flow off a spoon at room temp. Then I added all the garlic/onionmix and whipped that for a couple of minutes. Out of the fridge it's definitely thicker. Did up the other batch today as I needed more cream cheese. Very happy how it turned out with a very unique flavour profile, my daughter found it quite strong but still liked it, my only hope now is that it will freeze well as I'll be vacuum sealing at least 10 of the containers and putting them away. In the meantime I'm sure I'll find some other uses for it, I've got some smoked chorizo burgers in the freezer that come to mind. Might make for a good salad dressing base too. Cheers

So I just talked to them and they are a Mercury dealer for sure but they were not aware that it wasn't listed anywhere on their website so he will inform the boss and get that rectified.

If you click on visit website for Bay Marine on that link they don't show it as a a merc dealer like Crowman posted. Someone screwed up.

Yea, just about anything you would use butter on with notable exceptions like pancakes, peanut butter and jam sandwiches etc. Fantastic on and/or mixed in mashed potatoes or most veggies and great to add in the pan when frying up onions, mushrooms and peppers for steaks, burgers and wraps. Adds a nice little twist to bruschetta too. Another thing I really like about it is that it keeps that same raw flavour unlike when pickled which I do like as well. Great for toasted tomato or blt, I always add some to tomato and cream soups too, the list is long lol.

Well better late than never they say. I finally got around to making up my Ramp compound butter this year, it's so amazingly good on so many things from soup to steaks. 4 lbs of butter done up in two batches in the food processor. Included was 1.5lbs of finely chopped wild garlic, 3 envelopes of fresh thyme dehydrated along with four trays of chives and green onions dehydrated and ground up. Seeing as it's somewhat whipped up even cold it spreads pretty good. When frozen and vacuum sealed it lasts for years in the freezer as I found earlier when I came across a surprise bonus pack I didn't know was left over. Added a few tablespoons of EVOO to one batch this time as an experiment which thinned it out some so I had to chill it more before making the logs. Bit of a messy job but well worth it.

That's a nice chunk of land you have there, must be nice. We know another guy Chris who has a cottage at the top end of the lake. Yea Derek liked it there as it wasn't crowded like a lot of trailer parks and there are only about 40 trailer lots, each with a large front and back yard. Plus the access to Bobs was a bonus. It's just the last few years with price increases and the ever increasing restrictions they add to the yearly agreements that have him ticked off. Not sure about the Americans, he's never mentioned that. He's now looking at maybe also selling his house and buying a nice insulated one owner 3 season cottage on the Miss and adding heat for the winter.