Thanks for your kind reply, Unique. I hadn’t seen your reply until led here by the Texas cold snap headline.  Your suggestion for hand and foot warmers is an excellent one, and I’ve ordered a large box.    I’m also ordering a fireplace fan on your other excellent recommendation.  Which should help a bit with my basically heat-up-the-chimney style fireplace.  A propane space heater, on the other hand, gives me the willies even with a CO detector and a fire extinguisher in the house.  Another forum on this site talks about using a backup battery and an electric blanket to deliver warmth to where it’s most needed. I’m looking at products such as the Jackery and some sort of solar panel for my south facing balcony. I think The Prepared are going to run a review of current options (pun intended) and I’m quite eager to see it. You guys are truly great!

 Scorpions are nocturnal. You can minimize the risk of interacting with them if you turn on lights when you’re moving around the house after dark. When we were living in Florida, my mother got up to use the washroom, turned on the light, and found a large scorpion sitting on the toilet seat. Lucky she turned on the light.

What happened to the medieval farmer when he drank raw milk was about the same as what happened if he cut himself in his farmyard. If he was lucky, nothing. Unlucky… another story altogether. I’m old enough to remember being told, as a child, whenever I cut myself to “make it bleed!” People got sepsis often enough from minor cuts, before antibiotics. And antibiotics may not be reliable in another few decades.  Something to keep in mind whether you’re drinking raw milk or splitting kindling.

On the subject of wildfires, there are fires bigger than every other one combined currently burning in Siberia. This will not only eject massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, but, potentially, quantities of methane as well. Not good. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/11/siberia-fires-russia-climate/

Hi Josh, the link in the following sentence didn’t seem to work.  The soybeans in miso also contain genistein, which has been studied for its cancer-inhibiting effects. Love your posts, BTW. Keep em coming!

I share your concerns. I’m not in Texas (and I really feel for you folks! ) but here in Canada in an all electric row house, I really wonder what I’d do in a major power outage. Heat is my big concern too…

Welcome back! I didn’t realize how much I relied on your eye to catch the relevant news on the pandemic.

Yogurt cultures at a higher temperature (110 F or thereabouts) than kefir/ buttermilk/sour cream. You’re likely to kill your culture in an instant pot. A warm room really works. It may take a couple of days, but it’ll get there.

You say that “…once you cut into it you’ve only got a few weeks of refrigerated life in it before it goes bad.” Actually, an aged cheese keeps quite well at room temperature. (Even the USDA agrees with me on this, although they do waffle a bit in this article: https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Does-all-cheese-need-to-be-refrigerated) My own anecdotal evidence comes from a driving tour of Canada one summer, when I picked up a wheel of artisanal gouda at the beginning of the trip, kept in the trunk of the car, and basically lived off it for the better part of a month. It was salty and greasy and just as delicious on day 30 as it was the day I bought it.  The only reason I refrigerate aged cheeses is to keep them away from the mice.

https://theprepared.com/blog/did-i-have-covid-19-when-i-got-sick-back-in-march-a-scientist-interprets-his-antibody-test-results/

Clorox wipes may be disappearing, but there are equally effective (and safer) alternatives. https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2-covid-19 My own favorite is a 2.5% by weight citric acid solution such as that in Lysol toilet cleaner. It’s odorless, and non toxic, and you can make it yourself out of food grade citric acid powder (available on Amazon, among other places). Citric acid is also handy if you’re out of lemons. It’s actually an ingredient in traditional borscht recipes.

I resisted getting a pair because they just looked heavy and clunky, until a friend bought me a pair of dollar store knock offs. Utility aside, they are the lightest, most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned.

Thanks for the update. It’s this kind of responsible writing that makes your blog exceptional.

Yogurt is really closely related to kefir/sour cream. But I find the taste a bit more acidic. High fat yogurt is absolutely delicious, however, and close enough to sour cream to use in most contexts.

If you really want to make sour cream, you’ll have better success using a kefir starter. Commercial sour cream is basically the high fat version of buttermilk. And kefir is just the Whole Foods version of buttermilk. All of these cousin cultures are dead simple to make. You don’t need a yogurt maker. You just need a warm room. Actually, you don’t even need starter. Just use some commercial buttermilk or some kefir from your last batch. I’m just suggesting starter, since you can keep it in the fridge until needed. I keep shelf stable milk in the pantry specifically for making kefir. No need to sterilize it. Just warm it up, inoculate, and wait a day. Personally, I’ve never had much luck culturing raw milk, particularly without a starter. If it doesn’t have the right organisms in it to begin with, you’ll just end up with a watery mess.

I’m not sure why my comment disappeared, but I’m going to try again, since I think the information is relevant. Face shields, as opposed to face masks may be more protective, since they cover the eyes as well as the noise and mouth. They also seem to offer a considerable degree of protection, according to this article. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-shields-masks-ward-coronavirus.html There are inexpensive face-shields-cum-hats for sale on a major online commerce site, which I’m not going to link to, since I suspect that may be the reason my first post got trashed.

Considering how it’s still possible that the eyes may be a mode of entry for the virus, perhaps face shields are more likely to become the new norm. I believe they can block over 90% of droplets (even without a mask), and they serve the dual purpose of keeping your hands off your face. Plus they’re cheap. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B085CBF617/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2B1LWH05Q3ACU&psc=1