Abundance

I just harvested my onions and I'm about to go for the garlic. Those are no problem, they keep. But I'm also harvesting peaches, pears, tomatoes and zucchini. They come in mass quantities so you have to do something.

It used to be that every household (or I should say the women) knew how to do home canning, pickling and preserving; make fruit pies and zucchini bread; and jams and preserves. The Italians would dry their tomatoes -- traditionally marinara sauce was made with dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and dried basil. You can also use red wine and oregano. Anyway, point is, it's all preserved, which is why sailors could make it, hence the name.

Now I'm going to have to can some tomatoes and make a peach crumble. Should actually be fun. Last winter my canned tomato sauce and onions lasted until February. In the old days, the farmers around here  would have a root cellar where they'd keep carrots and winter squash and whatnot to get through the winter.

Think about it next time you go to the supermarket and buy fresh produce in January. And think about what you might do if that becomes impossible.

Knuckleheads

I grew up in Madison, Ct, which was a shipbuilding center in early times, then became a summer resort and increasingly, a bedroom community. Probably the best thing about Madison is its town beaches, and especially the Surf Club. It has ball fields and basketball courts, and a big event hall where they have dinners and dances and youth activities. You can have your wedding reception or your fundraiser there. That's where all the kids hang out in the summer and it's what makes Madison a town, basically.

I had a summer job as manager of the concession stand -- hamburgers and hot dogs, ice cream, soda, snow cones. We had a very popular fried pizza. Snow cones were where the profit was -- a cup of ice and some syrup, and we got IIRC 75 cents for them. It would be a lot more now. It was a responsible, hard job for a kid -- I started after my senior year in high school and did it for a couple more years when I was in college. One day I got to work and found that some morons had broken in and trashed the place. Why?

I don't know but it happened again. This time they didn't just trash the concession stand:

Vandals blocked the sinks and toilets and left the water running, opened the staff refrigerator and took whatever food was inside and threw it across the kitchen floor, turned over trash, and did a fair amount of damage outside as well.

The vandals sliced up the new tent on the Surf Club patio. That tent cost the town thousands of dollars and had only been in place for about six weeks.

“They took the lighting off their hangers and pilled them up all along the seawall along with the two propane tanks, the high chairs, they flipped some tables over that were chained, and they pulled [the concession stand] menus off the side of the building that he has on the left and right,” said Erskine. “Then they defecated on [the stand’s] service counter on the outside.”

The difference now is that they have surveillance cameras. If you go to the link you will get a very clear look at these bozos. You can scroll  through the photos by clicking on the arrows and see how much they are enjoying themselves and how smug they look. In one shot, one of them is holding a beer. They don't look all that young either -- maybe college age. I haven't read yet that they've been arrested but obviously it's only a matter of time.

So what's the psychology of this? For some reason they want to strike at the whole community, ruin everybody's good time for the next day, and it makes them happy. Yeah, the surveillance cameras everywhere are kind of disconcerting, but this time I'm glad they were there. 

An insoluble problem?

There is a house that I pass on my daily commute. A few months ago, it burned. No people were hurt but apparently several dogs died. I guess the people weren't home. It's sad because the house was dated to 1801. Most people don't care about old stuff any more but I do.

The house was totaled -- the roof is gone but for a few charred rafters, and it's gutted. But the walls are still standing. It's a godawful eyesore. It's at the intersection of two state roads, across the street from a small supermarket, and diagonally across from a historic site, the Prudence Crandall School for Girls. Prudence taught African-American girls in the 19th Century, which was quite progressive of her, and the site is now a museum. There are other old houses around there and it's all very scenic -- except for the burned out house.

Apparently the people didn't have insurance, because there's no sign of anybody showing up to tear the house down. (I'm pretty sure it can't be rebuilt.) The yard is now overgrown. Every time it rains the house rots a little bit more, but the wreckage will be there pretty much forever if nothing is done about it.

This is in a small town that can barely afford to plow the snow and keep the schools open. The lot is tiny, and there is no reason why anybody would want to buy it, especially if that means removing the wreckage. There is already a shopping area down the street with two restaurants, two liquor stores, a pub, a pharmacy, a multi-pump gas station and minimart, and several other small businesses so there's no evident reason why anyone would want the property for commercial purposes.

So I can't think of any solution. As far as I can figure I'm going to have to drive by the burned out house five days a week until I retire. The locals are going to have to look at it every time they go grocery shopping, and the tourists and schoolchildren on field trips are going to have to look at it when they check out Prudence Crandall. For 100 years. Unless somebody has an idea.