Free Radicals

It's all logistics. Get the Jeep into the shop, buy some groceries, get back home, then get back to town to get the Jeep. I know B's schedule, Rodney would ferry me one way or the other for a pack of smokes and a six-pack, I know I can work this out. Still, it's a pain in the ass. I have my routine, you know? I get up and do things, split kindling or shovel shit, whatever needs to be done. The bear seems to be gone, the yard work ran him off. The rain finally stopped but I didn't get outside, sick at my stomach all morning, something I ate. Threw up everything, then some more, and didn't feel like working. Finished reading through 1182 pages of Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase & Fable. It's a very good reference book, a ton of esoteric information. My copy will stay out at all times, at hand, literally. It found a home atop the pile at the left end of my desk/table, on top of the Webster's I keep there. I hate being indisposed, all the heaving left me with a sore stomach, and the sure knowledge that I can't leave food out. I usually leave left-overs out, covered with a plate, to scramble with eggs the following morning, but twice this year I've gotten sick. So I need to modify that system, I was cutting back on dish-washing as far as I could, eating on the same plate and other ill-advised practices, but I seem to have gone a bit too far. When I make cornbread, I flip it over, take what I need, and leave the rest of it in the skillet, covered, so the mice can't get to it. I made a small pone tonight, the six inch skillet, that I ate with soft-scrambled eggs, a piece of toasted cornbread with local honey. The only other thing I'd held down all day was plain yogurt. I had a couple of cast iron pans that needed to be re-cured. I'm going to get a steel and copper skillet for doing scrambled eggs, and a non-stick pan for doing scalloped potatoes. The crows are back, I don't know where they've been. Basho:

on a withered branch
   a crow has settled--
      autumn evening

One quite cool night and the mice are back in force. The crows will be pleased. I set some basic traps. I'll be listening to those snap in the night, in profusion, until the remaining few wise up, and then I'll set my more elaborate traps. B said he'd come up tomorrow morning and we'd see if the Jeep can be jumped, if not I'll take out the battery, borrow B's vehicle and run to town. The problem is that the damned thing was only a couple of years old, was a big expensive battery, and that's means there's an electrical short somewhere. I have to go turn in some paperwork for the free firewood, do some shopping, and strike a major hit at the library. It's funny that specifically when I need to be mobile, the Jeep won't start. I need to make four or five trips to town this month; then in November and December, I can back off, two trips to town; then January and February, I might only get out once. Potatoes, rice, and beans; tuna, sardines and hash. Sixteen pounds of grits and cornmeal, dried eggs and milk. Cream of Tartar is just dead yeast bodies, rising, or fermentation as a product of converting sugar into alcohol. And even before that, converting starches into sugars.