100 year old red cabbage recipe, old family recipe,

Cabbage: Undeniably the most humble vegetable you can grow effortlessly in your garden. It is sturdy, prolific, nutritious, stores well and a single head can feed the masses.  The ruling classes should drop to their knees and give thanks for cabbage. Cabbage is the reason the working class folks are still there to serve their every petty whim (potatoes run a close second).   On that note... tonight we are  having braised pork tenderloin  with  a family recipe for red cabbage that is  at least 100 years old.

100 year old red cabbage recipe

You will need 2 cups chopped red cabbage
2 tbs diced onion
1 diced  apple  (I recommend granny smith, but any apple will do.  Peal or not peal ..its up to you)
1 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs vinegar
2 tbs oil ( I like olive oil myself but I've experienced it with bacon fat and..  surprise its just as yummy)
1 tbs butter (optional)

Put oil (and butter)  in a skillet and heat it to medium  When butter is melted add all other ingredients and saute until onions are clear.
      
This recipe takes to canning very well without turning to mush... but I recommend  a pressure cooker for sealing as  a water bather does not get hot enough 

Venus Retrograde 2010, Venus retrograde results, Disturbed Muse, rocky resources, rocky relationships, what did you learn?

We are told its going to snow in Western WA this weekend. Duh... I could have told them months ago that Thanksgiving will be an 'over the river and through the woods' kind of holiday this year. Venus is readying to station direct on Friday the 19th. Yes boys and girls its almost over.  The  situations we have found ourselves in  since August  will finally BEGIN to resolve themselves. Life and love will again start to move forward....money will shake itself loose, relationships (whats left of them )will find a medium ground, that persistent cold will go away, the job will be landed and so forth.  All assuming that when  Venus cracked the dominatrix whip.... you did the work. But back to the snow.....  When Venus retrogrades it keeps the world in a sort of suspended pocket (for lack of a better explanation)  It creates the conditions it wants us work in and then holds them.  So when Venus finally takes off the ball gag and hand cuffs and says 'you can go now"  there is a need to get to a safe place  and resume normal functions.  While we have been distracted by all things  Venus-y, other work has piled up ... (Decembers 3 week Mercury retrograde will show us just what we missed while we were tied up in the basement) Weather conditions are not exempt. There will be some catching up to do.
On the 19th Venus will complete its mission to re-orient our relationships, emotions and resources.  Then we will have a few months to learn to live with our new head and heart spaces. We will once again be able to understand what is going on in our own head and hearts and possibly those of others.   And all those wonderful ideas that our disturbed muses thrust upon us during the retrograde? We will finally be able to sort through them and begin to turn the viable ones in to  master  pieces.
And please... don't forget to take a moment and examine the lessons that VRX was trying to impart.  Cuz if you don't.... You are doomed to repeat the class in 8 years.

Extinction level event, torturing baby girls, national security, Messenger from the Gods

So .... Sometimes things happen that are very confusing.  Yesterday I was working in the house and I noticed the usual background noise  from our little suburban  backyard mini farm dropped to nothing... so I thought I better go check.  I looked out the window and  a huge Blue Heron was hunched over my pond.  I grabbed the camera because this was an extraordinary event.  I managed to snap off 2 photos before it opened up into  a giant 6 foot wide  span and flew off.  I immediately checked the chickens and found them huddled in the coop looking at me  like "its about time you got here! DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT THING??????" Then I checked the pond and discovered that every single fish in it was gone.  Now, I know they are just fish... But they were MY fish.  I mean really MY  fish.  Jimmy and I bought them as feeder fish for the turtle and we decided to put some in the pond about 2 years ago.  They started out as tiny, barely visible  brown  specks and over 2 years grew into  4 inch,  gold and black, beautiful creatures. They were curious, friendly and interactive (which is what probably got them killed).  But even the stone cave Jimmy built them couldn't save them from natures ultimate fisherman.  So, I'm kind of mad about the fish.

On the other hand  One of the most stunning birds I have ever seen graced my  humble  space on this planet with its presence. A Royal visit if you will.  A royal visit which resulted in an extinction level event for my pond.  Had I not witnessed the event   we would have had a Roanoke type mystery on our hands .   And suspicions would have fallen on all present.   The chickens, the cat, the squirrels,and of course the local neighborhood raccoon, which is occasionally seen  but eludes capture, would have been looked at askance. The equivalent of the backyard Patriot Act would have been enacted to the detriment of one all. Freedoms suppressed, the innocent tortured for information and one and all feeling so victimized they would eventually rise up in revolt. Much  like what is happening in America these days, Please tell me you caught the 15 second video of the terrified screaming 3 year old girl being violated by TSA...... AND you are as horrified as I am by the realization that the land of the free has sunk to torturing baby girls in the name of national security.
But I digress and we have avoided that scenario in our private little space.  The Circle of Life goes on. New fish will replace the old  and perhaps someday  the Blue Heron, the messenger of the Gods, will be back.