The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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LissaC said:
Europe is being hit by Saharan dust brought by storm Celia, and the sky has been looking really weird. In some places the sky looks orange. It doesn't look too orangey where I live, but it's still looking weird.
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That happened to us in London in…2017? It was very surreal, but I enjoyed it, since it didn’t last long. As soon as I stepped outside, it was like, “Something isn’t right here… 🤔…oh, yeah, the sky is greenish yellow!” Felt like it was in a sci-fi episode.
 
TastyReuben said:
That happened to us in London in…2017? It was very surreal, but I enjoyed it, since it didn’t last long. As soon as I stepped outside, it was like, “Something isn’t right here… 🤔…oh, yeah, the sky is greenish yellow!” Felt like it was in a sci-fi episode.
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Why does it not surprise me that you enjoyed it. :scratchhead:

CD
 
kaneohegirlinaz said:
When we lived in Southern Arizona, we experienced what is called (see photo in link below)

Haboob
Three times, we caught in the middle of one, now that was scary.
Haboobs are known to take the paint off your car :eek:
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Oh, yeah. Those are scary looking. Our dust storms roll in slowly. Noting like the dramatic approach of a Haboob.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Thanks for doing that. Many a dog has spent time at my house hanging out with Psycho-poodle until the owner could come and pick it up. Always the same, somebody didn't close the gate to their yard, and the dog went for a walkabout.

My dog has a tag with my phone number on it, an I've gotten a few calls over his ten years, where I didn't close the driveway gate.

It's just nice to know there are people out there who care about wandering dogs.

CD
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It turns out that she's a working dog, despite being a Staffordshire Bull terrier. We noticed immediately that she wasn't interested in our chickens who were out at the time, even the chicks who had escaped from their area and were roaming lose in the garden.

Just prior to her doing a runner, we'd received a text message from one of the local farmers to let us know about stubble burning again. Smoke was blowing our way again. During the day we took her outside a couple of times when she got restless. Each time she was restless the Dyson air purifier was going off but the monent she was outside she was shaking and trembling and wanted back in immediately. She's then go and try to find some where to hide usually head first in the young child's approach of if I can't see you, you can't see me. I did check her over, no injuries or old scars or anything like that. Her owner is a typical Australian farmer (sheep rancher) of few words more embarrassed she'd done a runner than anything else. I made light of it, just pointing it that if it was the smoke, then it was actually a really useful 'fear' for a dog to have if handled correctly.

We've rescued many an animal/creature offer the years, ranging from the usually cats and dogs (including a beautiful and very large Leonberger puppy who we genuinely would have kept if she hadn't have been microchipped and a kitten that came crying on our doorstep a few years ago at 4am in the morning when it was -8°C outside. That little girl wasn't chipped but the property we were in didn't permit cats, else we would have adapted her. She was with me 24/7 once i gained her trust. She turned out to be litter trained (used the cold ash from our open fire) and our best guess was that she was the sole survivor of a dump. She was just approaching the age when she needed to be neutered and registered. Even taking her to the vets to be checked and surrendered she sat on my knee the entire way and I was able to just carry her in. She never left the vets. She was adopted by one of the veterinary receptionists after the mandatory 2 weeks advertising a found animal, so we know she has a good home.

But I've also come home with a riderless horse on one occasion and a pipestrel bat on another (UK's smallest bat). I found that suffering from hypothermia in the middle of a heatwave. It was on tarmac on the ground and I had just thought it was horse manure initially and stepped over it, then did a double take and realised it wasn't. Just carried it home in my hands. It never tried to fly away and we were unable to release it that night or the following morning. The RSPCA came and collected it the next day to take it to the local wildlife sanctuary. The horse turned out to have thrown it's rider. I had had to walk it bank 5 miles across the military land we lived on at the time but never found the rider. I ended up walking it to the local stables to see if they'd lost a horse. They hadn't but kept hold of it because quite frankly I had nowhere safe to put it at the time. They dealt with finding it's rider and owner who collected it layer that day.
 
LissaC said:
Europe is being hit by Saharan dust brought by storm Celia, and the sky has been looking really weird. In some places the sky looks orange. It doesn't look too orangey where I live, but it's still looking weird.
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We get a lot of them here as well which sound come as no surprise. You see them coming towards you on the distant horizon. Usually they arrive quite quickly but take days to disappear.

I've posted photos of them here previously. The horizon is brown and everything inside and outside will end up with a very decent layer of sand over it.

This one was a particularly bad one.

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The inside of the house had a thick layer of sand in it as well.
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Cleaning up took days literally.
 
Don't you just love recipes that say the following
  • 1kg washed, stoned plums cut into bite sized pieces.
Later you get
  • Weigh the chopped plum flesh so you have approximately 750g and set aside.
Ok so far, but it never, ever mentions what I'm meant to do with the remaining 225g of plum pieces... grrrr (9 plums made up 1kg of fruit, so only 9 small stones to remove).

Definitely one of those weeks
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Don't you just love recipes that say the following
  • 1kg washed, stoned plums cut into bite sized pieces.
Later you get
  • Weigh the chopped plum flesh so you have approximately 750g and set aside.
Ok so far, but it never, ever mentions what I'm meant to do with the remaining 225g of plum pieces... grrrr (9 plums made up 1kg of fruit, so only 9 small stones to remove).

Definitely one of those weeks
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Definitely one of my recipe peeves, and why I think some people (probably a lot of people) have no business having a food blog.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Don't you just love recipes that say the following
  • 1kg washed, stoned plums cut into bite sized pieces.
Later you get
  • Weigh the chopped plum flesh so you have approximately 750g and set aside.
Ok so far, but it never, ever mentions what I'm meant to do with the remaining 225g of plum pieces... grrrr (9 plums made up 1kg of fruit, so only 9 small stones to remove).

Definitely one of those weeks
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I think what is meant is that you take a 1kg of plums then stone them. You are then left with less than a kilo in weight. Their weight once stoned can't be entirely predicted (depends on size of plums) so the recipe specifies the amount of plum flesh needed; 750g in this case.
 
Yorky said:
Our Tesco Lotus Supermarket is now called "Lotus's".
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Lotus's is my main (and often only) source for red cayenne chillis but unfortunately they did not have any today. Luckily they had green anaheims so my planned salsa can go ahead.
 
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It's sunny here too, but only until Sunday, then it's going to start raining again. It rained for two weeks straight, then we had the desert dust brought by the storm, so I'm making the most of the nice weather by doing all the laundry I didn't do in these last weeks :laugh:
 
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