Author: Earthy Views

Life has many adventures and paths, I choose to share my ideas and writings, hopeful to make the world a better place with deep thoughts about many varying ideas. Be kind to all living things.

What was that taste

Earthy Views

Have you ever put something in your mouth and been surprised, thinking that did not taste like you expected.. 

This week I was working with chocolate and trying to do something with my kitchen soap dispenser. There was a bit of chocolate left on my finger and in my tasty perception I went to lick it off. The very first lick bubbles were filling my tongue, I made noises and gestures like a dog that had just licked a porcupine. Tying frantically to get the gross taste of the soap off my tongue and out of my mouth.

You might be starting to guess living with me is a comedy of errors.

Might I add I was on the phone with my dear friend and my other human that lives here was home. When they overheard the notices coming from me and realized what is going on they are both laughing almost to the point of falling over. 

Now that you read this you might be chuckling either because it is funny or somehow you relate. So have you ever thought about where taste comes from? We have 6 separate taste zones on the tongue. Bubbles however are not part of the areas.  They just coat your whole mouth, is this what a wash sponge feels like?

We have about 10,000 taste buds made of 50 and 150 columnar taste receptors (little clusters.) The zones of taste are sweet at the front, sour front sides, salty front and bitter at the very back near the throat opening.  There is a last taste, that is Umami, it is where we taste savory.

May you have eaten those odd flavored Harry Potter jelly beans, you hope for a yummy one but you get one like rotten eggs. So before you put something in your mouth wash your hands, read labels and rinse all the soup off. Hope you enjoy many great flavors. 

Value Of Hugs

Earthy Views

We as humans need contact, hugs, communication, love, understanding and respect. Our minds and bodies thrive when we have connection. Sadly during this pandemic many are lacking in connection.

Some of us hug, others have always maintained distance. Myself I’m 50-50, sometimes I’m into hugs and other times I pass. With this pandemic I have seen only a handful of people, likely more than I should have. Some of my dear friends that I was seeing about once a month I would give them a big embracing hug. Now I have not seen many of my friends since March.

I’ve been trying to count my blessings and be thankful for all I have, during this time. Saturday November 7 there was a press conference for British Columbia. The lockdown changed in a way that felt crushing. What I heard watching it is that people may not be able to see people outside their immediate household.

I already have limited contact with the parents, seniors most of my friends but now my kids. My family is all grown up, one of my children live close and they are part of my small bubble. Tears poured from my eyes. 

Hugs have health benefits benefitshttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/better/amp/ncna920751

If you are not able to hug another at this time I have been reading that self hugs have benefits also.  https://www.healthline.com/health/hugging-self#benefits

So please take care of you and your emotional health.

If you need any help feeling ok, there are connections to help you through this, type in, “Mental health toll free number”, add your area that you live in. Not all areas have support. Calling someone you trust might be a positive alternative. Here is a list that might help if you need help accessing resources from different parts of the world. https://checkpointorg.com/global/

Take care, see you in my next writing.

Mighty Pumpkin Massacre

Earthy Views

At the ending of October, we are seeing the remains of pumpkins that shed their souls for yet another of the early fall rituals.

No matter what your pumpkin was slain for, it served it’s time on this earth. 

Some of you may have made carved creations. Showing the light within the great pumpkin. Here is a little history on Jack O Lanterns.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins

Others made savory dishes soups and stews. Your home is filled with new energy from the lost soul of the pumpkin. This is a soup I like I put in a bit of chili powder and leave out the cinnamon. https://nourisheveryday.com/coconut-ginger-pumpkin-soup/

I spent November 2  piercing the tops of 4 pumpkins, clawing out the insides and baking them whole, it took about 2 hours to cook them so I could ready them for their cold slumber in the freezer. At the finish had 19 ziplock bags that equaled 39 cups of  pureed pumpkin. 

What does one do with that much pumpkin? It makes great muffins and other baked things. I had been thinking I would dehydrate some of the pureed pumpkin, sadly there is not enough to try that this year. We have one pumpkin left. I’m going to make my old family recipe a batch of pumpkin pickles. My grandpa and I used to make the pickles. Before my grandma left the earth, she would can many lovely things.

We have made it for our senior dog who turned 16 on October 19, 2020. He has had some changing health and can only handle low fat foods. So we processed the pumpkins for winter. He gets that, cooked Turkey and probiotic yogurt. We were greatly blessed, our local market was giving the pumpkins away on Nov 1. So we nabbed 5 of them.

The last tasty thing I did was make roasted chilli lime sprouted seeds. Don’t do the last recommended step of putting them under the broiler. Mine are a bit blackened, that is my nice way to say in less than 2 mins there was smoke filling my home and they were slightly burnt, the windows are now open and the seeds were rescued from their smoky hideaway.

Chili-Lime Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

After rinsing my seeds I let them sprout 2 days in the oven then used chili lime salt that I buy from Trader Joe’s. I also added some hot paprika to mine. When I make a recipe I use many things from different recipes. Somehow I recall something about a few mins under the broiler. I looked over my sources and don’t see it now. My guidance is just forget that I typed anything about the broiler!

For now this is the end. Please share what you have done with your pumpkins.

Till I type again. 

Covid-19 dooms

Earthy Views

We all have been living different levels of doom with looming pandemic. 

Some people are wearing masks others choose not too.

This entry is to know we are in this together and many of us have had emotions linked to this pandemic. We miss living the way we did before this pandemic started. Heavy hearted topics like being away from friends, family, fun things being canceled. Thinking about what is right for us and the people we share the world with. All the safety measures don’t prevent our minds from thinking.

Normal health things people might not think much about such as allergies the common cold now weigh in the minds of many. What if I cough in public? I had a vision of a scene from The movie Monster’s Inc, the part where a childs sock is found on the back of a monster. It is a code “23 -19” For me this is comical. I said to my family and close friends, if they sneezed or couched. This is a 23-19, the task squad will come out shave you and put you in a steriliser.

Fears like should we go back to work what will we do if we go to work. At the beginning, some struggled with going to do basics like going to the market. There are further fears since mid-summer, taking transit and sending people back to school and jobs.

Now we are 7 months into the lockdown to only essential services between the borders of Canada and the USA. Many of us have been affected by travel restrictions. Frustrations of not being able to see loved ones, hang out with friends or just take what I use to call a mini vacation in the USA. 

I have had people wanting me to fly across the border, sadly that is way too hard  for me to think about. The risk of going from an airport to a hotel just feels like too many interactions of potential exposure.

There are people that want the covid test. Others that feel they will not need the test and the last batch that have had to get the test. Getting the test holds a stigma for many. From the, “what if I have it, what if I was with people and exposed them to this virus.”  The very stress of having decided if you share with anyone outside your home that you yourself or someone in your living space might be walking around with this scary virus.

The doom of being confined to your home for 24 hours to 5 days, pending how long it takes to get the test results back. Thinking about what I will do, how will I cope? What if I’m sick. The nice thing we have in BC is myehealth.ca If you are signed up for this you can get most of your lab test results online. I use this service for all my routine lab work.

If you want you can sign up to receive a third party test from CDC (Center Disease Control) 

The last option is to wait for a phone call for the health authorities. 

Here is how to deal with getting tested in BC, this page has many helpful resources on covid topics.https://www.fraserhealth.ca/health-topics-a-to-z/coronavirus/testing#.X5tFAohKiUk

One of the blogs I’m enjoying talks about the science and facts of covid www.bccovid19.info 

Please feel free to share where you are at with the pandemic. Wherever you are at, I hope you’re okay. Here is an amazing song my friend shared on social media today, brought tears of blessings to my eyes. https://youtu.be/Cs-ju_L9pEQ

Talking about Covid -19 seems like the topic of doom!

Voted at the polling station

Earthy Views

To answer the questions I had in my post “Voting time again.”

Here is what the pandemic process looked like. I was met by the first volunteer who asked if I had ID, I had my voter’s card and driver’s license. I was directed to the first area. I was asked to hold up my voter’s card, they did a barcode scan through plexiglass, asked to hold up my ID my information was matched with a database on the computer. I was then asked to read a declaration verifying I’m meeting the legal requirement to vote in my province.

Then tore out the ballet from the book she handed it to me, said “Go behind me and mark your ballot bring it back to me and I will give you instructions on the next step.” I brought my own writing tool. If you did not have one there were pencils marked clean and used as well as hand sanitizer behind the cardboard and other areas of the polling station.

Made my X and then took it back to the human, She said “Tear off the small part at the end, put in  the brown paper bag taped to the table and put your ballet in the box.” I did, then as I was going out I was able to put my voters card in a box with a slot and it was marked we will recycle that for you.

Went to my vehicle, took off my mask now feeling happy voting was finely done. Time to sit back with tea and continue to feel good that I had the right to vote. Hope your voting experience works out for you.

Voting time again.

Earthy Views

I find things about voting to be a bit of a challenge, this pandemic is adding questions to my list. If you go in to vote will they have the cardboard cubical so all people are using the same enclosed space. will they be sanitizing in between voters. I read on the voters care to please bring your own writing implement.

We had a option to mail in our votes, I did not get that done by the recommended date of October 16 to have time to get where it is needed. So would you take a chance it is October 19 2020. Many of our friends have mailed in or gone in a voted. I was thinking that we could take the sealed envelope to a polling station and leave it there. The question in my mind is do they just dump it is a mail box? Cross our fingers and hope.

I was thinking about what if you plan to go to the polling station, what happens if you start feeling unwell. Do you take the route of just put on a mask and hope you have nothing like covid-19 or do you forgo your vote for this time?

I look forward to seeing any thoughts you have on mail in voting and the safety of voting in a pandemic.

Recycling can be dangerous!

Earthy Views

So today I went to recycle salmon cans that were left in my sink by my family. “Thanks family for making dinner.”  Well the top was stuck on the one can and in all my wisdom, decided to pry the top open with my bare hands. Well this is your first exposure to me, sit back and get use to my seemingly great plans. part way in my endeavor something unplanned happened. Yep, I put a good gash in my index finger on my right hand, having enough injury’s in my world, I called a family member to grab me a bandage pressed my finger to stop it from being a bloody mess. Since it was a fish can I knew I would need to wash out the cut, so a bandage readied and I washed and put more pressure on it.

So here is my saftey tip, toss the darn can in the trash.. Scratch that, grab an implement and jab it in the opening prying  that vicious can open and try not to cut up the whole hand. Wash it out and toss it where ever you put the dangerous  recycling!