Visiting

I decided to visit my daughter Mary and her family today.  I had a list of other things to do but I needed to give her money for insurance on my car and I hadn't seen her youngest, Tevita for several months.  As I drove up to her place I thought of how much I would enjoy some well prepared shrimp.  When I got to her house she was in the process of preparing dinner for her husband and her father.   She was making curried shrimp for her husband and teriyaki shrimp for her father.  I chose to have teriyaki shrimp and she gently braised large shrimp with broccoli.  It was delicious  We had several hours of simple visiting and I gave her the insurance money.  Visiting now and then is very nice.

Art

Today I picked up two paintings from an art exhibit at the Covey Center.  I am working on a painting of my grandson James Hancock.  I went to a meeting of an art group I belong to this evening.  A museum curator critiqued art of those who brought their paintings.  I was there to act in my capacity of membership chairman and treasurer.  I continue in the group for two reasons.  I enjoy having a motivation for continuing as an artist which I feel helps me stay mentally alert, or more than I would be if I didn't exercise my mind.  At the moment I am more interested in completing my plans for my chickens.  There are many problems to be dealt with because I tend to make things difficult.  The other reason I continue is because it is a service to others.  Any organization requires a few people who are willing to offer others their time and effort.  It feels good to see our organization attract artists.

Pink Cake

I had an ambition to complete the coop today to the point the chickens could inhabit their new home.  I made a fair amount of progress, including refurbishing the door that had been moldering in the weeds for several years.  I cleaned the front of dirt and mold, let it dry, then painted it hunter green to coordinate with the slide tower which has a dark green slide and closures made of hunter green shutters.  I was surprised at how well it turned out.  I cut u-shaped edges from pvc fence boards and mounted them around the edge of the door.  I might have accomplished my goal of moving the chickens, but pink cake was more important.  Diana had her eleventh birthday today.  She had purchased a strawberry cake mix and strawberry flavored frosting.  I asked if she would like to come to my house since I have the special pans and decorating tubes that allow for something fancy.  It was a cooperative effort.   When shopping this morning I purchased a can of cream cheese frosting.  We ended up using most of both cans of frosting.  The two layer cake had cream cheese frosting in the middle and was given a ruffled appearance with pink up the sides and over the edge of the top.  The top was covered with white and three pink roses along with yellow centers and green leaves were in the center of the cake.  It was very pretty.  I enjoy my grandchildren and which I had more to do with all of them.  In the afternoon Ralph did a great job of clearing out the wood that has been stored under the slide tower for several years.

Sunday

Sunday is a deliberate break in routine.  Because of various religious practices I try to stay free of most of my regular projects and simplify my activities.  I go to Church and include more study of religious information than on other days.  Since adopting a daily routine and practicing it for several months I finally realized that I should also get up early on Sunday, although I accepted this reluctantly.  Church begins at 10:30 AM and my clock is currently set for 6:30 AM.  This morning I was pretty much on schedule although I delayed showering and dressing for a few hours in order to avoid messing up my Sunday clothing.  I listened to the talk featured in the Relief Society lesson and listened to part of the Tabernacle Choir Memorial Day program in addition to my regular listening to the Book of Mormon.  I hope to continue getting up at the regular time on Sunday although it is a powerful temptation to sleep longer.

Finishing (almost)

I made a lot of progress on my chicken coop today.  The door can be fixed by notching the edges for the hinges and removing a couple of channels from the plastic lining on the floor.  I need to make a chicken ladder then secure the temporary fence.  The latter can easily be done with lattice I have on hand.  I foresee that I could have the coop ready for a transfer of the flock by Monday afternoon.  Of course a lot of that depends on the weather.  Today was mostly clear and the greatest hindrance to me was the need to rest now and then.

Another Damp Day

Yesterday one of my chickens managed to get out of the screened party enclosure and I was able to head her off and catch her then located the place of egress and fixed it.  I have been stymied in my progress on the chicken coop but today I took significant measurements and I believe things will get back on course.  I worked with the coop design and also watched a significant amount of youtube videos.  I came across mention of 'snake juice' and the 'snake diet' but it turns out that the mix of salt, vitamin C, lemon powder and my intake of calcium, potassium and magnesium pills adds up to pretty much the same thing.  There is a sort of mania for fasting in the diet community which is coming from either end. Both carnivores and vegans seem to be entranced with the idea of fasting for relatively long periods, both 'dry' fasts of several days and water fasts of up to 40 days.  It seems the most obvious damage to the body is done through socalled 'fruitarian' diets which are actually more like mainlining fructose.  The Vegans seem to be mainly weedy and androgenous.  The carnivores seem to be building better muscle.  I am mostly doing intermittent fasting which means I eat nothing for about 16 to 20 hours a day and concentrate my eating in a window of about 8 to 4 hours.  It helps to learn new things about what I am doing.  There are some uses for damp days.

Cream

I have found a source of very rich cream.  I was aware this kind of cream was available from the overstock supply shared with my daughter, which she in turn shared with me.  That was in late 2019 when I was still a happy omnivore.  I made the most delicious caramel with crispy cereal and cashews.  I made a lot of it since I had a lot of cream.  The cream was so thick from sitting around for a while that it had a consistency more like pudding than liquid.  Earlier this year I began to toy with changing my way of eating.  At first my goal was merely to get rid of floaters in my eyes, but then I found information that I could possibly delay or even prevent the onset of dementia, Alzheimer's Disease or even heart disease if I returned to the ketogenic diet that helped me so much when I first came to Utah more than 19 years ago.  At that time I lost 60 pounds which I more or less kept off for the following ten years.  I messed around with other diets, including a low glycemic diet which in addition to adaption a low meat and dairy diet didn't have much effect.  The low meat and dairy diet along with relaxing my control of sugar and other carbohydrate intake may have hurried the onset of my colon cancer.  At any rate, I am now benefiting in at least one measurable way from ketogenic eating, which fortunately includes lovely, heavy cream, having lost about 35 pounds.  The cream has twice as much butterfat as other 'heavy' creams and comes in pot-like small bottles which require a deposit of 2 dollars.  I just keep returning the bottles for the deposit.