A New Manliness Blog!

In January, my friend CulturalNomad and I started a blogging project on a whim.
To be honest, I thought it would be good for a few laughs and then die in a month.

But nearly a year later, it's still going strong.
So, here it is...

Basic Man Stuff

basicmanstuff.com

We've got over 50 posts so far on all kinds of basic manly topics, including grilling, integrity, personal space, checking your oil, hiking, office survival, steak, and more.

Join our 4 loyal fans and check it out.
And enjoy!

--88caprice

Why I read 30 books in 2015

While leaving the office one Friday evening, I heard a coworker say, “I just want to curl up with a good book and relax this weekend.” And I thought, “Seriously? How in the world do you find book reading relaxing?”

Or how about this one: “Oh, look at the time! I just got so lost in this great book!” I don’t get it. To me, that’s like getting lost in a diaper change. It just doesn’t happen. Reading, for me, is tactical: get in, get the job done, and get out.

Truth is, book reading has always been hard work for me. Sometimes I read right off the edge of a page and into a daydream. Sometimes I get to the end of a paragraph and can’t remember anything I just read. I’ve started books that I never finished, and I’ve struggled to find books I enjoy.

As a result, I’ve read barely one book per year for the last 10 years. But I read plenty of articles, blogs, and news, so I was cool with that. No big deal.

But at some point, things went too far. It was almost as if I started to shun book reading.

Friend: “Hey, I thought you might like to re…”
Me: “GASP! GET THAT BOOK AWAY FROM ME! DON’T YOU KNOW I’M NOT A READER?!”

How did it come to this? How did I start building an identity as a non-reader?

Well in 2015, I decided to change that. I’m not talking about a “read one book and check it off the list” kind of change. I mean a real change.

It was time to discard a petty identity and reset myself with a year of reading.

My goal? To break old habits and form new ones by reading 12 books in 2015. Seemed aggressive, considering it’s 12x my average pace, but still reasonable.

I started with a book off my shelf. Then a library book. Someone handed a book to me and said they thought I’d like it. I read it. I read on my lunch break and in the auto mechanic’s waiting room. Around yard work and side projects, leaky faucets and crying babies, I made myself read.

It was hard, and I hated a lot of it, but I met my goal of 12 books…in the spring. (Turns out that I’m not so great at goal setting either.) I still had half the year left, so I had to up my goal to a more daunting 30.

It was incredibly difficult for me, but on the afternoon of December 31, 2015, I read the final pages of my 30th book. (I also listened to one audio book in addition, but Fearless Leader says that doesn’t count. He’s right.)

Now it’s 2016 and I have a list of at least 20 books that I want to read. In my own way, I may even be…a reader (GASP!).

Here’s one of my takeaways from the experience: The more you latch on to something as part of your identity, the more you will push away anything that compromises it. So choose your identities wisely.

--88caprice

Mulberry Jelly Recipe

This is a guest post by Wife. Enjoy!

So what IS Husband’s favorite way to eat mulberries? On a biscuit, of course! Husband is an expert on picking mulberries (and eating biscuits), but I am the expert on jelly making, so he’s passed the blog baton off to me for my FIRST EVER GUEST POST!

Mmmm! Here’s how to make Mulberry Jelly:

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 c. mulberry juice (about 3 quarts of berries)
• 1 packet powdered pectin
• 4 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 tsp. lemon juice + more if necessary. 

Directions:

1.  Sterilize jars & lids: Boil jars for 10 minutes, remove just before pouring in jelly. Boil rings and lids, then remove from heat, keep covered in steaming water until ready to put on jars. 

2.  Juice those berries! Boil freshly-rinsed mulberries over high heat for 10 - 15 minutes, mashing occasionally with a potato masher, then strain out the juice using a mesh strainer.

Boil, mash, and strain mulberries to make juice.

3.  Make that jelly! Measure mulberry juice into a large pot. Add in pectin and stir well. Place on high heat and, stirring constantly, bring quickly to a full rolling boil that can't be stirred down. Add in sugar, continue stirring, and heat again to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 1 minute.

It smells like mulberries in here!

4.  Test the jelly for thickness. Jelly should thickly coat a spoon. If it doesn’t, add 2 tsp. lemon juice, boil hard for 1 minute, then test again. By “thickly coat” – imagine you just dunked it in one of those chocolate fountains at the buffet. Keep adding 2 tsp. of lemon juice until you’ve reached a thick coating consistency.

That's a hard boil right there...

5.  Remove from heat; skim off foam. Pour jelly immediately into warm jars and fill to 1/4-inch from top. Wipe off jars, tightly secure lids and rings, then flip jars upside down to seal.* Yields 5 or possibly 6 half-pint jars.

Flipping the mulberry jelly jars upside down helps them seal.

*You could use a canner to seal them, but at this point, I’m tired and this works just as well.

Picking Mulberries: A How-Did Guide

I'm hardly qualified to show you how to pick mulberries, but I can show you how I did it. Thus, the How-Did Guide.

1. Let them get ripe

My mulberry trees usually get ripe fruit in late May and continue through early July. That's over a month of almost-always ripe mulberries. The mulberries ripen in stages, so you'll never see them all ready at once.

These branches have some ripe ones, so it's time to start picking*.

Mulberries ripening is stages.

It's time to pick these mulberries.

2. Spread a mulberry catcher

Spoiler alert: mulberries are about to fall. To catch them, I use a tarp or an old sheet. Just spread it under the branch you're about to work on.

Spread a sheet or tarp under the mulberry tree to catch berries.

3. Shake the branches with a reacher

Hoes, tomato stakes, and old pieces of molding from a kitchen remodel all make great reachers for high branches. Just give the branch a few taps or a gentle shake and you're done. If you think this is a good time to impress someone with you're karate chopping skills, it isn't.

Use a hoe or a stake to shake high mulberry branches.

And if the branch is lower than your face, don't use a reacher. You will look ridiculous.

Shake low mulberry branches by hand.

4. Watch the mulberries fall on the catcher

One thing about mulberries: they know when to let go. The more ripe they are, the easier they will fall off, leaving the rest to hang on til next time.

Ripe mulberries will fall on the sheet.

As long as the majority of them fall on the catcher, you are good to go**.

This sure beats picking mulberries one at a time.

This can be good time to remove any major debris that may have fallen with the berries.

5. Dump the mulberries into a bucket

I usually fold the corners of my catcher up to make a chute, and in the bucket they go.

Dump the mulberries in a bucket.

Buckets of ripe mulberries!

6. Get excited

After repeating those steps a few times, I ended up with a lot more than I expected. It's time to get excited! But don't get too excited and run your hands down in the mulberries to scoop them up. They'll just bust and make a mess.

Mulberries!

7. Rinse them

A colander and water hose come in handy right about now. Rinse the mulberries, toss them into a clean container, and there you have it! (You could take this operation inside, but it can get a little messy.)

Rinse mulberries with a water hose and a colander.

Bonus Tips:

1. *Redneck Friend recommends a method called "thumpin'." He says this is where you use the fatty meat of your hip to thump the trunk of the mulberry tree. This is supposed to make the berries all fall at once, but I have not confirmed this.
    
2. **Wear an old shirt. If some mulberries fall on you and splat, you'll look like you lost a paintball game.
    
3. Want to remove the stems? Fuhgeddaboudit! They just disappear into the middle and become one with the mulberry, so learn to love them.
    
4. Eat mulberries plain with whipped cream, sugared over pancakes, or in a fruit salad. But just wait til I show you my favorite way to eat mulberries...
   
   

Mulberries: Red, White, and Delicious

Confession: I made it all the way to adulthood without knowing what a mulberry was.

If you are the mulberry authority, congrats! You've arrived. But if you're like a lot of people I've talked to, you may not be sure what they are...or you at least haven't tried one.

Maybe this post will help.

Mulberry Lies

As a chubby-cheeked child, I would link arms with Sister and (regrettably) belt out verses of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush." (Sorry, Ma.) Of course I had no clue what I was talking about, but, as it turns out, neither did the song. Mulberries grow on trees, not bushes.

The kid's song lied: mulberries grow on trees, not bushes.

Wife and I discovered several mulberry trees in our yard. They produce quite a lot of tasty fruit, and there's nothing like just walking up there and popping a few in your mouth.

These branches are full of mulberries.

Mulberries are pretty easy to recognize once you get a good look at them. They are kind of lumpy looking like a blackberry. We have two types of mulberry trees: red and white.

The leaves and fruit of the mulberry tree are pretty recognizable.

Red Mulberries

Red mulberries, much like red cabbage and red onions, are more purple than red. The really ripe ones are almost black. You can see in this picture (below) the difference between the ripe ones and the not-so-ripe ones.

Ripe red mulberries are almost black.

Mulberries have a good, but somewhat nondescript flavor. I call it "yummy generic berry flavor." When they are ripe, they are really sweet. The mostly-ripe ones are a little tart. 

Mostly-ripe red mulberries are a little tart, but good.

White Mulberries

I had no idea white mulberries existed until I stood under this tree. Once I realized they were not diseased, I ate them (or maybe it was the other way around). Ripe white mulberries are partly white and partly purple, like these pictured.

Ripe white mulberries are funny looking.

Ripe white mulberries are just as sweet as the red variety and don't taste much different. Unripe white mulberries are almost green.

Unripe white mulberries have a greenish color.

Well, those are mulberries. Maybe next time I'll show you how I pick them and what to do with them...

Whole Lotta Eights

What does it mean when your '88 Chevy Caprice hits 88,888.8 miles 8 years after you get it?
WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN?!?

True story.

Picking Carrots in Winter

Wife and I picked our first carrot back in the summer, but it was pitifully small. I had no idea how long to wait, so I started asking some locals about their experiences.


Old men know a lot.
I asked an old man what to do, and he seemed to know right away.

"Leave 'em carrots in the ground 'til winter.
Ain't nuthin' gonna happen to 'em."

--Old Man

It's a deal.


Carrots at Christmas?
Just after Christmas I did a test run and pulled up few. They looked great!

After washing the carrots, I was surprised how bright orange and fragrant they were. Much more than store-bought carrots.

Carrots in February
With such a mild winter this year, I thought the rest of the carrots could wait a little longer--but February seemed long enough.

Carrot life in the dead of winter.

Safe in nature's refrigerator.

Quite a haul for carrots in February!

About 90 carrots in all. A great veggie surprise for our winter meals.

And that, my friends, is how an old man's advice filled my belly with winter produce.