Victorian Farm

I think such types of historic details are very interesting and enlightening. I believe people would have more interest in history if more of these type of things were taught in schools. 

It's been a lot of years since I was in Lockhart, I must have been 15 or 16 at the time so that makes it close to 60 years, but I recall the smell of roasting meat permeated the town. Wife and I are going to Texarkana this fall for a UDC convention. I don't know if I can convince her to make the drive that far south. I already convinced her to go to Paris TX. My grandmother is buried there. We have friends in Tyler that she wants too visit also, so Lockhart is questionable.

Smoked Salmon, (aka lox) the staple of the NW and Jewish delis world wide. I like scrambled eggs with chopped lox, red onions with hash browns and toasted bagel, buttered or cream cheese. I make it at home as local restaurants don't have a clue. It is a pleasant reminder of friends long gone and a time passed. 

My first exposure to lox and eggs was at Katz Deli, katzsdelicatessen.com/ later on returning to Sacramento in 74 I found Sam's Deli. It was an old fashioned Kosher style deli. On entering the door you were greeted with the smells of the lower east side. In Sam's you heard English, Hebrew, and Yiddish often spoken in the sam sentence by the same person. Breakfast at Sam's was always a treat, lox and eggs the staple. Sam Horen was a good friend, his passing in 1999 was a loss. The family kept the deli going for another 10 years and sold out. In 2010 I visited Sacramento, Sam's had moved to Citrus Heights and was not the same. Breakfast was not the same. With Sam gone and the family no longer managing it was a poor reminder of what was missed. 


That makes you more Jewish than Liz Warren is American Indian. 

Both indoor I assume. Unless you're in the tropics outdoor showers can be brisk and out houses not only always smell but need location change every couple of years. Since they attract rats they also attract predators who eat rats, snakes venomous and otherwise. I have read histories of farmers bitten on the butt by rattlesnake inside an out house. Question, who sucks out the venom? So, on the whole life was much easier and safer after Mr. Crapper invented the modern flush toilet.

The Edwardian era was from 1901-1910. Wiki mentions that it often is extended to right before the beginning of the war. One site says, "Victorian age was a period of immense conservatism and mostly gender biases."

In other words, men were not yet dressing like women and calling themselves Martha. There were distinct sexes.

Ruth notes that bicycles became ubiquitous and gave freedom to many women. I chafed at this "women as victim" lens that is far more ubiquitous than the bicycle in our day and age. One should remember that men, at any time, were subject to being carted off to the latest war while the "oppressed" women stayed home in relative safety. Also, men were "free" to endure back-breaking, dangerous work just to bring home the bacon for their families. Men were also "free" to die much younger than women.

But this PC garbage is fortunately not ladled on too thick in either Victorian Farm or Edwardian Farm. We do learn another interesting factoid. Beef was less expensive than either chicken or turkey. And Ruth cooks a Christmas dinner and (finally) some food that looks good. It's just a big joint of beef cooked with various root vegetables. But along with fresh bread, it does look like proper food.

Ruth invites the local (presumably local) Methodist minister over for tea. They have a nice chat and she asks him if he would perform a traditional Christmas service. The minister is more than happy to do so.

Although the service scene (like many things in this series) seems a bit rushed, the minister gives a traditional fire-and-brimstone sermon before maybe 20 people or so. And when you hear it, you'll probably be thinking like me and wish that this is the sermon that was given today instead of the namby-pamby junk that is typical. The service was the highlight of the fourth episode which, otherwise, wasn't necessarily one of their better ones.

Perhaps, but I can recall instances of people, in Singapore and Malaysia, being bit by pythons which had curled up in toilets around golf-courses and such. 

I believe this goes to my point about computers being merely tools. Good tools are great, but their purpose is to enable the user to do something useful with the tool. These days, people are so enamored of these tools (Smartphones, computers, game boxes, TVs, etc.) that they spend their time focusing on the tools as opposed to what they want to make, or do with the tool. They are confused as to what is important.  In a way, it is the old question, "Form or function?" People have always liked "pretty" things, i.e. form, but form has taken over today. I would call it a religion, but it is not that deep. I believe it is more a distraction for people who don't have the wits to keep themselves occupied or entertained without constant stimulation, always looking for something different and "better." 

I see this everywhere. How complicated must a refridgerator be to be useful? How many chips must a car have in it before it is up-to-snuff these days? How many pixels must a TV have to rate "satisfactory?" How many 'threads-per-square-inch" are necessary in a bed sheet to pass muster for one's silky skin? We waste an enormous amount of money and thought on superfluous things.  If people have figured this out, good for them. 

Mr. Crapper was mentioned a couple episodes ago. I don't think if his name was "Baker" or "Martin" that it ever would have become a synonym for toilet. But "Crapper" just seems ready-made for it. He was born to it. The 4th Earl of Sandwich had a better outcome.

The fifth episode of Edwardian Farm was pretty good. Ruth learns about making lace. You thought knitting was time-consuming? It's nothing next to lace. Suffice it to say, it was far too complex for Ruth to just pick up and get going as a money-making sideline.

And that, apparently, was what farmers needed to do in this era. They needed to supplement their income. In Morwellham Quay in Devon there were the potential sidelines of fishing (crabbing/lobstering, in this case) and mining, both of which were demonstrated. The interesting part of the crabbing operation was seeing the hand-made crab pots being woven from wood or reeds.

They had copper mines in the area. And just across the river in Cornwall were old tin mines. In the tin mine they saw demonstrated a pneumatic drill for drilling holes for the dynamite. These were also known as "widow makers" because they threw up so much dust. Quartz dust was apparently very dangerous. Ventilation was iffy back in those days. But the drill itself seemed like an anachronism, something way ahead of its time.

Back in Devon they tried an old method of copper salvaging. They put rusted iron inside troughs of water that was running out of the mouth of the mine. The copper dissolved in the water would somehow replace the rust, but this took weeks. And they didn’t get all that much but they did get something.

And although machines were making inroads everywhere, including on the farm, they said the Edwardian era had the most horses in use ever. And those Shire horses really are magnificent. They were obviously strong, but seemed fairly tame and easy to manage as well. In one of the early episodes of Victorian Farm, just one of these horses dragged an entire log (a fairly large one) back to the farm, including going up quite a steep hill at one point. The horse did it effortlessly. I'm not sure that this is the horse that was the standard for "horsepower" because it does seem way above average in that regard.

This is completely correct...something a good Mac friend of mine had pointed out years ago. People "twiddle" away their time on them. I do the same at times. Nearly everyone does.

But the raison d'être of the Macintosh computer was to free the user from centralized (mainframe) control so that the user would be free to create. And, yes, that's precisely what happened. The computers themselves were way too expensive to buy just for twiddling around with. Those who bought them (like I did) need to put them to good use.

But the era of cheap smart phones, backed up by an insane network of "social" apps, has made twiddling and time-wasting the very point. Apple (probably one of the most emotionally dishonest companies ever to appear) still wallpapers over this fact by stressing the "health" attributes of their watches (and phones).

But I have news for you: People aren't using these things to store their recipes or to create the next great American novel. They are used in a way that Khan used the worms on Chekov in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.



It's sucking their brains out.



"The more smart devices become, the more stupider they are in reality." Said by that Louis blow-hard guy who did a great video on a microwave. Unbeknownst to its owners, these microwaves would update themselves over wifi. Well, one day someone at the microwave factory sent the update code meant for a steam oven to the microwaves. It bricked them all. They could not be fixed remotely. People had to wait for a technician to make a house call. May not be your cup of tea. But I found his rant to be hilarious.