Windows to Russia

Just a coffee day at WtR…

We got hot water and I am going to take twenty showers… 😉

WtR

It’s the Famous Happening – Shut the Hot water Down

Well I just get back from being in the Tiny Russian Village and was looking forward to that hot shower. You know? Water comes out of the tub shower head and you get to scald all the months of TRV dirt off your body!

But I must have upset the hot water gods….we do not have hot water and I will grumble and mumble about taking a cold shower. I could have and did take cold showers in the Tiny Russian Village. In fact, if it rained, I went out and showered that way. Kinda hard to run out here in Moscow and shower in the rain, with 20 zillion people all over the place…

But hey, look at the bright side of things. I have running cold water and do not have to pour cold water over my head from a bucket, or jump in the river and or fall in the lake, just to get clean. I can stand in modern day Moscow and take a cold shower… 😉

It should be back on in the next few days?

WtR

PS: Just have another cup of coffee and all will be fine…

I realize that it is scary at times to look around and focus on what is happening farther than the end of our nose. I am pretty sure that God did not hand out brains to us humans to waste that marvelous organ of intricacy, upon only contemplating our bellybuttons…

Therefore, while 80% of the human race is wishing to be left alone to languish away their existence on earth. 20% of us humans are conceiving, conniving, contriving, convincing and convicting “our existence” to just live in peace and harmony…

Do you ever stop and wonder why such a small percent of the human race has such power to destroy the balance of life on earth?

WtR

The time spent in TRV (Tiny Russian Village) was simply too fast, to short and too busy…

Now we have to gear up and get ready for Armenia. Time to make an important trip to…

Armenia Cradle of Civilization

Then when we get back…

We have to get me to the doctors and get checked up…

I have several spots on my arm and face that do not heal and it is looking like it is time to remove them and check for cancer and issues. Probably skin cancer cause by sun over many years of constant exposure, as I work outside as much as possible. That has been most of my life…

Sammy the Volga is runny and driving like a new car. Sveta helped and we installed our homemade shackles on the rear suspension, we installed a new idler arm, we greased the whole front end, we installed a new clutch slave cylinder and a dozen other little things got done…

We got the rear suspension to sit less than a centimeter difference in height and that changed the complete way the car handled, drove and increased safety. The idler arm was the last of a long list of parts that I installed in Sammy’s front end. It should have been installed sooner, as I see some excessive toe tire wear at the front tires. Kinda made me upset at myself. Finally found an excellent grease gun and with Sveta’s help, I was able to grease the ball joints good and that made me happy…

The only thing that I see, feel and hear that is wrong with Sammy is that the gearbox is getting worn out. I would say that Sammy has basically 400,000 to 450,000 kilometers on her and not all the wear has been under ideal conditions…

Since Sammy the Volga is family, we treat her like family and get her worn out parts fixed, rebuilt and or replaced. I with Svetochka’s help try to do 90% of the work ourselves and I am dusting off the memories of rebuilding gear boxes in my past youth and flexing my ancient muscles to get ready for dropping the gearbox and either rebuilding it myself. Or finding a replacement and we will install it…

Right now Sveta is looking into the little known fact that a Volga 5 speed gearbox can be replaced with a GAZ Gazelle – maybe??? (truck) 6 speed gear box and that will give us a granny gear to help around the Tiny Russian Village…

We were very successful in what got done in the Tiny Russian Village. Between two homes I stayed busy and even lost 7 kilos of weight, I think mainly in my brain, but all is good as brains are overrated anyway…

I will most likely stay at least a few more weeks at the TRV, before winter hits hard and vicious, but we got done what had to get done and all I really have to do at this point is spend a weekend and winterize the homes…

I am tired and will end this wandering thought session…

WtR

I put up one big jar of Butter Plum Jam, that is for Svetochka and her sweet tooth. She then decided to pick purple plums and can then as jam and give them to family…

Yesterday, I did two jars and nothing is more satisfying than to have the lids show a vacuum has been successful. I do two jars at a time because that is the only way to be assured that I do it right. Not much room to work in and unless I want to build a fire outside, I have to limit myself to the size of pans that work with our stoves. Thus my favorite sauce pan, will hold enough plums and sugar to make one liter of perfect plum jam…

It is very simple, actually too simple and no one will accept that I have no issues with jam like this. For you see everyone wants to have a secrete ingredient, be it a pinch of vanilla, lemon juice and or grandma’s secrete spice. Jam is nothing but fruit and sugar…

Pectin is not needed with plums. They have enough pectin built in….no added water is necessary either. They have enough moisture to make a fine plum jam…

Take one kilo of pitted plums…
Take one kilo white sugar…

Put in a sauce pan to hold it all and coo it down. Boil it (do not burn it and that means stir it constantly)….turn off the stove and remove the pan from the heat….later (20 minutes of so), put back on the stove and boil it again….This time simmer it and stir it for a good half hour….Get it thickened by boiling off the moisture to your happiness level (remember it will thicken as it cools also)….Take off stove and cool again. Check after cooling to see if you are happy with thickness?

Do this up to five times, before calling it finished. I do mine three times and it makes a very thick jam. Always go one to one: one kilo of pitted plums to one kilo of pure sugar…

Then eat it without canning (Sveta has a cup full- yum yum) and or can it, to long term store it…

I will not tell you how to can it. I have my own way and it works. Grandma taught me how to can food. Jams and jellies are the easiest to can and enjoy later…

But you said Sveta had Butter Plum Jam?

Okay you got me…

Kilo of yellow (Not purple? Okay use purple, but yellow are better for this.) plums, kilo of sugar and a big chunk of butter (real butter) to taste. Cook the same and add one more cooking session, and you will find yourself with, not apple butter, but plum butter and toast will love your plum butter. You just might like it also?

Plum Butter is more of a thick spread and there are not chunks of plums in it. It is all cooked into a thick smooth paste. The thickness is how long you simmer and remove moisture from the product…

Lets see: two more jars today and I will have the family covered with delicious plum jam…

WtR

Svetochka is taking pictures, as she is the best between her and I. She has patience, where as I don’t. She has little fingers, I don’t. She is calm and collected, I am not. 😉

I am a bear and my sweetpea is my compliment. It is always nice when she comes around to temper me and my actions…

We will leave for Moscow this weekend and I still have things to do, yet what has been accomplished has be almost a miracle at times…

I spent two weeks with a very bad infection, prostatitis, I ended up having to take NISE and that messes me up. It did help a whole bunch with peeing though and I struggled through it all. Sveta came with antibiotics and in two days it was kicked out and good. I will take the antibiotics for a month, the prostate is very hard to get under control and it takes an extended antibiotic regimen…

We have plans for next year to have Earnest the Grand Monkey Boy as a guest. It may not happen, but he needs to spend a month with the bear to get a different outlook on life and get some hands on real world…

We will see and at the same time we are trying to get Sveta’s mom to come down and next year we hope that both her and Earnest will come to stay…

I got the place (both places) ready and cross your fingers…

We are getting ready to spend a week in Armenia. We can’t wait and then come closer to winter it will be time to get to the Red Sea and soak up the sunshine and saltwater. Maybe two weeks at the Read Sea in Egypt?

Russians have the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious tour packages to so many places around the world. Just a few hundred dollars takes a person for a week in fantastic places…

Time to go. I have much to do and the least of all is cook breakfast for my sweetpea…

Later today, we will grill a huge carp and and and Yummy!

WtR

So Sveta and I installed the new latches on the swinging shutters I built and we left them open last night to discourage our little flying mice (bats) to roost elsewhere…

Then we have to figure out how to keep them from this spot?

Maybe I will build a Bat House for them…

WtR

PS: I love sitting at night and watch the bats flit around and eating those nasty mosquitoes. As a kid we would spin paper plates into the air at night and the bats would dive for the plates…

President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw the US from the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming it treats his country unfairly. “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News. The WTO was established to provide rules for global trade and resolve disputes between countries. Mr Trump says the body too often rules against the US, although he concedes it has won some recent judgments. He claimed on Fox News earlier this year that

Source: Trump threatens to pull US out of World Trade Organization – BBC News

Therefore, since the WTO is a fruit of the capitalist ideology, actually fertilized and grown from the USA itself. Thus, President Donald John Trump is now criticizing a creation of his own perfect great country…

“Sic transit gloria mundi”

WtR

She and Me

My wife and I live all alone,
In a little log hut, we called our own…
She loves tea, and I loves coffee…
I tell you what, life is fun in the bothy…

Ha ha ha, you and me, little brown coffee. Don”t I love thee…

I know my brain is messed up at times and today I am singing this version of Little Brown Jug song…

8 degrees this morning and my fingers are stiff and cold, But that is all good. Running the computer off of my Android phone. That shared connection stuff is wonderful and data runs at almost 5 megs a second way out here in the boonies…

I guess I could talk about how stupid the USA is, But no, I will not talk about more sanctions on Russia, accusing China of currency manipulation (what the US does daily), blockading Venezuela out of shear stupidity, nor about ten million other things that the US is doing to isolate itself from the rest of the world. You see my world is not the US and I thank God for that everyday…

People in the USA seem to not realize and or understand that most of the world is starting to dance to a whole different tune. I watch as the wind blows in a different direction…

It is definitely interesting to watch the power struggle happening all over the world.It is a power struggle that did not need to happen. The world is really big enough for us all and actually many more to boot…

I have no idea how it will all end up. I only hope that World War 3 is not on the agenda. I know it is not on this side of the world. At least as in far as being offensive type war. Therefore, China and Russia and Iran are working 24/7 getting defense weaponry in full swing…

Do not let that lull you, Russia can retaliate and the USA will glow like a light bulb from the radiation…

Sobering thought: We all die, but I promise you that Russia and China will not just sit around and smile about being attacked by the USA and everyday it is looking worse on the war front. People need to express the fact that they really want to live radiation free…

We have some crazy ass people running the show in America and most of the world for that matter…

The track record of the USA is to attack and while people in the USA (and Britain is included), mostly all walk around like life is perfect….it is far from perfect and far from ideal…

But money and material items rule the roost in many peoples minds…

I am sitting at Nikolai’s home typing this article. I have accomplished 80% of what I needed to do and in the next few weeks, I will try to accomplish the other 29%…

But I am getting tired and winter is almost here….seriously, fall is in full swing and I swear Old Man Winter was stretching his arms and legs the other day getting ready to get out of bed…

It is almost plum picking time…

We have yellow plums, red plums and deep purple plums. I am going to make plum jam for the family this year. Going to go plum crazy…

I found the old entrance cable to the home….it was in perfect shape, just needed to be replaced for standards of the electric company. I installed this from the work shed to the home. It had already installed on one side the original two socket power plugins for the home. It reminded me of homes when I was little, one light bulb and one plug in, at one spot in the house…

Nothing fancy and nothing wrong with it. You had to be creative at times and really you were thankful to have power at all. It was a very wonderful addition to the home and life became much better with a place to plug in the radio. Strange huh? Not for me…

I now have light inside the shed and I also put a outdoor light on the front of the shed. Now the front yard lights up at night. This was one project that Nikolai was working on. I got it done. Plus twenty others so far…

I still need to install a light out back. My thoughts on that are to put a pole light, at the barn area. It is really dark out there. I do not like lights by the doors, they attract a million bugs and mosquitoes are among those little devils. bad enough to bring all the moths around…

Yesterday was a bad day for me. Lots of pain and the weather was terrible. Today, I feel pretty good and will rest. I may go to the Fish Village and get a few supplies, yet maybe not. Maybe tomorrow is good enough?

Sveta and I are thinking about Armenia…

Russia has some fantastic deals for traveling to Armenia, very cheap and includes flight, hotel and food…

Very cheap…

Never been to Armenia…

WtR

Exactly what the loaf of black bread looks like…

I bought four loaves of bread for Vova in TRV….black bread was 15 rubles (23 cents) a loaf. White was 18 rubles (28 cents) a loaf…

These are 500 gram loafs of bread. That is a 1.10231 pound loaf of bread…

Not bad, not too bad…

WtR