Missive #313

In his latest adventure Hector Lynch follows his quest for the young Spanish woman, Maria, with whom he has fallen in love. His search takes him and his friends on a nightmare passage around Cape Horn where they come across a small warship entombed on an icefloe, her only crew two skeletons—the captain, frozen to death in his cabin, and a dog. The corpse is the long-missing brother of a local Spanish governor in Peru.This is the third book in the Hector Lynch series: after the fact I found that I had read it out of order. I’ll now have to read the second one in the series. Severin’s fiction is better than his non-fiction in my opinion although he uses a lot of what he learned to write the non-fiction. There are more in the series that I’m going to sometime get to read. In gratitude for learning his brother’s fate, the governor tells Hector that Maria has moved to the Ladrones, the Thief Islands, on the far side of the Pacific. On the way there, Hector’s ship picks up an emaciated native fisherman adrift on a sinking boat. He dupes his rescuers into thinking that his home is rich in gold, but his poverty-stricken island proves to be jealously guarded by a Japanese warlord who treats the visitors as trespassers. Only when Jezreel, the ex-prize fighter, defeats the Japanese swordsman in a duel can they escape.
Reaching the Thief Islands, Hector allies with the native people, the Chamorro, to launch a night raid on the Spanish fort and is finally reunited with Maria. But will the young couple ever be able to settle down? As a known sea robber, Hector will only be safe where the law cannot touch him… and so their journey continues. — Book promo @ goodreads.com

I’m encouraged by the reaction from the Democrats and the RINOs that Trump has made the correct pick for his VP. If Vance is evoking this much hatred already that is a very good sign he was the best choice.

Other than following political gests in the United States and other places in the world I’m not doing much.

It has been hot here with four days at 100°F or more during June whereas last year there were none that hot. So far in July there have been five days at 100 or more with three of them coming these past three days. I keep thinking that at an altitude of over 6000′ that should not be happening. The 10 day forecast is predicting the monsoon rains to start hitting us here starting this Thursday. That should hold the high temperature down somewhat but with the increased humidity it will be more uncomfortable; the low humidity in June was 10% with it up to 24% so far in July. We got 1.05″ of rain during June with 0.61″ coming all at one time the rest of it was just brief showers. So far the total for July is 0.36″ with 0.20″ coming in one storm and the rest from occasional showers.

I been doing our two daily walks early in the day and then hibernate in Desperado with the A/C running most of the afternoon and early evening. A lot of reading and experimental cooking.

The experiments have mostly been finding how I can cook the sardines and kippers that I bought. I have found that the best, so far, is to coat my skillet very lightly with olive oil then cover the pan with broccoli florets and sliced garlic. Cook that at a high heat to brown the garlic and slightly brown the broccoli. Then turn off the heat, add the diced up fish and allow to cook as the pan cools down. This is served along with sauerkraut, avocado and warmed corn tortillas. The tamales have been cooked with my old standby of hominy, beans, green salsa, avocado and corn tortillas; no experimenting involved. My other three ‘linners’ during the week are the standby sometimes with Lightlife tempeh and sometimes with green peas or french cut green beans. The morning breakfast has been almost the same for the past three years or so; hulled barley and oat groats, blueberries, tart cherries reheated in non-dairy milk. Lately I have been substituting millet for one or the other grains; have not liked that as well. Soon I’ll be out of the millet and will give quinoa a try along with the tablespoon of chia seeds that I have been adding for the past month or two. So that is a rundown of my eating habits excluding the breakfasts that I eat when I go to town.