Dang, that chili was good. The recipe called for two pounds of ground beef, which felt excessive. We swapped one pound of ground beef for another pound of kidney beans. Perfect. Since we get our beef from a local farmer, it’s expensive—which in turn makes us a bit more sensitive to its overuse.

Chili is cooking over the coals. We went with chili because it’s easy to cook outside—which was more important to us than what we actually cooked. I used Kent Rollins’ recipe; Rachel has her own chili recipe but we went with this one because we’ve been enjoying Kent’s stuff lately.

First act of the solstice: light the Yule fire from flint and steel. I wanted to use that method because it is more bodily and patient than striking a match. This candle will be used to light all the other candles and the cooking fire today.

Rachel and I are establishing a new holiday season tradition: playing gin rummy every evening with Christmas movies on in the background. It’s been so fun!

Beans are cooking!

I’ve been learning how to cook with and maintain cast iron lately. The learning has been mostly from the goofy and charming Cowboy Kent Rollins. The goal is to do some outdoor cooking, especially for our upcoming Yule meal. We’ll see how it goes!

Looks like I’ve been on micro.blog three years today. I was briefly on the service once or twice before that but I didn’t use the community aspect so it didn’t last. I’m glad I tried again because I’ve found some great friends and acquaintances here!

Got a flint and steel in the mail today and I’ve successfully made a small fire from it. The plan is to use it to make a Yule fire two weeks from today. I’ll practice a few more times. I recall an Episcopal priest’s repeated failures one Sunday and I’d like to avoid a similar episode.

We got all festive today! This morning we cut our Christmas tree and decorated it. This is our second year with a live tree and I think we’re officially converts. We also set up a Yule space (pictured is the Yule log centerpiece). We’ve been looking into some Yule traditions and developing a plan.

Watching the turmoil of my 78 year old mom has made me utterly certain that the doctrine of eternal, conscious torment in hell preached by fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity is cruel. I live and breathe religion and religious ideas, but that one is dangerous and wicked.