Chaosbutterfly

This afternoon, I had to take a break from the busy life and get very little accomplished for a change…

I really really need to do laundry, but I lack enough quarters so I spent the day catching up on reading and doing stuff on line. Oh, and solving a long held problem with putting up with a window unit AC on a boat. I decided I am tired of the usual business of climbing over the thing as it usually sits in the companion way and I’ve jury rigged a system from dryer vent parts I picked up at the hardware store and a mobile home floor vent and some waterproof duct tape. The ac now sits in a spot that’s not in the way of the companion way and I’ve got the duct from the AC taped down and directed down one 8″X8″ hatch in the roof. The AC sits under the dodger so it’s protected from the elements and since it’s outside, it’s much quieter inside the boat. The hose now drapes down through a groove and down to the scupper. I have directed the power cord through a masterswitch so all I have to do is turn it off from there. It’s cooling down nicely now as I write.
As for that coffee reference. Well, one of the things I’ve been reading lately has been a little genealogy research. I found a reference of one of my possible ancestors memories of living through the civil war and making coffee out of rye. It turns out that during the war, the south was under blockade and though they pretty much had food locally grown, they had lost access to luxury foods. The biggest one was coffee. Southerners then and now love coffee and this was apparently the subject of a lot of articles in local papers on how to make coffee substitutes in the early 1860s. My ancestor apparently solved this by grinding up roasted rye. This was a hotly debated subject apparently. There was one article I read from one person claiming that rye burnt turns into phosphoric acid. And I also found around 20 other articles of that period debunking that claim almost with as much fervor as they had against yankees. lol! They also made coffee out of a lot of other locally grown things like acorns, okra and cotton seeds. They passed around alternate coffee recipes like crazy. So….
This afternoon after my adventures in ac jury rigging, I went to the store for the week and found to my surprise roasted and rolled rye in the bulk bin at HEB. I’ve got a coffee grinder and I’m going to experiment with this coffee alternative tomorrow. Tonight, I need to get some sleep. I’ll let you all know if I survive Confederate Coffee tomorrow.