Saturday, February 20, 2010

On the Wonder of Rabbits as Meat

On Rabbits: Rabbits are a great source of meat, prized in Mediterranean cooking for their tender and delicate meat. I am surprised to find that people who care about their environment and the quality of their food, as well as taste, don't raise the horn on this furry little critter.

Rabbit is almost nonexistent in modern Northern American eating. But why? Rabbit is one the fastest growing domestic meat animals, they live short lives and require very little input as far as food, just hay, grass, and varied greens...they can live on leafy left overs from the salad bowl! Not to mention...rabbits reproduce like....rabbits! They have an amazing number of offspring and rapidly produce more meat than one can handle. Not to mention I believe they have the least non-food parts in any meat animal, very little bone weight, almost no fat, and the skinning of a rabbit is the easiest and cleanest out of any domestic animal (no more feathers in the nose!)

So here is a challenge, find some place that sells rabbit and prepare it in a tasty way...and if you like it buy a good meat rabbit and watch the need for chicken meat fade from your plate...and the food bill go down.
I mean...all you need is a small hutch in the drive way and some leafy food with some hay and minor precautions against predators and pests.

(I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors, it is quite late and I am far too tired to proof-read...not to mention my spell-check isn't there to help!)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Drudgery Is a Catalyzer : Thoughts On a New Path

I have often noticed that when I am at work with my body doing manual labor, my mind wanders and comes up with new ideas, stories, or just sifts through random memories and thoughts. One of the few things I like about my job is that it is mindless, so it basically gives me plenty of time to formulate new ideas. In fact, I would like to think that the majority of my new ideas come from this time of drudgery.

Well here is one...
Lynn Shore Extension: Phase One

I think that one of the easiest places in Lynn to change is the waterfront. There's virtually no residences in the way of any possible planning, and much of the buildings along the southern stretch past the roundabout are either abandoned or not right on the waterfront. Well for today's post I am going to focus on the waterfront that is fully public already, the area that follows Lynn Shore drive from Swampscott up until a little past the Nahant roundabout.


copyrights to Google

Basically the two red circles represent two areas of immediate interest that could be updated to increase traffic to Lynn's waterfront.
The one to the left represents a vacant lot, I am unsure if it is city property or not, but if it is available and not contaminated I think it would make an excellent feature to the shore, especially seeing how it is already empty and abuts Lynn Heritage Park, and is within walking distance from Downtown Lynn. I have no idea what to put there, maybe a memorial park? Maybe move the Museum there and some city offices? Maybe a two screen Movie theater like Salem Cinema? Maybe just a nice field with some trees for picnicking or taking in the breeze.

The second red circle is already public land, it currently is a baseball field and tennis court. I say ditch the baseball field, in all my years of living in Lynn I never saw a single baseball game there...and it's not currently accessible by foot traffic, at least safely and conveniently anyways. Not to mention, how many damn baseball fields does Lynn have already? I want to say upwards of 20, and few of them are rarely used on a daily basis. So I say replace the baseball field with maybe something more useful. Again I have no strong thoughts on the subject, maybe an outdoor concert venue, maybe something Lynn doesn't have yet? I'm not really sure.

The main feature, however, of what I am proposing is an extended pedestrian path stretching from the Left red ring of the vacant lot all the way to Swampscott. Lynn Heritage park already has some paths and is a public place why not take it a step further and link it with the baseball fields near the rotary and go a step further and logically and conveintly link it with Lynn Shore drive's promenade?

I already see one small trouble spot that I am sure can be ironed out, the marina is in the way but hell the path can just extend around it or something and then loop back around into the baseball/tennis court area.

Even if the above can't be accomplished I think at least one thing should be done to connect Lynn Heritage park with the Lynn Shore Reservation.

That is the overpass on the Lynnway approaching the Nahant rotary. I think in order to safely increase pedestrian traffic from Downtown a path must be started at the above overpass through the Heritage park (which is sadly underused) and continuing on to the also underused public space at the rotary and finally connecting with Lynn Shore Reservation requires one thing.

How do we connect the Heritage Park and the rotary public space with the Reservation (the path that runs along Lynn Shore drive?

I proposed building another overpass for pedestrians, one right over the entrance to Nahant. One that stretches from the public space at the rotary over the four lane highway that goes to Nahant and touches down near the tot-lot on the Lynn Shore Reservation.

I think an overpass for pedestrians should cross over this intersection and touch down over near the tot-lot.

I think it should look a little nicer than the Lynn way overpass, a little less industrial, maybe more artistic.

One of my ideas is to hang two wrought-iron signs one over the entrance to Nahant and one at the exit from Nahant. One reading "Welcome to Lynn" the other "Welcome to Nahant"

well that's it for today, off to drawing an image of the pedestrian overpass.