Drying Peppers 9/21/2020

 Good Morning,

I am sitting at my old faithful desk with a cup of Door County Bourbon Pecan Pie Coffee. Our two dogs are back asleep after their morning jaunt outside. Their bellies are full and not it is time to write.

Yesterday I was awarded the great task of drying peppers from our garden in a dehydrator.  The peppers that grew in our garden this year are abundant in numbers. So I froze some of the early ones and now have started drying some for cooking purposes. 

Ephesians 4:27  And give no opportunity to the devil.!

I started the process by putting plastic gloves on. I made the mistake of doing this bare handed last week and as well as I washed my hands I still managed to touch my lips later with my hands and the pepper sting started. It only takes a little bit of these dried peppers to season a dish.

So yesterday I was trying to be super careful while I cut and cleaned the peppers. I thought that I had outsmarted my foe by wearing the gloves. Once the dehydrator was loaded with the peppers I rinsed my hands with the gloves on. Then after rinsing, I removed the gloves. I felt so good about myself. Great peppers drying without crying! As luck would have it, yesterday was not a good day for those of us with hayfever allergies. About thirty minutes after removing my gloves and washing my hands a couple times my eye began to itch so my index finger reacted like it always does. It went right to my eye and rubbed the itch away. But what a surprise it was! Some how, some way, that peeper juice still found it's way to my finger despite all the precautions. I found mysrl rinsing my eye with cold water from the kitchen faucet. 

So my point is this. We all take precautions to help us be better people. We try to avoid the vices that entangle us. But now and then we fail and just try wading into the waters of the world for just a little while. The stink of the world although just a little, is on us and it's hard to remove. Say for instance "anger". Some have true anger issues and they work hard to control it. But something comes along and we plow right back at it and respond in anger. Now the response might not be as bad as it has been in the past, but those around us feel the sting of "is he going to blow up"? 

We need to avoid the vices that snare us and take every precaution to keep us from temptation,  I figured out where I went wrong with the peppers. It was in the glove removal. I used my left index finger to slide the right glove off and then vice versa. I touched the outside of the gloves during the disposal of the gloves thinking I was safe by rinsing my hands. Just a little juice went a long way in my misery. 

"Food for thought"!

Marty