Good luck with the brood, Frank.

Spell, those are some sad tales. I'll be carrying thoughts of those families in my heart.

Gyppo, you've reminded me it's time to drag out the steam cleaner here. Mine has decent "self of steam". And I'm curious - how do you keep bugs out of your bulk flour? My Mama used to put (clean) rocks in the bag, and that does seem to work, though I have no idea why.

Patti:  There's no easy answer when your child dies.  All you can do is get on with the rest of your life.  Your friend will never 'get over it', but given time it truly gets easier to live with the knowledge of your loss.  But there will still be times when it suddenly leaps out of the background, triggered by something you see or hear, and knocks you sideways.  Those are the times you tend to 'go quiet' for a while as you work through another slice of delayed grieving. After a while you shake it off and come back to the current world again. 

=====

Laura;  I've never seen any bugs in my big bag of flour.  All I do is roll down the top to close it off.  I know other home bakers who keep it in a big plastic box with a tight-fitting lid.

My kitchen is pretty bug free anyway, without being obsessive about it.  Every bag of flour lasts about three months.  If I ever saw any signs of rodent droppings or similar I'd sling it out, take steps to deal with the rodents, and them probably buy myself a plastic or metal bin with a tight lid.

No idea why your Mum kept rocks in the bag, I'm intrigued.

From years of practical experience I'd say damp was more likely to be a problem with bulk flour than bugs.  If I regularly 'slopped out' my kitchen floor with a wet mop I'd arrange some kind of raiser block to keep the flour dry.

Smaller bags of flour kept in kitchen cabinets on the wall above a work surface can act as 'damp magnets' for steam from an unattended kettle ;-)

I've always had a policy of 'if in doubt, chuck it out' when it comes to foodstuffs.

Gyppo

Weevils may just be a problem in my region, Gyppo. They are endemic in hot, humid areas, though I haven't seen one in decades, come to think of it. I, too, throw it out when in doubt.

Happy Friday, everyone.

Laura.

We learned about flour weevils at tech college, but I never encountered any in real life.  Found the very occasional dead moth in a newly opened 70lb bag of flour.

They go to a lot of trouble at the mills to keep such things out, but if you have a badly organised store and stock gets used out of rotation things can go wrong.

Trading Standards, just like Weights& Measures, are surprisingly relaxed about occasional problems, but they do have to be i]truly[/i] occasional.  If a business gets a reputation for slovenly storage or usage they descend on it like a ton of bricks, and the business can be closed until it's thoroughly cleaned up and they will be regularly checked for a long time afterwards.

'Blue Light' fly killers do a grand job, and probably 99%  of the electrocuted insects fall into the catcher tray underneath underneath.  The trick here is to not place the killer directly over or too close to a working bench or mixer.  (In a small and cramped bakery/kitchen this can present a problem.)

The human eyeball is still the best protection against 'foreign bodies' in food.

Gyppo

I keep my flour in a sealed plastic container. Usually that is enough. But one day, long ago, I open the container and my flour was moving. There were many, many, many bugs in there frollicking about and having the time of their lives. I have no idea how they got in there, but it was remarkable to see the vast numbers that were "milling" around.

Sounds like you need some good rocks, Spell :)

I keep those in my head!

I thought that was marbles?

The rattle around in there together. Lots of room in there.

Don't talk to me about weevils!  They came up at the pub quiz.  The only weevils I knew about were the ones you used to get in ships' biscuit - and it turns out they're not true weevils anyway!  Go figure.

Quote from: Jo Bannister on August 21, 2023, 08:15:47 AMDon't talk to me about weevils!  They came up at the pub quiz.  The only weevils I knew about were the ones you used to get in ships' biscuit - and it turns out they're not true weevils anyway!  Go figure.

Okay, I won't ;-)

But for Patti...

There's a good chance the bugs in your flower were already there when it left the mill.  Millers do very well in generl, but they don't always get it right.  If there were dormant eggs in there it may have taken the warmth of your kitchen to encourage them to hatch out, after you tipped the bag of flour into your own container.

The fact this happened once, a long time ago, shows that millers generally get it right.

Sad update.

Some time overnite one of the chicks decided to investigate my rutsack. This morning I awoke to the sounds of pigs pawing away at something..poor thing died of a heart attack

That is sad.

Quote from: Spell Chick on August 21, 2023, 09:02:51 PMThat is sad.

now I know it wasn't an accident.pigs just unalived the other one 🥲

My idiot fault for thinking pigs wouldn't harm a living creature

That is even sadder. You think of cats as more likely to go after birds, but dogs are hunters, too.