Road Trip to Electric City - at the cabin

Me- "I'm king of the rock, but Andrew you're too tall."

Andrew "is that better?"

We love each other.

Uncle Keith and his wife, Luanna have a big piece of land with a little cabin on it. It's very nice and peaceful. That's Uncle Keith in the cowboy hat. The red house in the background is also theirs but they rent it out because they like the cabin better. Even though it doesn't have a bathroom it has a great view and a nice clean port-a-potty. There were a pair of birds who have apparently been attempting to next on the porch. I think they are Say's Phoebes. There were also the super cute little bunnies. Luanna says they're pygmy bunnies.They spent most of their time hiding under the house due to Micky's enthusiastic efforts to make friends with them.

Can you see the bunny? He's on the wood pile.

We were graced by some pretty amazing lightning storms while we were there, but I slept through the best one. Andrew says it looked like the lightning struck the RV parked right next to the cabin. Everybody went on and on about how it shook the whole house and scared Micky. It didn't even wake me up. What can I say? I have a talent.

Also, one more thing that was amazing about this place. No mosquitoes. Andrew and I slept out on the porch. We got to look up at the stars and we weren't eaten alive. Not even a nibble. I didn't realize it was possible.

Road Trip to Electric City - Soap Lake

This is what the landscape looked like when I woke up.

 Last Saturday morning, Andrew, Mom, Micky and I set off on a road trip to Electric City to visit Uncle Keith. We packed the car the night before and left at 5:30 in the morning. I sat the in back seat with a pile of pillows and coats. Needless to say, I promptly went to sleep. We stopped in hood river at a coffee shop called The Ground. Mom liked their coffee. I didn't want any coffee and went straight back to sleep. I think Mom drove some of the way and Andrew drove the rest. I woke up in time to direct a side trip to look at a project that I helped Uncle Keith with a few years ago. A man named Keith Powell did the statue and Uncle Keith did all the rock work. It's a pretty cool thing. The statue and the ring of rocks around it make a sun dial.

 The shadow that the wing casts points to the time of day.

Micky is dancing.

Micky loves Mom.

Mom-"Mckenzy look at Jenny for the picture."

Mom sure loves her poodle.

Trouble's Recovery

Trouble teaching the ferrets not to stick out their noses.

Trouble has been making an excellent recovery. She taught the ferrets not stick their noses in her cage. When she was loose in the bathroom, she taught them not to stick their noses out of their cage. Any nose that comes to near will get a peck.

When Andrew and I came home from our trip to Electric City on Monday we found that the last of Trouble's scabs had fallen off. She's got brand new skin and her feathers are coming in. Some of the feathers are coming in a at funny angles. It looks silly. 

Trouble's healed wing.

Enjoying some sun. Tanning chicken style.

Trouble and Me chilling out on the front lawn.

Sold the Honda
Sold the truck bed liner
Found a home for the extra chickens

All my craiglist selling is done. No more confusing text messages! Yay!

Strawberry Pie

I am dreaming of strawberry pie

 I remember the first time I had home made strawberry pie. I was maybe eight I guess. My family was visiting friends and we (I think myself and Katie and Sarah) picked a lot of strawberries. Then we took them home and ChrisAnn helped us make a pie. It was so good. I have been looking for a pie to match it ever since. I think to complete the magic, one must be eight years old, but picking fresh berries and making the pie at home brings me close.

Like my rolling pin? It's a bottle.

I got a good recipe for the crust at:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/

They recommended things like freezing the butter. I didn't do that because I do not have a food processor. I didn't bother with cutting it into 1/2 inch cubes either. However, the butter that I used did come straight out of the fridge. I chopped it in the four with a knife and fork. Chop, chop, chop. It was a little workout. I believe the main the is not to melt the butter of the crust will be chewy.
I kept telling myself. "Arm toning. Making up for some of this tasty butter I'm going to eat." Then I got into a rhythm and my inner monolog just sounded like, "Tasty pie. Tasty pie. Tasty pie." Then I made the dough into two balls and put it in the fridge over night. The website above told me to make the dough into a disk. I should have paid attention because when i tried to role it out the next day it was rock hard. I have to warm it up a little with my hand to get it to role.

 

All Butter Crust for Sweet and Savory Pies (Pâte Brisée)

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
• 1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 6 to 8 Tbsp ice water

Andrew says this filling look disgusting. I think it looks good.

The Inside 
I round this old fashioned strawberry recipe at the website below:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/old-fashioned-strawberry-pie/

I left out the cinnamon.  The crumbly nature of the crust made it pretty hard to flute the edges. The pie was not the prettiest one I've ever seen but I found it tasty.
Yield 1 - 9 inch pie

Ingredients

• 2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar (I put in somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of honey instead)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 cups fresh strawberries
• 2 tablespoons butter

 

 

 

Directions (somewhat modified from the original)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Place one crust in a pie pan.
2. Mix together flour, and the berries. Pour filling into pastry lined pan, drizzle in the honey and dot fruit with butter. Cover with top crust, and cut slits in the top. Seal and flute the edges.
3. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is slightly browned.
   

Pie is good. THE END.

1. 
   
   

Headache

I have had the most amazing headache most of this afternoon. Too much sun this morning? Not enough water? Caffeine addict ran out of coffee? Who knows. Not me. Fortunately I have time to rest this afternoon. I self proscribed treatment in order. 
1. Rest and cool off
2. Ibuprofen
3. Water
4. Potato chips
5. Caffeine
6. More Ibuprofen (it's been a few hours)
7. Write in this blog

Playing Mechanic Round 2

Changing the head gasket on the Honda turned out to be a lesson in communication for Andrew and I. We messed up our first replacement gasket because we were out of sink setting down the head. That lesson cost us $23.99. It also forced us to halt our work until the morning. Really pretty cheap when you think about it. Just imagine how much couples pay for counseling just trying to learn to communicate. I was still kinda bummed though. If I had more upper body strength we wouldn't have made art out of a perfectly good gasket.

Other things that I learned from this adventure.
1. It is hard to find machanic gloves small enough for me
2. Working without gloves results in boo boos.
3. Fingerless gloves from the dollar tree work pretty well
4. That one thing is an intake manifold
5. That other thingy is an exhaust manifold
6. Dirty oil stinks. Pew
7. Clean oil smell ok
8. Andrew is fun to work on cars with

After purchasing the second gasket, the head went back on pretty well. We thought the car wasn't really fixed, though. When we started it up, it continued to spew white smoke (really steam) for some time. Andrew was expecting this. The volume however threw him off. We thought we needed a new head until this morning when I went strawberry picking with Nicole.

Well, like a genius, I locked my keys in the pickup forcing Andrew to drive the Honda to come get me. By the time he got home again, the Honda had stopped spewing steam. The catalytic converter (I'm still not quite sure what that is) holds on to the water for a while after you change the head gasket. So until that water has all been heated up and sent out the tail pipe the car continues to "smoke" even though the problem has been fixed. The end result is... IT'S FIXED! IT'S FIXED! heee heee ha ha!
THE END... I hope.

Dad's Garden

Andrew and I went to visit my parents for Father's day. It was good to see them. Micky (the poodle) twirled and twirled. Dad gave me and Andrew a tour of their beautiful garden. I ate all the ripe blueberries. Num num! What a lovely garden. Num, num. The garden really is looking great this year. Their cement raised beds are kick ass. Love you dad. Keep up the good work. Also mom.

New Skin

A hard layer of super glue, feathers and scab pulled away from Trouble's wing to reveal healthy new skin. What a lovely surprise. We trimmed off the feathers that the scab was stuck too. Trouble seemed to enjoy that a lot. I imagine it itched. The whole wound is scabbed over completely so I'm no longer worried about her getting stuff in it when she takes dust baths. I think she will be rejoining the other chickens in a week or maybe less.
By the way. Chicken scabs are black. This confused Andrew and me a bit until Andrew looked it up on the web. Also some of the injured flesh turned greenish. I'm pretty sure that was just dead tissue because the wound hasn't shown any signs of infections and any greenish bits have become part of the scab and turned black.
Trouble's  gotten a taste for attention. She loves to be held and scratched under her chin and on the back of her head. She also likes having the Neosporin put on her wing. She has gotten used to having it done and so she's less inclined to eat the ointment.

Playing Mechanic

I've been playing mechanic with Andrew. Together we replaced the break pads on the truck. Andrew fixed a part that was seizing. I was very helpful for that part because I handed him q-tips and got him a glass of soda. I changed the IAC valve on the Honda with Andrew supervising. I cannot for the life of me remember what that acronym stands for. Internal air compressor? Intelligent amazing component? Ah yes Idle Air Control. That's the 8th time Andrew has told me that.
 That fixed the idling problems but there's there white smoke and the water in the oil. Blown head gasket you say. Probably says Andrews. We are replacing the head gasket tomorrow so we'll find out.

Comments

Auntie tells me that it is rather a pain in the bum to post comments on my blog. (She didn't use those words. That's my paraphrase.) So I want to wanted to tell you guys how much I like your comments. Thanks so much Abi, Andrew, Auntie, Mom....  and thanks for reading, too.

ice cream at the flea market- from my New York trip a few weeks ago

We didn't find much at the flea market, but Grampa did find an ice cream truck.

Grampa is trying to hide from the paparazzi behind his ice cream

Ice cream is good.

Glamorous Auntie with her smart phone.

Aunit- come on guys. We're blocking the sidwalk. 

Grampa-Are you still taking my picture?

A Typical Wednesday Morning

It is 8:30am and I am groggy and wanting to go back to sleep, but Andrew is asking if I can drop him off at school. Can I sleep ten more minutes? No, not really. Not unless I want to make Andrew walk. It's not a bad walk but he's still sick. Drive Andrew to the university. Curse and the idiot student who walk out infront of the truck like clockwork. Home again. I hunt for my phone. I have let the battery die and it is somewhere in the house. I find it in the pants that I was wearing yesterday.
Start coffee. Feed the cats. Wash a few dishes. Remember that I should probably feed the chickens before I do the dishes.
I feed the chickens. They have taken to trying to sleep on the little porch thing that connects their house to the fenced in run. This in not good. The chicken porch is not designed for this.  There is a strong possibility that a raccoon could reach through the fencing and grab one of them. Raccoon rarely. kill chickens to eat them. They just do it to kill them. I presume the raccoons think it is fun. I have been shoving the chicken into the back of their house every night before I go to bed. "Anybody who sleeps on the porch will be molested," I tell them. Andrew says, "Just like in Cave Junction. If you sleep on the porch, you'll be molested." Shoving the chickens back into their house is not a perminant solution. For one thing there is no garantee that they will not just go right back out onto the porch once I go to bed. So this morning I am thinking about how to raccoon proof chicken porch. Andrew and I have bought some very fine mesh wire to put on the run on the porch side. A ferret can't get his teeth around this stuff so there's no chance a raccoon with be able to stick his hand through.  So now I am thinking about how best to cut and attache the wire.
When I get back in the house. I fill one of my big mugs with coffee. I fill the other half with milk. This is how I like my coffee: full of milk. I make the coffee strong so it's kinda like a latte. Now the coffee is rather cold so I stick it in the microwave. My newly revived cell phone rings. It's Andrew. I frown I the phone. I just dropped him off to do set up for his robot competiting. His idiot group member has hooked up one of the parts on the robot backwards and fried it. This is a mistake that anybody with a half a brain could avoid. The freaking wires are color coated. The idiot's name is John. I have never met him, but this guy is majorly on my shit list. He is worse than useless. It seems like every time he touches the robot, I am driving Andrew to Trump's hobby to buy a replacement part. I want to sent him a bill. I also kinda want Julius to pee on his backpack. Alas sending him a bill is about all I will get to do. I drop the stressed out Andrew and the replacement part off at school again. I am still in my pajamas.
Back at home I finally get to drink my coffee. I clean the ferret box and hop in the shower. Bear has gone the the bathroom in his litterbox as soon as I put it back in their cage. I am extremely pleased because now I can let him out. Otaku is pawing and the cage wanting out. I grab him and bear and put them in the shower with me. I plug the drain and they get a bath while I wash my hair. I don't want to deal with Pip today because he consistently poops in the bath. I use the same shampoo and conditioner on the ferrets as I do on myself. Ferrets shampoo is rediculously expensive and I don't think it's any better, so the ferrets use Panteen Shampoo and Dove conditioner. I drain the bathtub, give the ferrets and extra rinse with the showerhead to get the last of the soap off them and toss a couple of towels in tub for the ferrets to ferret around in. My the time I'm dressed the ferrets are pretty dry and I loose them on the house to reek havoc while I sit down to write in my blog. There is really a limited amount of havoc to be reaked because I let them out nearly everyday and I am now savy to most of their trips. The other day, though I forgot to close my can of used coffee grounds and bear dumped it all over the kitchen floor and rooted around in it. I was extremely pleased with himself. I think he was saying, "look Mom. Look what I did!" What good little ferrets.

Andrew calls me again. His group has opted out of the robotics competition because John, the idiot, has programmed a game strategy that is too stupid to compete. (The robot is supposed to play shuffle board.) It's a bummer because it's a really nice robot and the robotics competition gets a bit of press. On the up side, the robot got an A I think and I believe that's the whole course grade.  Andrew deserves and A. He's worked really hard.

So now I'm going to go put more neosporing on Trouble's wing. It's healing well. No sign of infecting. As a result of the injury, Trouble has turned into an extremely friendly chicken. She loves be held and petted.

Wantagh

These are impressions I have of myself. I took these pictures while I was visiting Grampa.

 

I still have to get my engagement ring sized to fit me. I haven't been able to bring myself to part with it for long enough to do it though. Yes, I know. Aww and gag. So I wear it on the middle finger most of the time. That way I get to flip people the bird and they just think I'm showing off my pretty ring.

More Trouble

Yesterday after I posted trouble tore the super glue off her wing along with a quarter sized piece of her own flesh. I walked into the bathroom to find the back of the toilet and the wall covered with blood. I did that sudden intake of breath that you do when you want to swear but the words aren't there. Trouble cocked her head at me. I imagine she said, "did I make a mess?" Then she gleefully tore off a chunk of dandelion. She seemed pretty pleased with herself. Her demeanor was an exact match to that of the ferret who had a half out ago gotten into the can of used coffee grounds and spread the all over the floor.
Andrew was not home so running away was not a viable option. Fortunately Trouble's lack of concern for the situation worked magic on me. Because she seemed to view the whole thing as a nice mess she'd made for me, so did I. Messes I can deal with.
I ran for the supper glue but found upon closure inspection that the wound had already clotted. It was really hardly bleeding at all. So crooning my 'eeze okay' chant, I coated the area in Neosporin, which stopped the last of the bleeding.
After I had her all patched up and back on her perch, I took a video so I could show you just how much blood a chicken can loose in a ten minute interval and go right on being a perfectly alert, normal chicken apparently unperturbed by the fact that she nearly just made herself bleed to death.




Trouble is apply named. We decided to call her that because when they chickens were tiny fluffy things, she would always lead the freakout fest. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling?" The day she god hurt Andrew was feeling bad for her because she was hurt and calling her trouble seemed mean. He suggested maybe we should change her name. After I showed him this video and finished relating the day's drama, I asked if he still thought we should change her name. He said, "yeah, we should change it to Dumb Ass."
I think we'll stick with Trouble.

Trouble

WARNING: this post contains a graphic photo of an injured chicken.

A stray whippet type dog discovered the chickens yesterday. The neighbor knocked on door to tell us about it. I was napping and Andrew had his headphones on so neither of us heard the commotion. The dog managed to grab Trouble, one of the barred rocks, through the fence. I was still waking up when Andrew tapped on the window. He looked sad. He said, "I don't think Trouble is going to make it. There's a bunch of feathers and blood on the fence." There was a lot of blood. The dog had caught hold of her wing and torn the flesh clean down to the bone. The wing was the only part of her that was damaged. I took Trouble in the house and tried to calm her while Andrew checked the rest of the chickens to see if anyone else had been heart. Penny had a scratch on her face but she probably did it to herself panicking and trying to run through the fence.

Trouble's wing after the super glue

 When I saw the blood gushing out of Trouble's wing and the flesh hanging off the exposed bone I started to feel sick. I have a pretty solid phobia of blood. So I sat in the bathtub trying to calm Trouble and trying not to faint, but she kept freaking out and flapping her wings and splattering blood all over me.
When Andrew came in, he found me lying on the floor just outside the bathroom. I was somewhere just reality-side of passing out. I had decided that throwing up on Trouble was not going to calm her any and set her down on the floor and fled the scene.
 I was useless for the rest of the ordeal. Andrew who had already been up for 36 hours pulling an all nighter got Trouble patched up with super glue and wrapped her up in a towel. Then we cuddled her and soothed her until the glue set up.

We have her settled on the shelf above the toilet with food and water. She seems pleased with it. She never went into shock. She was extremely pleased with the food we gave her. Besides the massive gash  in her wing, she seemed perfectly fine.

I've seen it before though, a chicken just walks around like nothing is wrong and then drops dead. So I tied not to get my hopes up, but she made it through the night. So now I have my hopes up. We've been slathering the wound in Neosporin. She has managed to eat some of it. Neosporin is for external use only, but as Andrew pointed out, so is toilet paper and she ate some of that too. Yummy!

Cleaning

I have been on a cleaning rampage for the last three days. Although, now that I think about it rampage although a fun word is probably not quite the right word as it implies a bit more energy than I've had. Picture compulsive zombie lady who instead of eating must clean. Around three o clock the smell of bleach chases me out of the house and I realize I haven't eaten lunch. Fresh air is good. So I turn on fans, and wander to the fridge. There, I am distracted by the laundry in the drier, which is ready to fold (you see, the fridge is the the garage with the washer and dryer.) Five o clock and I still haven't eaten lunch. Somewhere in there, I managed to eat and apple before getting distracted again. Good thing I had breakfast.
This morning, the cleaning obsession appears to have ended not because the cleaning is done but because I have inexplicably gone from only thinking about how I am going to kill that mold on the window to preferring to go out and do something.  I am writing on my blog and I haven't even scooped the litter box or fed the cats yet. They are not pleased.

Game of Thrones

I watched the first episode of HBO's Game of Thrones. I have read the book and enjoyed it. Here is my summary of the first episode.
Dismembered people. Dramatic pause. Some guy gets beheaded. Dramatic pause. Cute puppies. Winter is coming. Dramatic pause. Random prostitute sex seen. Dramatic pause. Dramatic pause. Bunch of dirty looking people walking around. Superfluous boob shot. Dramatic pause. Grubby people dancing. Neat a wedding. Boobs! More boobs. Rape. Rape.Winter is coming. Dramatic pause. Another sex seen. Dramatic pause.

To my dear friends and family who like this, I don't know what you see in it. I found the adaptation offensive and disgusting and here's why.
In spite of the abundance of superfluous booby shots, the men are not shown even from behind-say in a but shot. In my opinion, this was done intentionally to heighten our impression of the women as submission sexual objects. Woman too old to be sexual objects keep their clothes firmly in place. Aparently we are perfectly comfortable with the depiction of a young women being raped but the depiction of an older women not wearing all of her clothes offends the eye.

The rape seen was a love seen in the book. Did I mention that? It was a plot and character altering LOVE seen. The writers for HBO pulled in out and tossed in a rape seen instead. Don't worry though. We still got to see some boobies.

 In the book, Jamie and the queen were kissing and Jamie was fingering her. Well it says he has his hand under her skin and she's moaning. In the HBO adaptation, he is depicted fucking her from behind. Her ass is showing nicely for the audience, but Jamie doesn't seem to have undone his pants. How does that work?

Let's look at the scene in which Catelyn reads the letter from here sister. In the book I believe she is naked. In the HBO adaptation, she is extremely clothed. Obviously she is too old, too powerful, too married, to in a loving relationship for us to see her naked.

Sexually women are depicted in the most submissive position possible: from behind.  In one case from behind and crying. They are shown as whores (the Dathroki and the whores) or as submissive objects Daenarys and Cersei. Men are depicted as selfish, uncaring wielders of sexual power. So the message here as far a sex is concerned?

Personal Note: I was so riled about the way this was altered from the original story that I was feeling queasy with fury. Now that I have it out in paragraphs, I feel a bit better. Sorry if the spelling sucks. It's late.

Stuff in the Shoes

When putting on my sneakers, I rarely untie them. Instead, I usually just leave the laces a bit loose and slip them on. Yesterday, when I put my foot in the shoe there was a nasty crunch followed by a squish and an alarming wetness in my sock. I pulled on the shoe to find a grape. How did I manage to drop a grape into my shoe. This morning I went to shake a pebble out of my slipper and found a chocolate chip. Very strange.