And that means stress. Stress from shopping, ordering, shipping, presents, work, school, visit, and so on. I suck at school SO HARD, if not for that I think I’d be feeling a lot better. Arhg. I made some soup last night, a recipe I snagged from a link from Jersey - Potato and Leek soup - it was pretty amazing! And also a green chili cheese bake - 5 eggs, 8oz green chili, about half a bag shredded cheese. Whisk, mix, pour, bake @350 for like 20? I just checked it and shook the pan to see when it was all solidified. Excellent use for plentiful eggs! Speaking of - the hens seem to have adapted to winter just fine. I sealed most of the cracks in the coop and installed a heating lap that keeps it probably just above freezing. Well ventilated above them, no side or lower drafts, they seem fine. Still hate snow, however, and won’t walk in it. I believe that all 3 are laying, but abigail and darlene lay almost indistinguishable tan eggs. I got 2 in one day, with slightly different colors, but I have no idea which is which. But I’ve been getting 1 or 2 a day which is neat.
For Christmas this year, I don’t think I will be driving east. Rather, I’m driving south .. to Mexico? Maybe? I’m still trying to tally up the costs and paperwork and legalities and some sort of plan. Have something roughed out, at least, and a few destinations that I am excited about. I wish I had more time, but with the lab closure, having 11 days off is nothing to sneeze at for “free” and I thought I should take advantage of it! So we’ll see. I haven’t committed to anything yet, working myself up to it.
It started snowing here already, mid to late October and I have yet to buy new winter tires. My WR’s probably still had a bit of life left in them, or would if I hadn’t let an alignment lapse too badly and worn them down to the belts on the inside. Oh well. I plan on getting new Nokians, I guess there’s a new version of the WR, now G2. For the stock WRX wheels will be picking up 205/55/16 and either H or V. Probably just go with H, really since it seems unlikely that one would have call to go faster than 140 mph on winter tires. Looking at $159/tire shipped from tire factory which, sigh, but they are so worth it. Also I guess this means I really need to finish sealing up the chicken coop! The ladies were none too pleased with the advent of snow.
(need to add embedded video when I remember to get it on youtube)
Also, for future pancake joys: the best recipe ever (???) mmm buttermilk.
Using this recipe, because a blog post got me in the mood (of course). It was labor-intensive, but very cool to watch the batter rise up with the action of REAL LIVE YEASTS. Also, I must say any recipe that requires the use of a food thermometer is pleasing to me.
Also, in an effort to eat more delicious salads, this article had some beautiful looking options!
Chicken update: we had a raccoon bandit attack a few weeks ago, at like 2am they started raising a ruckus, so I flew outside in pajamas to investigate the disturbance. peggy sue was on the ground trying to run through a fence, and the other 2 were on the roof of the coop panicking. I was like ?!?!? till I heard a fearsome hissing from right next to me head! As I jumped out of my skin I saw the coon perched on the top of the rose arbor thing over the garden path. It ran away, and in the process scared Abigail into my yard and Darlene into the neighbors yard (the one the coon was launching its assault from). I saw there were 3 in total and I glared at them with the flashlight, their eyes reflecting malice back at me. Eventually I won the staring contest and they waddled off in search of easier garbage bins.
Peggy Sue was bleeding from the comb, so I put her in the laundry room. Abigail was hiding in the house, on my dining room table, so she got evicted and put inside the coop, and locked up. Darlene was gone! I went back to bed. In the morning, Abigail was released, Peggy Sue seemed to be ok and was let out, and Darlene was … squawking from the wrong side of the 6 foot fence. At like 6:50am on a friday morning I didn’t feel like traipsing to the other side of the block to ask if I could go into their backyard and try and catch a chicken so I just left her alone. Eventually she figured out how to fly back over!
With this assault fresh in mind I decided to start securing them in the coop at night. So first I added a roost inside for them, and then at twilight when they were slow and cooperative I’d pluck them from the roof of the coop and stuff them inside it, protesting sleepily. It worked ok, but not really something I want to do forever! Also the coop needed a real roof. A flat piece of unfinished plywood that was starting to sag in the middle wouldn’t do for real rain for much longer, or for winter.
So, I secured for $12 an 8 foot piece of corrugated metal roofing that was damaged for 50% off, and set to work. Cut it in half and then had to make a 90 degree bend about 6″ down from each edge. The idea being that the bends would overlap and form the peak of the roof (most people just cut the metal to the right size and have some sort of cap for the peak!). That was pretty challenging, gave up on just bending it, and had to score the underside first with a chisel to put a crease in it. The next day I built a frame for the roof out of 1×3’s after whipping up a plan in Sketchup. It is far and away the most solidly constructed part of the coop and almost threatens to overwhelm the rest of the rather precarious box! I fear a good windstorm could take ahold of the whole thing and topple it over. Hopefully not.
The frame before I added the crossbar that connects the triangles and forms the peak of the roof.
Fantastically Ghetto! But it gets the job done, which in this case equals dry safe chickens. They seem unwilling or unable to try and roost on top of the peak, which is good. The first evening I had to sort of herd them inside, but after that around twilight when good chickens get sleepy, they have put themselves to bed, so around 9pm or so I close the door on them. This also helps in the morning, the overhanging eaves mean not as much daylight gets in, and while this is not … ideal for them, it does make them quieter in the mornings! Which is good for me.
I will have to work out something for the winter - may end up just running a ghetto extension cord out from the house to power a lightbulb inside for warmth. There were a couple of posts about automatic chicken doors, one even controllable via an iphone! It’s tempting, but the sliding door I fabbed up is fairly heavy and sometimes sticks so I don’t know if a little motor would be up to it. Also - more power. If I had them in the garage or somewhere wired I can see how that would be awesome.
Anyway I’ll probably continue to do it by hand, for now. I am toying with the idea of making a project out of building them a new house using cob construction (like adobe but skipping the step of pre-drying bricks) just for fun. If I do that I could see about providing power. Alternately, there was an idea to run power out to the shed to make it more of a “workshop” I could pursue that again and run some power in an underground pvp tube or … something. If only I knew a qualified electrician!
A little video of letting them out in the morning:
So, chicken update! My ladies were hatched on March 1, and I bought them around May 10. This past Sunday, on July 19, one of them started laying - I noticed a single little egg nestled in the grass under the coop. Thus alerted, I checked inside, and found a second one in a little nest of pine shavings! So that puts them at around 20 weeks which the internet does confirm is right around when they should start. I’m not sure if it’s one or two of them laying at this point - the eggs are tan, which would indicate Abigail (the Delaware) but Darlene was very interesting in rearranging the nest and sitting in it contentedly looking as broody as possible. There were a second and third eggs on Mon/Tues. An egg a day, while possible, seems a high output for a brand new layer? But what would I know. I won’t really be able to tell for certain until I come home and find 2 eggs at once, that are definitely different colors, but I expect Darlene’s to be noticably darker brown. Peggy Sue, a very silly bird, isn’t laying yet but no surprise there. She’s sort of slow in general! Much smaller than the other two (though that could be entirely breed-related) but she definitely doesn’t get her fair share of treats due to being shy and/or flighty all the time.
Apparently chickens don’t really have a set laying time. Could be early in the morning, or midmorning, or afternoon! Generally not at night. Monday they were making a huge fuss around 7am - this is possibly the OMG I JUST LAID AN EGG I FUCKING RUUUUUULE song? I understand they do this. They are unbelievably loud!! I thought as long as I had no roosters that noise ordinance violations would be no big deal, but it turns out they are embarrasingly squawky. No complaints yet, but … I’ll bribe neighbors with eggs once I have a supply chain going.
Speaking of neighbors - on Friday there was an escape plot! The 2 brave ones squeezed out a hole in the fence into the front yard while Peggy Sue cried. I got a knock on the door (fortunately it was my day off) and a lady I did not recognize told me they had escaped and that she knew they were mine because she had seen them in my yard. I was like !!!! Oh my! They were in the front yard browsing on the, apparently, greener grass. A friend helped me herd them into a corner, where attempts to catch them were ultimatley futile, but eventually they went back through their hole.
They are a ton of fun to talk to and interact with. Very noisy and demanding! They love getting treats - corn has proven to be a very special and awesome one. I got a new 3GS recently, and realizing I hadn’t taken any video with it, I shot a quick clip of them nomming on some corm on the cob. It was as easy as a thought to upload it to youtube after that
So that’s life on the farm. Coming home is a trip, there are generally either chickens or aspen looking out through the viewing window in the fence when my car pulls up. All I have to do is say Chiiiickeeeennnns!!! and they come running (funniest sight ever) and clamoring for treats. They love vegetable scraps from cooking, and any and all fruits including pineapple this morning. Tomatoes are a huge favorite. Aspen prances around with the excitement and they flutter and scatter and regroup. It’s hilarious!
My latest obsession - spawned by an ad on CL that didn’t even pan out - is raising some hens in my backyard as egg-layers. Where did that come from!?
So I did a lot of reading into coops, and nest boxes, and tractors (not the tractory kind, the mobile chicken box kind) and breeds and all that jazz. I suppose I should look into zoning laws, but I have to be honest I’m just assuming that I live in new mexico so there should be no problem.
So far Back Yard Chickens looks like the best community to get advise and protips, and this site has lots of good links to branch out from. To get some good ideas of how to build nesting boxes.
So, last Sunday I responded to a post, someone had too many pullets so I went to buy 3.
From left to right, Darlene a Cuckoo Maran, Peggy Sue an Americauna, and Abigail a Delaware. So far, Abi is definitely the boss hen, and the boldest and most inquisitive. I’ve got them in a penned in grassy area, with a totally ramshackle coop that I built from scraps, so they just put themselves to bed at night in there. They’re very chatty and mostly stick together doing chickeny .. things. Aspen thinks it’s all very curious and wants very much to be allowed to check them out up close, but the one time I let her in she gave Peggy a heart attack chasing her, so .. seperate for now. I was going to give them the run of the yard but they don’t seem to care all that much. They’re about 11 weeks old, and won’t start laying till august probably. May also pick up a Rhode Island Red a little later. They should lay a nice assortment of eggs ranging from blueish-green to tan to dark brown. Which reminds me, a compilation of some egg recipes which I may need to keep in mind later!
Speaking of eggs, while I was building the coop from scraps that are piled up in the shed and lean-to area, a Robin was totally zooming around angrily. I realized she had a nest on top of some racked 1×2s I wanted to use so I sort of patted around the next and realized it had eggs in it. So, I left that wood be, and a few days later baby robins appeared! I may try and get a shot of the gaping mouths its pretty cute, but tucked up under a rafter, so we’ll see.
Had a nice visit in Cincinnati last weekend, we went and shot some CRG rollergirls who were skating against Madison WI. And did some exploring, oh and saw Star Trek in IMAX (Awesome (I heart Zachary Quinto)). Oh and I finally tried some Skyline Cincinnati Chili. Which is served to you on top of spaghetti (?) with lots of shredded cheese. It tasted of garam masala, the greek spice I use when I’m making moussaka or w/e and indeed the founder was greek. It’s an odd combo. On the one hand it’s tasty, but at the same time there’s just something not quite right about it.
Also got some nice things in the mail! Jase sent me Florida grapefruits from when he was in sarasota, so those have been delicious and wonderful! And lisa sent me some beautiful little japanese style bowls since aspen broke all mine And Andrew sent me an Easter Pez! It’s hello kitty, and sitting on my desk at work dispensing lemon pez to all who want. Don’t know what I did to deserve all that, but, awesome! Oh and Jase is sending me some audiobooks on CD becaues I’ll be driving like 500-600 miles this weekend to and from various events, and then on Thursday I’m driving up to denver to meet him there! So we can explore the Rocky Mountain National Park. Super excited for that
And that photo was one from the CRG derby. I’m not 100% sure on the crop, I may go back and re-do that.
In the days that followed returning too food, at least my cravings for junk food disappeared in the face of being able to eat! So that was something, I didn’t just run out and eat a double-double. I made the first vegetable soup monday, and it was in fact pretty good! Maybe a little bland, but there’s nothing in there but vegetables after all. This was easily solved with pistou which was fun because I got to use my mortal and pestle which mostly collects dust in the cabinet, to mash up some cloves garlic with fresh basil, sea salt and parmesan. You add a little dab of this to the soup when serving and mix it all up. mmmm. Most of the time when I recipe calls for garlic I just add an extra clove or 3 for love, which I did in this case … without really thinking that through. raw garlic is not a thing to be trifled with! So it was definitley strong and burny on it’s own, but good in the soup. Later in the week I picked up some black olives and incorporated them at a high ratio to make a really good tapenade for some crusty bread.
In the vein of home cooking, some recipes to try from this slate article. I’d like to make yogurt and bagels.
Later in the week I made the roasted vegetable soup. I think I didn’t roast them quite long enough, and even though I halved the amount of carrots, they still dominated the flavors. I didn’t strain the soup because that seems wasteful, but in a fancy restaurant I’m sure they would have because my blender can’t quite puree carrot all the way, so it was .. texturey. That’s fine! Anyway, it was good but not memorable. I’ve been trying to rememeber for weeks now a certain soup I made years ago that was simple and delicious, but I just remebered it was tomato / coconut milk based, and so probably thai, and I think had some white fish. Armed with that, I do see recipes out there, so I think that must be it!
In the days post-lemonade I was so excited about plotting about meals and planning around ingrediants that I decided to look into local CSAs (community supported agriculture) again. And I found one that actually will deliver boxes to los alamos! It’s Los Poblanos Organics and I signed up for an every-other-week plan. They have a cute little newsletter that goes out each week with the vegetables, which for my first week included salad greens, baby spinich, arugula, carrots avacados and kiwis, grapefruit and apples. And you can schedule extras like, maybe you want more greens, or some other local stuff like goat cheese or honey or jam all using a fancy little webform. It’s all extremely convienant and fun!
So today I find myself with some arugula to use, and thought I’d do some fish up with it. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll make some more soup. What can I say, I’ve been in that kind of mood. The fish didn’t come out super, I braised a whole tilapia in some wine and other delicious things and threw in the arugula to wilt, but I still found the flavor of the greens to be too strong, and the fish rather bland, although the reduced sauce was tangy and good over it all. Oh well. Have some catfish to try and make my thai tomato soup if I get a chance tonight, I think I have to go to ABQ for derby practice.
Oh, and the farmer’s market starts up next week I think, on Thursdays, just in case I somehow don’t get enough veggies from the CSA! And also very cool, the lab is serving meals on Thursdays with goods from the farmers market
Today is the day when I will feel transcendence! … or not. As suspected I feel pretty much like I did yesterday, although, I do feel like I have a better control on the cravings. Saturday i wanted everything in the world from chinese good to burgers to pizza and sunday was then comparatively much better. In the morning I hallucinated that i was smelling grilled cheese sammiches (or maybe my neighbors were making lunch?) And I really wanted one, but it passed and the rest of the day was pretty straightforward. Drank my lemonade. I couldn’t bear to have tea in the evening saturday night, so I made it around noon sunday. And then, around 3 the cramping started and got really bad around 4 and then … just kept going. I couldn’t leave the house because my body wasn’t done shuddering till almost 6 and if I walked around too much before long a cramp would send me back to the couch to lie down and wait it out. Pretty miserable. And I was like .. you know what? I’m done poisoning myself every day, this is just not worth it. That and the damn salt water flushes which also failed to work for me. Maybe I needed to drink more salt, or down it faster but … whatever. The willpower and paring down aspects of a fast I think have accomplished everything I wanted, and I’m looking forward to resuming real food! But the purging / salt water / laxatives half? Yeah, no thanks. Not doing that again and couldn’t really be said to recommend it. Where I am now, is, are there fasting regiments that don’t feature the torture of willfully-inflicted diarrhea every day? Is harsh herbal stimulation really required or will you be just fine without it? Who knows. The crackpot websites claim that if you don’t flush all the toxins out that your lemonade regiment has freed up, they’ll just accumulate in unsavory places or .. something. I don’t know.
So anyway, having decided I won’t be doing the internal garden hose washing of my pipes any more, I could either continue to eat lemonade for 2 more days or just feel good about doing a full week! I have chosen the latter. Consequently, I bought like 10 lbs of vegetables late last night (the best time for shopping!) in order to make some vegetable soup tonight. During the day I’ve been alternating some lemonade and some orange juice, as various sites recommend coming off a fast with juice for a day or 2 and progressing to raw fruits and veges for a day and then some broth. To which I say: eh! Maybe I’ll regret that later but seriously I’ve reached the point where I cannot drink any more acidic beverages, or peppery acidic beverages for that matter. My mouth hurts. So I’m just making soup tonight.
Anyway, although I didn’t see the “detoxing” effects and results indicated for a master cleanse like headaches or nausea or other aches and pains, nor the white tongue (ew) or the black tar poops, I do still feel like it was a good experiment in two regards: A) now I can opinionate loudly about it in conversation should the topic come up and B) I actually feel pretty good.
What I should do in order to keep the good healthy eating moving forward is plan a weekly menu and shopping list so I have all the appropriate materials and a plan on hand at all times! We’ll see how that goes. And I can plan around skate practice in santa fe to get truly delicious produces and meats at the TJs or whole foods. When I was living in MD I shopped at whole foods all the time. I must have been rich back then! Hopefully for just produce / meat and not the glorious prepackaged or prepared foods it’ll be ok! heh.
So for this week what I’ve picked out so far - (starting with soups for EZ digestion)
Vegetable soup with pistou looks basic and good although I wish there was some barley but that might make it too busy with the beans, so next time.
Roasted carrot and tomato soup with basil definitely into the fresh basil for the first 2 nights. This also adds a bit of milk, I was going to hold off on dairy but depending on how much the first soup makes this might not be till thursday.
Speaking of basil, this reminds me to mention my favorite new website, stilltasty that has guidelines on how long various food products will remain good for eating under different storage conditions and what the best way to store them is! How to store basil. Turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong.
Also going to make more exciting salads, so when this recipe popped up today, it seems like an easy win: Green salad with almonds, goat cheese, and dates. Mmm. Also as silly as it sounds I’ve never actually just made a salad dressing with vinegar + oil so it seems high time I look into that! Anyway a nice salad seems like a good way to reintroduce some meats like a little grilled chicken. I’m also liking the looks of this pea salad! But I’ll admit I will be adding some bacon to it.
And lastly in terms of baked goods goodness, this recipe for apple and oat muffin top cookies looks like something I need in my mouth sooner rather than later.
I grow increasingly vexxed as the days pass. The lemonade is now almost unbearable to drink after like 3 glasses so I know I’m not getting enough calories or … lemon juice… going to mix some more up shortly and try and get my daily quota in. Hungry a lot, but it doesn’t bother me. I can smell food with a new intensity! I seriously picked out some lo mein from 1/2 a mile away. While in santa fe today after derby I swung by whole foods to get some more lemons (sigh) and was besieged by so. much. delicious. temptations. Endless caraffes of steaming heavenly soup, the hot bar of prepared food, little sample trays of delicious tidbits .. it was horrible. I made it out with some yogurt for later and lemons and 10% less sanity.
Energy is still high. Gave up on the salt water and vowed to do tea 2x a day and then… didn’t. This morning I woke up at 5 am with vicious stomach cramps all shaky and miserable from the damn tea and wondered why the hell I was poisoning myself with this. When I’m not otherwise distracted I pretty much spend my time alternately trying to talk myself into giving up because this is stupid and having some food, or staying the course because, 4 days left. Not sure how I’ll break the fast yet, some sites recommend doing a day or 2 of orange juice first and then broth and then vegetables. But .. I really don’t want to drink juice for even a day. This is not a thing I’m craving. I’m not going to leap right into a rare steak dinner or anything but … how bad can some delicious soup right away be? Exactly.
I’ve been feeling crappy and low-energy lately, like no matter how much I sleep I can’t wake up and I’m groggy and slow a lot. And my brother started on this crazy lemonade purge / master cleanse which I’ve read about before and I thought I’d give it a shot. Basically the intention is to consume only a lemonade juice for 10 days while doing a detox regiment. My Dr agreed that it wouldn’t kill me, and scientific evidence be damned, I thought I’d try and see what happened.
So I started on Monday, with the lemonade. I didn’t really read up on the whole thing fully, and so didn’t do any purging or flushing, just drank some 10 cups of spicy lemonade. Tuesday night I finally started doing the other parts which are a senna tea in the evening and salt water flush in the morning. The senna tea I expected to make me cramp up and … so it did. So that was sort of unpleasant, waking up at 3:30am with an upset tummy. In the morning I mixed up 750 mL of salt water but only managed to drink half of it. Maybe I’ll try that again tomorrow with … different salt. These nutcase boards recommend using Celtic gray sea salt for “milder” taste … which, whatever but even if that’s a fail there’s no such thing as having too much sea salt around the kitchen!
So today marks day 3, and other than the unpleasant stomach effects after the tea or salt water, it’s … ok so far. Boring, mostly. I spend a lot of time fantasizing about all the different wonderful foods in the world. Like.. pizza and easter chocolate and tuna melts and .. pretty much anything edible that crosses my path. Already planning out the vegetable soup I’ll make to come back to the world of the eating. I have to go skate tonight, we’ll see how my energy is. Feeling a lot of doubt from the internet about this venture. Pressing onward anyhow!
The recipe is as follows:
for one glass mix 2 tbs fresh-squeezed lemon juice and 2 tbs grade B maple syrup and 1/10 tsp cayenne into 8 oz (1 cup) spring water.
To make a days mix I juice 5 lemons and 10 cups water with 1 cup syrup and tsp cayenne.
The salt water flush in the morning is 2 teaspoons sea salt to 1 quart warm water (gag).
it’s been months, it’s like I have limited energy for creative output and lately instead of writing I’ve been doing a lot more photography. Really delving into the technical sides of it and understanding the why of techniques. It’s been fun, after branching into more sports type photography, I got called upon to take portraits for the derby team, and against my judgement we had to do it indoors in a weirdly lit little rink we use. So, I bought my first ever off-camera flash! A speedlight 430EXII. The portraits were very stressful for me and I was feeling really sick that day so I was not on my game at all and messed up a few simple things, wasn’t thinking clearly at all. But, they came out mostly usable and it was a learning experience, I guess! I’d actually like to repeat that but I have to work up the courage to beg/persuade people to pose for me. And having a flash is cool! Also picked up another lens, the 17-55 IS which is fantastic and I loooove it.
This weekend for Easter I went with a group from Flickr to explore this abandoned penitentiary, which was the site of some very violent rioting in 1980, and shut down in ‘98, I think. It was full of many such cool things as: gas chamber for executions! burn marks from where a human was torched! Giant industrial overns where possibly people were creamated! Axe marks from a beheading! And lots of fascinating prison art and general decay. A lot of the photographers brought models and spent a lot of time with multiple lights and gels creating elaborate shoots, and I sort of wanted to hang out and watch that, but at the same time 4 hours was not enough time for me to explore to my heart’s content in there. It was definitely good having a real flash though, the place was quite dark.
Self portrait in the gas chamber.
Anyway, have a set of images from that outing here.
Had a visit from Jase early March, which was nice. He planned an awesome outing, which the weather didn’t fully cooperate with - when he came to NM last year (I was out of town) and had asked for advice on where to go and what to do, he ended up finding a jeep tour guy who carted them around. Later on, I also started talking to this guy who is also a budding photographer. Anyway, he scheduled that guy to take us around to some awesome ruins or ghost towns, but the weather had other ideas. It was so rainy the day before and rain/snow that day (and COLD) that the mud roads were not traversable, just sooo slippery. And visibility was quite low! But we did get to see some cool places, and get hassled by natives
Cerro de Guadelupe in the mist
And I picked a bunch of salt cedar, the red bush there to pretty up the house. It’s a non-native invasive species that hogs more than it’s fair share of water so I feel totally ok chopping it down, it’s great!
Saturday we headed back down to abq and checked in at a neat old hotel downtown, the Hotel Blue. Cool art deco vibe, and cheap and convienant! Then we went to catch some live music at the Launchpad which was in fact awesome and fun. Shit like that is what I miss most living in the middle of nowhere with no people >.< Just like… dranks and music! And then we stagged back to the hotel yaaayyy no driving! Perfect.
Only 2 weeks left till our first rollerderby bout in front of an actual paying audience. I’m nervous but I also feel like last week I actually started to get the hang of being a useful blocker, both offensive and defensive so hopefully I’ll be able to do more than skate around looking lost and getting beat up.
And Andrew sent me an Easter Pez! It’s hello kitty, and sitting on my desk at work dispensing lemon pez to all who want. Don’t know what I did to deserve all that, but, awesome! Oh and Jase is sending me some audiobooks on CD becaues I’ll be driving like 500-600 miles this weekend to and from various events, and then on Thursday I’m driving up to denver to meet him there! So we can explore the Rocky Mountain National Park. Super excited for that 
