Tying Up Loose Ends

I only have one more day of summer hours. Tuesday is the last day I get to go home at 4pm. Wednesday is September 1st, and that signals our return to regular hours at the yarn shop. I'll be working Tuesday through Saturday, 11am until 6pm. So today I ran around and got some last minute things accomplished. I got my hair cut and I picked up 3 pairs of jeans. Then I ran out to Fredrickson and picked up 3 bags of poo. Yes, poo. More bunny poo (and chicken poo) for the organic gardening. I used nothing but manure and worm castings as fertilizers, this year, and my garden was prolific. I want to add more to the compost heaps, so I'll have wonderful soil ammendments to add next spring. On the way back I stopped by a thrift store and found these bargains. I am trying to convert from plastic refrigerator storage, to glass. This first pictures shows an old school storage container. These retail new for around $13. I also found another small pyrex container with a lid.



Then it was off to North Tacoma to pick up another pair of Danskos. These have the antique brown oiled finish. Yes, they had a previous owner. But, guess what? If you've ever tried on shoes at a store....someone else (probably lots of someones) has had their feet in those shoes, before you. I'll happily let someone else wear my Danskos for a week or so, if I can get them for $30 (and no tax) instead of $120.

Pasta Disappointment

My basil is getting to the point where it's "use it or lose it". Now that I've got that huge food processor I can knock out a double batch of pesto in minutes.


The plan for today was to make some homemade pasta to go with the pesto, and have it for dinner. But not all of my Craigslist buys have gone smoothly. I had purchased a pasta maker attachment for the KitchenAid, from a lady up north. Before I sent payment, and had her mail it to me, I asked, "Does it have all the parts?" She assured me it did. Today I took it out to assemble it, and make some pasta, and discovered that it was missing a very crucial piece. The ring that screws onto the front of the grinder and holds the pasta plates in place. If she can't locate it, and send it to me, I'll have to try and order a replacement from the company. So no fresh made pasta today. We had to settle for dried store bought. It was still a nice dinner.


To console myself, I made an apple crisp for dessert. Apple crisp makes everything better.

Another New Kitchen Toy

I had a productive day. I found another bargain on Craigslist. I have been hunting for a good deal on a food processor and found this one advertised in a garage sale listing. The seller sent me this link and a picture of the actual machine. The machine looked similar to the one in the link, but not exactly. Not a huge deal. She must know what she has, right? And if she says it's a 70610 that retails for between $30 and $50, well, I take her word for it. She was asking $20 and I agreed to give her the asking price if they could deliver it, as I don't have much spare time to run around. It will save me at least $5 in gas, and an hour's time, round trip, to the yard sale in Graham. They agreed and dropped the machine by this morning. In perfect condition with all parts present and accounted for. The first thing I did was look for the model number. It was not a 70610. It's a 70590. Which is much better. They retail for about $100. It reminds me of R2D2, so that's what I'll call it.


Tomorrow I'll test it out by making some more pesto. Oh, and the little chicks went to a new home today. They now reside in Eatonville. I made sure the new owner is responsible and will take good care of them. It was really difficult to give them up, but it's for the best. Reggie has been moping and crying ever since he figured out they are missing. He keeps searching the yard for them. I hope he doesn't hold a grudge.

The Last Apple Sauce

At least for this season. I canned up the last 7 quarts, today. There are still about 30 apples remaining, but I will either make apple crisp, or pies, with those.


Doesn't Gladys, the new/old KitchenAid, look good on my counter? I downloaded the manual, today, and read how to properly remove the beaters and the bowl. The odd thing is, my beaters work exactly the opposite of how the manual describes. When it says to turn them left, to remove, and right, to attach....I have to do the reverse. Not sure if it's because my machine is older or if it's a typo in the manual? Anyway, I finally got up the nerve to plug Gladys in, and she works just fine. I think she and I will bake some bread, tomorrow, after work.

My garden is doing well. I let my pickling cucumbers get too big. I kept meaning to pick them, but would forget. By the time I got to them, this afternoon, they were huge. And the zucchini are coming fast and furious. I cooked one up for dinner, to have with my pork chop. This is my favorite way to cook zucchini. I cut it up and saute it with some garlic in olive oil. Then season with salt and pepper. It's so good!

Sometimes You Eat The Bear....

....and sometimes the bear eats you. If this mixer works, I have eaten a grizzly.


You're all familiar with my current obssession with KitchenAid mixers. I wanted one because you can get attachments for them, like pasta makers, meat grinders, etc...I thought it would be nice to have one machine that can do it all, instead of many. I really didn't "need" a mixer. I have a perfectly good Sunbeam stand mixer that I inherited from my dear mother-in-law. It works perfectly well, but it's not a KitchenAid.




It has 2 stainless steel bowls, beaters and dough hooks. Still not a KitchenAid. But a good, solid, vintage, built-to-the-hilt mixer. I also know that the KitchenAid mixers of today aren't the same as those made years ago. They used to be made by Hobart, back in the day. Hobart makes awsome appliances. But they were bought out by Whirlpool in 1986. So mixers made after that aren't the same quality. They still cost a fortune, though. And I do not have a spare $300 laying around to spend on a mixer. The only way I can justify buying one is to get one heck of a deal. This means scouring Craigslist every day. I have found some good deals. But they are always in Renton, or Auburn, or somewhere else a good distance away. And I never find them on my days off. Which brings me to today. I see a post on Craigslist for a KitchenAid mixer for $99. In Federal Way. That's not too far. I emailed the seller for some more information, like the model number and watts. She told me it was a model K5SS with a maximum wattage of 300. I looked up the model number and saw that the wattage was actually 325. The model got good reviews but I was really wanting something with a stronger motor, like 475 or 575 watts. So I emailed back that I could only offer $60 for this machine. She accepted and wanted to meet me in Federal Way. I would not have time to do that until Sunday. I explained that I do not have a day off until then, so I guess it was not meant to be. It wasn't a big deal, since there are lots of used KitchenAids out there for sale. Then a miracle happened. She realized how much I wanted one of these and volunteered to meet me at the Tacoma Mall, tonight. Once I met her, gave her the $60 and was carrying the mixer to my car, I thought, "I didn't know these came in a vanilla color"? I looked at the wattage and sure enough, it said 300. Then I saw the magic word, written on the side. Hobart.


Oh, my, God! Knock me over with a feather. I shook all the way home. The way the ad read, I thought this was a newer machine that she'd barely used. Well, I believe she barely used it. And apparently so did the previous owner. This thing is like new. And it has to be made pre-1986. And to think I talked her down in price. But I didn't know. Because she had no idea of what she had. What is it really worth? Who knows? To me, it's worth much more than a brand new one. It will certainly last a lot longer. This mixer will never die. The seller mentioned, as I was loading up, that she was getting all sorts of interest in her ad. So much so, that she took it down. I bet she was. And it came with all the attachments.



Excuse me while I go have a pipe and a Scotch and celebrate my state of euphoria. No, I haven't plugged it in yet. I'm afraid to break the spell.

How Many Eggs?

Just for fun, I'm going to keep track of how many eggs the bantams lay in the next 4 weeks. I have to throw them all away, due to the wormer being in the hens' systems. But I can have fun counting them Here's the tally so far, from each hen. Beginning date was 8-24-10.

Ebony = 11 (Ebony is an egg laying machine!)
Pinky = 3 (Pinky is a lazy slacker. I think she's molting.)
_____________
Total tossed = 14

As of 9-9-10

Lazy Monday

Today Reggie had to get his hair done. And on those days there's so much time spent on the road (about 2 hours total travel time back and forth to the groomer) that I don't get an awful lot done that morning. We did stop at the feed store, after dropping Reggie off, and I picked up some Wazine 17. At least one of my Bantams has round worms, so they are all getting wormed. Once back home, while waiting to go pick Reggie up, I dosed the bantams water with the wormer and got a load of laundry done. Then it was time to head back to the groomers. On the way I stopped by BigLots! to see if they had an inexpensive food processor. I'd like one for making pesto. But all they had was a mini chopper. I picked it up for $12. I figured, if nothing else, it would be handy for chopping nuts and onions. Once we collected Reggie and made it back home, I set about making another batch of pesto. That mini chopper worked great. Well worth the money. I was able to chop up each item before adding it to the blender for the final puree. The chopper worked great on the pine nuts, grated Parmesan (I pre grated it, then chopped it fine), even the basil and garlic. The blender still doesn't work all that well, but pre chopping everything made a huge improvement. After I got a second load of laundry on the line I crawled into the bantam pen and sprinkled them all liberally with the mite dust. I plan on repeating the worming and dusting in another 2 weeks, then all should be well. We'll start with a clean slate. I like getting into the pen and handling the chickens. That's when their little personalities really show. As usual, the Frizzles were easy to catch. If they were any more laid back, they'd be asleep. They do fuss a bit about being handled, but don't put up much fight. Pinky must be getting used to me picking her up. She almost seemed to enjoy it. The two newer "big girl" bantams, Stormy and Ebony, aren't used to being grabbed but they didn't fuss too much, either. Now the 3 little chicks, that was a whole 'nother story. They screamed bloody murder the entire time. One of them is about twice the size of the other 2. We call it "Baby Huey". It will probably end up being a he, but you never know. If it's a girl, we'll call her Big Bertha. The other 2 chicks don't have names yet. One is a butterscotch color and the other is shades of gray. The small gray chick was last, and put up the biggest fight. It was the only one that pecked me. LOL. Little booger. Other than Ebony having worms, they all seem healthy. In fact Ebony is the spunkiest and heaviest of them all. She is also the only Bantam who is currently laying, and she lays quite a bit for a small hen. Too bad I'll have to toss out her eggs for the next month, until the wormer is all out of her system. But she should feel lots better. After all the chicken drama was over, Singha and Reggie enjoyed lounging in the backyard. Here is Reggie, showing off his haircut while inspecting the squash.



Meanwhile, Singha was busy rolling around on the lawn. Imagine this sequence isn't stop action.




This is my invitation to come give him a belly rub. I've never known a cat to love getting his belly rubbed, but Singha does. And lastly is a picture of Reggie giving his bubba a kiss. Singha never kisses Reggie, but he allows Reggie to kiss him.