Rants, Raves and Ramblings

Braised Javelina

2011-02-07T20:56:00Z

The Man brought home a couple pieces of javalina gifted to him by an acquaintance. I had read that the meat smells bad and tastes worse, but fresh on my success with elk sauerbraten (same hunter gave us a roast and declared the sauerbraten quite tasty and tender) I decided to tackle this challenge.

I trimmed off a small piece and sauteed in oil just to get a sense of the taste. It didn't taste or smell bad but had a distinct indescribable aftertaste. I decided that it didn't need soaking to remove gamey taste but the extreme toughness would benefit from a low, slow recipe.

The recipe was adapted from a braised turkey recipe I love. One onion, several sliced carrots, 1/2 cup red wine, the juice of three oranges and the zest of one, about 1/2 tsp thyme and a good dose of pepper and things were left to simmer at 200 degrees F.

The smell wasn't unpleasant but it definitely didn't smell familiar. The meat had a rather metallic flavor that lingered into an after taste; again, not unbearable but definitely like nothing I've ever had. The meat was still tough, so I left it on for another several hours, until I was able to flake the meat off the bones. I gave The Man a taste and he said it was missing something. I dug through my spice rack and decided that rosemary smelled good with the dish thus far, so I added about 1/2 tsp.

I took a bit to my mother and she declared it tasty but still missing something, maybe vinegar. I decided to add the juice of 1/2 a lemon and lo and behold, that did the trick!

Between the tenth hour and finishing time, the metallic taste disappeared, replaced by a rather sweet and succulent flavor. The dish turned out so well that I will definitely cook it again given the javelina and the opportunity!

Rabbits?!?!

2011-01-23T00:01:00Z

Wow, blogs can be like time machines. I looked through the archives and found an entry I wrote in December 2007 about a litter of baby rabbits that had just been born. It's not been a good few years for rabbits here on the ol' urban homestead. We had 5 litters born here last year, two by one doe that had them outside of her nestbox and all died. The surviving litters were all born in February and March 2010, which means that it's been almost a year since a live litter has been born here.

I bred several does over the last few months, but no babies have been born. So, today I decided to give them one last try, and bred the does to the bucks. We still have Roger, who was the father of the litter I wrote about in 12/07. He's not as spry as he was in his younger days, and he hasn't successfully sired a litter since May 2009 but the ol' guy is a permanent retiree here so he gets a doe now and then. Today he had a tryst with a lovely castor doe and I really, really hope that Roger isn't permanently sterile from the heat because it would be an awesome genetic combination. If any of the does actually conceive, we should have babies a few days over a year since the last live litter was born here.

However... I told The Man if I don't get any live litters by summer (when it gets too hot to breed rabbits) then I am going to get out of them completely, save for Roger who will become a house bunny. The rabbit manure has been awesome for the garden though, so I might relent and keep a couple.

The kefir adventure continues

2011-01-17T22:12:00Z

My last batch of kefir was.... well.... AWESOME! The Man doesn't care for ginger ale but was game enough to try it. He pronounced it tastes "just like ginger ale". Heck, even Mom the Gadget Queen tried it and said it tasted good (but flat). And, the grains started expanding. By the time I was ready to start another batch, they had gone from the 2 oz mark on the jar to the 4 oz. I was a bit brave this time and added the grains to about a gallon of sugar water (no ginger this time, going to try a fruit drink next.)

After letting the drained kefir settle, I noticed teeny-tiny grains on the bottom of the glass. I've read one can start a kombucha SCOBY using unpasteurized kombucha tea, so I decided it is time for a kitchen science experiment. I poured the dregs into a jar and added sugar water to see if the grains might grow.

Oh, and just to show that the addiction has taken foot, I just bought some ginger beer plant from a member of the yahoo group of the same name. I want to see how it compares to water kefir.

First Kefir... so-so

2011-01-14T21:43:00Z

I tried the maple syrup kefir yesterday. It tasted OK, but the texture.. let's just say I don't expect something called water to HAVE texture!

For this next batch, I switched back to the Zulka sugar, which is unbleached cane sugar, and also added some peeled ginger root slices. I wrapped in a towel and put in the unheated oven with the light on, just like I did the maple syrup stuff. After about 18 hours I didn't have any bubbles so I added about 1/2 tsp. molasses. That seemed to do the trick, as several hours later I started seeing bubbles. Since I'm roasting pumpkins (to freeze for pie filling) the kefir had to go back in the cabinet, but at least NOW I know it's working.

But BLECH... that texture! I emailed a fellow kefir forum member and asked if her water kefir gets thick and she assured me not at all. At this point, I'm going to assume it was the maple syrup. If this next batch does the same thing, I'll rinse the grains and refrigerate for a couple days then try again with sugar and molasses, or maybe the hunk of jaggery (an unprocessed sugar) I have in the fridge.

They're ALIVE!!!!

2011-01-13T01:19:00Z

I don't know if it was the maple syrup or the 80 degree F in the oven, but my kefir grains are working! Last night I wrapped the jar in a towel and placed in the oven with the light on (no heat of course) and a thermometer. This morning the formerly clear amber water was cloudy. I removed the coffee filter topper and stirred things up a bit. A few hours later I took a peak and I had BUBBLES and even a few floating little grains! I took a little taste and it's still really sweet, but there is definitely another flavor there (not unpleasant I might add.) The fellow I got the grains from said not to let the grains sit more than 48 hours in the same liquid, so I'm not switching them over tonight. Tomorrow I'll put them back in unbleached sugar water and try a secondary fermentation with this, maybe toss in some ginger just to see what happens.

Now I'm starting to get a bit excited and was going to snap a picture, but the water is so cloudy it's really hard to see anything.

The orchard grows but the kefir doesn't

2011-01-12T02:23:00Z

The Man had a busy weekend. He planted my mother's three trees from the Permaculture Guild sale AND the two cherry trees we got from the same sale this weekend. And then, he potted up a peach tree we got from Costco just because he was tired of digging all those holes (he didn't say that but I think that's the reason!)

My water kefir hasn't grown in the past couple days. I tried maple syrup with today's water change, as I watched a Youtube video where the guy used syrup instead of sugar, saying that the kefir grains really grow well with maple syrup. I'm just too impatient I guess! Still, I DID taste the sugar water today after draining the grains, and it definitely did not taste like plain sugar water. It tastes kinda/sorta musty-ish but not nasty or anything.

We'll see what happens. I put the jar in the oven with the light on (gas off though, I don't want to bake the little things!) to see if a slightly warmer environment might be better. I checked the temps in the oven a few days ago, it hovers right around 80 degrees.

Reworking my blog

2011-01-09T17:47:00Z

I've been blogging a bit on a different blog (just for me to see) I decided to bring it back home to this site. I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions as I'm usually doomed to fail the minute I make one. However, I like having a place to post my favorite recipes, successes (and yes, failures) so I can find them when I need them. So, if you've happened to stumble across my little vanity press, don't say you haven't been warned!

My busy day

2011-01-08T15:05:00Z

I was so excited this morning to see how much my water kefir had progressed over night, and was disappointed and concerned when it appeared no different than last night. I emailed the seller, asking how long it would take to see things moving along and he reassured me that it could take several days for the crystals to acclimate and do their little kefir thing. I'm going to change the sugar water every 24 hours, as the seller also suggested I not let it go more than 48 hours in the same solution.

So I got that out of the way. Today was also tree pick up for the Phoenix Permaculture Guild, which was selling fruit trees a few months ago. Since The Man is working today, I went by myself to pick up the bare root trees. Keep in mind, I'm expecting the bare root trees like what one sees in nurseries. You know, the ones with roots packed in wood chips and packed in little plastic bags.

Nope, didn't happen that way. When my order was brought out (two cherry trees and a peach tree for my mother and two cherry trees for us) I was shocked at how BIG they were! The trees were bunched together and the roots wrapped in a burlap bag. The woman who pulled my order asked if I wanted them pruned and I said yes. Even if I hadn't WANTED them pruned (I did by the way) I wouldn't have been able to fit them in the car without them being trimmed. I had parked almost 1/4 mile up the street (there were scores of cars parked on both sides of the street for the pick up, and that was as close as I could get) and quickly realized there was no way I could carry the bulky package to the car. I was told to bring my car right in front of the drive to the pick up point and the people there would help me load the trees. The two folks who loaded the trees for me were able to get them in the front seat, which was great because I had a couple errands to run and was worried that I'd have to go home first to drop off the trees.

Here are the babies. I'm leaving them in the car until we're ready for them tomorrow, as they'll probably be comining out one at a time.

Ah, but my day didn't end there. We have pullets that have been kept in a large cage that could be moved around and into the utility room for protection from the cold. They're growning up so quickly, they've been able to stay outside all night without any problems so I built them a larger pen. I want to build a chicken tractor... one of those long, triangular run type things that can be moved about. We've kept chickens for many years, and I love how well they turn the fallow soil in the garden and clear out weeds in preparation for spring gardening. Up until now we've let chickens have free roam, but lately we've been experiencing a dramatic increase in stray cats in the yard, and I don't really feel comfortable with allowing the ladies to have 24/7 free roaming access any more.

My new adventure... water kefir

2011-01-07T20:52:00Z

I was looking for a recipe for ginger beer and learned that the "authentic" stuff uses a bacteria/yeast culture called ginger beer plant. Over the past few years I've cultured milk kefir, so the whole process sounded pretty familiar. I had learned about water kefir back in my milk kefir days but never thought to give it a try. I probably should have, since no matter which culture I used, I just couldn't warm up to the yeastiness of the milk kefir that was produced.

After reading several glowing descriptions of water kefir as very soda-like in taste and bubbliness, I decided to give it a go, especially when I found several recipes for ginger beer using kefir. I purchased a packet of dried crystals from eBay and am so excited that they arrived today! The seller kindly added instructions; 3/4 of a quart jar filled with non-chlorinated water (I boiled tap water and let it cool) and 1/3 cup organic sugar (I used Zulka, my favorite supermarket brand of the sweet stuff.) The instructions didn't specify whether or not to stir the mix, so I didn't and just poured the crystals into the water.

Boy, do these little buggers move fast! The photo below was taken right after I added the crystals to the unstirred water and sugar. After snapping the picture, I decided to give the jar a bit of a shake and replace the solid plastic lid I originally used with a coffee filter. About an hour later, the layer of crystals looked like they were covered with a thin cloudy later. Some of the crystals developed what looks like cloudy fleshy appendages. Within several hours, the majority of crystals looked fleshy. I'm just waiting for them to start rising and falling.
It's so exciting! The instructions said the first batch of kefir should be discarded, but from there on out it's drinkable. I can hardly wait!

Hades has frozen over

2011-01-01T12:41:00Z

I often refer to Phoenix as being the Devil's summer vacation spot. Well, it froze over. Literally.

The end of 2010 saw freezing temperatures in our fair Valley of the Sun. Yesterday morning, the lawn was dusted with ice crystals and birdbaths were frozen over. I covered the small citrus trees with sheets (the navel and Valencias are too big to cover) as well as the potted avocados, dragon fruit, passion vines and basil plants. The oranges on the outside of the navel tree were harvested, but I left the Valencia to fend for itself. It's around harvest time for the navels so I figure they'll be good, but it's still a few months for the Valencia and I didn't want to deal with seriously unripe fruit. The navel got hit badly by the October hail storms and had lost a good 50% of the crop, mostly the fruit hanging on the outer edges, so there weren't a lot of oranges needing harvesting. The ones that ended up in the kitchen are good; sweet and a welcome treat as we only eat oranges we grow. This means that it's been a good nine months since our last navel orange. Unfortunately the fruit loss means it will be a sparce winter for oranges, until the Valencias come in. Even then, I don't care for Valencias for out-of-hand eating (they make much better juice in my opinion).

My dirty little secret; I don't like gardening!

2010-12-25T14:59:00Z

I admit it, I don't like gardening. Well, maybe not the entire process. It's all about weeding. I can't STAND weeding. It seems like such a waste of time.

To be fair, I don't deal with regular weeds like dandelions, pigweed and spurge. We have BERMUDA GRASS. It grows like wildfire and can take over a garden plot in what seems like just a few hours. And it's virtually impossible to get rid of around here. Not only is the stuff incredibly deep rooted and fast-growing, these features (and it's drought tolerance) make it about the only lawn choice for the summers here. Meaning, everyone in the neighborhood carefully cultivates it. We do too, I'm ashamed to confess. The rabbits and chickens love nibbling on it but it just doesn't taste all that great to me. Why can't there be an edible plant that grows as rampant?

A few months ago we placed an order for two desert-tolerant cherry trees. Last week, we found a beautiful bare root peach tree at Costco. The Man's heart is in orchards, and we've been going back and forth about his expanding tree collection versus my garden (which gets moved every so often to accomodate a new tree.) I'm beginning to see wisdom in this move. If the Bermuda grows around trees, one simply mows or weed whacks 'em out.

With that in mind, the cherry and peach trees will likely go in one of the two open areas of the yard, leaving me with the current garden spot behind the citrus trees.

Are chickens really sustainable in urban homesteading?

2010-11-07T09:27:00Z

It should come as no surprise that there is an increased interest in sustainable urban/suburban living. Those of us lucky enough to have a patch of land under our control are looking for ways to grow at least a bit of our own food. Many are discovering that chickens can be a wonderful addition to the backyard farm. Not only do they lay tasty home-grown eggs, but the birds do an admirable job of keeping insect populations down.

This increased interest in urban chicken wrangling has also given rise to a couple interesting ways of demonstrating how far removed we urban dwellers have become from our food chain.

In an urban setting, one is generally limited to keeping hens in limited quantities. Ads for free roosters can frequently be found on ad forums such as Craigs List with the stipulation that the birds "are not for eating and must be pets". Similarly, many people with hens that are past their laying prime want to replace the birds with younger egg layers and place their retired birds in "forever homes" where they can live out the rest of their lives in a chicken haven.

How sustainable is it when birds we can't have or that have passed their prime must be placed in "forever homes"? It is a lovely idea, but what will happen when those "forever homes" fill up with unwanted roosters and elderly hens? Chickens can live ten years and longer, while their egg-laying potential is highest their first two years or so. Although there are folks who love having a flock of chickens for the pure aesthetics, is it realistic to think there will always be homes willing to take roosters and retired hens and feed them for the rest of their long lives?

In many places, chickens that are not able to fulfill their role in the egg-laying flock are stew-pot bound. It seems to me this is a much more sustainable method of keeping chickens. It DOES add an element that many of us urban dwellers may not yet be ready to accept, and that is death as part of the food chain. I think deep down all of us meat eaters realize that our meat once was living, but we never actually saw the animal before it became dinner. It may be a difficult paradigm to overcome, but for urban chicken keeping to be more sustainable, I think this issue will need to be addressed by every new owner.

My new solar oven!

2010-09-28T19:21:00Z

I first learned about solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com from one of my regular stops, PhoenixPermaculture.org. The poster described a periodic essay contest they run with solar ovens as top prizes. I entered a story about my chicken and rice dish being cooked on the windshield shade cooker and was completely shocked to learn I'd won first prize, a Global Solar Oven!

Being a rather skeptical person, I provided my shipping address as requested on the prize notification and waited for a note telling me I owed some amount of money "for shipping and handling."

Instead, a week or so later, a box was delivered to the house. And in that box was my new pride and joy, my Global Solar Oven!

I've used it only once so far, to cook; you guessed it; chicken and rice. The owner of the site asked for a photo and short story on using my prize, which I happily did.

So here I am with my new oven, and a new favorite site to visit. For anyone seeking a great resource on solar cooking, solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com is a definite must-see. The site has comparative information on several commercially-available solar ovens, stories and recipes as well as selling several brands of cookers, accessories and even reflective film for the do-it-yourselfer. It's very comprehensive in its coverage of solar cooking.

And if they are running an essay contest, give it a shot. You might win a cool prize!

Why people don't eat more veggies

2010-09-26T19:14:00Z

This is a post I made on my favorite forum, HomesteadingToday.com, when someone posted about people not eating enough produce.

I have a theory on why people don't eat more veggies.

If you live in a city (which an awful lot of people do), do you know how difficult it is to get produce that actually TASTES like what it's supposed to be? Any idea how hard it is to get tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, peaches that taste like peaches, strawberries that taste like strawberries? Finding produce that tastes like it's supposed to is incredibly difficult around here.

I had a pretty good stand of tomatoes this year; enough to dehydrate several lbs and freeze several more. We ate tomatoes with EVERYTHING. They tasted NOTHING like store bought; they tasted like TOMATOES. And now the season is over, and I can't bear the thought of eating the storebought ones. I don't care how close the farm is to the store, they still all taste the same; like textured water.

And that's pretty much what everything tastes like; textured water with varying levels of sweet or tart. Everything is raised to look pretty, be ready to pick at the right time (I refuse to use the term ripen) and ship well. Taste, I'm afraid, got lost somewhere along the way a long time ago when it comes to mass cultivation of produce for large markets. When produce tastes so... well... uninspired, why eat it? I remember fruits and veggies tasted a lot different when I was a kid. Heck, it tastes different now than it did 10-15 years ago, probably due to new, more productive/standardized crops being developed. How sad for people who never really get to taste truly ripe, flavorful produce. Can you really blame them for turning up their noses at the beautiful. flavorless stuff that is being passed off to us as "fresh fruits and vegetables"?

I met a woman who grew up in Florida, in a region where tropical fruits were grown but stone fruit was only available at the store. She said she could never understand how anyone could like peaches. She had only had the canned, frozen and grocery store-purchased ones. Someone invited her on a visit to a u-pick peach orchard and she accepted with some trepidation. When she took a bite from a ripe fruit picked right from the tree, the woman said she was absolutely shocked that peaches actually have a taste. They are now a favorite fruit, but only when she can get them fresh off the tree when they're ripe.

And there's the problem. An awful lot of people don't live where they can easily find a wide variety of locally grown produce that has been harvested at it's proper stage of ripeness. Farmers markets are a wonderful concept, but at least around here the produce offered often costs significantly more than the stuff in the grocery store. It's rather disheartening to want to eat locally, then find out the produce is going to cost more per lb than the meat of the meal.

Which brings me back to DH and I. We've decided that taste really DOES matter, and no matter how healthy it's supposed to be, we won't eat it if it tastes like little more than mildly flavored sawdust. Which is unfortunately what we generally have available to us.

Roasting garlic in the solar cooker

2010-08-06T17:56:00Z

I love cooking with garlic, and tend to purchase the stuff by the pound. Fresh off the success with my chicken and rice dish, I decided to try roasting garlic after reading instructions that called for slow roasting.

This time I used a small cast iron skillet (about the size of three fried eggs) and the lid from a small pot that had been a companion to the porcelain over steel one I made the chicken in. I lined the pan with foil and added four garlic bulbs that had the top 1/2" removed. A good drizzling of olive oil over the bulbs, then the foil was gathered up and sealed. After putting on the lid I placed the pan in a smaller oven baking bag and set out in the sun for about an hour.

Ah, heaven!

Awesome orange pie

2009-03-15T20:41:00Z

We have two orange trees. The navel is winding down harvest after three good months and the valencia will be ready in a month or two. Even when we have a light crop, the trees general produce WAY more than we can eat. So, I'm always looking for good orange recipes.

Fresh with the success of my first Key Lime pie, I wanted to try something with oranges and I found the PERFECT recipe at allrecipes.com called Robert E. Lee's Orange Pie. It's supposed to be an old recipe which for me is part of its charm. This delicious pie perfectly captures the taste of fresh-from-the-tree oranges and has so few ingredients that it isn't daunting at all for a pie-baking newbie such as myself. My observations follow the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
3 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 cup orange juice
3 egg whites
6 tablespoons white sugar
1 large orange, sliced in rounds

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (225 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, beat together egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar until mixture is thick and lemon-colored. Add flour, melted butter, grated orange rind, and orange juice. Mix thoroughly, then pour into pastry shell.
Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake an additional 25 minutes, until custard is set.
In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually add 6 tablespoons sugar, continuing to beat until whites form stiff peaks. Spread meringue over pie, covering completely. Return to oven for 10 minutes, until meringue is golden brown. Cool before serving. Garnish with orange slices.

The custard is very runny and I was afraid it wouldn't set so I added a bit more flour and an additional egg yolk (and used the white in the merengue.)

I used a Marie Callender frozen pie crust. The baked custard was not quite 1" deep; not enough filling in my opinion. Next time I make it I'm going to follow the suggestion posted in one of the reviews on allrecipes to double it.

Being a newbie to pie baking I'm not sure if it was something I did or something about the custard, but the bottom of the crust was soggy. The custard wept a bit, which might be what caused the sogginess.

The BEST coleslaw I've ever made!

2009-03-11T02:51:00Z

I'm feeling particularly home-makerish lately, probably because business is slow and I feel guilty about not bringing in as much money. So, I've been cooking The Man's favorite meals. Today grilled chicken and brats with coleslaw were on the menu. I've tried plenty of slaw recipes. Many have been good, a few have been so-so (I've never met a slaw recipe I didn't at least like a little.)

Today, I did an online search for coleslaw recipes. The first result was on About.com's Southern Food site The recipe looked easy enough (really, most slaw recipes are) but most importantly I had most of the ingredients.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/3 cup oil
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1 dash black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large head cabbage, finely shredded

Preparation:

Directions for coleslaw
Blend mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar and oil. Add onion powder, dry mustard, celery salt, pepper, lemon juice, half-and-half and salt. Stir until smooth. Pour coleslaw dressing over shredded cabbage in a large bowl and toss until cabbage is well coated. Keep coleslaw refrigerated. Coleslaw serves 8.

I halved the recipe since there are only two of us and The Gadget Queen had given me a half head of cabbage. I didn't have dry mustard so that obviously got omitted. No celery salt either, but plenty of dried celery that was easily powdered in my mini blender. I put in a lot more powdered celery than 1/8 tsp, but we like the taste so it didn't concern me. I have a container of Mexican limes in the fridge so I used the juice from one of those instead of the lemon juice. And, no half-and-half; I use heavy cream in my coffee so I used that instead.

Boy oh boy, is this stuff GOOD!!!! Most of the recipes I've tried are pretty similar except for the half-and-half/cream, which really made a difference.

I have a "family cookbook" which is actually a spiral notebook that I started when The Man and I got married 20 years ago. I very rarely add anything to it, as the recipes are all things I really liked, but this one is DEFINITELY going in.

Dough-Nu-Matic

2009-01-22T03:20:00Z

Mom the Gadget Queen wanted to try something different. Knowing The Man has a weakness for donuts, she ordered this donut maker from her favorite catalog store, JC Penneys (this photo is from their website, JCP.com)

Called the "Dough-Nu-Matic", this entertaining device drops blobs of vaguely donut-shaped little balls of dough from the grey hopper on the upper left of the machine into a trough of hot oil. The nuggets float through the trough and are ejected at the opposite end.

It was supposed to be a surprise for The Man so, when the machine's eagerly anticipated arrival finally happened, I finessed him up to the Gadget Queen's house for a donut fest.

The machine set up quickly and the oil heated rapidly. I made dough following a recipe that came in the accompanying booklet and we stood there, watching in wonder as the dough blob plopped into the oil, traveled down the trough and was niftily scooped out and deposited into the awaiting bowl. Ah, technology at its tasty finest!

We watched the next blob of dough drop into the oil and were suddenly greeted by an ominous grating sound. The scoop portion of the machine (it's the rounded section opposite the dough hopper) quit moving; it is this part that creates the gentle current of the oil that moves the donuts along. The second donut sat motionless like a boat cast adrift on a still ocean. It took me a few moments to figure out how to open the top in order to retrieve the little thing. After unplugging the machine to let the oil cool, we took a closer look and discovered the problem.

The donut maker is driven by a plastic chain that, as it rotates within the machine, coordinates the dropping of donut blobs from the hopper and the scooper on the other side. The chain had somehow popped off a sprocket somewhere and we couldn't figure out how to reseat it. The accompanying booklet specified that all service problems had to go through the seller, so I called Penneys to find out what we could do. Our options were to return for refund or return for exchange. The magic moment has passed, the Gadget Queen and I were so disappointed that our long-planned surprise went bust that we opted to return the machine.

I've read good reviews of the Dough-Nu-Matic and I can believe that this doodad could be a lot of fun, but with the experience of failure within a few minutes of our first use, I just couldn't see trying again. We've been looking for something similar but made with sturdier material, but have had little luck except for the commercial version that pops out something like 200 dozen tiny donuts an hour. Since that volume simply isn't in our diet plans, we've decided to bypass it for now and just find different ways to satisfy The Man's donut cravings.

In Loving Memory of Ringo

2009-01-20T01:23:00Z

Ringo, at almost 14 years of age, was laid to rest today. He was our first show dog and The Man's "best buddy". We first met Ringo when he was three days old. The breeders (who became very good friends) had told us we could have one of the pups but we wouldn't know which one until they were older. The Man fell in love with the little blue and white squirmworm that first day and even got to name him. He chose Ringo because the puppy had a wide white splash across most of his neck, almost a complete ring. Hence, Ringo. His official name, Little Drummer Boy, was a nod to the musical aspect of his name. Despite being admonished not to get too attached, we just fell in love with the little guy and the breeders finally relented and let us bring him home when he was about 4-6 months old.

Ringo's show career was fairly short, as he won quickly. Always a consummate showman, Ringo knew all eyes were on him in the ring and he basked in the attention. His most exciting win was Best of Breed over the Italian Greyhound that had taken the breed at the prestigious Westminster show only a few months prior.

Our little "Dingo" as I called him, loved his pack; dog and people alike. His most favorite thing in the whole world was to have his neck rubbed. It sometimes drove the other dogs to distraction because he didn't really care WHO or WHAT did the rubbing!

For the past year we and Ringo had been waging war on the cancer that was taking its toll. We knew our efforts were not going to defeat the disease, but only provide comfort for our little guy. Nike's passing, discussed earlier, seemed to impact him greatly. She was the canine love of his life and he felt her absence the most among our dogs. When he took a turn for the worse we knew it was time to let Ringo go, to join Nike and Majerle and all of our other animal companions that have preceded him. We stayed with him, stroking his head and telling him how much we loved him while the wonderful, compassionate vet and his staff administered the shot that freed him from his pain.

Ringo was a perfect dog. No one could have asked for a more loving and dedicated companion. If, in the hereafter a dog is judged by his character and the love he gave his people, Ringo will certainly be deemed a prince among dogs.

Chamber of commerce weather!

2009-01-17T03:54:00Z

It was absolutely GORGEOUS today! Shorts and teeshirt weather for sure (though that doesn't say much as I usually wear shorts and teeshirts nearly year 'round.) A clear, cloudless sky and warm weather that flirts with spring... just awesome all the way around. Except for the pollution. I really wanted to spend some time outdoors, but I had too much work that kept me glued to the computer. I really need to get the laptop a battery so I can sit outside...