YouTube Video: A Super-Material You Can Make In Your Kitchen (Starlite?)

Today a bit of chemistry and engineering that took my fancy. I have read about Starlite before, and I always wondered what it was made of. It would be swell if it could be made to actually work on big scale.

There are other materials that have similarly amazing insulating properties – aerogels – but they are brittle and a pain in the arse to make at home (i tried, and failed).

I am already thinking about how to use this in knifemaking.

Oh and sorry for being so quiet, but I was away for almost a week without internet and I am still catching my breath after getting back to work after.

It’s the season! Making bird food.

One of the secret to great tit pics is to feed them well. You can buy “tit balls”, but for several reasons I prefer to make my own.

The first is that they are relatively expensive, costing around 30 to 50 ct apiece. More importantly, they are usually in a green plastic mesh that can get lost and end up in nature. They’re quick and easy to make, so if you want to try your hand at them, here’s how to.

I use some silicone baking forms for this. the small Gugelhupf forms are the best, since they have a hole in the middle already, but I only have four of them. Standard muffin forms work nicely as well. What you absolutely need is some ring as a centre for the suet to stick to, otherwise they will fall apart after the first pecks. I just use some rattan, but anything goes.

I just fill them halfway with birdseed and then add the ring.

Those that don’t have something to form a hole need something to make that, otherwise hanging them up gets difficult. I use some straws or an ice cream stick.

Birdseed popsicles

Finally I just fill them with suet. Don’t be shy, the birds won’t mind some extra. Now all I have to do is wait for them to get hard again and the next two weeks are covered.

Filled up with important winter calories.

I know there are controversions about whether or not to feed birds in winter, but one undeniable advantage is that we get a lot of organic fertiliser…

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

We had sunshine today! It didn’t last long and by the time Jack and I got outside it had gone behind the clouds again, but I saw it. And it was a grand, blinking beacon of hope in the long tunnel of winter. This photo was taken at Pittock Lake. It’s part of a water management system and the water level in the lake is lowered every year over the winter. During the rest of the year the water line is up near the trees. Normally what little water remains in January is frozen over, but so far not much has been normal about this winter. You can just see the dam on the horizon line at the right.

Tummy Thursday: Gumbo or what makes an easy meal

Since I told you all in depth about our New Years Eve dinner, here’s the recipe for my American main course.

I searched the internet for a gumbo recipe that seemed doable and delicious and then had a trial cooking.

The first problem was to get some sausage that resembles Andouille. As you can see at that link, there is a sausage called anduille in France, but it sounds very different from the creole version and actually I detest it. I decided to go with smoked polish sausage that was very hearty, but did not have caraway seed (Eastern European sausages often have generous amounts of caraway seed and I don’t like that either). I think it made a great substitute and got used both times.

Next was the okra. I had never used okra before, and I even went to a Turkish supermarket to get some fresh okra especially for this, but, let me tell you, they aren’t called “slime fruit” in German for nothing. The little “stars” looked nice, but I don’t think they added much taste and really, I can do without the added consistency of slime, so they got left out the second time.

I changed the seasoning somewhat, leaving out the “hot sauce” but adding a “Cajun” spice and pepper mix that I quite like and the result was simply to die for.

gumbo

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is the trial version before i added the shrimp.

Making the gumbo got me thinking of how the idea of “easy meal” probably changed with women’s work shifting to the outside (I hate the insinuation that housewives “didn’t work”. I want to to see those people scrub the laundry). I can imagine that for a woman who had to do all the chores and probably some farming on the side, this gumbo would have been an “easy meal”. Sure, the roux requires a bit of your attention, but you can use that time to chop your veggies. Then you just hang it high above the fire or put it on the side of the wood stove and go about your day and do your work, while the meal is cooking itself. And you can make a big serving and don’t have a lot of dishes afterwards. Perfect meal for getting your family through a busy workday.

Nowadays, the idea of making something that needs to stew for three hours screams “festive meal” to any person who work outside.

 

Wednesday Wings: Hunting Kinglets

Kinglets, or more specifically goldcrests, are the prettier cousins of our common wrens. They aren’t exactly shy birds, although they don’t like too many people in the woods, but they move fast in an area with lots of bushes and twigs. I know a spot where I have good chances of spotting them. Taking their picture? The work of Sysiphus… The big lens needs a lot of light and the autofocus needs time. Given the terrain, chances are good that the bird is long gone once it has found that particular twig*.

So here are my results of several hunts.

kinglet

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The best shot, though I don’t recommend “click for full size”. It is grainy, since the ISO went through the roof, but shooting birds at less than 1/125 is impossible anyway.

*I could still bite my own ass for not having waited a few months longer until I had enough money to buy the “sports” version…

And now for a whole row of “I should have put superglue on the branches”…

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Speaking of Gratitude…

Beautiful, delicious and all gone.

A few days ago I posted about the resin horse that Giliell sent me, but I didn’t tell you about the rest of the package. Giliell also sent me a box of home-made cookies and, Oh My but they were good. It doesn’t show up well in the photo, but the chocolate cookies were dusted with gold. The waffers come from a recipe of Giliell’s grandmother and they were so pretty. The ‘S’ shaped cookies are just like the ones my German grandmother made and they brought me a flood of warm, happy memories from childhood.

Origami and a pair of adorable llamas

There were lots of other surprises too. Origami ornaments and a pair of adorable llamas. Ha! Not just on the card, but the whole damn llama stamp set. What a great idea.

Look! I can make llama art.

Birds are just so Affinity and they don’t come with more personality than these 2 fellows.

Birds of a feather to keep me company.

I saved the best for last. Giliell has made me an undersea world in a bottle, which I love. It’s madly creative and also came with a flood of memories, this time of my happy place by The Gulf of St. Lawrence on the beach in Perce.

An undersea adventure world.

Giliell, you’re incredibly talented and I thank you so much for the treasures. To all of you who’ve seen Giliell’s wonderful baking, I can tell you it tastes as good as it looks.

 

 

Jack’s Walk

Minion down, ©voyager, all rights reserved

This is a bit of a pensive Jack’s Walk. 2018 was a long difficult year and now that it’s over I’ll tell you that I feel winded by it all. The loss of Caine hit me hard, it hit all of us hard, and it seemed after that that things kept piling on. Personally, mother-in-law was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had her right kidney removed. Mr. V’s heart condition worsened and the swelling in his legs caused calf ulcers that won’t heal. My mother developed congestive heart failure and refused to take the medicine because she didn’t want the inconvenience of peeing out all the extra fluid (Mom can be a pip.) Jack had a big, expensive surgery and a very close friend was diagnosed with liver failure. She’s still waiting to see the specialist, but it’s likely she will need a liver transplant. Sometime during all of that (between August and December) I developed shingles. That’s not new, I get shingles a few times a year, but this time they’ve persisted. One patch clears up and another erupts. It’s enough to make you feel like the minion above. Face planted.

Time has already fixed a few things. My mother-in-law is thriving after surgery. She’s 92, lives alone and is as active as any 50-year-old. She bakes, she cleans, she irons, she walks and she even has a new beau who sends her little notes and flowers. My mother now has a catheter in place and she’s gotten rid of all the extra fluid with no peeing required. Jack is happier than ever now that Larry (the lump) is gone. His gait is as good as it was when he was young and he prances when he’s happy. Mr. V has only one small ulcer left to heal. That may take some time, but it’s definitely improving. His heart is stable and still as beautiful as ever.

And look. That minion might be down, but he isn’t out. He’s still got his wind and even more importantly he still has friends. How lucky. Me too. This past year something profound happened in my life and that is Affinity. I’ve been around since the beginning, but I lurked. I just didn’t feel confident enough to participate. Caine kept encouraging me, though, and so I finally joined the comments and even sent in a photo or two. When she became ill I was still fairly new to all of you, but I wanted to help Caine so I took the chance and stepped forward and what I found was a community who welcomed me. All of you have added to my life.

So last year brought some very good things, too. Like all years I suppose, with their measures of bad and good not always equal, but always both. I try to focus on the good because I prefer to live in gratitude. So, this seems like the proper place to end with Jack and I both looking at the pluses of life and prancing into 2019.

Tree Tuesday

Nightjar has sent us some fabulous photos of the fully fruited-Persimmon trees near where she lives.

These are some photos from local persimmon trees. As you can see, as of December 23 all leaves have fallen but the fruits remain on the trees. Most haven’t fully ripened yet and are showing no signs of falling. This is unusual for this time of the year, persimmon season should be over by now. I have no explanation for it, but the result is many alternative “Christmas trees” around the village, naturally decorated with unconventional orange balls. I think they look amazing right now and I thought you would enjoy them too.

Yes, Nightjar, I am enjoying them and so will everyone else. Thanks.

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

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Walking in a Winter Wonderland, part 6

In the morning of the 26th, we went for a walk in “our” woods, in the afternoon we visited my parents. I was saddened to see that some asshole had taken great pains to actually tie their plastic waste to the trees. There won’t be pics of that. We walked to the nearby fishing pond and back, bringing back childhood memories of walks with my grandparents.

sunset

©Giliell, all rights reserved

There wasn’t a lot of light that day, it was all foggy, but that pond is high enough to catch a glimpse of sunlight over the fog.

pond

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Just use a wide angle lens and low light and the Norwegian fjords can go fuck themselves.

pond

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Same pond, just from the opposite side.

pond

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The smaller pond was frozen over.

 

 

Everything’s Coming Up Rainbows

Well, maybe not everything is coming up rainbows, but a rainbow does seem like a pretty damned fine way to start the new year and thanks to Lofty I can make that happen. This photo

goes back to the end of our southern winter, the best season for bike riding in the rain shadow side of our little mountain range.

Absolutely breathtaking, Lofty. Thanks.©Lofty, all rights reserved

So, Welcome 2019. May this rainbow set the tone for things to come.

 

A Long 2018

To finish off the year, I’d like to share a song that probably all of you have heard at least once before (if not many times), in the spirit of Giliell’s Soundtrack of Your Life series (see episodes here, here, here and here) and voyager’s original soundtrack post.

The Counting Crows have been among my favourite bands since grade 7 or so, and while I don’t listen to them nearly as often as I used to, I find I see their lyrics and angst in all kinds of different ways, depending on life stages and life events. Many of their songs have followed me through darker times, but have also given me pleasure during happier times.

While they have several songs I can listen to again and again, one of my all-time favourites is A Long December, although this year I have to disagree with the sentiment that ‘maybe this year will be better than the last’. In a global sense, that is – personal life will continue on in various ways, and professional aspects currently are tending towards some serious development. But! We shall see. In any case, I find the relevance of the sentiment – a not-particularly-celebratory feeling at the turning of the year – to be pretty much universal during all the new years I’ve had since mid-high school.

Also, here’s a happy crayfish who just received five worms before being released back into the pond (back in October). May all your 2019s be so fortunate.

©rq, all rights reserved.