The Second Half

Mystery Men

Normally when I've got a cold/flu/or other illness for which rest is recommended, I pop in my DVD of the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle as the spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the handsome Colin Firth as the dashing Fitzwilliam Darcy, and settle in for a good, long rest.  Last night, however, I deviated from this routine and watched an installment of a new-to-me TV mystery, Case Histories, on Masterpiece Mystery.  From the show link:

Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, The Patriot) stars as private investigator Jackson Brodie, the tough former soldier and policeman with a heart of gold, in this series based on the acclaimed novels by Kate Atkinson. Brodie, haunted by a past family tragedy, struggles to balance his personal and professional life while coming to the rescue of the bereaved, the lost and the dysfunctional in the Scottish city of Edinburgh.

While they mention Brodie's heart of gold, they neglect to mention Isaacs's pecs of steel which, I assure you, are integral plot points.

And where did I find this image, you ask?  Why, through a Google image search for "'jason isaacs' topless", which led me to none other than the PERVS R US tumblr site.  Their motto:  "We objectify hot men and don't feel ashamed!"  So, uh, yeah, I like watching the show as much as I like watching the show, if you know what I mean.

Actually, I do like the show.  Jackson Brodie, the main character, is ex-army and ex-cop.  He's now a PI in Edinburgh.  He has a penchant for getting involved with oddball types, probably due at least in part to his heart of gold.  I do like an odd character and the British seem to do odd very well.  Good characters also in his secretary, his former colleague on the police force and his young daughter.  His ex-wife so far has been a bit one dimensional, but we may not see much of her anyway.

He also seems to have a knack for being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, i.e., coincidences are a bit frequent.  I'd prefer to see the coincidental stuff come about via other, more credible means, but that's a small quibble at the moment.

The series is based on author Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series.  How do I not know about this series?  I shall have to remedy that situation asap.  The first series was only 3 episodes long, although the episodes were longer than other Masterpiece Mystery shows.  I'll guess they were each originally split into two episodes.  I hope they make more episodes.

I think I can safely say that I enjoy all of Masterpiece Mystery's offerings.  Wait.  I wasn't too keen on Geraldine McEwan's Miss Marple.  I know that's blasphemy to her fans, but there it is.  My favorite Miss Marple was, of course, Joan Hickson.  She set the Marple bar very high.  I do like the current Miss Marple, Julia McKenzie. 

But back to the men:  I loved Mystery's Inspector Morse series and lamented the deaths of the character and John Thaw, who played Morse.  Mystery has since produced the Inspector Lewis series, starring Morse's former lackey, Inspector Lewis, and Lewis's lackey, DS Hathaway.  Now, the Lewis character doesn't do much for me, but the Hathaway character does.  Hathaway is played by Laurence Fox, who looks quite a bit different from Brodie, in that the former looks like quite the long drink of water:

I like that he seems very comfortable in his long, thin body and that is attractive in itself.  As an aside, I liked how Kristen Johnson seemed very comfortable using her body in 3rd Rock from the Sun.  Hathaway is calm, thoughtful and quietly funny.  He's intelligent and his education and status as an ex-seminary student provide him with knowledge the average person, and certainly Lewis, doesn't have.  In that way, he reminds me a bit of Morse.

Speaking of Morse, I read on Mystery's website that Masterpiece will air a new Morse series in 2012, a Morse prequel to be exact:

Shaun Evans Plays Young Endeavour Morse

A prequel of the long-running series Inspector Morse — titled Endeavour — will air on Masterpiece mystery! in 2012, marking the 25th anniversary of the series' 1987 premiere. Shaun Evans (Ashes to Ashes) will play the younger version of Colin Dexter's iconic character. Set in 1965, the story follows the hunt for a missing schoolgirl, which draws Endeavour Morse back to the place that will define his destiny: Oxford.

Well, I am definitely looking forward to that series.  (Morse's first name is "Endeavour", although his character keeps that quiet for most of the series.)

And now it's time for me and my tissue box to head off to bed.  'Night!

FO Friday: Figheadh Yarnworks Fundamental Junior Vest #2

FO Friday refers to Finished Object Friday, a meme started by a Ravelry user.  It gives bloggers an excuse to blog about the fiber crafts they've finished.  (There's also a WIP [Work in Progress] Wednesday, to blog about one's fiber crafts in progress.)

Earlier this year, I posted about a vest I knit for our niece Kristen's 3rd birthday.  It's Figheadh Yarnworks Fundamental Junior Vest.  The Plan was to knit the vest for half of our nieces's birthdays (the other half of the bunch get Ysolda Teague's Damson shawl).

So that means I also knit a vest for Sofia, who also turned 3 this year.  Here's the front:

 
And here's the back:

 
This time I knit it with Cascade Yarns 128 Superwash in color #893 on size US 9 needles.

I've also been knitting the Damson shawl for nieces Ashley and Gabi.  I'll have posts up about them soon.

The next recipient of the vest will be Sydney.  I made the vest a little longer for Sofia; I think I'll add some length to it for Sydney, too.  The pattern doesn't look like it's supposed to be very long; looks like it comes to the waist, but I'd like it a little longer.  It looks kinda stubby otherwise.

One thing I'd like to figure out for next time is how to get the collar back to lay flat.  It didn't do that on the first one; just on this one.  I did use a different bind off for the collar on each of the two I've made so far.  Don't know if that has anything to do with it.

I'll use a new-to-me yarn for hers: another from Cascade, Pacific in color #17.  I first saw it at Finger Lakes Fibers in Watkins Glen, NY when I was there for their Finger Lakes Fiber Tour.  That was a ton o' fun, btw.  Several other Tourists mentioned that they'd used Pacific and were very pleased with how it felt while working it up, how it looked on the final product and how it washed (all the yarns I use for kids' projects are superwash, i.e., machine wash and dry).  I'm looking forward to trying a new yarn.

Friday Cat Blogging: Sunning

The sun has made some furtive appearances in the last few days and the cats are all over any chance of sunning themselves.  Here's Lizzie in the window:

 
And here's Ed getting some of that solar action:

 
It was still humid when I took these pictures; it's since cooled down which means the cats can sun themselves and take in some nature smells.  Mmmmm.

Chickens: Scaly Leg Mites

Ick.  The chickens had scaly leg mites earlier this year.  Actually, I think only Michelle and Sandy had them; Stephanie looked good, although we treated her as well.

Scaly leg mites.  I'm feeling itchy just thinking about them.  The mites live under the scales on chickens' legs.  The legs then get irritated and this irritation pushes up the scales, making the scales raise up rather than lying flat as in healthy legs.  I think it might bother the chickens, too, since Michelle -- who seemed to have it the worst -- would scratch at one leg with the other leg.

I think this is Michelle in this picture:

 
We were leaving for vacation about a week after spotting the mites.  Actually, we never saw the mites; they're too small for that.  We just saw evidence of their existence.  We wanted to hit the mites hard before leaving for vacation so that our chicken sitter didn't have to deal with them.

Here's another picture of gross chicken legs:

 
One treatment is to do the following once a week for several weeks.  Since we wanted to really whack the mites out of existence quickly, we did this for several days in a row before leaving for vacation:

1. Scrub the legs with warm water and a brush.  We used warm water and a toothbrush.
2. Dry the legs.
3. Coat the legs with vegetable oil or petroleum jelly.  We used oil once, but switched to petroleum jelly for the remaining applications.
4. Clean the coop/run/foraging area.
5. Apply mite deterrents, e.g., food safe diatemaceous earth to the coop/run/foraging area.

The way this works is that the oil/jelly suffocates the mites, which is pretty gross if I think about it so I don't think about it much.  It did seem to work as they looked much better before we left for vacation and even more improved by the time we got back a week later.

Improvement can be slow, though, and it can take up to a year for the scales to grow back.  That's not a problem for the chickens.

For comparison, I believe this is Stephanie in this picture; her legs never appeared affected, but it made sense to treat her as well:

 
The treatment was a problem for the chickens in that they didn't seem to care much for being snatched, having their feet scrubbed with a brush and then having them coated with petroleum jelly.  It helped that we did it at night, after they'd put themselves to bed already.  Chickens are dopey and slow when they're going to bed, asleep and getting up so it's a good time to snatch them for treatment, to move them, etc....basically, most any kind of handling.

The mites thrive in wood so many chicken keepers find that their wood coops are the source of the problem.  This was not the case for us bc we have the plastic Omlet Eglu coop.  I can't be sure, but I think the problem was either wood mulch and/or woody yard debris that ended up in the compost pile.

See, we got the chickens in fall, 2010.  We let them roam the yard over winter.  Sure, they crapped everywhere, but we weren't frolicking in the yard in our bare feet over winter anyway.  Come spring, we confined them to a corner of the yard so that we could frolic in the yard in our bare feet.  Their new area had wood mulch in it.  Also, we decided to put the compost pile in the chickens's area so that a) they could enjoy rooting around in it and b) they would aerate it for us.  The scaly leg mite business coincided with their new living quarters; that's why I think something in their newly confined environment (the wood) allowed them to get mites.

If you do have a wood coop, the suggestion is to thoroughly clean and treat the coop (which I did anyway, even though our coop isn't wood); remove and destroy any bedding, shavings, etc.; there are sprays you can use on the coop and/or birds; you can also sprinkle food safe diatemaceous earth around the coop/run/foraging area to help stave off mites.

• 3 Steps to Treating Scaly Leg Mites from My Snazzy Chicken Coop
• Scaly leg mites chickens (especially posts from "velvet_sparrow")from iVillage Garden Web
• Scaly Leg Mites and Parasitic Diseases from Miss. State Univ. Ext. Service

That's probably more than you ever wanted to know or see about scaly leg mites in chickens.  You're welcome.

 

Friday Cat Blogging: Two Peas in Their Cozy Pods

The kits have so many beds strewn about the house, yet they seem to each have their favorites.  It varies seasonally, too.  The knit wool one is a favorite of all during cool weather.  The beds in general are less popular during hot weather or when the heat's on.  They love roasting themselves on the radiator covers during winter.

This picture is of Dolly and Lizzie in their respective beds, or "boo boo beds", as they've come to be known.  Nothing to do with boo boos/injuries; it's just a term the doctor used once and it stuck.  I think they also like that these beds offer a bit more privacy, seeing as they're tucked onto the coffee table's bottom shelf.

 

Friday Cat Blogging: Stormy & Kits, Guest Cats

This past summer, a stray cat showed up at my ILs' (Jack and Fern) house.  A very pregnant stray cat.  She promptly settled in (with a little encouragement and housewarming on Jack and Fern's part) to a cozy spot in a small, intimate entryway between interior and exterior doors.  She had her kittens within a couple of days of arrival.  Unfortunately, one kitten did not survive, but six did.  Her she is with her kittens:

 
And here's a pile of fresh kittenhood:

 
The requisite shot of the kits having a snack:

You can't tell from the photos, but apparently Momcat is small, ~5 lbs.  You can tell that she looks exhausted and, dare I say it, catatonic?  The kittens have all been placed in homes and Momcat -- since named Stormy -- has been vetted, spayed, etc.  Turns out Stormy is a very sweet, affectionate cat.  Jack and Fern hope to keep her, but the resident cats, Misty and Willow, and Stormy have yet to reach An Understanding.

Some cats take to other cats (seemingly) effortlessly, but I'll guess that the majority of cats need adjustment time.  We've been pretty lucky with our cats' introductions.  How we've introduced new cats depends on their history.  E.g., we adopted the late, great Nosey at 1.5 yo.  He had been with a shelter (or the shelter's foster parent) for almost that entire time.  Bco some health problems, he had an extensive medical history with lots of tests being performed.  Bc we knew so much about his health status, we didn't feel it was as important to keep him separated from the resident cats for health reasons.

We weren't sure about interpersonal (you know what I mean) reasons, i.e., would he and the other cats get along?  So we confined him the first night he was here.  We let him out for a supervised meet-and-greet with the others the next day and things went so well that he was out ever since.  He even began sleeping in his usual spot (between our pillows) that first night out.

Wrt all the other new cats that joined us after our first three ("The Originals": Archie [deceased], Dolly and Smudge [deceased]), there was always a confinement period.  When Stashy and Clara (both deceased) joined us, they were confined for several months in the kitchen.  Although we adopted them from the same shelter as The Originals, there was a four year gap in between adoptions.  We asked for and covered certain tests before going ahead with the adoption of Stashy and Clara.  Part of their confinement period was to allow time for illnesses to develop that might have been missed with those first tests, so they were retested a couple of months into their confinement.  After about 6 months and successful testing, we began integrating them in with The Originals.

It helped that the kitchen doors look like French doors, i.e., they're almost all glass.  They were able to see and smell each other the whole time.  We did a lot of the usual suggestions, e.g., trade the different parties' bedding so that they get used to the smell of the other cats.

It also helped that Stashy was particularly affable and that Clara stuck to Stashy's side.  The Originals were pretty easygoing, although there was never any question that Archie was alpha cat.  We didn't realize how old Stashy was at first, but it turned out that he had neither the energy nor the inclination to stage a coup d'etat.

We did pretty much the same thing when introducing Edison, Miles, Lizzie and Pinchita, except that Pinchi's testing turned up feline leukemia, so she remains confined to Kevin's Man Room.

Even though some of the cats were confined for several months, the introductions that finally took place went fairly well.  Edison is on Prozac, mainly for inappropriate urination, but also bc he was sometimes overly aggressive towards other cats.  Right now he's Top Cat and in fine physical form; none of the other cats can physically match him at the moment and he could be a bit much for the others.  He seems sensitive to changes in the feline social stratum, i.e., it seems stressful for him, so we're not keen on adding cats to the resident population.  We don't want him to stress him further or need to up his meds.

I think Miles and Lizzie would be fine with other cats.  Lizzie especially seems open to other cats.  I think Pinchita would also be fine with others cats.  She socialized with other strays in Aruba, but her contagious illness prevents her from being with our uninfected cats.

Dolly's 17 yo and I'm afraid she probably won't make it to 2012.  I think it would definitely be stressful for her if we were to add another cat to the mix so that's another excellent reason for not increasing the feline population here.

So, for the time being, no new cats until (and if) Edison can handle it.

FYI, here are some links about introducing cats to each other:

• Introducing New Cats to Other Pets from the HSUS
• Introducing Your Cat to a New Cat from the ASPCA
• Introducing  a New Cat from 4Paws Rescue Team

 

Greetings

A few weeks ago, Kevin and I went to see Bob Dylan at Convention Hall in Asbury Park.   Leon Russell opened.  I have to admit that I didn't really know what to expect.  I've never seen Dylan or Russell live in concert and never paid attention to either's live concert "reputation".

It was a rainy night (like so many nights recently) and the drive down was kinduva drag, but, hey, at least it was an indoor concert!  (I've taken to seeing Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes at their yearly Stone Pony concert around July 4th.  It's an outdoor show and, fortunately, Mother Nature has cooperated [so far] with the weather for every show I've attended.  One of these years, it's gonna be ugly.)

Convention Hall is small enough that a show there feels relatively intimate.  Nearer a club than a stadium or the like.  I swear that, when I first saw the show advertised, it was scheduled for The Paramount.   That's a neat venue and, assuming I wasn't imagining things when I thought it was originally scheduled for The Paramount, I would've preferred to see the show there.  But it was not to be (and perhaps never was).

Anyway, Russell opened the show.  I can't say I'm well versed on Leon Russell, but since the show I've learned just how prolific one man can be.  Since I've never seen him before, I can't offer any comparisons to previous peformances, tours, etc.  He and his band offered a tight, upbeat set.  It was a fun set, too, in that the band seemed to be having fun and the audience seemed into it as well.

I enjoyed Dylan's show.  Again, no basis for comparison to other shows of his (for some, comparing artists across shows seems to be the thing to do).  Actually, I'm glad I wasn't really aware of either Russell or Dylan's live performance reputations as it allowed me to just go see the show without any preconceived notions or expectations.  Anyway, there was much to like about the show.  The mix of songs.  His band.  His own performance.  His energy.  The audience's energy back at him.  All in all, I thought it was a good show with a lot of positive energy that made it fun.

We had hoped to get to AP in time to have dinner somewhere, but we made it just in time to get to our seats as Russell was starting up.  The small size of the venue makes most seats pretty decent seats.  (There were floor/general admission tickets, but I went with regular seating bc I'm vertically challenged.)

I do like going to see shows and do things in Asbury Park.  It's fun, it's relatively easy to get to, it's not far at all and it's a user friendly city.  I'll write again about another trip I took to AP, shortly after this concert, with a couple of friends on a Girls' Day Out.  We made a pit stop in Red Bank, which looks to be another good place to have fun.

Canning: Strawberry Jam

So this year I decided to try my hand at canning.  For my first attempts, I decided to try easy stuff: canning fruit jams and some tomatoes.  Not sure if I'll can plain tomatoes or can tomato stuff like salsa, sauce, etc.  This year, I'll only do recipes that can be done in a water canner.  I'll leave pressure cooker canning for another time.

Earlier this summer I jumped in with that classic, strawberry jam.  The recipe came from The Art of Preserving.

 
It's a beautiful book.  It's got a good number of recipes, but it's certainly not a treasure trove of recipes.  There is also the occasional non-canning recipe sprinkled throughout the book; these recipes incorporate the end products of some of the preserve recipes.

I borrowed this book from the library.  I might use it again, but for now I'm relying on the classic Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (just received my very own copy, courtesy of Kevin, in the mail today!).   This book seems to be the basic bible for canners and it's certainly a good choice for beginners.

Anyway, back to my jam.  The recipe called for strawberries, of course, but it also called for some cherries, all of which I got at the local farmers' market.  Maybe the cherries are to add some tartness?

 
Then I chopped up the strawberries:

 
Pitted and roughly chopped the cherries.

 
I think I then added the sugar, but I definitely let the fruit sit overnight in the fridge.

 
Added some lemon juice along the way:

 
No pectin in this recipe, as was the case with many of the recipes in this cookbook.   There's also instructions for making your own pectin, but it strikes me as too time consuming to be worth the effort.

Put the fruit/sugar/lemon juice mixture on to heat:

 
Brought it to a full rolling boil:

 
Filled clean, sterilized jars and left them to cool overnight:

 
Cooled and labelled the next day:

 
Side view:

 
I ended up with fewer jars than the recipe states.  I think that's mainly due to the fact that I cooked the stuff for way longer than the recipe called for.  It said about 10 minutes or until it thickens.  Well, it took a lot longer to thicken than 10 minutes.  And it never did pass a gel test successfully, but I wasn't going to cook it forever so I called it quits at 45 minutes.

Taste test!

 
Thumbs up!  It was a little runny, but it worked as jam and I did like the taste.  I like getting a bite of cherry mixed in there with the strawberry.

That's one of the reasons why I started with jams; they're pretty forgiving.  I made a plum jam from that same book and it didn't set well.  It's a lousy jam, but it's a nice plum syrup for ice cream and the like.  I'm thinking of using it in a coffee cake or cheesecake.

Since these first jams (the strawberry and the less successful plum), I've used the Ball book and made:

• mixed berry jam - forget what berries were in this; used the small batch of pectin to make a couple of jars of jam; it was good
• orange plum jam - haven't tasted this yet; it uses orange zest and optional orange liqueur (for which I opted)
• mango blackberry jam - haven't tasted this yet either (I can only eat so much jam, people); the recipe called for blueberry, but blueberries were past so I went with what was available, blackberries
• peach jam - a couple of batches; made one batch with liquid pectin; not sure I like the liquid pectin; the recipe with the liquid pectin used the same amount of peaches, but ~2 cups more sugar; also, the only time I got floating fruit was with the liquid pectin, although the last couple of jars I filled floated less; maybe the thing to do is to let it sit a couple of minutes before filling jars; I like the end result of the powdered pectin peach jam much better than the one that uses the liquid pectin
• golden plum jam - haven't tasted this yet either

Tomatoes are coming in now so I'll have those to try soon.  Maybe this weekend.  Many of the tomato recipes call for a food mill or the like, which I did not have...until today!  I got this one on ebay (that link will rot soon) and it arrived today. 

I looked for an old one (in red, of course) bc I did not like the looks of new ones.  See that handle?  That kind of handle drives me nuts.  I used a spatula with a handle like that to stir some jam while heating the other day and it annoyed me in a spatula.  I can't imagine that it's comfortable to hold on to that while trying to push tomatoes through the mill.  Plus, I expect the old one to last longer than the new one.  Now that I have the mill, I no longer have any excuses to avoid canning tomato stuff. 

Friday Cat Blogging: Undercover Cat

 

 

Pinchita likes to snuggle under the covers.  Here she's snuggling between Kevin's legs and under a blanket.  Football season's started and this is how Kevin and Pinchi will spend much of their time together over the next few months. 

Long Time Away

Wow.  Well, it has been a long time since I last posted.  I really don't know what all happened, that is, I can't really pinpoint anything that kept me away (e.g., I didn't break all my fingers), but I'm glad to be back.

Sometimes it just seems like the world takes off from me rather speedily and, before I know it, a chunk o' time has passed, yet where am I in relation to where I was before the world took off?  That is, I don't feel like I've done anything, achieved anything.  Now I feel a bit like I did in this post from my old blog, i.e., where I'm pulling back into myself, creating a buffer zone so that I do/feel/think/etc. things that are important to me.

As I wrote that bit about "done anything, achieved anything", I wonder what all I'm supposed to have done or achieved.  Sometimes I wish I had tunnel vision or were so focusedly driven re: just one thing.  Then I would just do that thing/live life centered around that one thing (or just a couple of things) and never think about much else.  It would kind of remove a lot of choices for me, which sounds like a negative, but if I were that focused I might not mind it or even notice.  Then again, I might feel like something was out of balance (whether or not I realized what was out of balance) and might then wish I could do something about it.

Thing is, that isn't the way I am.  Although I can try to incorporate some of that personality into my life, it would take an enormous amount of effort to recreate myself, all without knowing whether or not that's a good idea.  Maybe I could incorporate enough to be pleased with the change.

Do most people wonder/worry about their personal evolution?  Sometimes I wish I didn't bc I spend a lot of time feeling like I should be evolving toward something, like I'm always a project still being developed, a work in progress.  In some ways, that sounds delightful.  In other ways, it sounds tiring and unnerving.  Why don't I just stop and say that's it, work is complete, this is the finished piece?  And not just wrt anything deep; why do I learn new things in knitting or crochet?  Why have I tried canning for the first time this summer?

Perhaps those aren't good examples bc I do enjoy doing things with my hands.  I like the feeling of creating a shawl or making my own jam (it's so much tastier than the store bought stuff).  So I guess I do/learn those things bc I enjoy doing them and also like the end result.

Maybe the question is better posed as why don't I just get up each day, do what I do every day, go to bed and repeat day after day?  I think part of the attraction of this approach (at least, its attraction for me) is that life is safer this way.  Of course, life isn't more dangerous ever since I learned the Kitchener stitch; that's not quite what I mean.  If I don't do/try new things, I can't fail.

Failure stinks.  I imagine there are probably some people who are nonplussed by failure.  Not me.  I am not a fan of failure, although I've failed at many a thing already in life.  But I suppose that failure is inevitable and, in the end, can be beneficial.  I recognize this so, in a way, I might be a bit of a fan of failure.  I mean, I can't really get mad about failing bc it's like making mistakes; everyone makes mistakes.  So I just feel the fail for a bit and then eventually get around to getting over it.  Or at least past it; some failures linger and I imagine some of them linger longer in my memory than anyone else's.  I guess that's like how people (read: me) are their own worst critic.

Well, time to peel my leg skin off this wood chair (ouch!) and seize the day.