So, bowing to online peer pressure, I finally decided to learn the continental method of knitting. I have to say that it isn't as hard to learn as I had thought it would be and I think once my hand gets used to holding the yarn (and stops cramping every few minutes) I will be able to knit a lot faster.
I started knitting a bag that I wanted to look like this when I was done but I'm thinking that it just isn't going to work. I'm not sure I will get the nice neat bottom I wanted. Mr. Gaia has suggested using an embroidery hoop to give it structure. I've considered getting heavy gauge wire and making a frame out of it, but I'm not sure how that will work out.
I may just frog the whole project and make a nice hat for my mother in law (knit hats are not flattering to me, as much as I want them to be). And then I can use the pretty, soft crochet cotton for something knit for me (yes, I know crochet cotton sucks for knitting, it doesn't have enough give, but it's something I have and it is pretty and soft).
Biking
9.13 miles. I was really aiming for 10 miles, but without an odometer, it's hard to know how far I've gone. 87.1F, 69% humidity. 17.3 mph SSE winds with gusts of 25.3mph (and believe me, turning into that wind felt like hitting a brick wall, especially since I was stupid and plotted our course to have headwinds at the end).
Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
New pet
My nice co-worker brought me a rhinoceros beetle (well, it may actually be an ox beetle, but we'll call it a rhinoceros beetle). Right now it doesn't have a real habitat and it's just a lonely male. But she says she will look for an aquarium they were planning to get rid of and she will bring him a mate.
From what I can tell, it will live for about 4 months, but maybe we can manage to breed some.
He isn't eating the fruit the sites say he should eat (soft bananas, etc) but I gave him a tea bag and he went nuts. He immediately tore into it and then buried himself in the grounds. I figured that since I brew my tea with fructose, this would at least fice him an approximation of the food he normally eats. I guess he agrees. So I guess I'll need to save my tea bags and give them to him from time to time.
This will be Hyperion's new pet.
Biking -
Short ride tonight because it decided to sprinkle, only 2 miles. 79F, 69% humidity (that's according to weather underground, I would have thought it would have been more like 100% since it was sprinkling). 12.7mph, ESE winds with gusts of 20.7mph.
From what I can tell, it will live for about 4 months, but maybe we can manage to breed some.
He isn't eating the fruit the sites say he should eat (soft bananas, etc) but I gave him a tea bag and he went nuts. He immediately tore into it and then buried himself in the grounds. I figured that since I brew my tea with fructose, this would at least fice him an approximation of the food he normally eats. I guess he agrees. So I guess I'll need to save my tea bags and give them to him from time to time.
This will be Hyperion's new pet.
Biking -
Short ride tonight because it decided to sprinkle, only 2 miles. 79F, 69% humidity (that's according to weather underground, I would have thought it would have been more like 100% since it was sprinkling). 12.7mph, ESE winds with gusts of 20.7mph.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wisdom of our Elders
I've been reading the Foxfire books. These are again books that belong to Mr. Gaia and have sat on our shelves for years.
A lot of this stuff will probably never apply to me. I mean, do I really need to know how to butcher a hog? But it's interesting to learn.
I also found a written example of an old wives' tale I've heard all my life. "If the sun shines while it is raining, it will rain the same time tomorrow". I can't tell you how many people have laughed at me when I've said that, but now I can tell them it is in the Foxfire books and isn't just a saying from my crazy family.
Biking -
8.06 miles. 84.9F. 63% humidity. 17.3 mph SE winds with ESE gusts of 24.2 mph.
A lot of this stuff will probably never apply to me. I mean, do I really need to know how to butcher a hog? But it's interesting to learn.
I also found a written example of an old wives' tale I've heard all my life. "If the sun shines while it is raining, it will rain the same time tomorrow". I can't tell you how many people have laughed at me when I've said that, but now I can tell them it is in the Foxfire books and isn't just a saying from my crazy family.
Biking -
8.06 miles. 84.9F. 63% humidity. 17.3 mph SE winds with ESE gusts of 24.2 mph.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Father's Day
So with the kids out of town, we had a laid back Father's Day. Of course, it didn't help that I was thinking it was THIS weekend, not last weekend. Luckily, I had already picked up a small item to be part of a larger gift, so I had a little something to give him.
Then, we walked to the movie theatre to see "Wild Hogs". It was cute enough and there was one scene that actually made me laugh so hard I couldn't make a sound and tears ran out of my eyes.
After the movie, we walked to the restaurant to have dinner. It was a marvelous meal and I felt I really earned those calories. I didn't map our walk, but it was probably about 2.5 miles total.
I'm really missing the kids. Today Mr. Gaia received a package from them, a shirt with their handprints, little trinkets with their pics (from when they were 2-3) and homemade cards.
One thing I've noticed about the kids being gone - it's much harder to fill up a load of clothes. I finally had to give in and wash a partial load because I was out of clothes. I started throwing in pieces of random bedding to complete the load (well, it needed washed anyway and who says it has to be washed in its own load?).
Biking update -
87.1F, 67% humidity, 12.7mph SSE winds. 3.46 miles.
Then, we walked to the movie theatre to see "Wild Hogs". It was cute enough and there was one scene that actually made me laugh so hard I couldn't make a sound and tears ran out of my eyes.
After the movie, we walked to the restaurant to have dinner. It was a marvelous meal and I felt I really earned those calories. I didn't map our walk, but it was probably about 2.5 miles total.
I'm really missing the kids. Today Mr. Gaia received a package from them, a shirt with their handprints, little trinkets with their pics (from when they were 2-3) and homemade cards.
One thing I've noticed about the kids being gone - it's much harder to fill up a load of clothes. I finally had to give in and wash a partial load because I was out of clothes. I started throwing in pieces of random bedding to complete the load (well, it needed washed anyway and who says it has to be washed in its own load?).
Biking update -
87.1F, 67% humidity, 12.7mph SSE winds. 3.46 miles.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
More cooking
So today, Mr. Gaia made more steel cut oats.
He follows the standard recipe:
1 c of oats
3 c water
pinch of salt (he never uses enough, so I add more after they're done, whole grains NEED salt).
He mixed this together and put it in our corning ware casserole pan. Then let it cook for an hour. They're yummy, nice and creamy.
Then he tried to make oven fried chicken. It wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan. He made 3 different kinds - one breast coated in crushed corn flakes, one coated in crushed wheat flakes (he used Uncle Sam's cereal so there were some flax seeds too) and one with just a sprinkling of corn starch. All were seasoned. He let them cook for about 30 minutes (use a meat thermometer to make sure they reach the right temperature). I think using the rack insert for our pan would have made them much better, maybe they would have had a chance to get more crispy. They didn't crisp at all placed flat on the pan.
I think tomorrow I'll try banana bread and see how that works out. But I need to bake more bread, so I'm not sure there will be time or room.
Biking:
89.1F, 59% humidity, 16.1mph SE wind at the beginning. At the end, 84.9F, 67% humidity, 15mph ESE wind. We biked 5.42 miles and it took about an hour. At the end, we stopped at a Raspa (sno-cone) stand and walked the bikes the last half mile home, while we enjoyed our raspas (natural lime for me, natural mango for Mr. Gaia).
He follows the standard recipe:
1 c of oats
3 c water
pinch of salt (he never uses enough, so I add more after they're done, whole grains NEED salt).
He mixed this together and put it in our corning ware casserole pan. Then let it cook for an hour. They're yummy, nice and creamy.
Then he tried to make oven fried chicken. It wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan. He made 3 different kinds - one breast coated in crushed corn flakes, one coated in crushed wheat flakes (he used Uncle Sam's cereal so there were some flax seeds too) and one with just a sprinkling of corn starch. All were seasoned. He let them cook for about 30 minutes (use a meat thermometer to make sure they reach the right temperature). I think using the rack insert for our pan would have made them much better, maybe they would have had a chance to get more crispy. They didn't crisp at all placed flat on the pan.
I think tomorrow I'll try banana bread and see how that works out. But I need to bake more bread, so I'm not sure there will be time or room.
Biking:
89.1F, 59% humidity, 16.1mph SE wind at the beginning. At the end, 84.9F, 67% humidity, 15mph ESE wind. We biked 5.42 miles and it took about an hour. At the end, we stopped at a Raspa (sno-cone) stand and walked the bikes the last half mile home, while we enjoyed our raspas (natural lime for me, natural mango for Mr. Gaia).
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Good Books
Back to the Damn Soil I love this book. Written by a woman describing life in WWII Tulsa County. She and her husband and three kids moved to the family farm. As far as I can tell from what I remember of Tulsa (a lovely town, really!) the farm is pretty much in the middle of a housing subdivision.
Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow A very well written book. This is the experience of a couple moving from 1980s Tulsa to the Ozarks. I think she does a marvelous job of writing about her love of the environment.
A Very Small Farm I really can't say enough wonderful things about this book. The experience of a 1990s college graduate who didn't know what to do with life so he bought a small farm in Oklahoma and lived on it. It's a nice collection of essays about how he lived his life.
Breaking the Oklahoma theme (hey, to a lot of people Oklahoma is wheat fields and empty plains, to those of us who grew up in the hills, it's a siren call):
Mountain Time: A Yellowstone Memoir Oh My GOD!!! I love this book. This has been sitting on our shelf for years. Mr. Gaia bought it before we even met. I never thought to pick it up. But once I did, I couldn't put it down. It's written in the early 1980s (so before the big fire) and I really want to have a conversation with the author to find out how the administrations since he wrote the book and especially since the fire have changed his views. This book has helped me see what I want to be when I grow up. I really want to be a park interpreter. Unfortunately, you can't support a family on the measly salary interpreters get.
Biking:
84.9. 91% humidity. 10mph SE wind. 3.46 miles.
Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow A very well written book. This is the experience of a couple moving from 1980s Tulsa to the Ozarks. I think she does a marvelous job of writing about her love of the environment.
A Very Small Farm I really can't say enough wonderful things about this book. The experience of a 1990s college graduate who didn't know what to do with life so he bought a small farm in Oklahoma and lived on it. It's a nice collection of essays about how he lived his life.
Breaking the Oklahoma theme (hey, to a lot of people Oklahoma is wheat fields and empty plains, to those of us who grew up in the hills, it's a siren call):
Mountain Time: A Yellowstone Memoir Oh My GOD!!! I love this book. This has been sitting on our shelf for years. Mr. Gaia bought it before we even met. I never thought to pick it up. But once I did, I couldn't put it down. It's written in the early 1980s (so before the big fire) and I really want to have a conversation with the author to find out how the administrations since he wrote the book and especially since the fire have changed his views. This book has helped me see what I want to be when I grow up. I really want to be a park interpreter. Unfortunately, you can't support a family on the measly salary interpreters get.
Biking:
84.9. 91% humidity. 10mph SE wind. 3.46 miles.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Fresh bread!
The solar oven bread turned out perfect, nice chewy crust and a great texture. So, here's what I did - I mixed the dough up at about 1:30am and left it in the fridge. At 7:00am, Mr. Gaia punched it down and put it in the loaf pan (he suggests making a change and letting it do both rises in the loaf pan). Mr. Gaia set up the solar oven to start gathering some heat (but he had to set it up to face west, so it wasn't that hot at noon). I came home from work at noon, put the bread fresh from the fridge in the oven (it was about 150F at that point). I left the bread in the oven until I got home at about 5:30. So it had a little over 5 hours of cooking.
My reciped adapted to be only one loaf (I think in the new loaf pans, we can get 2 loaves in, but we couldn't in the stoneware pans):
1 7/8 c water (bottled water works best if you have hard water or lots of chlorine)
1 heaping T yeast
1.5 T oil
2 1/4 t honey
2 1/4 t molasses
2 1/4 t salt
1.5-2 T flax seeds (freshly ground in a coffee grinder)
2.5 T vital wheat gluten
3-5 c whole wheat flour (I don't actually measure the flour)
Heat the water to 100-120F, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add oil, honey and molasses (a little tip - I use one the shot glass measuring cups, measuring the oil first will allow the honey and molasses to slip right on out, no sticking at all). While the yeast is proofing, grind the flax seeds (I throw the salt in with the flax to help it grind a little more finely). When the yeast has proofed, add the flax and salt. Add the vital wheat gluten. Add the flour 1/2 c at a time. I use the kitchen aid with the dough hook. I add flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and there is no dough on the side of the bowl at all. I then pull the dough off the hook, turn it over and add a little more flour. I mix until the dough is stiff and not really sticky. At this point, I take it out of the mixer, I knead it a few times just to be sure it is uniform and then put it in an oil bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Biking update -
Temp was 84F with an ESE wind of 13.8mph. We rode 2.45 miles.
My reciped adapted to be only one loaf (I think in the new loaf pans, we can get 2 loaves in, but we couldn't in the stoneware pans):
1 7/8 c water (bottled water works best if you have hard water or lots of chlorine)
1 heaping T yeast
1.5 T oil
2 1/4 t honey
2 1/4 t molasses
2 1/4 t salt
1.5-2 T flax seeds (freshly ground in a coffee grinder)
2.5 T vital wheat gluten
3-5 c whole wheat flour (I don't actually measure the flour)
Heat the water to 100-120F, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add oil, honey and molasses (a little tip - I use one the shot glass measuring cups, measuring the oil first will allow the honey and molasses to slip right on out, no sticking at all). While the yeast is proofing, grind the flax seeds (I throw the salt in with the flax to help it grind a little more finely). When the yeast has proofed, add the flax and salt. Add the vital wheat gluten. Add the flour 1/2 c at a time. I use the kitchen aid with the dough hook. I add flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and there is no dough on the side of the bowl at all. I then pull the dough off the hook, turn it over and add a little more flour. I mix until the dough is stiff and not really sticky. At this point, I take it out of the mixer, I knead it a few times just to be sure it is uniform and then put it in an oil bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Biking update -
Temp was 84F with an ESE wind of 13.8mph. We rode 2.45 miles.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Solar Oven Update No 2
It was hot today - a high of 94. So Mr. Gaia decided to cook in the solar oven. First he made brownies (yummy!), then lasagna and finally steel-cut oats.
So that whole "takes twice as long to cook" thing? Yeah, not so much if the temps are high enough. The brownies aren't nearly as moist as we like and the lasagna noodles are beyond overdone. I haven't tried the oats, yet.
It occurred to me, too late, that if the temp was boiling or above, there's no reason to think it will take twice as long. I think this will take some getting used to.
Tomorrow I plan to bake more bread. It's supposed to be 30% cloud cover tomorrow, but I think that will be fine. It's still supposed to be hot. I'll mix up the dough tonight, let it rise in the fridge overnight, then first thing in the morning, punch it down and let it rise in the breadpan in the fridge. I'll come home at noon and put it in the oven (which Mr. Gaia will set up and leave to preheat before he goes to work).
We did buy a cheap loaf pan that is dark colored and should absorb less energy from the oven (thereby letting it stay hotter to actually bake the bread).
Goals update:
We biked tonight at about 8:00. It was 83F with a SE wind of 16.1 mph. We biked 1.71 miles (according to google earth) a good portion of it facing a headwind (I'm not up on vectors enough to figure out how strong of a headwind when we were riding due east and due south).
So that whole "takes twice as long to cook" thing? Yeah, not so much if the temps are high enough. The brownies aren't nearly as moist as we like and the lasagna noodles are beyond overdone. I haven't tried the oats, yet.
It occurred to me, too late, that if the temp was boiling or above, there's no reason to think it will take twice as long. I think this will take some getting used to.
Tomorrow I plan to bake more bread. It's supposed to be 30% cloud cover tomorrow, but I think that will be fine. It's still supposed to be hot. I'll mix up the dough tonight, let it rise in the fridge overnight, then first thing in the morning, punch it down and let it rise in the breadpan in the fridge. I'll come home at noon and put it in the oven (which Mr. Gaia will set up and leave to preheat before he goes to work).
We did buy a cheap loaf pan that is dark colored and should absorb less energy from the oven (thereby letting it stay hotter to actually bake the bread).
Goals update:
We biked tonight at about 8:00. It was 83F with a SE wind of 16.1 mph. We biked 1.71 miles (according to google earth) a good portion of it facing a headwind (I'm not up on vectors enough to figure out how strong of a headwind when we were riding due east and due south).
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