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Robin on the chicken house

robin

The robin here is a European robin (Erithacus rubecula). There are lots of other birds called robin redbreast in the world. Our own American one is a very different beastie, actually a breed of thrush with the charming designation Turdus migratorius.

Brits love they robins. It’s one of the few birds that stick around for the whole Winter. Hence they frequently feature on Christmas cards, which puzzled me mightily at first.

They’re cheeky little peckerheads, shaped like chickadees. Red breasted tennis balls. The classic picture is a robin on a spade handle, because they follow gardeners turning earth, looking for worms. I always know where Jack is in the garden, because our robing follows him around and yells at him.

We’re probably on our thirtieth robin by now, but we always have one and they all look the same to me when I chase them off the chickens’ food.

They are not shy. They’re fiercely territorial; they’ll fight to the death with other robins and take on much bigger birds. In fact, I strongly suspect if we could understand and speak robin, we’d find them the most horrible little assholes in the bird kingdom. But awwwwwww, aren’t they cute?

Uncle B took this picture in the garden today. It’s not his usual razor sharp focus because the little bastard was hopping around and wouldn’t pose.

Another day off work today. In fact, I doubt I’ll get in for the rest of the week. Tonight is the last night in the twenties, but it’s not much warmer tomorrow and the wind is going to double into the 40 mph range. Then Friday the wind dies down and heavy snow is forecast.

It’s the wind that’s the problem for us. It’s blowing hard from an unusual quarter, right across an enormous sheep field, picking up snow and landing it in our garden. Our central heating can’t handle it, so I’ve had to pile up in bed under the electric blanket.

I’m trying real hard to look sad about that..

February 28, 2018 — 8:27 pm
Comments: 15

No, in fact, I did NOT go to work today

storm

Indeed, it snew. I reckon we got about three inches, but bitterly cold so it’s icing over fast. More on the way. The roads are clear, but I doubt the bike path is. Luckily, I’m not due back until Thursday.

I’ve had to replace the chicken’s water twice today. I will allow, it’s stupidly funny watching a chicken try to drink ice (that look of puzzlement!), but none of my chickens set foot outside the house today. Cold, plus three of them have never seen that white stuff before. They want no part of this nonsense.

Charlotte snuck out when Uncle B went to stock up on coal and wood and he snapped this picture of her walking in his footsteps. Charlotte is the elderly cat, you may remember, who was horribly mauled by…something back in the Spring. I was sure we would lose her.

Gosh, I wish people aged like cats. Here she is old, scarred, krunky…and looking exactly the same as she did when she was young and strong and padding around in the snow in Rhode Island.

February 27, 2018 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 10

Comes the beast…!

weatherx

They’re calling it the Beast from the East. It’s a storm roaring up from Portugal that’ll hit tonight. Or Friday night. Really, they’ve been awfully confusing about it.

This one is aimed squarely at the Southeast. The high wind and low temperatures are here already. They’ve been here a few days and it’s been miserable.

Scotland is laughing their sporrans off because we have traffic chaos and the first flakes haven’t fallen yet. But, honestly, it ain’t the weather you’ve got, it’s the weather you usually get and we here in the sunny South are woefully unprepared for this kind of thing.

If I wake up in the morning and I have to go to work, I’m going to be pissed.

February 26, 2018 — 8:16 pm
Comments: 20

Dead Pool 107: Here Comes Spring! Edition

Carl carled himself to another victory with Morgan Tsvangirai. I didn’t notice, though, and hence didn’t get a new Dead Pool up when it was due last Friday. In the interim, perennial favorite Billy Graham joined the choir eternal and RushBabe was denied her rightful dick.

This didn’t seem right, so I have declared 106 to be jointly won by Carl and RushBabe. It’s not unprecedented; we’ve had dual winners before when circumstances were unclear. I’ve totally lost count of how many this makes for Carl, but, RushBabe, if you want to claim your fabulous prize, you know what to do.

And with that –

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

February 23, 2018 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 100

I know that monster!

monster

I flip through a LOT of pictures online in the course of a day. Every once in a while, something turns up in an images search that makes me go what on earth is going on here?

Like the picture above. Goodness knows what I was looking up when this thing appeared in my search results. When I followed the link, though, turns out I know this beast! This is Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins sculpting a megatherium — a giant prehistoric South American ground sloth.

He’s one of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs (though a megatherium is a much later beastie than the thunder lizards). Uncle B used to live near this park and we went there a lot. This was the first attempt to make life-sized scale models from the big old bones that were all the rage in Victorian times. In the 1850s, would you believe?

Giant cement sculptures. They look all weird and wrong to us now, as paleontologists have re-imagined and re-re-imagined how the bones went together. Who knows? Maybe the Victorians were closer. We haven’t found too many giant corpses with the skin still on. Anyway, I loved that park. Even if the Crystal Palace itself burned down in 1936.

Right! Remember to come back tomorrow, 6 WBT, for DEAD POOL ROUND 107.

February 22, 2018 — 9:33 pm
Comments: 5

Weasel’s bug farm

yogurt

I’ve since made a second batch of yogurt using a tablespoon of the first. After the cooling off, I decanted it into a Pyrex measuring cup and used the slow cooker for the long-term heat source. I was easily able to keep it between, say, 108° and 115° (just about optimum). It occasionally sneaked over, but that didn’t seem to do any harm. This is, honestly, one of the most forgiving processes ever.

After less than four hours, it was very hard set. I took it off heat and let it cool to room temperature overnight. The result was as thick as cream cheese, sweet, with almost no whey. It’s gorgeous. Some variation of this method will do me for the foreseeable. Though I really should get a better thermometer, I’m rather skint after my last self indulgence, so I’m trying not to by any new gear.

In the big supermarkets here you can still buy Jersey milk (I buy this one). It’s homogenized, so no separate layer of cream on the top, but it’s a lovely golden yellow from all the milk fat. And not at all expensive. Last batch I made with a pint of ordinary supermarket whole milk. It was very nice, but I decided to try the hard stuff this time. I don’t know if it contributed to the final product, but this stuff is really more dessert than breakfast.

I pinched the picture from this fascinating article (yeah, you didn’t think I put all that effort into a post, did you?). If you’re interested in yogurt-making, do read it. Upshot is, this woman decided to see what the optimum amount of the previous batch you needed to make the next batch. Much against my expectation, the less of an inoculation she used, the thicker the result with less whey (up to a point, naturally).

Even the 1/4 teaspoon (the smallest she tried) set to a firm yogurt, as long as she gave it closer to six hours than four. Can anyone think of the mechanism?


Well. Billy Graham.

My father sat next to Graham at a luncheon once. Not really his milieu, but my dad was a mid-level GOP fundraiser and fancy lunches with famous people is one way they thank the footsoldiers. He instantly took a dislike to Graham. A really intense one that he wasn’t shy about sharing. I shall withhold details in the immediate aftermath of the man’s death (and in deference to any readers who were admirers), but it’s naturally what comes to mind when I think of the man and I had been dreading having to write him up for the Dead Pool.

HOWEVER, I think I’m going to call Dead Pool 106 jointly for RushBabe (who picked Dr Graham) and Carl (who carled his way to another win with Morgan Tsvangirai). At this point, I owe Carl something like the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in dick drawings (there’s a sentence I never expected to type), and Graham was one of the epic picks. I think that needs some acknowledgment.

I reserve the right to be arbitrary and capricious like this. You guys are going to love it when I take over the world.

February 21, 2018 — 10:14 pm
Comments: 14

Babby’s first blackmail

blackmail

I received this charming email at work this morning.



Subject: [Nothing personal, do not take to heart

Hello,

If you were more careful while caress yourself, I wouldn't worry you.
I don't think that playing with yourself is really awful, but when all
your friends, relatives, сolleagues receive video of it- it is
definitely for you.

I adjusted malisious soft on a porn site which was visited by you.
When the object press on a play button, device begins recording the
screen and all cameras on ur device begins working.

Moreover, my virus makes a remote desktop supplied with key logger
function from your system , so I could save all contacts from ya
e-mail, messengers and other social networks. I've chosen dis e-mail
because It's your corporate address, so u must read it.

I suppose that 300 usd is pretty enough for this little misstep. I
made a split screen video(records from screen (u have interesting
tastes ) and camera ohh... its funny AF)

So its your choice, if u want me to erase this сompromising evidence
use my bitcоin wallеt аddrеss: [redacted]

You have one day after opening my message, I put the special tracking
pixel in it, so when you will open it I will see.If ya want me to
share proofs with ya, reply on this letter and I will send my creation
to five contacts that I've got from ur device.

P.S... U can try to complain to police, but I don't think that they
can solve ur problem, the inquisition will last for several months-
I'm from Latvia - so I dgf LOL


I detect the fine literary influence of Google Translate.

Poking around the internet, I found more about this one. It’s a common scam, but this is the first time it’s hit the UK. It arrived in a number of inboxes just today, always to a business address. Slightly different bitcoin accounts, slightly different amounts demanded, slightly different wording and claiming to be from different (but always Eastern European) countries. There was no tracking pixel.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I felt not the slightest twinge of anxiety when I read this, for the obvious reason. That’s right – my computer doesn’t have a camera! ha HA!

But I wonder how many English butt-cheeks slammed shut over coffee this morning.

February 20, 2018 — 8:52 pm
Comments: 23

Q: what do you call a thermometer with no numbers?

thermometer

A: a stick.

This is our jam thermometer. I can read the 100° mark and the 400°, so math and a Sharpie gave me close enough approximations to make yogurt. I hope.

I ordered a few sachets of starter on Saturday, and they came this morning. Sometimes eBay comes through!

First time out, I’m sticking as close as I can to the instructions on the packet, though I don’t really have a good low heat source for the ferment. One recipe suggested putting the hot mixture into a thermos, so I put it in a steel thermos and put that in a saucepan full of hot water. I’ve changed the hot water on the hour, but I have a bad feeling it’s losing temp too fast. I’m at about the three hour mark, so I’ll go check again in a minute.

One site I read said, “don’t worry, the milk can’t spoil – you’ve already spoiled it!

Ha! Little does she know my skill for spoiling the unspoilable!

Update: IT WORKED! IT WORKED! And it’s honestly the best yogurt I’ve ever tasted (though the starter sachet I used has rosa damascena in it; subsequent batches sill taste different). I thought it would never set, as I could not keep the temperature near 110°, but I did manage to keep it just over 100°. It was a sad and thin business after six hours, but I put it in the fridge. It was lovely, thick and creamy by morning. Lots of whey, though. We have a bread maker, a slow cooker and a dehydrator. I’m’a have to experiment.

February 19, 2018 — 9:17 pm
Comments: 23

Woof! Woof!

cabbage

Chinese New Year begins today. ‘Tis the Year of the Dog.

Thanks for your input on the fermentation thing. I knew I’d have pickling and fermentation geeks on the blog!

I’ve had the old, old problem with researching stuff on the web: too much information, some of it contradictory. Some sauerkraut recipes, for example, insist that the shredded cabbage be kneaded vigorously to express the water (this must be the ‘elbow grease’ p2 was talking about). But some people just dump brine over it.

Nobody talks about sterilizing containers first. This makes the jam maker in me cringe. Yeah, I get it — you’re trying to grow bugs. But surely only the right bugs.

Unlike canners and picklers, I get the impression fermenters are a freewheelin’ bunch. It either works, or you’ll know it hasn’t, and it usually works.

I think it’s too cold in the kitchen to start experimenting just yet. We don’t have much heat in that part of the house and, this time of year, it’s hovering in the low sixties (or even high fifties) at night. I think I saw seventy as the recommended temp for getting the cultures going initially.

So I’ve just ordered a couple of different yoghurt cultures to play with while we wait for warmer weather. I love yoghurt, but I will have to work out how to scale down the recipe. I can’t eat a liter every 72 hours!

Pro tip: if you search eBay for “starter culture” you’re going to see a LOT of worms. Have a good weekend, everyone!

February 16, 2018 — 8:22 pm
Comments: 11

I guess I get it.

dunno

I don’t know about this image. It was the header pic for a FaceBook group called “Chicken Keeping for Assholes” that I was invited to join. For some reason.

As you might expect, there are tons of chicken keeping groups on social media. What you may not know is how bloody and acrimonious they can be. The main divide is between those who see chickens as livestock and those who keep them as pets. It usually comes to a head over culling sick birds. I’m going to guess the “Assholes” group is in the pro-culling camp.

But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about fermenting food. Have you ever?

Sauerkraut? Pickles? Kimchi? Kefir? I’m talking ferment in brine, not pickle with vinegar.

From what I’ve read recently, the vinegar thing is a fairly modern imitation of food that has been fermented naturally — it tastes similarly sour, but is more controllable and consistent for commercial production. Even most of the stuff that has been fermented traditionally in brine is apparently zapped before packaging to kill the bacteria.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m still on my gut bacteria kick.

Don’t get me wrong — I love me a good ol’ kosher dill pickle. But I’m looking to brine stuff at home and eat friendly bugs. The produce season will soon be upon us!

February 15, 2018 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 20