hard work makes for a happy me
Apr. 21st, 2023 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeFeeling much better now with three days of hard work in the last three.
Wednesday I took off work other than night class and sheared sheep with J. It was a bunch of different stops and I had to leave the loop unfinished because I had to get back to the house for the 7pm work class. Got home at 6:35, managed to walk Mara, shower and grab my warmed pizza and sat down at my desk at 6:55. I sheared a bunch of different sized sheep, which was very fun. Two babydoll southdowns, which was learning to shear over their eyes because of the wool that grows right around their eyes. I got to watch J shear merinos, which was an educational experience. Three shetlands, a Romney lamb and one huge mystery sheep. Huge mystery sheep showed up at that particular farm and is probably a meat sheep that ran away from another farm. He was huge. Probably around 250lbs. I weigh 165. But! I sheared him with only a little bit of help to hold his head at one point, so that was fun!
Yesterday, I went to C's place and we seeded things! We seeded 2000 cabbage seeds for a tarping trial, it's big, it's complex and thankfully those are mini-head cabbages. So it could be worse. Then we seeded lettuce, which was much faster. I picked rocks which was a hilariously easy task since those fields don't have many rocks and none were even the size of my head. We had a good laugh about it, but her partner thinks this is so many rocks! He's from the Netherlands and has farmed on a lot of river bottom lands. Not many rocks there.
Today I went back to C's because she is going to run a workshop tomorrow about making seed screens. We weren't sure how many people there would be, how extensive the workshop would able to be so we went to town. I had cut all the hardware cloth to size earlier this week so this was cutting wood and assembling frames. The goal was to have enough assembled screens that we could give participants a fully assembled screen and then give them the other two screen sizes and they could make the other ones. We ended up doing most of that plus cutting and drilling the wood to hand out. It was a fun day of carpentry. I did get my first sunburn of the season and didn't have sunscreen on me because in the last few weeks, I was able to get a work vehicle! And I haven't figured out what stuff needs to live in it yet. Sunscreen. Not a bad sunburn but I usually try and manage my sun exposure for the first two or three weeks of spring and then discontinue the sunscreen usage once I've tanned properly enough not to burn.
I'm going to try and get the chainsaw working tomorrow, the oil cap isn't closing properly so I need to fiddle with it. I'm hoping to get the small trees taken down and lopped up for burning soon, so I can put up the fencing around the back yard for my plants and for Mara. We'll see.
Then I'm going to make boston creme pie this weekend, because A's hens are laying so many eggs and they try not to have them for sale too long (even if they're good still) so now we have 11 dozen eggs in the basement fridge. Boston creme pie uses a full dozen and I made a list of baked goods that use a lot of eggs. I'm not overly fond of savory egg texture although quiche is okay so I'll be baking a lot!
Wednesday I took off work other than night class and sheared sheep with J. It was a bunch of different stops and I had to leave the loop unfinished because I had to get back to the house for the 7pm work class. Got home at 6:35, managed to walk Mara, shower and grab my warmed pizza and sat down at my desk at 6:55. I sheared a bunch of different sized sheep, which was very fun. Two babydoll southdowns, which was learning to shear over their eyes because of the wool that grows right around their eyes. I got to watch J shear merinos, which was an educational experience. Three shetlands, a Romney lamb and one huge mystery sheep. Huge mystery sheep showed up at that particular farm and is probably a meat sheep that ran away from another farm. He was huge. Probably around 250lbs. I weigh 165. But! I sheared him with only a little bit of help to hold his head at one point, so that was fun!
Yesterday, I went to C's place and we seeded things! We seeded 2000 cabbage seeds for a tarping trial, it's big, it's complex and thankfully those are mini-head cabbages. So it could be worse. Then we seeded lettuce, which was much faster. I picked rocks which was a hilariously easy task since those fields don't have many rocks and none were even the size of my head. We had a good laugh about it, but her partner thinks this is so many rocks! He's from the Netherlands and has farmed on a lot of river bottom lands. Not many rocks there.
Today I went back to C's because she is going to run a workshop tomorrow about making seed screens. We weren't sure how many people there would be, how extensive the workshop would able to be so we went to town. I had cut all the hardware cloth to size earlier this week so this was cutting wood and assembling frames. The goal was to have enough assembled screens that we could give participants a fully assembled screen and then give them the other two screen sizes and they could make the other ones. We ended up doing most of that plus cutting and drilling the wood to hand out. It was a fun day of carpentry. I did get my first sunburn of the season and didn't have sunscreen on me because in the last few weeks, I was able to get a work vehicle! And I haven't figured out what stuff needs to live in it yet. Sunscreen. Not a bad sunburn but I usually try and manage my sun exposure for the first two or three weeks of spring and then discontinue the sunscreen usage once I've tanned properly enough not to burn.
I'm going to try and get the chainsaw working tomorrow, the oil cap isn't closing properly so I need to fiddle with it. I'm hoping to get the small trees taken down and lopped up for burning soon, so I can put up the fencing around the back yard for my plants and for Mara. We'll see.
Then I'm going to make boston creme pie this weekend, because A's hens are laying so many eggs and they try not to have them for sale too long (even if they're good still) so now we have 11 dozen eggs in the basement fridge. Boston creme pie uses a full dozen and I made a list of baked goods that use a lot of eggs. I'm not overly fond of savory egg texture although quiche is okay so I'll be baking a lot!
no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 02:28 am (UTC)If you are willing to share, I would definitely be interested in your list of egg recipes. We have five hens for two adults, so I’m giving away a LOT of eggs in the summer.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 04:08 pm (UTC)Things that use yolks:
Ice cream - I use recipes in Bravetart, which use 4-5 yolks per quart of ice cream. Does need an ice cream churn of some sort. I like experimenting and have done the double chocolate, vanilla, cardamom, hazelnut, mint chocolate and a few others.
Pastry cream - any good pastry cream recipe will do, I increase eggs to five per batch and usually make a double batch at a time. This is good for boston creme pie, eclairs, maple banana cream pie, eating with a spoon, filling pastries, on bread pudding, so many other things
Things that use whites:
meringue - cookies baked, can be flavored with chocolate, vanilla, or any extracts you want, or on top of pies soft, can be any type of meringue, pavlovas also in this category or baked stacked meringues with fillings like whipped cream, fruit, pastry cream, etc
Macarons - flavored or plain, with a variety of jam, chocolate or hmm, maybe pastry cream filling, that might be fun
Daquoise - used in layer cakes or made into little sandwiches with a filling
Angel food cake
no churn ice cream pie (so delicious) - https://www.seriouseats.com/no-churn-vanilla-ice-cream-pie
Whole eggs:
Pound cake
cookies
squash pie - I use a recipe that uses a full cup of eggs, but most recipes will take more eggs with no problems
lemon bars
souffle
chiffon cake
choux pastry - eclairs, cream puffs, churros, etc
lemon meringue pie, or any meringue pie with a curd filling
no subject
Date: 2023-04-23 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 09:54 pm (UTC)Hurrah for a cooperative huge mystery sheep!
Hurrah for a work vehicle, too, at least if it's of a suitable configuration for the purpose.
That is a lot of work and a lot of eggs. Ever tried Chocolate Nemesis? 10 whole eggs.
It may help to know that the author of the blog post under the link was a professional chef in Quebec, so "bain-marie" is an entirely normal item of equipment, but also not that hard to fake with a big flat pan. (Oh, and chocolate nemesis needs a BIG bowl to make because it gets huge. I bought a 10 litre bowl after I tried to make it the first time.)
no subject
Date: 2023-04-24 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-24 03:15 pm (UTC)Half batch might be prudent.
Those fancy springform pans with the silicone gasket are handy, too.
May it go well, as and when!
no subject
Date: 2023-04-23 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-24 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-25 02:00 am (UTC)Last time I complained about a hard starting pull, my mechanic happily said that I had good compression. I think that saw was the one I then broke the pull string on and had to replace. I do have to say that replacing the broken string made the saw a lot easier to start. BTW the trick with replacing the string in that saw was to wind up the "rewind" mechanism and let it suck the new string in on the roller. Really easy!