Ah well

[unicornduke]

It was for the best that we canceled the family trip, my brother now has rebound covid and is testing positive again. Poor guy.

It has rained more in the past week than most of the summer here, many of the thunderstorms missed us but now we're getting it. Almost two inches over last weekend and early in the week and probably another inch or so due to the tropical storm. We won't get the worst of it. The temps have been in the 70s and it's glorious.

Since I took time off, I decided to actually enjoy it, so I've been playing video games, sewing buttonholes on my waistcoat, spinning and reading. The buttonholes hurt my fingers so I'm doing one a day.

I'm currently watching the olympic climbing events which are extremely cool and also stressful when they fall. I watched the first of the speed competition which is just wildly fast, the bouldering which was very cool and now watching lead, which is the really tall, long climb. I say "oh no" out loud a lot.

Last weekend I made Chocolate Elk, recipe courtesy of graydon which, the pun makes me laugh every time and it has made anyone I've told laugh. I didn't go to the farmers market, so I didn't get cherries, but I did get strawberries at the co-op and made a strawberry topping with slightly more peppermint fresh from my pot. I've also eaten it with mint chocolate chip ice cream on top which was also delicious. Did I forget to put a sheet pan under the springform pan, butter leaked out and set all the fire alarms off? Yes. But I did clean the bottom of the oven for the first time and it was gross.

I need to do some food prep this weekend and figure out what I want to bake this weekend. Granola and yogurt are for sure and hmm. cake? cookies? I did just try a new recipe so I could do some of my standard recipes.

I've called the endo office twice this week, taking the appt option on the phone tree takes me to a line that no one answers and I left a message both times, but no one has called me back. Not sure what's up with that but I'll give it another week, make one more call and then go back to my primary care doctor to see wtf

I have been fighting with a mouse that has taken up residence in my closet wall between the drywall layers. It is so loud and obnoxious, it bangs around the heating pipes, it's been dismantling the drywall in that area, it runs around doing stuff at night. I didn't know where it was at first, but found it last night. It climbed up my storage shelves and was eating the leaves off the two small trees (one chestnut, one hazelnut) that I managed to germinate after the first batch were eaten by critters outside. It was also eating out of food bowls that I had left laying around, so that one's on me, so I have been making sure to take those to the kitchen all the time now. I set two snap traps in the closet and when I opened it, I heard it scramble down into the basement. It's been eating the poison, so I hope it dies soon. It's been waking me up a lot.

I've also been working on weaving, finished some samples and washed them, so I could check the sett and I adjusted it, so my warp will be shorter than planned and also I'm going through the yarn really fast so it might be narrower than planned. But it's all yardage that I'm hoping to make into things to sell in the guild show and sale, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm thinking bags with a canvas lining and a tablet woven handle. Something like that.

Comments

[reedrover]

Ugh. Sorry about that mouse. I hope it dies somewhere it can desiccate and not rot so you don’t have to smell it.

This rain is the worst! I’m in Scotland and my basement in VA flooded. Thank goodness we have a competent house sitter.

[unicornduke]

They usually die in the basement which would be preferable since they desiccate down there. I hope your basement has dried out! We had one small puddle and it's dried up already but we only had another two inches of rain.

[graydon]

Hurrah for strawberry elk!

(Spring-form pans with silicone gaskets are a (pricey) lifesaver.)

With any luck, the mouse loses gracefully.

Hope the endo gets back to you; it is vacation season and they are likely overloaded but sheesh.

Sorry about the rebound COVID; hope your brother is OK and glad y'all didn't have a spreading event.

[unicornduke]

I think my next investment will be a large double boiler instead, I normally remember to put a sheet pan under...

I think my brother is doing better, I'm also glad we didn't just spread covid all around.

[graydon]

A double boiler certainly helps!

I still have the one I got to make chocolate elk with some while ago now. The first several tries involved floating a small stainless bowl in a pot of boiling water, which I cannot recommend.

[unicornduke]

I currently use a large glass bowl on top of a smaller pot, so I get lots of hot from the pot but the glass takes forever to get anything up to temperature, so a double boiler would be better. Or I use my stand mixer bowl if I'm doing something like a meringue but it's so oddly shaped that it doesn't sit well in there and I have to make a little holder out of aluminum foil for it to rest on.

[graydon]

A double boiler certainly would be better!

(I would perpetually be expecting the glass bowl to explode.)

I still miss the kitchen store that was in the old row of apartments-over-shops buildings north of Bloor on Yonge in Toronto. Gone to condos a decade or more now. Got a copper bowl for meringue there, along with the double boiler and much else. Hopefully there's a reasonable analogue near you, materially or virtually.)

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/search/double-boiler.html?filter=material:stainless-steel can be handy for things (quality mechanical scales!) that just don't show up in regular retail.

[unicornduke]

It's a nice pyrex bowl and I usually put it on the pot well before the pot is boiling so it can come up to temperature with it. Haven't had any explosions yet! And I make sure the pot can vent some steam if needed so there isn't any problems with it. But a big double boiler would be nice. Maybe I'll put it on my christmas list and someone can get it for me.

[graydon]

Long may there continue to be no explosions!

(Wasn't trying to say that a dispassionate analysis would be worried about it! Just that I'm a fussbudget.)

May it prove an entirely successful christmas list entry. Proper double boilers are good things to have. (As is the one nice spatula that does nothing but stir chocolate, or at least confectionery.)

[which_chick]

Mouse wars are the worst! Wishing you success on that front.

I've been enjoying my tomatoes. Since I didn't kill the basil this year (a frequent problem in prior years) I am looking forward to basil, mozz, evoo, and tomato on sourdough (which I finally have working enough to make decent bread) this weekend.

[unicornduke]

It's on going mouse wars, they vanished for a bit while the roof was happening and I suspect this one moved in because of the roofing. But I didn't hear it last night and I know it ate a lot of the poison, so I'm hoping it's dead somewhere. Lesson to me that the mice don't avoid my room anymore now that Mara is long gone.