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| Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | | 9:21 am |
Just got back from running the Great Gobbler 5K! I'd forgotten how much fun it is to run in a pack! | | Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | | 9:51 am |
| | Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | | 10:16 am |
Acorn Flour!
Two weeks after the grand experiment started, I now have product! So, all told, it was 14 days of drying, shelling, grinding into smoothie, 2x daily decanting and refilling the bin with fresh water, 6 hours of re-drying, and 2 hours of milling with the coffee grinder. I now have 9 cups of acorn flour, 2 of which went into a loaf of bread last night. I halved a Gluten Free Bakery bread mix and substituted in my acorn flour, and baked that bad boy up...and it's pretty darned awesome, if I do say so myself. Nutty, kinda sweet, very reminiscent of 100% whole wheat bead, but moister and chewier. Marvelous as toast. All that from a washbin of lawn detritus...not bad. :) | | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | | 2:01 pm |
| | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | | 11:01 am |
Wet Tuesday
Wow, today's off to a slow start. The kids kept me up most of the night, tag-teaming bad dreams that didn't allow me more than an hour's continuous sleep all night long. Ouch. I was relieved to see it so wet out today, so I can get away with a quiet indoor day and some movies. All is not slacking though, as I have started the final decanting and drying process of the acorn flour. it's a bit of a relief, actually, it's been sitting and leaching on my counter for almost 2 weeks now, and just plain old takes up a bunch of space. I'll figure out a better system for next year (if it isn't repulsive). So I have one batch drying in my oven right now, and another straining through cotton in my sink. I think, all told, I'll come out with a couple of pounds of the stuff so I really, really hope it's not totally revolting. Now I have to figure out if it's worth trying to document all this process, and make some sort of loaf out of it for an A&S project. Complicated more by the fact I can't do it with any of the traditional flours used to cut the acorn flour. And, being a nut flour, it'll just be plain old too crumbly to use all by itself. Decisions, decisions. Ah, the tiny-assed overlord summons, and I must obey. :P | | Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 | | 9:09 pm |
Crafting...
Hence begins the next iteration of insanity. But this one is only little. Ittybitty. Surely not another 300 hours, there isn't enough fabric for that. | | Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | | 9:55 pm |
Long drive, cool sights, very tired now. | | Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | | 12:45 pm |
Field Trip
I volunteered to help on the apple picking field trip for my son's school today. It was utter madness. Very well choreographed, planned, loud chaos I only had to keep track of 4 kids, split with another mom, but it was still one of the craziest events I've ever been to- including NFL football games. Someone poke me when I get the bright idea to lend a hand, I'll stick to stapling things at home. Current Mood:  exhausted | | Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | | 1:09 pm |
Acorn Flour
I'm being crazy hairshirt woman and making acorn flour from acorns I've gathered from our land. This is going ot be a much more complicated process than previously expected. I've about a bushel of 'em, cracked and blended with water into a slurry. Now it has to still and be decanted for the next 2 weeks or so to get the tannins out. So for the next unforseeable future I have a great bucket of acorn smoothie on my counter, leaching. I feel like such a hippie nutjob. And I guess the only problem I have here is that it'll either be disgusting and I'll have an endless (seeming) ream of the stuff, or it'll be amazing and I'll have to go thru the whole blasted process again. *sighs* On the other hand, it might also turn out to be a cool A&S project, acorn flour being a classic famine food on Great Britain. I wonder what I should cut it with, flour-wise, as I can't do so with wheat flour... | | Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | | 7:20 pm |
| | Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | | 5:21 pm |
Marvellous Happenings
This weekend was fantastic. Well, the driving wasn't so great (20 hours total in the truck) but the event was wonderful. we got personally invited to Nigel and Adrielle's coronation in Ealdomere. There was a grand formal pas d'armes, with great weapons and counted blows. My Boy did marvellously there, even taking on Count Etienne (who's as wide from shoulder to shoulder as my son is tall, and from back-to-front is the same as Colin from shoulder-to-shoulder. Dude is enormous! And a wonderful fighter too. They fought to Her majesty's satisfaction (ie. they continued to pummel each other until she'd seen them beat each other enough. Wow.) THEN we got invited to eat at head table. again, wow. The company was impeccable and the food, oh my heavens, was delicious beyond description. Stuffed brown trout, elk with redcurrant jelly,roast beef, and something ambrosial called "nuttye". Mmm. AND we got personally toasted by His Majesty Nigel, which totally turned our heads. With each honour heaped upon us I felt more grateful and astonished that simple folk like us could evoke this kind of treatment. So now we're experiencing a certain amount of event hangover...not due to liquor, but from the letdown of going back into the real world. But there are cool things in the works and we simply have to be patient until the time is ripe. In household news, things are busy. I have four generations of menfolk in my basement constructing Colin's new office. It's actually quite moving to see my son learning power tool lore from the man who is essentially his great-grandfather. And I certainly can't wait to see the finished results... there are some very talented craftsmen working down here! :) | | Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 | | 3:19 pm |
Generosity is on sale today!
Stumbled upon a neat little coupon at BJ's this morning. Buy an econo-crate of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and get a free econo-crate of go-gurt. Well, the cereal was a wash, being all toxically gluteney and oversugared to boot, but it's cheaper than the go-gurts (which ARE okay, if oversugared, overcoloured, and currently the lunchtime obsession of my 6-year-old). So I get this marvellous idea, and I buy the heinous cereal of ADD doom with the free yogourt-inspired lunch treats. Then I carefully deposit said heinoous cereal into the food bank box and voila! I treated my son, was generous with my community, and got a wicked good deal on the bargain. Yay me! Only snag is, I'm currently having visions of the horrified mom on the recieving end of that much breakfasty sugar. Hopefully I won't spend too much time in Purgatory for this one. | | Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | | 9:56 am |
Been trying to figure out why tea gets cold 4 times faster in my house than it did in my apartment. Figured it out yesterday. Damned granite countertops. They suck the heat right out of my cup in minutes. I'm nuking more tea here than I ever did in the apartment (and man, it is still SO worth it). | | Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | | 9:25 am |
Busy Day
Got the Dude off to skool with little complaint but much strategizing over Star Wars computer game )God bless Colin that he can figure out how to play it, I sure as hell cannot). I'm really enjoying the morning walk...but then, it's only September, it hasn't rained, and it hasn't been particularly cold yet. Grumple has her 1st day back at gymnastics today and is positively incandescent with excitement. Gymnastics may be her favourite thing, even above shiney objects and Clorox wipes (don't ask). I'm looking forward to watching her- she was so shy to start last year. I expect her to blast off into the gym without so much as a backward glance. *sighs* Little girl is growning up so fast now! Almost 4! Had it driven home to me today that I really must accelerate the unpackng process. It was a bit brisk this morning and I wanted some jeans for the mile walk. Couldn't find any of mine. Ended up wearing a pair of Colin's with a really cinched in belt (which still didn't help much for the length of them). I WILL unpack at least 5 boxes today, darnit, and I WILL find my pants! This weekend promises to be a good one. We're going to check out a greyhound open house in Mass on Saturday- dogs to be adopted, ones already adopted with testimonials, an open, safely fenced area for them to run, and greyhound wares. Sounds like a fun time and the kids are stoked. We met up with a lovely greyhound at Harper's and it only whetted our enthusiasm to become part of the culture. | | Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | | 12:20 pm |
Decided to fight the grey today. Multistep annoying process with the big ol' greying-out afro I'm cursed with. Spent all morning straightening it and am (yet again) astonished with how much hair I have (a big bushy enormous mass) and that I'm too cheap to have someone else do this for me. Should go start Frightening Chemical Process soon before I just give up and spend the rest of the day bushy and grey. Bleah. | | 9:46 am |
More painitng happening today- this time the downstairs bathroom. I think this'll be it for painting for a bit- but verything done looks fabntastic. I'm very pleased! Now we're hanging pictures and unpacking the "inconvenient" boxes (as opposed to the ones we can't function wihout). Colin and his dad even went downnstairs and installed some electrical outlets - aren't they awesome! Thinking I should get some of our small pics hung today, and maybe go and rake a bit of the yard (we have pines and oaks, and they both like to throw stuff everywhere). In other news, we discovered yesterday that our cat had never seen her own reflection before. She scared the crap out of us last night at 3 AM yowling at her self in the mirrored closet doors. Grr! | | Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 | | 7:41 pm |
New House!
It's been quite the adventure, but we're finally in the new house, and it's wonderful! I never knew the difference having a yard would be when having kids, but it makes an immense difference. And having my own washer and dryer- sheer heaven! I can wash at 3AM if I really wanted to, stark naked if the mood struck me, and no one would say a peep (or put my wet things on top of the dryer so they could use the washer) I've even discovered that I kinda like doing housework when it's my floor and my dishes and my porcelain. What a miracle that is! And I love having windows and natural light in the kitchen (hallelujah for a bright kitchen!). I can't wait to start planting flowers- I really must start thinking about spring bulbs now! | | Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 | | 9:36 am |
The Couter Passes...
Gregoire de Lyon, the new Tenan of the Couter of Chivalry, has finally posted his story on the Armour Archive. And it rocks! :) | | Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 | | 4:14 pm |
Swim Party
The dojo's end-of-summer party was today at Sandy Beach in Ayer. what a fantastic beach! It's freshwater, which is an automatic strike in my book, but the set up totally makes up for its lack of salt. Great playground, perfect water temp, an a fun raft partway out that we perfect ed our cannonballs off of. :) Splashy! | | Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | | 10:20 am |
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