BRB Chai

Belle's definition of breakfast:  warm, sweetened beverage with some amount of caffeine.  Solid food optional.  Current drug of choice is Chai Tea latte.

I've been testing homebrew recipes for speedy prep, minimal clean up, and drinkability.  

Here is the front runner.  

• Milk (I tried reconstituting dry milk, but that tasted like watery tea with gross clumps.  Soy would probably work, but I'm collecting these cool glass milk jars for dry storage so Soy got the pass this round)
• Agave Nectar (honey takes too long to ooze.  straight sugar would also work fine except in my world, it is a more stigmatized sweetener)
• Tea bag of some persuasion (I chose Macha green because I have a ton, it makes a dark green flavorful tea with minimal brew time and the puck tea bags save me from straining rogue paper pulp in the drink.  Wasn't really grooving on how citrus flavored teas and milk taste combined.)
• Spice-- this is really flexible.  "traditional" blends tend to use a lot of Cardamom as a base.  Ginger, Cloves, Allspice, Anise, Cinnamon, etc. are fair game.  For the sake of speed, I'm not straining this mix, so keep in mind when selecting spice this drink will be a bit "dirty."  At times, I've dissolved Korean Ginseng tea mix in with the spice for an energy boost.
• Canning jar with lid-- I like wide mouths because they are less messy to fill for other projects.  

1. Fill canning jar 1/3-1/2 with water and drop in a tea bag. 
2. Nuke in microwave (topless!) for 60 seconds +/-
3. Top off canning jar with milk, spice (2 tsp +/-), sweetener (1.5 tbs +/-)
4. Nuke again in the microwave (topless) for 60 seconds +/-
5. Add top and shake like a martini until ingredients blended and desired frothiness is achieved
6. Remove top, fish out tea bag, and enjoy straight from "drinking jar"

Day without MacGyver 3

One thing we have in common is that we start projects with much more alacrity than we finish them.  So I've filled the kitchen table up with yet more "inputs."  It was very windy today, so I bailed on most of the fun yard adventures I planned.

Filled the chicken coop with $11 of pine shavings which turned the tables for beleaguered 2.0.  She had lost some head feathers and looked a little raw, but seemed to be in pretty good spirits.  She has figured out how to use sympathetic Inky as a feathered shield between her and Blinky when things get dodgy.  With shavings spread, there was nowhere our dirt loving birds thought was safe to stand, but 2.0 had made herself at home in the deepest bedded corner.

On the same errand I also discovered Zuke's dog treats make a Chondroitin and Glucosamine supplement treat which I've started feeding to Kai in hopes her luxating patella won't er... luxate so much.  Two treats in, they come stampeding to the kitchen from anywhere on the property any time I move the treat bag to accommodate other inputs .

I was really craving shahi paneer which tops my list of comfort foods.  The problem with Indian Buffet paneer is that either they're chintzy with the cheese or someone fishes it all out before you get there.  So I might have tripled the amount of paneer called for to ensure an awesome lunch and 2 more for work (thank goodness for wide-mouthed canning jars).

I also rendered giant beet into something called Odessa Salad which I found in the Moosewood Cookbook (the only other option was Borcht of which I was only familiar with due to childhood viewing of Rugrats).  You basically bake the beet in foil for 45 mins at 400 degrees.  Let it cool.  Shred it.  Mix it in with chopped prunes, pineapple, walnuts, garlic, and a couple tablespoons of lemon juice.  The bit I grazed tasted pretty decent.

While waiting, I made some lip balm because I seem to have misplaced or dryer-melted every tube of chapstick in the house.  This was a recipe from a book BroEpic gave me for festivus.  5 tb castor oil (was using more for softer consistency), 1 tb beeswax, 2 tb honey melted in mom's mini-crockpot and finished with about 20 drops of peppermint essential oil.  I deliberated dumping some of my favorite/only lipstick (blood red Nars Fire Down Below) in for tinting, but figured if this became a communal pot, that particular shade wouldn't look so swell on MacG.  Incidentally, just applying castor oil is good for temporary ultra glossy lips.  One concern:  the oil is lighter than honey and didn't seem to fully blend.  Guess we'll find out how things turned out when it's chilled out.

I had also been allowing 5 liter "Schmidt" to ferment some seriously shredded cabbage for an indeterminately long time.  So long that I forgot that I had seasoned the kraut with hot pepper flakes for some extra kick.  Instead, I became convinced Schmidt was harboring some weird red acidophilic  bacteria and that the mortician would have to retrieve me from the house in a hazmat suit.  Schmidt and I avoided eye contact for several additional weeks after I began harboring this suspicion.  In actuality, the kraut I grazed while cramming the remainder into a not-wide-mouthed mason jar (grr)  tasted pretty decent.  I suppose we'll draw our own conclusions about whether the hazmat suits are necessary if this becomes my final blog post.  In the future, I probably won't let the food processor shred kraut cabbage.  It was a pain to fish all those tiny pieces out.  As a very tangential aside, I am saddened that the Munich Marathon no longer overlaps with the commencement of Oktoberfest because I was really looking forward to that dubious combination at some point in my life.

I also finished my book club read, Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic, which I only just now realized I could have watched as a mini-series on Amazon Prime for $4 and had all but 3 hours of my life back.  Although in fairness, it was a pretty amusing read.  A bit too far into the "absurd events coming full circle" Douglas Adams style of plot line for me to relish embarking on a whole series in this vein.  I guess I'm more of a non-fiction gal.  

What's still on the table-- a pie tin because our Hallows pumpkin has been hanging around for quite some time and I learned the hard way that I can't just blithely compost him.  Faux nutella to eventually go with the San Francisco sourdough starter I picked up (but am dubious I can cultivate at stably warm temperatures at present...  maybe in a carefully rigged crockpot...).

DIY Deodorant

So the jury is still out on whether products in commercial deodorants can lead to negative health outcomes.  (Wiki summary here)  In reading, "Making It," I realized I had most of the inputs for a DIY adventure and decided to give it a shot.

Empty deodorant stick (the roll up platform kind-- travel size is most manageable)
1 tablespoon beeswax
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/8 tsp tea tree oil
1/8 tsp lavender or other essential oil

Combine beeswax and olive oil in a double boiler (or functional equivalent).  This stuff is messy and I stray towards pretty small quantities, so I use a little gladware cup.  I tried nuking it in the microwave, but stirring the wax was too interruptive.  Mix until fully melted + blended.  Add tea tree oil for its antiseptic properties.  Add another essential oil like lavender to moderate its smell.  I tried frankincense & myrrh the second time around and liked the smell better-- but it still smells 90% like tea tree.    Pour into the rewound deodorant stick.  Let cool and you're good to go.

This stuff doesn't have antiperspirant properties, so if sweat through is a big concern, this project probably isn't for you.  The signature scent potential is appealing so I may experiment with a couple more batches of this.

Vermicompost: Say hello to my little friends!

As you might imagine, space in the weekly waste pickup dumpsters is at a premium.  Our gardening endeavors also demand viable soil and amendments.  

Hence, the "tiny tower" worm condo.  

MacGyver:  absolutely not in the apartment, it will stink!
Belle:  er, there are expensive ones on Amazon that don't...

Our cheap ($30) diy one doesn't stink and can scale.

Materials

• 2 (or more if you home cook for a big wolf pack) stackable storage bins with lids ($8.47 each)
• enough mesh to cover the a bin's footprint ($4.98)
• 4 "feet" to elevate the bottom bin like these plastic curtain mount cradles (approx $5.00)
• 1/4" and 1/8" drill bits + drill
• 1 lb (approx 1000) red wigglers ($27.95)
• couple cups of starter dirt (say from the failed hanging garden of bathalon)
• shredded paper (not the glossy worm poisoning ink kind)

1.  line the top and bottom sides of each bin with 1/8" holes (a/c for worm condo)

2.  cover the underside of each bin with 1/4" holes (elevator shafts)

3.  line the interior floor of the first level bin with mesh (drainage system)

4.  put lid on floor concave side up and add stability feet (sewer)

5.  balance first floor bin on stability feet

6.  fill with starter dirt

7.  watch mail diligently for worms (they die and get stinky if they languish in your mailbox)

8.  add worms

9.  slowly introduce organic matter.  Worm populations can double in 90 days, so expect to scale up.

10.  cover in shredded paper periodically to prevent smell

11.  put second lid on top of first floor

12.  when first floor begins to approach full occupancy, stack second floor directly onto first.  Worms will use the elevator shafts to migrate to the second floor.  

13.  bottom floor should smell earthy and ready to go about a month afterwards (your throughput may vary).  

14.  empty it for use as a "3rd" story.  Place its mesh liner outside of the currently occupied second floor.  

15.  you may notice your sewer filling up (particularly if your condo is located on a grade and fill it with watery coffee grounds).  This is worm tea.  It's like MiracleGro but way better and less chemicalicious.  Use it on your most troubled/prized plants.  

General tips for winning the bet with MacGyver that it won't stink:

• Start with small amounts of less stinky, already broken up food (coffee, tea, juicer pulp)
• Liberally cover with shredded paper whenever things start to look swampy
• Empty sewer early and often
• No animal parts or dairy (worms can eat egg shells, but can't keep up with our 4 a day habit)
• Go easy on citrus (sure, it smells lemony fresh, but if you put in the remnants from juicing an entire tree, it will get really acidic, taste like burning and take a hella long time to eat through)

Building a new gate.

Our old side gate sucked. It is the primary entrance for us and it had some pretty clunky chains as a lock mechanism. It was also primarily held together by chicken wire which would often times scratch you when you tried to unlock its clunky chains. It also had a bolt that Belle could not reach [BE:  it had a bolt?!] so we quickly got rid of and relied solely on the chains to keep it shut. Needless to say it was time to go.

PaGyver built some awesome redwood fences and gates for his house in La Crescenta. He used 2" thick redwood throughout and it came out awesome. His was stained a very rich red that I really liked and wanted to mimic. I could not find the exact stain but I think my version came out pretty good although it is a touch darker. I got some Behr outdoor redwood stain but it looked really bad, almost like painting red over the wood. It did not accent the grain and in general looked crappy. I will not be purchasing any of their stain in the future, even though I am a fan of their paint quality. In the end I found that I had some "red mahogany" generic stain over from the fish pond project, so I used that instead.

We also had a deadbolt left over from changing out our locks so using 2" planks rather than "standard" gate material let me use that deadbolt and get rid of the chains! Hooray! It also let us only need a single key to enter our home... /amazing. Now for the details of the build:

Materials:
8x 2"x6"x6' Redwood planks
2x 2"x4" x6' Redwood boards
1x 2"x4"x8' Redwood board for a diagonal didn't seem like it needed it so this can be skipped/
2x 4"x4"x8' Redwood beams (not yet installed)

I had measured the gate to be just over 4' so I figured using 8x 2by6's would put me pretty close and I could adjust the gaps between the boards to get the exact length (turned out to be 49 1/4) which gave me a half inch gap between planks.

I then cut the 2x4s to size and put a screw in each of the two outer boards (kind of built a frame). When everything lined up I added a couple more screws so it would not move. I then did a quick sanity check of putting every board in its place and made sure the 1/2" gap was correct. It was so I worked my way from outside in, lining up the gap and screwing the board in. The center gap was slightly less than .5 but still fine.

Belle and I had decided earlier that we wanted a simple curved top to the gate. I had picked an arbitrary top height of 6' (conveniently the length of the boards) and figured that a bend from 5' high to 6' back to 5' would look good. We knew the length of the gate was 4' so I set to google to figure out the formula for the radius. Turns out that it was not a chord/radius problem like I initially thought but really just a similar triangle math quiz. The answer can be found here but in retrospect it is very clearly a radius of 2.5'. So I measured 2.5 feet down from the top center of the gate and sank a screw into a scrap piece of wood (the screw floated between the center 2 boards). Then I tied some twine around the screw and the other end around a pencil. Holding the twine tight I traced the arc for the top of the gate, some quick jigsawing later and it was cut.

Smoothed the cuts a bit with a file, but my jigsaw work was better than normal so no need for extensive filing. I then rounded the entire front side except for the bottom edge with a router. This was actually the first time using my Ryobi router in free hand and it worked amazingly. It is not a plunge style but that did not matter here, I have been very impressed with the Ryobi line in general even though it is supposedly lower end. Router work done I sanded the top smooth and got to staining. Getting between the boards was tough at first but I really did not want to take the thing apart and stain the boards individually. I did end up taking off the 2x4s to stain the backside, but found that using the flat pencils made it very easy to get the rag inside the gaps. So I kept one 2x4 on at all times and re-lined up the holes. Stain applied it was ready to mount it.

Hanging a door is tricky, hanging a 100lb monstrosity of a gate is even trickier. I recruited Belle for some leveling help but the thing was too heavy for her to hold so I had to line it up while she screwed the massive bolts into the existing 4x4's (I will replace these later as it was getting late). We sat the gate on a small shim of wood to make lining it up easier and got it hung after 30 minutes of wrestling it. The hinges were spring loaded so the door would close a little too far leaving a nice Klee Kai sized escape route. That was quickly fixed with a left over copper bar screwed on as a stop.

I then installed the deadbolt which had some of the best instructions. Kwikset you guys rock. The instructions come with a hole template that you fold around the door and it lines up the hole saw hole and the 1" latch hole. PaGyver left some spade bits so I actually did have all the tools I needed for the install. Everything there went pretty smooth, locked it up and called it a night. Sunday I did some light finish work to it (added hole plugs and installed the handle).

Fun project, came out pretty good but not as epic as Dads. I really like the castle look from the outside, and most importantly only 1 chain lock left. That one will require welding, fun times.