chocolate chip muffin cookies and beef and red pepper noodles with black pepper sauce

 I made the chocolate chip cookies today again, and I was a bit distracted.  I was watching our cat and goat interact outside the kitchen window, and I forgot all the way to the very end to add the brown sugar!  So, then, I improvised and still ended up with something very good, but they were more like muffins than cookies.

So what happened instead of the regular recipe was :\

375 degree oven preheated with parchment paper on a (non-preheated) flat baking sheet 

1 stick of softened butter, cut into 1/2 cup of white sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract mixed with one egg, then cut into the butter mixture quickly

1 cup of flour mixed with 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/2 tsp of salt - folded in

then add one half cup more of flour

and one cup of chocolate chips SHOULD have been next but I realised there is usually 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar in the sugar mixture.. and I hadn't done it.  I had been laughing at our goat and cat outside the window and not paying enough attention *sigh*  So now I have a floury mixture and need to add the sugar...

So, I added one more lightly beaten egg, a splash of milk, and the packed brown sugar all at one time, then added a bit more flour until the mixture was back to the right consistency.  I worried that not adding more baking soda might make it not rise right - but I went for it anyway.

 I added the chocolate chips and  scooped it out onto the parchment paper and then baked for 10-15 minutes just until the bottom edges looked like they were beginning to brown.  Whew, they all turned out great!  And the other cookies were thin and a bit crisp after removing - these were soft and very muffin-like, but not gooey.  And they hardened up a bit after being put on a plate and then into the fridge in a ziploc bag with a paper towel in the bottom of it.

 

Last night I used Mark's leftover beef roast cut up into a noodle recipe I have been looking forward to.  We had stir fry noodles I wanted to use up the second half of the package before too long had went by.

I added olive oil to a pan and put white onions, green onions and red bell pepper in to begin to sautee.  Then I added about a cup of water to that, and some soy sauce and some Allegro Black Pepper marinade, which usually I would use some balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, prepared brown mustard and spices to make something similar - but I've been liking the marinade and it has balsamic vinegar in it, which is probably why.  Let that sautee and bubble for a little bit, added the well chopped meat and stirred thoroughly, remaining sort of 'saucey' even with the meat in it add some water if it absorbs too much, turned the heat down a little - broke and rinsed the stir fry noodles in their package (wet pack), and then put them into the mixture and let that steam off the heat and stirred it a few times - then served it up

 

just a few days ago (above), with names

these are some of the big chickens that have names, the other rooster's name is Beau and he has one eye and no tail feathers (but he does chase after opossums)  Amber and Peach and Speck are all olive-eggers, I think - and the other olive-egger we still have I'm not sure entirely if they are a tiny rooster or not, but they seem to get along okay any way you look at it.  They have long scraggly little tail feathers and are tiny compared to the hens, called 'He-He' after Moana, and never was very 'bright' - once walked to the end of a stick several inches off the ground and thought 'the world ends here' and turned around and started walking the other direction instead of hopping off.  We've been advised that our olive-eggers might have been crossed with Crested Cream Legbar, for the way that they have little tufts of feathers on their head by their combs.

 

We also cleaned out the baby chicks' cage and put all new material in for them.  Our dog Charlotte was so upset, she thought we had thrown the chicks out with the bed litter - but she realized after a few moments of utter despair (she was actually laying stretched out next to the empty, drying cage like it was the end of the world) that they were inside the house in a different cage, and then she was so excited I had to tell her to go elsewhere for a little bit and calm down as she was jumping around smelling and scaring them.  As we put them back in the big cage she had another super-excitement and they were all bouncey and fluttering around but at least they were in the big cage then.  Esme and I finished giving them names, but we'll have to see if we can still tell some of them apart for a while after they finish molting their adult feathers.

a perch stick they haven't learned to use yet

Prairie is the silvery-brown one next to the grey (Goose) in the corner  Duck is the dark brown, Pheasant is the one with the yellow face and brown back,   Goose is still smaller than everyone and is probably not Americauna, but some other breed we'll find out as we go, or a sport from Sapphire Gem crossing that some say happens in this type.  Duck we think is definitely just a sport (odd color, brown in this case) Americauna, but she also walks low to the ground and holds her head close to her shoulders and the name is fitting more and more every day.  Esme says one of the yellows has a spot on the side of their face and the other has a stripe across (somewhere?) and so she has called them Spot and Stripe - but I'm telling those two apart basically because Stripe is one and a half times bigger than everyone else, they've been 'the one in charge of figuring this stuff out' since the beginning, first to use the hanging feeder and to check out the water bottles etc.

We are supposed to have a wild storm and maybe even a dusting of snow tomorrow, then cold temperatures for days... the wind is definitely up out there now.
 

some photos, melody goat and baby chicks

random photos of Melody asking me if it is dinner time yet

 

 Our elderly tortoiseshell cat, Minion, taking interest in the baby chicks as they are doing a lot more fluttering and running out at times.  They are getting wing and tail feathers and stretching them out to impressive lengths.  It will be a week tomorrow (today, Friday) that we have had them in the brooder.

 

languages: I have been working on French, Japanese and Turkish.   We heard more Turkish spoken in the crime series we are watching and there is also that one manga about the android girl in the post-apocalyptic world that was only available in Turkish so I had went a bit further in it back then to keep understanding words and it was cool to hear a few words in the crime series and say 'hey, I did understand a bit'

rabbit rabbit it's August

 

Library books, probably won't finish them but there is a chance I'll read them, the one on the right is about Paris, and magic, but the text is on the small side.  The center one is about a Native American community, and the library has the sequel out which made me go see if they had the first one.  The one on the left was on sale for two dollars and the premise is quite scary and intriguing (future, one child per family, identical twins and mother died, father made an elaborate ruse in her memory to appear as if there was only one daughter and now the daughters are older and trying to figure out how to go on when they only have one identity and fear of death on discovery).  But, now that I own that one - however intriguing it is, I will look at the other two first since they are two weeks loan.

 

our local library had such cute children's decorations I had to take a picture of it - mushroom window, waterfall in the back (out of streamers) and paper chain tree leaves on a column made to look like a trunk (complete with owl)

we had donated a lot of coleus one day after a farmer's market trip - and they put some out front in planters :)  We were so glad they were loved

the community garden raised beds were full of interesting plants

 

Also, little chicken did not improve, and I think perhaps she also had a fractured bone in her leg that had actually caused the other problems and was the reason she could not improve even with warm baths and eye-dropper feeding.  There wasn't anything else we could do for her, and she wasn't eating and barely drinking.  Esme was sad, but we did what we could - cleaned up all the care things this morning and then I continued and cleaned out some garden beds and the dry goods pantry - trying to sort my brain out, by sorting what is in front of me ie ie....  I hate losing one, even when there are twenty - and twenty was a bit much for us, but when you buy them small you almost expect to lose several - and we were lucky in that we raised all of the last batch to adulthood and hadn't lost any of the batch before (which we had also expected).  We let them have as long of lives as they can, whether or not if they are laying eggs keeping up 'production'.    At the same time we don't do anything elaborate, like the heated houses that look better than doghouses that I see, or go out and spend hours with them every day as I see online as well.  We will give them greens and vegetable cuttings and make sure they have layer feed twice a day and clean water, and collect the eggs - that's a pretty good life for a chicken, especially around here.

Knitting a little this morning, going to go take a look at that crochet bear or cat I was working on.  Doing laundry and sweeping and wishing I had more energy to go further and deep clean other things but the pantry did need it.  I want to 'make it better' on a lot of little things but the little things add up.  That is good - because they should add up to better, but they also add up in exhaustion, so a little at a time, easy does it et al.  And I washed one of the dogs, she is always so sensitive she was begging me to give her another bath.  She hasn't quite figured out how to distinctly ask for a bath - but I've been getting more signals from her a few times lately and trying to see if we can get an actual trained signal.    I finally studied amigurumi stitches and see what I'm doing that makes the weave not tight enough - will see on the next if I can correct that.  We do plan, at least Esme and I, to go sell at the market this afternoon, and then we need groceries tonight or tomorrow.

Doing French at the high-grammar level, Chinese at the lowest level when the French grammar annoys me, and Spanish on my phone although that is a higher grammar level as well and I might have to switch down to something else there for a little bit, as well.

some things in general

I did a whole lot of crocheting and knitting trying out this toy pattern I saw a picture of - winging the entire thing, unhappy with some of it, trying other things to push it along etc.  I learn a lot when I do these, and the knitted ones usually turn out great but the knitting takes so long and is so small and hard on my fingers sometimes.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other - since I'm not on duty at the post office I thought I'd work on it yesterday and hope I didn't strain my hand for whatever I do on Wednesday.

 

Talking yesterday I know there was a lot that I wanted to say but couldn't find the right frame of reference.  It's taken me thirty years to realize a lot of the methods I now operate by - and a lot of those were just trial and error.  I just have to make my ADHD tendencies work for me, because this is me, I'm the one getting things done in here, so knowing how it gets done best for me is the way to go.  I'm sure a lot of my methods looks painful to others, and trying to put it out in speech is really hard for me because you can't edit and insert and delete like you can in text without becoming a Mime with a whiteboard /ha - but also - in life you can get all the instructions and all the tools put on your workbench but you have to figure out yourself minute-to-minute how to get things done with them.  I think my dad said it as 'wherever you go, there you are, work with that'... I'm still working on it... and I get things done, eventually.

Then, at forty, I found out more about dysautonomia and Ehlers-Danlos, which run in my father's family and affects individuals differently.  I knew about the dysautonomia from being diagnosed with POTS at nineteen, but learning about the entire 'umbrella' of EDS disorders and genetic links was like getting to see the actual operating manual for something you only learned by hunt and peck.  And even with all I've learned so far, I still haven't completely processed that because life doesn't slow down often - and then you have to decide whether to rest or catch up on things you've set aside for the moment - to decide whether to use up your energy while you have it, and what on etc etc.. or to reserve it and hope you still have some when you need it next.

What I've learned in general about hEDS (hypermobile Ehlers Dalos syndrome, "EDS type 3"):

I can give no advice at all on healthy eating to anyone really - but diet has been about the only thing that can be managed since hEDS has no 'cure' and is genetic, and just naturally gets worse with aging, which is why more people with it start to realize and learn more about it in their thirties and forties, even though they've had it all their lives and sort of just 'got by' until they began to age.  First off every body is so different you just have to find your own middle ground over time, and my body is even worse because hEDS is just so hard to understand in the first place.  The body is always under constant repair, and as you age, your body repairs slower, so in hEDS the damage starts to build up and snowball if you aren't taking care of it.  hEDS is a problem at the base level of how the body makes collagen, slightly too stretchy and fragile, and the body replaces these structures all the time, but slower as you age.  'Dietary collagen' doesn't help because it does not replace the collagen the body is always making in every cell of your skin, muscles, blood vessels, even eyes and gums and so forth, that is just slightly wrong here and there, a little like swiss cheese.  So things break down and strain and 'degrade' in weird and unexpected ways, sometimes heal, but not always quickly or correctly without help, highly confusing unless you at least know why.  A lot of the dietary things that help are advice bodybuilders would follow - even though it isn't expending the 'exceptional' effort of perhaps a bodybuilder, the muscles are constantly still needing that kind of fuel to rebuild themselves from what is just normal activity for most other people.  I'm still figuring out the very strange needs of this condition and I'm sure it doesn't really add up to healthy, but it's healthier than before I understood why everything was going haywire trying to follow the advice a 'normal healthy person' would thrive on.

So when I'm hungry - I follow my weird-food instincts because they're usually pretty correct, high 'good' fat to process the fat-soluble vitamins, high protein, lower carb, lower sugar, lots and lots of anti-inflammatory foods and spices.  Some of the stranger things I like, green chiles, hot peppers, bananas, cucumbers, avocado, olives, peanut butter, celery seed and seaweed etc.. are because they contain specific nutrients that my body needs and are hard to get elsewhere.  I'm craving avocado, not donut - but sometimes I crave tacos or Indian type recipes because of the spices and the antioxidants that come with those foods - black beans, coconut milk, butternut squash, egg yolks, hot curry etc...  And, combinations that other people would find odd sometimes taste really good to me - because I need all those things, and tastes are made up partially by our body's responses saying 'oh yes, more of that!'  I've tried methylfolate once, but should try it again.  I hate that it has to be ordered and I can't get it locally.  There are studies saying a lot of the dietary issues can be helped by adding that, because the lack of some enzymes in EDS gene carriers can cause problems processing folic acid, which is in nearly everything, and then that also causes trouble processing copper and other micronutrients, which are necessary for the muscle repair etc.. snowball effect, too much of what the body can't process, tying up some of the things it really needs to process, and inflammation.

Coffee causes other people to be overjittery and anxious and can't sleep - but again, I'm a case of opposites.  These are things I swear my body 'knew' before I really consciously did, but I often had a very hard time 'listening' to it over the magazine and health advice that gets constantly blared at us in society.   And I always have drank so much coffee at times, you'd think I should be a constant interdimensional blur, but it also has a key anti-inflammatory in it and keeps the vascular system's constriction vs. dilation function constantly exercised which helps combat the POTS dizziness and fainting problems I had so badly years ago.  The few times I tried to stop coffee 'for my health' resulted in inflammatory nightmare weeks that I was told was 'withdrawal' and I'd feel so much better if I just waited until I 'detoxed'.. no, nope, I wasn't 'just in caffeine withdrawal', I was in pain and angry, all my joints felt like I had been thrown from a horse and I was so tired and brain-fogged but couldn't sleep well, and I felt nauseous from drinking plain water that drinking the water was a constant effort where I drink down cups of coffee before I even realize it's empty and stare into the empty cup with little cat-whimpers before levering myself up to go get more. 

Although - I'm really glad my cousin finally tuned me into corn being an inflammatory for us, because that little bit of information to cut that out wherever possible really changed a lot.  Once I started watching where that was in my diet and trying to avoid it there was a huge change in all of my healing and muscle inflammation processes.  And there is corn meal and corn starch in so many things!  It's a lot easier to manage the inflammation that is still here when I'm not actively adding to it with something I didn't realize we were 'allergic' to.  Most of all, understanding the cyclical nature of constant repair and energy expenditure that is present in hEDS really helped me understand energy-fatigue cycle that comes with it, and the exercised 'in shape' vs the overuse 'injury' of the hypermobile muscles.  It also explains why doctors would always think I was 'fine' and then I would turn into a melting type mess and they were like 'how did it get so bad??' and then I'd get back into a repair cycle and it was like 'wow, you must be better' etc etc.. In general though, I 'run myself into the ground' less often now that I know better, although it still happens - and I remind myself to stop early at 'good enough for now' on some things sometimes to assess and not OVER-overuse things that will already be needing to rest and repair later.

 

finally reached the 1000 day streak on my PC account, which I've had since 2017  I was doing French and Chinese yesterday, got Super preview and will try to finish up some sections today in the French and maybe another language.

This week:

I am not on at the office, that I know of, this week - that's good and bad.  It's bad in that I'm not getting the hours, and that will catch up to us later, but it's good in that I had been working a lot and needed a little bit of a break.  The garden is in rough shape - but still producing tomatoes and a pepper here and there.  Something took advantage of my more infrequent visits and ate some of the cucumber plants on one side of the raised beds.  I tried to pull the fencing back up there - it must have been a deer reaching over the fence since there was such an obvious bite through three of them and bits of the plant was left down on the ground with the fence pushed down.

I didn't find the biryani spice I was looking for at the supermarket yesterday, although I got the juice.  What I ordered at the restaurant yesterday was three times what I normally would, when I go to the other place I only get one set of rolls and that is more than enough, but the recipes are entirely different, too.  But I was glad to be able to use the leftovers at home for dinner.  I used five-spice powder and additional black pepper, a finely chopped shishito pepper from the garden, frozen white onion, soy sauce and a handful of the fine egg noodles to add to the leftovers I took home and make a refried fried rice for dinner while Esme and Mark made a pizza.  My food was VERY spicy.  The olive oil I'm using is Bertolli Light Cooking Olive Oil? ( The price went up three dollars a bottle since the last one I bought, which was a shock. )  But I rarely just fry any food in oil - Mark says he has no idea what kind of cooking style it is - but I add a bit of oil to the pan, maybe a tablespoon, and then actually dilute that with about twice that amount of water - heat it up, add onions and peppers and/or other vegetables, and then when they are hot and sizzling, I'll add more water and soy sauce and powdered spices (and the noodles here), sometimes add the frozen greens from the garden in this step because they get really soggy if added in the earlier one, and get that boiling again, then add the rice which I cook up a half cup or a cup at a time and store in a glass container in the fridge.  

I did that sleep four hours and check on the sick chicken thing again, and now I've been up for three hours again.  Yesterday I fell back asleep for two hours later - and today I actually got about four more after I had been up for three.

Writing this is keeping myself from getting back into that crochet and straining that hand before I get a chance to have the effect of yesterday 'hit' and tell me what the muscles feel like today.  (often a ten to twelve hour turnaround on pain there)  I don't think the poor little chicken will make it, she seemed a bit more deflated yesterday even with drinking the bit of yolk I gave her and more antibiotic water and a warm wipe down instead of the soak that I thought might have been worse for her the other day - but mostly the left leg that was hurting her still looks fine but she isn't putting any weight on it at all now that I can see.

bits

 

I should be sleeping, but woke up to check on the chicken downstairs in the garage, and now I'm still awake two hours later.  I have a luncheon date later today with a post office colleague, which was set up three weeks ago but had to be cancelled.  We're going to the Chinese buffet but hoping to try out their adjoined Sushi bar since the other restaurant I like to get sushi at is strangely closed on Tuesdays.

(Above : Lyffan, sleeping by my computer - she woke up and stared at me intensely when I sneezed earlier!)

The sick chicken is still drinking, but I followed the instructions on a site and gave her a ten minute soak in warm epsom salt water yesterday, and she actually hasn't been quite as happy since then.  So, I'm not sure - She isn't eating anything - just drinking, and standing up and moving a few steps, but not running around.  We gave her a good look over - all three of us, and couldn't see any external damage or anything obvious except where she had lost some feathers with the yuck that had been on her (that we washed off).   I stopped putting her in the cage and just left her in the kiddie pool because she isn't moving around much and I wanted to reduce the stress of putting her in and out of the square opening in the cage.  

I put 'electrolytes and vitamins' in the water I was giving her, and she is trying to drink out of it all by herself when I'm not there (drinks much more I think when I squeeze the bottle for her right there, but Mark says that is a false observation) - so I might try to find a better way to set up the waterer for her later.  There is food right there available for her, but she hasn't even tried to take any out of my hand since yesterday morning, and that was just one piece.  Really, I'm just not sure she is going to make it - I needed to get to her sooner and Esme told me yesterday that she had been 'broody' and not wanting to get off her nest for several days, so maybe she had been without food and water holed up in the house longer than we realized.  It's so hard sometimes when you have twenty of them to notice some of the less obvious things you'd notice more if you only had a handful.

I finished the second blue crochet bag - and a few dishcloths, and am thinking about making a few toys in a simple style that I saw and liked.  But I said that yesterday and I knit another dishcloth to finish up the yarn I had - so we'll see.  I took a try at making a stand for the bags out of some things I have - pvc pipe and a wreath ring - but will have to keep working at that, it needs a more stable base.  I've been looking at a lot of yarn online - so many different kinds unlike anything I have, but I'm not willing to buy any of it sight unseen, especially.  

recipe : olive oil, frozen white onions, half a tomato, soy sauce (2 caps), garam masala, about 1/4 tsp or less, brought to a sizzle, add about a 1/3 cup of water, brought to a boil - then added a chunk of the jasmine brown rice that had been cooked yesterday : Esme said it was good, not too strong of spice (Minerva was drooling by my elbow the entire time I was eating), but the rice was 'chewy', not bad, but different  we had the same rice in a fried rice with egg yesterday and she hadn't noticed the chewiness then, but it was only a few hours cooled off and not in the fridge all night - I'm still evaluating whether I need to buy some biryani masala, this was pretty good this way

Still doing mostly French - touched into Chinese.  Played the meadowlands ranch (in the Stardew Valley game) up to the end of Spring - about to build the barn.  I was in the second year on the other game before I decided to try that - somehow I always start over more interested in trying some other method etc. 

Ice and Snow finally gone

 The Ice and Snow have finally retreated - and all the roads are passable.  The last ''great snow storm" was 2016 (although there have been more since then) but it only lasted three days because it was so much warmer right afterward.  It took so long this time, a week to eleven days!

Knitting and crocheting, working on getting supplies again after all that being trapped in : working on washing clothes and towels and dog blankets after all that having to have the laundry taps shut off because of the freezing temps...

But, the chickens are happy.  They are out in the muddy yard enjoying sunshine and warmer temperatures and eating their food.  During several of these days they would leave their food in the bowl - a lot of them were just holing up against the cold and only coming out if they needed to (smart chicks)

This was their water first thing this morning after sunrise - still half a block of ice after being above freezing for more than a day - but it has melted by now.

Going to go out there and change it all over, wash down their platform with the hose, and show Esme some of the things that are already coming up in the yard and the garden - I saw kale out there volunteer from last year already, alive even after these zero degree temps!  It blows me away.  She said she didn't really know much about our heirloom garden project / property of Shepard Lane Garden, but then I asked her what this was, what that picture in a gallery was, where things are growing - and she knows.  She just doesn't realize how much she knows and that the knowledge is part of the heritage project, as well.  We've been identifying the different plants that grow on our prairie areas as well, and she knew a few of those or at least where that plant was and what time of year.

bits

We were building this the last two days out of 1 inch hexagon chicken wire and 1/2 inch 600 psi schedule 40 pipe.  We glued the panels together, then zip tied the 4 foot chicken wire to the frames.  There is one corner open that we can close with bungee cords, and we will be working on a netting roof to clip on.  This way our chickens have a mobile place we can move them around - like a chicken tractor.  Mark is going to be working on a house and nesting box for them that is light enough we can move it around with the pen.  The pen is also expandable this way, so we can add more panels and make more space if we need it.  Then our chickens can get plenty of grass and weeds and bugs and we can move it when an area gets too sparse for them.  The nesting box and house will give them a place for shade and to get out of the rain.  I have this weekend off and it shouldn't rain until then.  They still fit inside their barrel cage for roosting but they are getting to the point they need more space and they need gravel and grass.

sarvis bits and a chicken in a doghouse

The sarvis trees are starting to bud out, one of the first signs of Spring.  I also caught our Gennet chicken (English game hen) hanging out in the old doghouse I stuffed with extra straw.  I threw her some seed there.  Daphne dog still holes up there sometimes when it is cold or rainy.  A few other shots just because their patterns and/or colors attracted me.  The chartreuse in the moss is like sunshine on fields of new grass.. which I adore even at a distance.

 There is something about the stone wall to the right and the mirror reflection showing through the ice cracks ... the progression of ice along the right edge.  I didn't capture exactly what I wanted to say - but there is always another day to try.

More sarvis trees.   I do love how the buds in the background blurred to bright spots scattered artistically behind.

 The aforementioned chicken.

sarvis buds

// I have a drawing I did of Mark in our first year of marriage that is sort of Klimt-styled that I want to put up somewhere.  It is not 'much' of a drawing, black ink on white paper, but it has that something that I always remember, some bit of expressive joy.. and I don't have anywhere that is 'right' to hang it up at and it isn't really small and easy to tuck in anywhere.  Have to think about it.  I go hunting for it every once in a while.  It has little fish (of course, its me) swimming out along the edge of it that suggest he is dreaming something.