Sunday, July 22, 2007

Nick's chili pepper popcorn

Put some olive or peanut oil (1/2 a cup or so) in the bottom of a medium pot with several dried red chilies, a tsp garlic powder, half a tsp chili powder and a dash of cayanne pepper. Heat the oil on med high for a minute or two then add popcorn. If you tip the pan diagonal you should add just enough popcorn to be even with the amount of oil in the corner of the pot. Put the lid on and shake every so often. When it starts to pop make sure you keep shaking the pan every 15 seconds or so to prevent scorching. When there is a 2 second or so gap between the pops, take it off the burner and pour the popcorn into a bowl. Add salt (popcorn salt is best-it is powdered salt and sticks to the kernels best) and serve with an ice cold beer and a good movie.



Ok, I am lazy tonight and stole my son's popcorn recipe; my 16 year old made this up through trial and error, and it is awesome.

Thought I would take a break from the serious stuff and update the critter situation. Right now Bilbo and Gaffer, our pet rats, are running around the computer table as I blog. They are tan hooded rats and are around 6 months old; I got them from a girl I go to college with, who is in the vet tech program. They are so much nicer than the girls we had a few years ago-they do not bite, and they are much more gregarious. The poor boys have been stuck in their cage for 3 weeks as the kids and I have been gone and Dave does not get them out.

I ordered 25 heavy male chickens in May and we are down to 18 due to predators, and half of them are hens. They are getting big (compared to the banties) at 11 weeks old, but since they spend all their time down at the house foraging they do not eat their feed much and are growing slower than they should. I was supposed to butcher them weeks ago but they only weighed 3 pounds. I have such a hard time balancing between our need to have meat and their need to live a full life. They are getting the better end of the deal, I have to say, at this point. They are really healthy looking, very active, and thier combs are so bright red they look painted. They are handsome birds; we have Barred Rocks, Turkens, and Rhode Island Reds among others, and look just beautiful scattered about the yard-brown, white, black, speckled. I will have to start butchering soon, as they will get too tough to eat, but they are not that heavy yet. Maybe I will do a few of the larger ones and wait a bit on the rest. I think if I crock pot them they will be tender and the meat should be so much healthier than at the store.

The egg banties are setting, two of them are sharing a nest in the loft. I wonder how they will tell whose chicks are whose, or if they will communally raise them as they have shared setting duties. I have 5 left, 3 hens and 2 roosters. I kept hoping the little reddish hen and the reddish rooster would breed, but of course it is the plain brown hens and the white rooster who have nested. Ah well, can't have it all.

We are down to two dogs, Tallulah the Bull Terrier and Jack the Dal/Whippet cross. They have done nothing all summer, no shows other than one flyball/disc demo, but seem not to mind. Jack gets out a few times a week to play frisbee, but he is getting old and cannot run for more than a few minutes before he starts getting gimpy. Tallulah has been asked to do therapy at my sister in law's work, with the mentally handicapped. She loves visiting people, and so hopefully we will go in a few weeks. Unfortunatly the next two Saturdays are full, so it will have to wait.

We have finches, Dave's idea. We have two pairs who refuse to get along even in a huge cage, so they are separated for now. One of the pairs just hatched out a baby a few weeks ago. He was so quiet that I didn't even know he was there-I picked up the nest to see if there was any eggs in it and out flew a baby! He must have been in there 2 weeks or more and since he was alone was quiet.

Still have the same two cats, Poe the siamese and Dusty the ice cream store cat. Poe was not doing so well, losing weight, sleeping all the time. We had his teeth cleaned and he is a whole new cat! He follows us all over the house, hollaring, and even lets Tallulah sniff him a little. He apparently was in a lot of pain, poor old fart. At 14 I suppose things like teeth start to go a little. Dusty is fat as a house and ornery as usual.

We still have the frog and Zen the painted turtle. I am raising meal worms for them, it is so easy! Just throw them (worms) in a little bin with some oatmeal, pine shavings and a few apple or potato slices every few days, and they just keep multiplying. The cool thing is to see them go through all their stages, from egg to larvae to pupa to adult beetles. Sure beats driving an hour and paying 4 bucks for a plastic container of them. The frog will eat the meal worms right out of my hand-that is pretty cool, if I say so myself.

I also have a 55 gallon tropical fish tank; some of the fish I got in 1997! I have four bronze catfish left (that I hatched from parents in 1998); I had no idea they lived so long. There is a weather loach, a 'shark' (really a catfish that looks like a shark) and other hand me down fish, some of who are original to the tank back in '97.

That is about it. Our crazy house of critters. I keep saying no more because traveling is so hard, but it will be tough to hold myself to that. I have been getting the dog jones for months now-I am overdue for a new one; however with being in school full time (Alfred State College-agricultural science major) I just do not have time for any more. Dave says when I graduate I can have a large animal-I was thinking a donkey and a cow to keep it company-but I wonder how that will work with our inevitable travel schedule. I have a year to think on it.

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