Celebrity mother

Ever since I can remember there has been the tale of the mysterious Indian blood in my mother's side of the family. Story has it that there was an old family photo with an Indian Chief in it. We do have slanty deep set eyes, so who knows if there is any truth in it? When I did my celebrity lookalike a couple of posts ago I turned up a Korean actor. When Julie did hers, she turned up a Chinese actor. Why not do your mother? suggested Julie. So here they are. The first photo is of her aged around 28, and the second around 17.




No Asians there, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is there! How cool is THAT! And that photo of Ginger Rogers is very similar. My favourite, however, is John D. Rockerfeller - can YOU see the similarity???

On to the younger photo,




One Asian face there. Isn't this a fun way to spend time on a rainy day?

All over the place like a dog's breakfast

And what a breakfast it is. Here is the story of Majic's breakfast this morning.

First, he sits patiently while I prepare the bowls. One red bowl each for us, and the two white bowls for him. See how patient he is, while all is being prepared?



Why TWO bowls for him? Let's look a little closer and see what is in each of those bowls:


On the left we have puppy biscuits. I won't name the brand, but it is an expensive one. On the right we have pawpaw, banana, and plain yoghurt. But wait - do dogs eat fruit? Ooh yes. Majic eats fruit salad every morning, and apart from grapes (which are toxic to dogs) he eats every kind of fruit.

I am going to put them both on the floor together, and see which one he eats first, or whether he goes from one to the other.

Here goes:


Yup - the fruit first. And a few seconds later he's still at the fruit:



Still at the fruit, he hasn't even looked at the biscuits yet:



Ooops, spilled a few bits, better go and get those:



Are you SURE there are no stray chunks of pawpaw or banana left? OK, if you are POSITIVE, I guess I'll eat the biscuits now.


Man, it's a dog's life!

Celebrity lookalikes - me?

Thanks, Witty Knitter, for some good time-wasting fun on the public holiday. I went to the face site she posted about and selected a recent photo of me not smiling. Here is the result:



Patrick Swayze??? Consuelo Velasquez>? Who are these celebrities? And because this is addictive, I tried one smiling:



Yes, public holidays are fun.. now to go and look up Bae Yong-jun.

Knitting and beading - some experiments

I am experimenting with another necklace. A couple of years ago I did an experimental piece of beaded knitting - just fourteen stitches, and some strung beads. The silver and purple beads had been strung on red crochet cotton to a pattern which had been designed for a crochet rope, but for some reason it just didn't want to be crocheted. That knitting experiment worked out well - there was a kind of design in the necklace, but nothing really recognisable. I knitted the fourteen stitches back and forth, and the long strip kinda curled in on itself. I sewed on a clasp and a necklace was born. It was lovely, and I gave it to a good friend. I liked it so much I made another exactly the same, and kept it. Every time I wear it someone comments on it.


I've been thinking about more bead knitting, and bought a couple of how-to books by Julia Pretl.

I bought some rayon thread to experiment with, and strung alternating black and
white 2-cut beads. They have a lovely sparkle to them. The black ones were left over from a project - a long crochet lariat rope which I wear a lot. The white/rainbow ones I bought in Hastings, Nebraska, on our last visit there. I wanted to knit in the round, so I bought some 1.25 mm double pointed needles from Crochet Australia. The plan was to knit a tube of 11 stitches with the beads alternating in a checkerboard pattern.

Well, knitting on those tiny needles in the round just proved impossible. They were too slippery, there were too few stitches, nothing seemed to go right. I persevered for quite a while, and
didn't like the result. The beads wouldn't stay on the right side despite using the beaded knitting stitch - what Julia Pretl calls the Eastern stitch (needle through the back of the knit stitch, yarn over and around clockwise, bead up and through). The needles kept slipping out of their stitches. I am more patient and persistent than most people, but this was too much.

Next I tried Julia Pretl's double sided knitting. I've done that for a hem in wool before, so I know what to do. Knit, then slip, so you are knitting a tube, but on two needles.

That didn't work either. The slipped stitch made the whole thing too tight to push the bead through. My temper began to fray and I thought I would try one more thing before giving up on knitting and using the beaded crochet technique to make them into a rope.

I took up a pair of knobbed 1.25 needles, cast on 14 stitches and started the usual knit one row (bead knitting) purl one row. I am very happy with this. The way the beads slant in opposite directions, the way they catch the light. Yes, this will work. The piece is beginning to curl over on itself, which will make a nice necklace.



What a learning experience, but frustrating.

I have some lovely silk (thank you daughter, for that birthday present...) for my next project, and some black/red/white cross stitch charted patterns. I have plenty of black and white 2-cuts and might buy some red ones, or another highlight colour. I have nebulous plans to create a patterned knitted silk beaded evening bag with a crochet rope handle. I wonder if I could do THAT in the round, with more stitches and double pointed needles? Hmmm, might do some more experimenting. Knitting in the round might not give the same back and forth slant to the beads.... I wonder..... stay tuned.

How much do I love that doggie?

For ages I have been thinking of baking dog biscuits. Yes, you heard me. I already cook his food and freeze it. The last batch contained quinoa and lentils along with pasta, vegetables and meat. He does very well on it, as did The Great Jonty. However, he gets a very small serving of dry dog food every morning, before his fruit salad and yoghurt.

Reading about the terrible events with contaminated dog food in the US recently galvanized me into action this morning. The first stop was Ozpugs to find some suitable recipes. Yup, there was plenty of inspiration. I gathered the ingredients.

Firstly, some fish stock because we had a whole kingfish recently and had the head and bones. I used some of that to soak about two cups of rolled oats, along with some butter. (Thought about lard, thought about oil, went for the butter this time.)

Mixed that with about a cup and a half of yellow cornmeal, two or three cups of wholemeal flour, two eggs, quite a bit of grated cheese, and two tablespoons of honey.

Mixed it all up in the trusty Kitchen Aid, rolled it out, cut it up, and baked them. No, I do not have a pug-shaped biscuit cutter nor a bone shaped one. Truly, I didn't think he would care what shape the bisuits were!

They came out looking pretty good. Actually, they tasted pretty darned good too! I have to confess I had more than one. Here they are on their cooling rack:



There was much interest from The Pug. It doesn't matter whether I think they tasted OK, what did the dog think? Here comes the acid test.....



Hooray! He likes them! He ate rather more than one or two, and is eager to continue the tast-testing. I shall ration them, and he can have a few for breakfast instead of ground-up chicken heads dry dog biscuits.

Have I just made another rod for my own back? Of course, but that's what having a pet is all about. I wonder if he would like peanut-butter parmesan snaps?

Characters we have met

Majic is a bit of a nervous nellie. He isn't barking or going crazy at his reflection in parked cars any more, but taking him up to the Big Road with Lots of Traffic is often too much for him. When the beeper goes as the pedestrian light changes he lurches out into the road, strangles himself with his check chain and generally goes berserk. Instead of going that way, then, I take him on a much quieter route. We go the same way every time, as I think it might be calming for him.

On the way we have encountered some interesting people. On a small road next to the railway line there are two particularly interesting ones, living three doors apart.

The Woman on the Bed

This is our first encounter, if you can call it that. A small white single storey terrace. The door is almost always open, whether it be really early morning, middle of the day, evening, whatever. There isn't much furniture. As I can see right into the front room I see a pile of telephone books, and a bed on the wall opposite the door. There is a woman there, on the bed. It is hard to tell how old she is - she is plump and shapeless and dresses very drably - trakkies, I guess, indeterminate. She is almost always there. She must get up and go to the loo sometimes, but rarely do I see an empty bed or a closed door. Sometimes she is reading, or doing a crossword puzzle (I think.) Sometimes she is asleep. One morning about two weeks ago I got a real surprise. She was up! Standing! Outside!!! She was putting something in her bin, which was in the front. "Good morning" I said. She looked shocked. Majic and I were moving fast, so I don't know whether she acknowledged the greeting - she may have done. The Morning Report now includes a note about whether the Woman on the Bed was there, and whether there was anything noteworthy about her that day.

The Lady with Two Hearts

Three doors along lives another elderly woman, probably Italian. She is like our neighbour Alex, in that she is a pack rat. Her front garden is FULL of stuff - old paint tins with plants, plastic bottles, all arranged neatly. I've glimpsed inside and there is more of the same. Sometimes she is at her upper window (this is a two storey terrace) leaning out, shaking her head sadly. Sometimes she is very friendly and wants to talk, particularly to the dog, who jumps up and squiggles and behaves like the happy puppy he is. On one of these occasions she talked at length about dogs she had had in the past, German Shepherds, I think. This morning she also wanted to tell me about all her operations. The jumper went up to show me the big scar on her abdomen. Then one shoulder pulled across to show where her second heart had been removed. Huh? She repeated this several times, explaining about her second heart, and did I understand? No, I didn't understand. Majic and I went our merry way.

Stand back, I'm in a RAGE

No, it isn't something Majic has done. Even though he DID get at the ball of wool again and he DID chew the knitting needles up. I can forgive him that. What I cannot forgive is ineptitude when it comes to restaurants.

My beloved and I like to have lunch together on Fridays. That's my day off, and he can often do a bit of relaxing that day too. Sometimes we do lunch mid-week, and that's usually a King Street eatery where we can meet half way between home and the University.

Fridays, though, we like to go on an excursion. The seaside often beckons. We used to love The Pavilion at Maroubra Beach. It is a fabulous spot, the food was good, the service pretty good, the prices not bad. But then they went up market. The prices increased, and the ambience changed completely. The last time we were there the snazzy new refit made the noise levels increase tenfold. It was crowded, and it was deafening. Sorry to say it got crossed off our list, very sadly. It was such a wonderful spot.

Another expedition is the Boatshed at La Perouse. Haven't tried that for quite a while, but the food is really good there.

Today we went back to a place we've tried before - the Seasalt Kiosk and Restaurant at Clovelly. Great spot, overlooking the beach. We've eaten there once before. It was cold and raining and windy - the restaurant was not at its best. The food was OK, but we were cold and damp. We tried to eat there another time, but there was a function there and too crowded, we couldn't get in.

Today we were in luck. A glorious day. Time to ourselves. We got a good table, the menus came. Michael ordered a Croque Monsieur (a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, really.) Sorry, they were out. OK, the special sandwich of the day then for him, a salad for me, and a plate of chips to share. Drinks - my current favourite, Limonata.

The drinks came. The chips came. The drinks were drunk. The chips were eaten (no tomato sauce....) Nothing else. Forty five minutes after we had sat down, I asked where the rest of our food was. "Did you order?" said one of the very many pretty young waitresses who had paid us not one scrap of attention the entire time we had sat there. "Yes, we have ordered" I snapped. She went off to check.

"Oh so sorry" she came back a few seconds later. "There is a problem with the order and it didn't get through to the kitchen. They are doing it for you right now!"

"FORGET IT" I said, "WE'VE HAD ENOUGH AND WE ARE GETTING OUT OF HERE." (Well, we hadn't had enough to EAT...). They didn't charge us for the drinks nor the chips. "It is in the computer, but it didn't print out...." said the girl behind the till. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR EXCUSE IS" I said, rather emphatically.

As we left, one of the pretty young waitresses smiled sweetly and said "thanks, bye bye!" I just pushed past her. I was in no mood for pleasantries.

Mistakes happen, of course. But the thing that really got me was the number of "service" people who didn't seem to notice that we had nothing but a bowl of chips, didn't ask how our meal was, didn't notice our weary droop as the hour ticked by, didn't notice our increasinly surly looks and body language.

Alas, another seaside restaurant is off our list of Friday getaways.

One day I'll have another whinge about a Newtown eatery we have walked out of after having had the menu but no order taken for over half an hour on a very quiet lunchtime. We call it the Urban Crypt, and look for the skeletons sitting at the tables waiting for food to come.

OK. That's enough. Where is the fire extinguisher for this keyboard...

Now I have to go and order some more knitting needles to replace the chewed ones. What a cute and loveable dog.

Sock attacker

Winter is on its way, and so are the woolly socks. This is the one I started in Honolulu, and it has been waiting for me to finish the black jumper.

It is the ribbed lace pattern from Charlene Schurch, and is 80 stitches around. Julie tells me that 72 is enough and expresses concern that the sock will be too big. It is a little loose, but socks often shrink a little when washed. It is also rather longer than usual, partly because I always have a little wool left over, and partly because I wanted to finish a 24-row pattern repeat before I started the heel flap.

Now I am concerned as to whether I have enough wool left. You can see the amount left to go... but Julie tells me that she has some more of this wool and I can have some if necessary. Looks like I just might have enough....



Uh oh! Who is that marauder I see getting into the act? This will be the third or fourth time The Pug has made off with this ball of wool. Fortunately he prefers unknitted wool, so the sock has not been made free with (yet).



It is hard to get much knitting done while he is awake. One sits quietly, and suddenly you feel something pressed firmly into your leg. A slimy dog toy.


This one is Mr. Green, who is turning into rather scraggy frayed Mr. Green.

Oh well, I'd better put the knitting down again and play fetch. Isn't he cute?

Recipe and location!

OK OK, you commenters! You want the recipe? It is really too simple to be called a recipe, but here it is.

There are lots of variations depending on how much I feel like indulging or being in a diet mood.

Take one corn tortilla (straight out of the freezer is fine) and butter one side of it.

OR

Spray your frypan with non-stick stuff (Julie and I call it Spray'n'Stick)

Heat the frypan a little.

Spread the other side of the tortilla with Kraft Cheese Spread and put it in the frypan, butter side down,

OR

Put the tortilla in the frypan and then put as much grated cheese on top as you like.

Break an egg over the cheese/cheese spread. Break the yolk so it runs over the top. It shouldn't run over the edges much, if at all. A corn tortilla is just the right size for an egg.

Put a lid over the frypan and leave it until the egg is cooked. The base of the tortilla might be just going crispy by this stage. Timing of this isn't really critical.

Take it out of the frypan, cut with scissors into quarters. Add some chili if you like (and I particularly like Smoky Chipoltle Tabasco which is available from USAFoods online. Great service from them.

Sometimes I add some grilled bacon or ham on top too. Quick, easy, tasty. Love my breakfast!

Now, where do you get the tortillas? I used to get mine at Coles Broadway. San Diego tell me that Coles in Hillsdale (near Pagewood) stocks them, so I am going to go there and stock up. If you go to any supermarket and ASK for them they might stock them for you.

And if you are very good, next time I will give you my mother's recipe for Enchiladas. Oooh, yummy.

Now THAT"S customer service

I love corn tortillas. Just love them, and always have. Once you could only get them (rarely) in tins. Then you could buy them by making a trip to Brookvale and getting big frozen stacks of them. In the past few years, happy days! You could buy these from Coles! Wonderful.

For the past three weeks they haven't been there. Anxiety levels rise each week. Then I found a packet in the Wraps of the World section (as opposed to the flat bread section.) Rummaged around, but there was only one pack.

In despair, I went to the maker's website http://sandiego.com.au - and sent them an email asking about stockists, and whether Coles had stopped stocking them. I also included one of my favourite breakfast recipes - a quick cheesy egg tortilla.

Well. Stand back and wait for the result! I got an email almost immediately thanking me, and asking whether they could use the recipe. They also suggested that I use Coles' customer feedback form to request that they stock them. I also got information about why my Coles had stopped stocking them.

Then I got two calls - one asking whereabouts I lived, then the next letting me know the closest stockist. Then I got ANOTHER call saying they had some packets they would like to send me - would home be best, or would I like them delivered to a shop close by? Three packs arrived in the mail today.

Let me tell you these are the BEST TORTILLAS IN THE WORLD, and this example of customer service is the best I have ever experienced. The company should be very proud of itself indeed.

Thanks to the Gringos at San Diego Tortilla Factory!

Veggie knitting explained

Heather asked me what the phrase "veggie knitting" means. I'm sure all you keen knitters out there know exactly what I mean....

It means that you can completely veg out while doing it. It turns the knitter into a vegetable. You can do it while holding a conversation, or paying close attention to the television, or while admiring your puppy. A bit harder to do while said puppy is chewing the ends of your knitting needles, but even so....

It is code for stockinette stitch - one row knit, one row purl. Great lengths of it are extremely boring, but there are definitely times when that is all you can cope with.

Two alternatives to veggie knitting are lace and fair isle. My next project is (are?) lace socks with 24 different rows of an eight stitch pattern, including knit two together, slip one knit one pass slip stitch over, slip slip knit, yarn over, purl one in all kinds of combinations over those eight stitches/24 rows.

Fair isle is easier (I think) - for you non-knitters it is knitting with two or more colours. It has challenges like holding the yarn in both hands and knitting in both English and Continental style, floating your yarn behind long sections of one colour and so on. I find fair isle easier because it is easier to rip up when you make a mistake, and following a coloured chart is easier than seeing whether all the lace holes are in the right spots. Phew! See why veggie knitting is so soothing and boring at the same time?

The dog loves the baby

Heather came over the other day for a visit and a chat. She brought Rosie too, and we were both filled with a certain trepidation about this introduction. It is not without good reason that we call Majic Mr. Squiggle. He adores everyone. Anyone who shows the least interest in him is likely to be bounced on Tigger-like, licked, nibbled, and generally rumbled. How on earth was he going to cope with a crawler (Rosie is not quite one year old) and how was she going to cope with him?

After the initial introduction of nappy-changing (you can read the gory details in Heather's blog) Rosie was put on the floor. There was a little licking of the face, but Rosie seemed to like it! She started to laugh - a big proper belly laugh. Majic was not sure what to do.

Rosie thought that Majic's toybox was a good place to start, so grabbed a couple of his toys and started chewing on them. This is good for her immune system. Majic seemed reacted with equanimity - well, apart from a couple of bouts of Crazy Pug (aka the Pug Scuttle) through the house at speed, which Rosie thought was hilarious. At no stage did Majic jump on her or be anything but gentle. They played for an hour and a half, perfectly happy. Stay tuned - will Heather ever let Rosie have her own dog? Will we have more playdates for them? It was a charming episode.

Some photos as proof:

Veggie knitting completed

It hasn't taken tooooooo long, and there was minimal ripping apart, and the veggie knitting plain black jumper is DONE! I love it. The lace edging on the sleeves is perfect and I'm glad I didn't do more on the hem. Not sure whether I would do that double basque again but it looks OK. This is a standard Patons pattern and I've done a cardigan in this size before. The set-in sleeves and shoulders are just right for me - I'm a bit narrow in the shoulder, and the fit is really good. I am delighted with it. And the pug fur shows up so nicely on it!




Now on to the socks I began in October in Hawaii. The first one is about a third done, so I will look forward to a smaller and more complex project. There are other plans in the pipeline, of course. Some involve beads.

Majic Moments

Last weekend Majic went to the Pug Picnic in Centennial Park. He had a fantastic time with around 30 other pugs, and was the toast of the occasion. He really should be called Mr. Squiggle (and often is) because he just LOVES people and he spent much of the morning squiggling happily with this young woman and the young man next to her. They just loved him, which is, of course, totally understandable.



He is extremely energetic, and I have been renamed Kate-a-pult! Here he is in a fairly typical "pose" - full flight retrieving his pink squeaky which has been thrown a hundred times. He loves his toys. We can be sitting calmly when suddenly a dog-slimed toy is pressed against our leg, and the boy says Pleeeeeeeeeze? Who can resist.



That dirty pillow in the background, by the way, is not slovenliness on our part. This is one of Majic's girlfriends. She is a real slut, just lies there and takes it. Sorry, no more of that.....

He has a fine appetite, burning off lots of calories in all kinds of ways (I thought there was going to be no more of that talk???). In the morning he gets puppy biscuits. Many pugs like fruit, and Majic loves it, so I've taken to giving him his very own little bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt when I make ours each morning. He enjoys it, and I love his little yoghurt chin. Here he is sitting in his own special way, legs arrayed on either side, with evidence of breakfast.



Does it sound like we are having fun? Of course we are. This weekend again we dedicated a significant portion of time to dogtainment. Obedience class on Saturday arvo. He is about to graduate from beginner to intermediate. Today I made a big batch of dog food (yummo!) for the freezer, and then this afternoon we went to Cafe Bones in Leichhardt where he had a puppy biscuit and we had coffee and little cakes. He enjoyed to socialising, so did we.

Too cute to knit!

 

How can I knit when I have a little face like this peering up at me? He is full of beans and we spend hours throwing toys for him. But he sleeps a lot of the day, being a dog. And my word of today is a favourite word. Dogs are CREPUSCULAR. They come alive at those twilight hours, dawn and dusk. During the night he sleeps, during the day he is relatively quiet, and will get quieter as he gets older.

I am, however, still knitting the endless veggie knitting black jumper. The last bit is the neckband (V-neck) and then the sewing up. There is a backlog of other projects awaiting attention, but wait... there is that little dog distracting me again!!!

His Majicsty

Yes, that's his new nickname. He certainly keeps us busy, and I am getting fitter. We have taken to heart the teachings of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. Cesar says that dogs need to migrate in their search for food, so every morning and afternoon Majic and I migrate long distances, as well as a short walk just before bedtime for emptying of the tanks. The longer walks take us up to St. Stephen's cemetery where we stride among the historic gravestones, or down to Erskineville Park, or further afield. He is discovering and I am rediscovering acquaintance with dog walkers I knew when Jonty was a lad. It is a nice community of people and many wondered where Jonty and I had gotten to.

Majic is still pulling on the lead, but when he is off the lead he sticks close and I am quite comfortable letting him go free, especially in the Churchyard. which is walled and quite safe.

Michael and I are renamed as Catapult 1 and Catapult 2, as we spend hours at home throwing toys and balls for him to fetch. He loves it. We've tried ball-throwing in parks, but he doesn't seem to recognise them. Perhaps there is too much other stimulation there for him to concentrate - he is quite a skittish dog.

He sits like no other dog I've ever known, and remember this is our Pug 3rd. edition. Pugs often sit right back on their bums with their back legs sticking forward - a kind of Winston Churchill pose - but Majic sits upright with back legs stuck out at the sides. It is very cute.


If you look very closely at this photo you might see a mark on his head among the wrinkles, just above his right eye (on your left looking at him.) He went to the vet about this a couple of weeks ago, and was tested for ringworm. Not ringworm. So yesterday he went again to be sedated and have some of this scraped off and analyzed. There is no way you could scrape anything off him without him being sedated - he is a sublime wriggler.

The verdict is demodetic mange, otherwise known as demodex. All dogs have these mites, but when their immune systems are compromised, often as puppies, the mites take hold. He is being treated with Advocate every two weeks.

Being of an ever so slightly herbal nature, I also saw on the web that Neem Oil can be helpful. I happen to have Neem Oil (for soap-making purposes) and have decided it can do no harm, so I am now rubbing that into the spot. Most dogs recover from this with no treatment, but when he does get better I am likely to claim success from the Neem Oil.

Speaking of soap-making, I shall probably send off the twenty bars to Chicago today. The soap is good and I hope the buyer is happy with it.

Soapy success

The soap was turned out of its mould on the weekend, and looks to be OK. It is a greenish colour from the green tea, and is still quite soft. I have tidied up some of the blocks, and squashed the scrapings into a ball which we are using in the shower now. I always test my soap for a while before letting anyone else have any. I shall leave this lot to "cure" and harden for another week before sending off the twenty bars ordered from the US.


The weather is glorious, although sticky and humid. I got to Coogee Beach yesterday for a surf and snorkel. The waves were quite big for Coogee, but there was lots of kelp in the water and tossed on the sand. It didn't make for pleasant body surfing - too scratchy to be tumbled over vast mats of kelp. The snorkelling up the north end was pretty clear, and there were lots of very small striped fish with yellow fins. Also a school of about a dozen bigger fish. Very satisfying swim. I adore lying on the sand reading. Yesterday's read was The Mamo Murders, a vintage Hawaiian mystery by Juanita Sheridan.

Back home the mangoes are hanging heavy in the tree, and getting riper. We are blessed with a large tree in our courtyard, as well as a lime tree which has also fruited well this year. It seems so exotic to have such wonderful fruit in a small inner city garden. The mangoes often reach weights over a kilo each.




Majic Moments

Majic went to obedience again on Saturday and was a little star. He walked quite nicely on the lead, sat and stayed when told, and did a good job of lying down on command. We have been practicing at home. The trainers voted him Most Improved of our little group. He is gradually getting socialised too, getting used to being around other dogs. But at home for our regular walks he is still pulling, and I have bought an ebook with a technique to try. I have been trying it, and it does seem to help. We will continue with it. Majic and I go for quite long walks at least twice a day.


Technomoment

The downloading of the ebook was in pdf format, and I thought I might put it on my Rocket eBook. This eBook just pre-dated the widespread adoption of pdf as a standard document format. It works fine with html and with txt, and has its own proprietary .rb format. So I saved the bought book as text, and transferred it across with a minimum of fuss. Yes, the eBook still works. Then I thought I would investigate whether there are any pdf to .rb converters, and yes, there are. I downloaded the free version and it does seem to work. Any better than just saving to text? If I paid the $12 would it do a good job on the images too? I will think about this one. It makes me happy to read stuff on the eBook.

The Soap Opera continues

Soap progress

Sunday morning, and I decide to proceed with the soap making (sorry Lien, I was busy in the afternoon, and I know you were busy in the morning...)

The first thing to do is to bring both the oils and the lye solution to the same temperature, around 98 degrees F. (Yes, I still work in Fahrenheit.) This is a tricky business requiring hot water baths for the lye and very careful monitoring on the stove for the oils. It involves two thermometers.



Once the temperatures are achieved, it is time to introduce the lye SLOWLY into the oils, stirring madly as it goes in. That's why the lye is in that bottle. There are two small holes in the lid which allows it to pour in in a very thin stream.

Once upon a time I used to stir with a wooden or stainless steel spoon. The soap making community discovered that a stick blender works a thousand times better. (I burned out one blender, so these days keep it to relatively short bursts).

The theory is that you stir until "trace". This means that the soap has thickened and saponification has begun. The term refers to being able to drizzle a stream of mixture on the surface, and it will remain visible before it sinks back in. Normally this takes quite a bit of time. It can take up to an hour of stirring, so I had the sudoku at hand for something to do.

Here is where I start worrying. This mixture got very thick very quickly, even before all the lye had gone in. Never has soap behaved like this. Is it hubris for claiming in my last post that I've never had a bad batch? See how very thick and claggy it is?



I decide that it is just the efficiency of the stick blender. I pour it, or rather spoon it and stuff it into the prepared moulds. It is very thick, and I am worried. It is very brown, and I am worried. Perhaps I just like to worry.





Now it is covered with blankets to keep it warm. The chemical process converting the lye into soap carries on for quite a while, and it needs to keep warm. I try not to peek too often. The bits that I do peek at seem to be behaving. The residue in the soap pot looks OK. It seems to have whitened up (that means it is really soap.)

It will stay in its mould for a few days. My fingers are crossed.

And the new big platform scales arrived this morning! I think I am going to up my quantities a bit next time. This mould could take about 13 pounds of soap, I reckon.

Majic Moments

Majic still hasn't figured out what reflections are all about. He loves to try and play with the dog in the wardrobe mirrors, and barks like crazy. This also makes walkies difficult. Up on King Street there are lots of distractions, including all those reflections of himself in the shop windows. I try and walk between him and cars parked on the street, because he sees himself in the car duco, especially black cars. This makes him much more skittish and very distracted. I wonder when he will realise that it is him?

Here he is exhausted after his obedience training:

My Etsy shop has borne fruit again. I had an enquiry from the US from someone who wants to buy a year's supply of my soap - twenty bars! We discussed the postage, and she has agreed.

I don't have that much soap left from my last batch, so I am soaping again this weekend. The kitchen scales I had were acting up, so we did the only mature thing and threw them out. We went to the Essential Ingredient yesterday and bought some more kitchen scales, and I also went to ebay and bought some more heavy-duty soap making scales. The latter haven't arrived yet, but I decided to proceed with the kitchen scales.

Soap making from absolute scratch is rather fun. First, I gather the oils into a big stainless steel stockpot. This batch has:

5 oz (yes I work in ounces) grapeseed oil
20 oz coconut oil
50 oz olive oil
80 oz emu oil

That makes 155 oz all together, or nearly ten pounds of soap.


Next I went to the Majestic Mountain Sage Lye Calculator. For those of you who aren't familiar with how soap is made, lye - yes, caustic soda - is essential. Without it you don't have soap, you just have a whole pile of oil. You need to have the right proportions of lye and liquid for your oils, and before these online calculators you had to do lots of your own calculations and guesswork to get it right. Each different oil has different saponification requirements. You can end up with soap that is too soft, or which separates, or curdles, or has pockets of un-saponified lye in it. Amazingly, I have never had a batch that failed in all my years of making it.

I like to use green tea as the liquid. Here you see the green tea infusing, along with the lye in the big glass bottle. The lye and liquid will be mixed tonight. It gets VERY VERY hot, so it has to cool overnight. You also see a little bottle of citrus seed extract, which can be a useful preservative and will be added at the very end.



Tomorrow I shall bring these things together, and soap will be made. I have lined the mould with plastic, and am ready with my stick blender. There will be another post of that process.

Majic Moments

Here are Majic and Michael having a moment of fun with Smiley, before the real work begins.

Today was Majic's first experience of an obedience class. We went to Glebe Bicentennial Park with a couple of chairs for the observers, some chopped chicken as treats, and the dog. He wasn't too bad, he does know how to sit. He also did a nice job of staying when told to, and coming when called. We'd worked on those at home. But he is really bad at walking on the lead. He has taken to pulling like mad. We had some lessons, we have a technique. And we have to change the lead we use to get more control. He was also completely hopeless at lying down. He is learning, though. He is also socialising well. Now we are home and he has had his dinner, and is exhausted.

Having a puppy is sooooo different from having an elder statesman. It is like stepping back in time, to when Jonty the Magnificent was a lad.

Bumper crop - er...NOT!

The potato tower has been in for some months. The green shoots came up and flourished, then they died off. A tomato plant sprouted, but I decided to sacrifice it yesterday to harvest the potatoes. We planned to eat them last night. At the fruit shop I ummed and aahed about buying potatoes, but decided to play it safe and bought a few big old ones. Michael planned to make potato soup from the harvest. Here they are!



Not as many as I had hoped. In fact, not very impressive at all. But even less impressive was their size. This picture gives a rather better perspective. Pea-sized potatoes. No potato soup. We ate them all at dinner, but needed to supplement them with the bought ones. I don't think I'll be trying potato growing again, somehow!


Majic News

This might be a regular spot. For those readers who don't care about pugs (!!!) you can skip this bit.

Pug Story 1: We get out and about a lot - I like a dog to go walkies with. The other day we were in the cemetery at St. Stephen's, Newtown. It is large and walled, so dogs often go there to bound free. Majic is a bit timid, but was getting into things. Suddenly this HUGE German Shepherd chased him, scaring him and me half to death.

"He only wants to play!" said the owner gaily.

Didn't look like it to me or to Majic.

"He's only a puppy - he's only three" said the owner, who was at a bit of a distance.

Three years isn't a puppy in MY book.

Majic and the big dog were at my feet, Majic seeking shelter. The German Shepherd was looming over him, teeth bared. Not a good look.

"Call your dog NOW- he's snarling," I instructed the owner.

"Banjo - come on," he said. Thankfully, Banjo bounded off. For some reason the owner thanked me. I thanked our lucky stars, and Majic and I skittled off home.

Owners don't realise that their dogs are DOGS, and not cute little puppies. I realise this is the first of probably more episodes like this one. Jonty had lots of them, and many times Michael had to use the patented Athol Grip to control an attacking dog. The Athol Grip? Grab the dog's balls and squeeze and pull HARD. It works. Of course it is usually the un-desexed dogs that attack each other. Jonty was such an assertive dog he often provoked it.


Pug Story 1: We are teaching Majic not to jump up on people. He is a wiggle-on-a-stick at the moment, and everyone is his friend. He is also very bright and a quick learner. He knows what NO! means, especialy in relation to jumping up. We were at Erskineville Park yesterday, and there he raced up to an eldery lady sitting on a bench. He almost jumped up when I said the Majic word, and to his enormous credit he restrained himself. She wanted to pat him, he wanted to jump, and I could just see the struggle going on in his mind. He wiggled a lot, and sat at her feet barely containing himself while she gave him a pat. Then we moved on, and he had to have a couple of episodes of Crazy Pug (otherwise known as the Pug Scuttle) to get himself in order again.

Straya Day, and it is roast lamb

Do they look keen? Ooh yes. Straya Day Eve saw us all eating a roast leg of lamb, with roast potatoes, pumpkin, and beans. Sam Kekovich would be proud of us.

On the day itself we went to Bill and Alison's to have snags from their back yard barbie. We adorned ourselves with Australian flag stickers too. It was partly to celebrate their son Zachary's birthday, so there were a zillion kids there, from 3 months to our age. We enjoyed the chocolate crackles too. Yum! Good to see all those little taxpayers getting ready to support us in our dotage.

Majic went too. He was immediately pounced on by lots of little girls, and he just loved it. Then he saw Jazz. Jazz is the size of a great dane, she is ENORMOUS! They got along just fine, and Majic was a very tired boy when he got home.

So we thought we had done Australia Day proud, and thoroughly enjoyed it. On the subject of Majic, it feels like we have a pug-shaped slot in our lives, something like this:



He slotted right into that spot, and life seems complete. There seemed very little settling in period. He is very different from Jonty (or Bennie). More like Bennie in that he is a bit timid, not as boofy or active as Jonty. Being pugless is pretty desolate! Being pugged is definitely the state we prefer.

More knitting today. I have done the lace for the second sleeve of the black jumper (which is now covered with pug fur) and have made some progress up the arm. I think it is going to be nice, and will be finished soon.