rebeccmeister (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rebeccmeister) wrote2025-02-23 08:39 pm
rebeccmeister) wrote2025-02-23 08:39 pm
Entry tags:
The stuff and the things of the weekend [stuff, projects, hosekeepery]
After the driving adventures of the prior weekend, it was kind of a relief to not have any involved travel plans for this weekend. Instead, it was a weekend of errands and housekeepery and cooking and projects around the house.
Destination one, Passano Paints. They had mixed up a gallon of Signal Orange marine paint for me, which I'll use soon to start working on repainting the rowing club's oars. I have been glad to learn about this paint shop, because they're a local business, located right along the bike path between Albany and Troy. They are also a dropoff center for leftover paints and related substances, and they have many of the small necessities that can make a big difference when painting and staining things. So I also bought a can of stain to use for the chair refinishing project, some painting pyramids, and a paintbrush spinner.
Then I biked home, ate some lunch, and we fired up the gasoline-powered vehicle for our next errands. Next was Tractor Supply, because from the internet I learned that chick feed can work as a reasonable food source for dubia cockroaches*, and it appears that Tractor Supply is the main place in our region for going out to buy chick feed in person instead of online. Of course, there aren't any Tractor Supply locations within Albany itself, and the closest one is in one of the strip malls in the suburbs to the south of us, which is not at all pleasant to ride a bike to. So we drove, although I observed when we arrived that there's at least one bus line that runs out there, in case I want to use that option in the future.
In any case, Tractor Supply had chick feed, although they did not have any ice choppers available for sale whatsoever, another item on the shopping list. And the place where there might have been baby chicks had exactly zero baby chicks, only baby ducks for sale. Also, they were playing the sort of country music that reminded me of shopping in every store anywhere I went in Texas. Also also, we did not buy any of the pre-built coops they had for sale, to turn into a luxury catio for our cats.
So from there, we hied us over to the nearest Ace Hardware by way of some freeways that did some really strange looping things (I-87 and I-90 interchanges, I guess?). The Ace Hardware didn't have any ice choppers, either, but had a handful of other items on our shopping lists. Oh - there was also a stop at the bike shop near the Ace Hardware, to pick up a wheel they built for S and some spare tubes for me, because on Friday afternoon while meeting with my research student my front tire started making some hissing noises and went flat due to failure of the rubber at the base of the valve stem.
Since we had only partial success at Ace, we next went to the Despot. One of the items on my list was "rocks for the work aquariums," but none of the things available at the Despot fit my bill. So we also visited the local pet shop, which DID have rocks for sale. It was a little strange to be paying money for rocks, but that's what I get for not gathering rocks somewhere during my sabbatical (never mind questions about the legality and/or ethics of rock-gathering, which I know nothing about).
Then, after a trip through the car wash, I dropped S off at the dentist and went home to engage in a cleaning** and cooking rampage. I made a tasty paneer curry out of 660 Curries, got started with a batch of red lentil curry burgers, and also prepped some apples and onions for ketchup-making on Sunday.
Actually, that reminds me that I took a photo of the bulk spice section at our grocery co-op on Friday night:
All I can say is, our local grocery co-ops is one of the best things about living here.
Today pretty much continued apace. Part of the cleaning and cooking rampage was preparation for a ketchup-making session with a friend, so this afternoon we made and canned 3 different varieties of ketchup. The recipe for one variety was for a "Green tomato ketchup," but the recipe notes say you can substitute ripe red tomatoes if you wish, just omit the green food coloring, so that's what we did. For varieties 2 and 3, we used the same base recipe but used 2 different kinds of canned tomatoes, and added roasted jalapeños to one of the two batches.
Then we taste-tested our work, with some help from our significant others, e.g.:
When asked which one was his favorite, S said, "Yes."
My favorite was the batch with the jalapeños, but all 3 batches came out well, far better than that one time I boiled the ketchup in the cast-iron Dutch oven and it came out very metallic-tasting.
Anyway, based on how the ketchups came out, I think I now have a good game plan for churning out batches of ketchup. I'll try and share the ketchup recipe here sometime soon.
At some point today I also used some jewelery-making wire to make a couple of small umbrella repairs:
I don't know how well the wire will hold up as a repair method, but I didn't have much to lose, and if it actually works for any period of time I'll be very pleased because I am fond of this umbrella.
And now we're back on the precipice of another work week.
*Last week I got some young dubia cockroaches to rear as food for the campus reptiles. With a fairly good but basic setup, they should be relatively low-maintenance.
**For posterity, the cleaning rampage included full moppings of the kitchen and bathroom floors. Also, the vacuuming picked up a LOT of stuff because it had been 3 weeks since the last time I'd vacuumed. Also also WOW the kitchen sink really needed that scrub-down.
Destination one, Passano Paints. They had mixed up a gallon of Signal Orange marine paint for me, which I'll use soon to start working on repainting the rowing club's oars. I have been glad to learn about this paint shop, because they're a local business, located right along the bike path between Albany and Troy. They are also a dropoff center for leftover paints and related substances, and they have many of the small necessities that can make a big difference when painting and staining things. So I also bought a can of stain to use for the chair refinishing project, some painting pyramids, and a paintbrush spinner.
Then I biked home, ate some lunch, and we fired up the gasoline-powered vehicle for our next errands. Next was Tractor Supply, because from the internet I learned that chick feed can work as a reasonable food source for dubia cockroaches*, and it appears that Tractor Supply is the main place in our region for going out to buy chick feed in person instead of online. Of course, there aren't any Tractor Supply locations within Albany itself, and the closest one is in one of the strip malls in the suburbs to the south of us, which is not at all pleasant to ride a bike to. So we drove, although I observed when we arrived that there's at least one bus line that runs out there, in case I want to use that option in the future.
In any case, Tractor Supply had chick feed, although they did not have any ice choppers available for sale whatsoever, another item on the shopping list. And the place where there might have been baby chicks had exactly zero baby chicks, only baby ducks for sale. Also, they were playing the sort of country music that reminded me of shopping in every store anywhere I went in Texas. Also also, we did not buy any of the pre-built coops they had for sale, to turn into a luxury catio for our cats.
So from there, we hied us over to the nearest Ace Hardware by way of some freeways that did some really strange looping things (I-87 and I-90 interchanges, I guess?). The Ace Hardware didn't have any ice choppers, either, but had a handful of other items on our shopping lists. Oh - there was also a stop at the bike shop near the Ace Hardware, to pick up a wheel they built for S and some spare tubes for me, because on Friday afternoon while meeting with my research student my front tire started making some hissing noises and went flat due to failure of the rubber at the base of the valve stem.
Since we had only partial success at Ace, we next went to the Despot. One of the items on my list was "rocks for the work aquariums," but none of the things available at the Despot fit my bill. So we also visited the local pet shop, which DID have rocks for sale. It was a little strange to be paying money for rocks, but that's what I get for not gathering rocks somewhere during my sabbatical (never mind questions about the legality and/or ethics of rock-gathering, which I know nothing about).
Then, after a trip through the car wash, I dropped S off at the dentist and went home to engage in a cleaning** and cooking rampage. I made a tasty paneer curry out of 660 Curries, got started with a batch of red lentil curry burgers, and also prepped some apples and onions for ketchup-making on Sunday.
Actually, that reminds me that I took a photo of the bulk spice section at our grocery co-op on Friday night:
All I can say is, our local grocery co-ops is one of the best things about living here.
Today pretty much continued apace. Part of the cleaning and cooking rampage was preparation for a ketchup-making session with a friend, so this afternoon we made and canned 3 different varieties of ketchup. The recipe for one variety was for a "Green tomato ketchup," but the recipe notes say you can substitute ripe red tomatoes if you wish, just omit the green food coloring, so that's what we did. For varieties 2 and 3, we used the same base recipe but used 2 different kinds of canned tomatoes, and added roasted jalapeños to one of the two batches.
Then we taste-tested our work, with some help from our significant others, e.g.:
When asked which one was his favorite, S said, "Yes."
My favorite was the batch with the jalapeños, but all 3 batches came out well, far better than that one time I boiled the ketchup in the cast-iron Dutch oven and it came out very metallic-tasting.
Anyway, based on how the ketchups came out, I think I now have a good game plan for churning out batches of ketchup. I'll try and share the ketchup recipe here sometime soon.
At some point today I also used some jewelery-making wire to make a couple of small umbrella repairs:
I don't know how well the wire will hold up as a repair method, but I didn't have much to lose, and if it actually works for any period of time I'll be very pleased because I am fond of this umbrella.
And now we're back on the precipice of another work week.
*Last week I got some young dubia cockroaches to rear as food for the campus reptiles. With a fairly good but basic setup, they should be relatively low-maintenance.
**For posterity, the cleaning rampage included full moppings of the kitchen and bathroom floors. Also, the vacuuming picked up a LOT of stuff because it had been 3 weeks since the last time I'd vacuumed. Also also WOW the kitchen sink really needed that scrub-down.
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But! I am now currently reading The Art of Japanese Country Cooking, which is interesting and insightful in its own right!
And I do think I need to get myself a copy of the Nordic Cookbook one of these days.
So many food projects, so little time...
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We do need to go over to our local ("East") Indian grocery soon, though, for more yummy cheeses...
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There are a lot of sources of motivation when it comes to ketchup-making, not the least of which is the resident ketchup-eater sure goes through a lot of expensive little plastic ketchup bottles if I don't just go ahead and make big batches of it...
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Tractor Supply announced last summer that they were no longer going to honor their commitment to minority rights and diversity in their hiring. I quit shopping with them.
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I so, so wish we had any other option around here as far as feed stores go, but all my searching so far has been fruitless! We had an amazing feed and tack store where I lived in Arizona, and boy do I miss it right now.
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Try this ...
And once you hit that channel, YouTube will helpfully suggest scads of other videos about keeping plants, critters, etc. in containers.
Also, most roaches will happily devour kitchen scraps from fruits or vegetables, which is a great way to minimize waste.
https://www.thebugshed.com/what-to-feed-dubia-roaches/