How very considerate of the shoe designer to put a tension loop on my sneakers. It is just right for anchoring a braid so I can use my foot to apply tension so the braid comes out even and straight. I do appreciate thoughtful design.
I picked up basil, pepper, and oregano plants at a local nursery for my container garden this year. I usually start with seed, but didn’t get the seeds in this year, so went with a short cut. I amended the soil with chicken compost from the bottom of my compost bins, which was nice and dark and crumbly, and used the wheel barrow to mix an equal amount of dirt from the container with the compost. I’ve set up the frog habitat again too.
I’m hoping that I didn’t plant too soon. It has been cold this week, and basil doesn’t care for temps under 40. Hm.
Our dog Missy likes to play fetch. Well, “like” doesn’t really cover it, “obsessed” is a better term. It may seem like I took the photo below just as the ball slipped from her mouth, but no, she carries these Holy Roller balls by hooking it on one tooth. All the better to pant with my dear.
She has four of these balls, all different colors, because they are easy to throw and don’t hurt when someone misses and hits someone else. They are also much, much less gooey than tennis balls after a couple rounds of fetch.
I stopped by my local Brahms to pick up some Frontier soup mix and the cashier asked if it was easy (it is) and shared with me her way of shredding chicken: with a stand mixer. What? I’ve been using forks and battling the steam of the Instapot and doing a middling job shredding chicken to this point in my life. My stand mixer lives on my counter, right next to where I set up the Instapot, so transferring the cooked chicken (I cook for 10 min, high pressure, with one cup of water) over to the mixer bowl and using a standard paddle on low for less than a minute was much easier and more throughout than using forks in the pot.
She did warn me not to run the mixer for too long, so I watched as it ran on low until the shredding met my satisfaction. Then I transferred the chicken back into the Instpot to finish the soup. Yes, I dirtied more dishes, but the soup felt thicker with the finely shredded chicken than it does with larger chicken chunks. And I didn’t have to hold my hands over a steaming pot, cursing hot sprays of chicken broth.
In developing my 3D printed spindle design I’ve had three sizes printed up. The smallest works well, but the bore of the shaft is a little small. The largest version had a good sized shaft, but wasn’t as sturdy and was a little unwieldy. I’m hoping this new middle sized version is the winner.
First, though, I need to sand down the printing artifacts, which are small bumps of filament that didn’t quite go where they were programmed to go. Filament is like that. Resin printing has less of these artifacts than filament printing, but the PETG filament is tremendously more durable. Plus it makes the spindle look like a calcite crystal. Nice.
Critters and Craft 