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.
Missy with a ball hanging from her bottom tooth
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.
Hot cooked chicken in a stand mixerShredded chicken in a stand mixer
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.
Three sizes of spindle 3D prints
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.
When Mr Tom and Shadow showed up for treats (OK, Shadow comes for treats, Mr Tom comes to get brushed and de-burred), Momma cat was right behind them! She has a pink arrow in the picture pointing her out behind Shadow.
Momma cat behind Shadow
She was too skittish to eat a treat while I was there. I have the camera up, but the SD card is glitchy, so I only get a live feed, no scrolling backward through time. Still, the food I’ve put in the back of the cage has been consumed, so I hope all this will help to catch her so she can be fixed.
The suet cages I filled with scraps of wool are getting some attention. I caught one of the local squirrels gathering up the fiber and managed to record some video.
Video still of a squirrel wool gathering
Squirrels have kits twice a year, so I imagine this is Momma squirrel lining her nest for the impending babies. Or maybe a secondary nest construction, I’ve read squirrels can built multiple nests. Either way , I’m glad the unspun fiber is an approved squirrel material.
