Author: Caryn

Wheat roll experiment

On By CarynIn Bread

My youngest asked me for a roll challenge (what I would have called a taste-test, but we have used the You Tube inspired “challenge” idea to get her to eat many foods that she normally wouldn’t). My eldest suggested that this was a good excuse to bake bread. I think they both rather like that I have been baking fresh bread with Heritage Wheat weekly! So for this roll challenge I looked for a recipe that used whole wheat, and I found a really good one here.

I divided the recipe in two, and added mini chocolate chips to one half, and left the other half plain. (The whole purpose of asking for a roll challenge was to get me to make bread with chocolate in it!) To distinguish between flavors I made the chocolate up as simple rolls, and the plain as knots. To add to the challenge, after brushing the rolls with egg, I sprinkled turbinado sugar on half the chocolate rolls. We now had three variations for our challenge!

Wheat rolls for a roll “challenge”

My youngest loved the chocolate chip rolls, but the rest of us preferred the plain. I do think that I need to learn more ways to shape rolls!

Tiny egg

On By CarynIn chickens, eggs

One of these things is not like the others.

Regular 48g egg (left), Tiny 22g egg (right)

I had a bit of a surprise in the nest box! A tiny little egg, less than half the size of what my hens usually lay. I’ve read that sometimes there are hiccups in the egg development process and eggs are produced without a yolk resulting in what some people call “fairy eggs”. I had to see if that was the case with this egg!

Tiny egg with tiny yolk

I broke it open and the egg did in fact have a yolk, just very small. A small perfect little egg. How interesting.

One ride at a time

On By CarynIn dog

We are still working on getting our youngest dog, Missy, able to ride in a car without a nervous breakdown. We discovered after her last vet appointment that a trip to the treat store for a pup cup (whipped cream in a small cup) made her outlook completely different! After her treat, she didn’t shake at all the rest of the way home. Hmm. So about a week later we loaded both dogs up and did a trip for treats, and only treats. She rode on my eldest’s lap in the passenger seat on the way there (which is where she has historically been the most comfortable), but then on the way back sat with Griffin on his chair, which shows an improvement in her anxiety (and he is such a good boy to put up with it!) The plan is to repeat this treat-only trip about once a week, without introducing anything more scary (like getting out of the car or side-quests).

Missy does not like car rides, but we are working on changing that, very slowly

We did get some anti-anxiety meds from the vet, which do work in the car, but don’t work at home. On the meds (which we didn’t use for this trip), she is calmer in the car, but at home she is just as barky, but more sleepy. Medicated, she wakes up barking when her ears pick up a strange noise, then it takes a little longer for her brain to engage and stop barking. So the meds will be saved for long car rides. By the way, we do have a middle seat insert for the middle row. We will put that in for the next trip to give Griffin a little more room!

Nightshade

On By CarynIn Flora
Silver leafed nightshade

While walking around the outside of the coop and runs, I saw a pretty plant with purple buds. I plugged the picture into iNaturalist and received an ID: nightshade. Specifically silver-leafed nightshade. When I went back out to pull it away from the coop, the distinctive purple flowers had bloomed. Definitely a nightshade. Rather than risk the chickens having a nibble, I removed the plant.

Nålbinding alpaca

On By CarynIn Craft

I now have three preparations of three colors of alpaca and silk. One with the colors carded separately, then rolled together into a rolag before spinning and cable plying; one carded and spun separately, then plied together; and one carded together to blend the fibers then spun and cable plied.

From left to right: marled, plied, and blended alpaca silk yarn

I had such small samples of the three different blend techniques, I decided to combine them into a single project.

From top down: marled, plied, blended. Nål is osage orange

I think the effect of each yarn is interesting. The marled yarn has more variation, which resulted in some spots of darker and lighter color. The three ply is counter clockwise and unwinds somewhat for this stitch (which is my new favorite stitch: Dalarna from Sweden, Hansen’s Notation (U) O/U O:UO F1). The blended actually came out more uniform than I predicted. The intent was for this to be a hat, but I miscalculated and didn’t make it big enough. Since it is an experimental piece anyway, I also tried fulling it a bit by taking it back and forth from hot water to cold water. It did pull in some and became definitely too small for a hat.

Lightly fulled

So I took two pieces of leather lace and made it into a bag by weaving the leather through the edge. Problem solved.

Nålbound bag with leather lace

The finished fabric is very soft, but dense. It has a very nice drape, but not much elasticity, so I think the alpaca silk blend may work better as a scarf or shawl. I’ll have to test that idea!