Still exercising and eating right!

On By stefrobrtsIn weight loss2 Comments

I’ve stuck to my eating and exercising plan, and it’s going great! I was wearing size 24 pants, loosely comfortable, and 22s that were a bit tight. Now the 22s are loose and comfortable, and the 24s are too loose – falling off! Time to go pants shopping!

My favorite part is the exercise. It feels so good! I just have a warm glow after exercising, and I really look forward to doing it every day. I had a bit of a setback last week. We did the comic show in Seattle weekend before last, which forced me to skip exercising for a few days, then just as I got back into the swing of it I had a pain in my side that wouldn’t go away. I finally went to the doctor on Saturday and she said it sounded like a kidney stone! But she couldn’t tell without further, expensive tests (like thousands of dollars), and since we don’t have insurance she took the ‘wait and see’ approach, and sent me home with a warning to go straight to the ER if it got bad. Luckily it went away, and after a day of just feeling kind of tender in that area, I felt better today and was able to get back on the exercise bandwagon – and it felt great!

Eating right has not been hard, it just takes a bit of planning. Lots of fruits and veg, whole grains whenever possible, always watch the portions. Some challenges pop up, like when we were working in Seattle and had to eat lunch and dinners out. Luckily Seattle forces them to put nutritional info out for folks to read, so I could try and do the least damage possible – salads with dressing on the side, steak instead of shrimp broiled in butter with a butter dipping sauce on the side! Most restaurant meals were 1000 calories plus – and some were 2000 (steak and lobster) – and that’s before adding drinks or bread! So it was challenging to eat right, and when I came home I was afraid to get on the scale, but I discovered I’d still lost 3 lbs – so there!

Yesterday was my birthday, and friends invited us over for dinner, and made me a cake – yum! You’ve got to eat a little cake on your birthday! But she gave me leftovers, and there’s no way I should eat that much cake in the time before it will spoil – so I got an idea – I froze it! That way I can thaw out a piece and have it later when I need a piece of cake 🙂 Hey, everyone has those days, right?

So, after all those missed days of exercise I weighed myself this morning and I was down 5 lbs from last week! That’s a total of 20lbs from the beginning of the year! What great motivation to stay on track and keep at it!

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Telephoto lens test

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, navi, pets2 Comments

My new camera also came with a Tamron aspherical 18-200mm f3.5-f6.3 lens. So today I took it for a little test drive. I couldn’t do much because we’re having a howling wind storm with rain coming down buckets, but between downpours I went out on the porch for a quick test.

At 18mm

I think I see a bit of vignetting on the corners, but that might be from the UV filter on the front. I’ll try another test without that next time.

at 200mm – the RR crossing down at the road

also at 200mm, Barclay in the yard

I’m impressed. This will be nice at the wildlife refuge. I can’t wait to go try it out. Of course you’re never close enough when you’re trying to photograph birds!

Back in the office I got a quick shot of Navi next to my desk. What a doll 🙂

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Fun with my new Camera

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, mighty, navi2 Comments

I’m starting out playing around with the ‘kit’ lens – a 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G, which is supposed to be a pretty good lens. I’m still figuring out what all the settings on the camera do, but I’m hoping to have enough of a grip on it to try and take a shot of the sky tonight – if it’s clear.

For now I just practiced on whatever critters out in the yard would hold still for a minute:

Barclay
Navi
Mighty
And the evil 3 Musketeers – I just had to make sure they didn’t spit on my camera while I was concentrating on getting the shot.
These were all taken with a fence between me and them!
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My new camera

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, mouse2 Comments

Tonight I brought home my first ‘real’ camera, a Nikon D50. I found it on CL for sale along with a kit of lenses.

I can already tell there is going to be a bit of a learning curve, but I’m going to enjoy that part. I was able to get it home and get some decent pictures out of it right off the bat, so I think we’re going to get along just fine.

Now I just need to figure out what all these settings do!

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Got my ducks in a row

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized2 Comments

We don’t always have a pond in our field, but last night there was a good rain, and this morning we not only had a pond – we had Ducks! They all were scooting around with their heads down looking for goodies. Well, we’re always happy to host the local wildlife!

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Homemade canned chicken stock

On By stefrobrtsIn food3 Comments

Ok, I say chicken stock, but I’m not sure if it’s technically stock or broth. It’s thick, made from bones, and it will gel up in the fridge, so I call it stock.

I started out with my usual steps for chicken stock. I thawed out my bag of chicken parts. I save all the necks, backs, gizzards, hearts, anything I don’t use when I cut up a chicken, and pop them in a big zip lock in the freezer until the bag is stuffed full. One bag holds about 4 lbs of parts! I lay it all on a roasting pan with some onion (skins on), carrots, and celery – give it all a misting of olive oil, and pop in a 450 oven for an hour or so.

Once that’s done the house smells so incredible we’re all wondering why we didn’t just roast some chicken, but no, we’re working on stock! Instead of putting it in the big pot with water and simmering it for 20 hours or so (like usual) – I put it in my new pressure cooker.

I learned to use the pressure cooker/canner at the food preservation classes I took last summer, but I didn’t have a chance to actually buy one until a couple weeks ago when a friend got a really great deal on some and sold me this one, brand new, for about half what they go for in the store.

Lots of people are scared of pressure cookers, but they are not as scary as they seem, as long as you understand them and remember to always treat them with respect. Modern canners have some important safety features to protect you. As the water in the pot heats up, steam is vented through a vent pipe. Once it is ready to cook, you put a weight on top of the vent pipe which is just heavy enough to allow the canner to pressurize to the amount you want, and it wobbles back and forth letting out excess pressure. As the pot pressurizes the Lid Lock pops up and prevents you from removing the lid until it is de-pressurized. In the back of the lid is a tiny black rubber plug which is a safety valve. If the pressure gets too high it will blow that plug out and release the pressure – so no worries about the lid exploding off. The dial gauge is nice to have just so you can monitor the pressure. Gauges should be checked every year for accuracy.

** That weight on the vent pipe is probably the most likely thing to cause a problem. You put it on to pressurize the pot, but you can’t remove it until the pot has cooled off and depressurized on it’s own. If you remove it, scalding hot liquid could come out through the vent as it rapidly depressurizes, and that would be BAD – so once the weight is on, don’t touch it again until the gauge reads zero!**

After only 20 minutes in the pot, 4lbs od chicken was reduced to a soft mash (which I gave to my chickens and they really enjoyed)!

And I had a couple quarts of the most flavorful stock I’ve ever made! Seriously, this tasted more like chicken soup than any I’ve made so far.

So once I had enough stock to can, I had to set up my canning gear. This includes:

My turkey fryer/water bath canner – just to sterilize and heat up the jars so they won’t crack when filled with hot broth. Also a small pan with hot water for the lids. And all the canning tools. And towels. Gosh, what a production. And of course the pressure canner, cleaned up and ready to go again.

As I filled each hot jar with hot stock, I put it in the pressure canner to wait for a full load.

Finally they were all in, and I had to vent the air out of the canner. This is where you wait for a steady tower of steam shooting out of the vent pipe (hard to see in the picture above). You wait until it is steady steam, and let it do that for 10 whole minutes!

Then put the weight on and let it pressurize. Notice the canning weight is different from the cooking weight. You cook at 15 lbs pressure, but you can at 11 lbs. Again the weight sits there and wobbles, letting out pressure and keeping the canner at 11 lbs. Because I wanted to roast my chicken and make the stock with vegetables, I consulted with the other master food preservers and decided it would be safest to can the stock using the recipe for vegetable soup – 75 minutes processing time, instead of 20 for plain chicken broth.

I hung around the kitchen the whole time, watching the pressure gauge, making sure the weight was still wobbling away. If it goes below pressure you have to start the time over! Finally it was over, and I moved the pot off the heat to cool. There’s a process that must be followed for canning, and I followed it precisely! Improperly canned stock could contain botulism, and I didn’t want to chance that!

Beautiful! 8 Pints of shelf stable stock, going in the cupboard instead of filling up my little freezer!

And with the leftovers I made some Northwoods Bean Soup – and even Dave thought it was great! You can’t make good soup without great stock. Making it myself is probably the one thing I have learned that really makes a big difference in my cooking.

Snow and Alpacas

On By stefrobrtsIn snow3 Comments

We’ve had a couple days of half-hearted snow. It has mostly just been wet and mushy. Everything is slushy and melting, and it’s sort of raining, and the swale is flooded, as is the bottom of the field. You can see why we can’t have any heavy animals on it in the winter, it would be a horrible mess.

Luckily these animals aren’t heavy! Jeeze, they’re goofy looking, aren’t they? Unfortunately I don’t feel any sort of fondness for them, even a picture like this – I just see myself on the receiving end of a spitball if I’m not careful! If you get behind them you are in the kicking zone. I find it’s best not to let them anywhere near me.

Black and White are the troublesome ones. Red has actually been doing very well. He comes running when I call him, walks politely through the gate into the garden, and waits for me to hand him his food. Then when it’s time to leave he moves away from the gate so I can open it and walks calmly through. I think I’m going to start working on some handling with him and see if we can make haltering less of an ordeal.

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Exercise update

On By stefrobrtsIn weight loss1 Comment

I’m still sticking with my plan. This week was my 5th week in a row of exercising at least five times a week – and this week I got in six times! Today is a rest and recovery day though. I have been trying to give myself time to recover by switching around. I rarely do the same exercises two days in a row. If I run on the treadmill, the next day gets a bike ride, exercise bike, or workout video. This way I keep myself entertained, and switch up which muscles are getting a workout.

The workout video I’ve been doing is Sansone’s Walking exercise DVD. It’s lots of marching in place, with strength moves thrown in. It’s a good workout, but my feet do not care for the marching in place – the pressure on the balls of my feet can make my toes go numb, so I have to concentrate on how my feet are hitting the floor.

Adding up all the exercise, plus I’ve been doing a good job of keeping my calories in line, I hope I see some progress on the scale on Monday. I’ll be fine with it either way. One problem is that I’m going to get a new digital scale because the old analog one isn’t as accurate – it gives me different numbers every time I step on it, sometimes as much as 7 lbs different! So whatever number I get from the new scale on Monday will be my new starting point, and I’ll work from there.

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Alpacas

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized2 Comments

The training on the alpacas has slowed down quite a bit. Although Red got the hang of the clicker training, and seemed to understand his behavior was effecting how quickly he got his reward, the other two have been more of a problem. I have had issues with them invading my space, kicking at me when I enforce my space, and trying to hit me from behind, which is particularly scary. I don’t want to interact with them any more than necessary, because I would describe their behavior as pushy and spiteful – when corrected they look for ways to strike back. So we have switched from grain to straight hay, and I close them out of the paddock while I am cleaning and refilling feeders. My friend who runs the rescue is going to come over and check them out and see if their issue is with me (as in, they’ve decided I can be pushed around) or if they have a more serious problem from having been spoiled and not understanding that they need to give humans space. I am being very cautious around them, and I never take my eyes off them when I’m in their area.

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