Disinheritance
7/19/2022
Inspired yesterday morning, I took Mia on a hike. We did Angel’s Rest in the Gorge. It’s honestly been a while since I’ve hiked and Mia set the pace so we both made it to the top very winded. I definitely woke up sore today. It was a lot of fun though and something that I would like to be doing more often with her. We had a father daughter date at LIttle Big Burger afterwards, Mia even got her own patty and I read a little Basho and had an afternoon beer. Took a nap when I got home and Mia seemed fairly worn out the rest of the day so all in all it was a good day.
7/18/2022
Breana’s childhood best friend graduated from college this weekend we went up to Seattle for the ceremony. Since I already had the time off from work we decided to make a whole weekend of it and rented a hotel room for Saturday night. We had found a dog sitter for Mia and had taken her over to their house earlier in the week for them to meet and it all seemed to go well. When we dropped her off Saturday morning though we weren’t even fifteen minutes out of town when Breana got a phone call from a stranger saying they found our dog twenty blocks away from where the sitter lived. Apparently she got anxious and bolted out the front door the first chance that she got. She was actually kind of heading towards home which we were impressed with. But we were relieved that she hadn’t been hit by a car and contacted the sitter to have them pick her up. The rest of Mia’s stay was without incident, she apparently calmed down and by the second day was much more comfortable. There was another dog at the house, a big goofy looking water dog named Freddy and I think that probably helped Mia’s anxiety. All in all a good first run. Our next door neighbor locked up our chickens for the night and let them out again in the morning and our cats just did their thing. I’m happy we’ve figured out a system for when we want to get out for the weekend.
The graduation ceremony was held in the Mariner’s stadium. We got there just in time for it to start. I think there were probably 500 graduating that day so it wasn’t too terrible to sit through. The speakers were fine, although one, who was a music producer, seemed to talk forever about himself and his accomplishments (producing an album for Macklemore and for one of the members from Heart). Notable mentions for graduates Stanley Gezundheit and Juana Dickinson. We went back to Gig Harbor for dinner at a barbecue place and some fancy ice cream and stayed talking in the parking lot for several hours after with the graduate and her husband. There was a lot to catch up on and it was nice seeing friends.
We tried to hit up a tiki bar in Tacoma on our way back to our hotel but it was Saturday night and Tacoma was going off so we decided to just grab beers at a bodega and go to our room. Breana and I hung out and talked for several more hours before going to bed with Smokey and the Bandit on the TV. I don’t know why I love hotel TV so much.
Our day in Seattle was spent down mostly walking around at the fish market checking out shops and grabbing coffee and snacks. I found some books, one old one about French cooking for Americans, a mushroom field guide, and later after going to an Asian market/bookstore a book of Basho’s travel sketches and haikus. I’m pretty stoked on all of them. We grabbed a late lunch and decided to head home soon after. We listened to David Sedaris in the car.
A neighbor dropped off a long promised cedar tree in our front yard while we were gone. I’m hoping to plant it this week. It will probably go in the backyard but I’ve been thinking more and more about landscaping the front yard. I hate our front lawn so much. It seems like so much wasted space that I would love to eventually have a nativescape going on. But that's a plan for another time it seems.
7/14/2022
Mrs. Hughes is doing much better. Took her to the 24/7 vet eventually when her crop didn’t seem to be improving and the vet (someone who I had volunteered with at the Humane Society and had also treated our much beloved Dorothy) basically said we were doing the right thing, that it's probably just some grass tangled up, and if it were to become the size of an apple or if she were to display any symptoms of lethargy then she would be concerned. The girls now have some supplementary grit in their run (apparently oyster shell doesn’t act as grit in the chickens’ digestive system–a misunderstanding on my part) and as of this morning Mrs. Hughes’ crop seems to be back to normal. She mistrusts me deeply now after all the times of swooping her up to massage her crop and she won’t feed from my hand anymore but I’m sure we can rebuild that trust over time. She’s hanging with the rest of the girls and acting as normal as she ever has.
Discovered that we actually have garlic growing in our yard. By the laundry line are a bunch of different bulb plants that I had never thought much of until the other day I noticed that some were starting to bolt and looked a lot like garlic scapes. Turns out they are garlic scapes! I dug one up and the bulb is tiny but tasted great. I will probably harvest the scapes in the next week or two as they get more curly. Will definitely have to gift them to some friends as it's much too much for just the wife and me. Also discovered recently a California bay tree and a jasmine tree. The potential is nearly endless.
Our garden has been doing great. We’ve got lots of butter lettuce, arugula (some that I turned into pesto that we used in a pasta), and snap peas out the wazoo. The kale is lagging a bit but looking good–the trellis for the snap peas are blocking some of their sunshine but I think they’ll turn out alright. Radishes, carrots, melon, winter squash, broccoli, and brussel sprouts are also coming along too but were planted a bit later than the rest of the garden.
Due to the abundance of eggs we’ve been getting (3-4 a day now) I’ve been trying to scheme up a way to use more of them and have found a new life’s goal–to bake the perfect custard tart. I am not a baker at all. Even when I worked in restaurants I stayed away from any kind of bread or pastry baking. It’s a completely foreign concept for me of which I am slowly learning to appreciate. I’ve been baking sourdough for a while now, for a time during the pandemic (along with every other stay at home mom) but currently at a stretch of probably 5 months at the rate of at least one loaf a week, and I’m just now starting to figure it out. It’s always turned out edible, but often misshapen, miscolored, underbaked, or dense. I hate the fact that there are so many factors over a length of time that can contribute to all those things and are impossible to correct once the deed is done (if you even know what you need to correct). I’d love to get a book just about sourdough to really try to learn the intricacies of it. In the meantime the custard tart is taking my attention. My pie dough, a simple 321 recipe, had been great from the first bake, albeit a bit decadent. The custard part has been a lot more trial and error as to texture, tempering, and temperature but has improved a lot from my first try. I’ve used a bay leaf from our tree to flavor it along with some vanilla extract and am quite happy with the taste. The first time I baked it I also baked the leftover pie crust, sprinkling it with some coriander and sugar (I didn’t have cinnamon but now prefer the coriander) and basically made elephant ears that were almost my favorite thing that I’ve ever made. I took one of my tarts into work and people seemed to really like it. I think it will only take a handful more attempts to really get it to the place where I’m perfectly content with it.
My next door neighbor had a yard sale recently where I scored a number of things, my favorite being a fly rod and reel. The rod is fiberglass and I think the equivalent to a 7#. The rod and reel are both around late 50’s or early 60’s make. I had to epoxy one of the joints on the rod that was corroding but otherwise in great condition. I’m hoping to take it into the fly shop sometime soon to finish getting it outfitted for steelhead. Also with those I got a pair of brand new Converse hip waders (70’s?) that I will probably never use but are definitely cool. I’m sure I’ll come up with an excuse to wear them eventually.
Going to be helping teach a CERT class tonight for the first time. I’m hoping it's something that I enjoy and can build a bit of my resume with the department. I think it's a good idea to find something extracurricular to involve myself in and for whatever reason I’ve always enjoyed teaching. I’m hoping that the high school fire science program eventually expands a little and I could involve myself in that and then eventually maybe be a part of the academy cadre. We’ll see in time.
Oh, and Edgar apparently has an Edgar Jr. (maybe even three Edgar Jr.’s, it’s difficult to tell). They’re very cute. An owl has also made themselves at home somewhere in the neighborhood. I’m hoping to spot it eventually.
Edgar Jr.
The boos being cute.
7/11/2022
Got to force my first door and vent my first roof the other day. It was a row of storage units in an apartment complex that had gone up. We were clearing another call when the fire came in so we weren’t even on the box at first but it got upgraded to a task force fairly quickly due to information from the callers. We threw out medkits into the rig and turned out as fast as possible on the street. We were close but weren’t going to be first in. Not until a train delayed the nearest engine. “It’s gonna be us,” the officer said. Despite apartment complexes often being a nightmare to try to navigate it we found it right away. Black smoke coming from the eves and venting out on the charlie side. I grabbed the irons and my partner grabbed a hose. He suggested that I try to force the door that was on the delta side while he ran around back with the officer with the hose. It was inward swinging and I got my halligan in pretty easy and started to work it. “Just kick the door in,” the officer yelled while running by. So i tried. I’ve only ever tried kicking a door in once before and it went well, but it was an interior apartment door with not much too it. I kicked once and nothing. Both the locks were doing their job. I tried again even harder and didn’t feel like any progress was getting made. There were people across the street filming it all and I became super self-conscious and decided to just work it with the irons. By that time the second engine had arrived and one of the firefighters saw me at the door and grabbed the flat head and helped finish hammering the forks in. The door forced easily from there but I was still hella embarrassed that I didn’t have it forced quicker.
The fire had burned through the back of the storage units and we had water on it there but now also had a secondary line going through the front door. By the time the truck arrived they started cutting the garage doors. About four units had been affected. Two of them heavily. Of course they were all stuffed to the ceiling with stuff, old bikes, bins of soda bottles, shelves and shelves of chotskies, mostly junk. I laughed a little and showed it to another firefighter when I saw a book called “Ideas for organizing your storage space”. “Well of course this is unorganized,” I said, “this book was buried way in the back where they couldn’t get to it!”
The hydrant that our engineer had taken had no water. I don’t know how that happened. An incoming engine had hooked up another one though at the front of the complex and supplied us. We stayed around on scene with the truck cleaning out the units and taking care of hotspots. There were a bunch in the rafters that we couldn’t get to so command made the call to go on the roof. We weren’t doing much inside the units anymore so I decided to break away from my team and check on the truck in back. They had just thrown the ladder when the officer saw me and asked if I wanted to vent. I had already gone through almost two air bottles and was exhausted but I masked up as quickly as I could and grabbed a NY hook. We had a roof ladder hooked on the peak. I haven’t been on many roofs before so it isn’t saying much but it was the spongiest roof I had ever been on. The hook pierced the roof straight up as I sounded. Any step off that ladder would send your foot right through. The chainsaw seemed kind of ridiculous but it was good practice. The firefighter I was with pointed to the spot, passed the chainsaw and I cut as far as I could without stepping off the ladder. Which wasn’t far at all. I couldn’t even make it to the other rafter. We vented, pulled up a hose to show water for a minute, got down from the ladder, moved the ladders over, climbed back up, and cut again. We repeated this whole process several times until the hot spots were gone. Eventually I ran out of air and had to pass the saw over but didn’t mind as I thought my arms were going to fall off. All in all it was a valuable experience. I need to work on my door kicking down skills.
7/8/2022
Found mites in the coop yesterday. It first looked like the bedding was speckled and then those specks started to move. Then I saw them on the perches, on the walls, in the run– It’s a terrifying moment, one that makes your skin crawl and sends you wanting to hurl yourself into a gasoline shower. I quickly adapted my plans for the day and tore that thing apart, spraying it, cleaning it, spraying it some more until I was sure that not a single mite could survive. Today it is much better. I found one mite chilling on the roost but it wasn’t moving, I think that's a good sign.
I’m in the coop everyday, if only to let out the chickens, clean their poop, and collect eggs so I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed any mites before the place was infested. I do a much larger cleaning once a month where all the bedding gets changed and dusted but it obviously isn’t enough because I keep having recurring issues of things like mites or lice. Luckily all of the chickens seem fine, none of them have any symptoms of getting their blood sucked ad nauseam, so I’m hoping the problem was nipped in the bud.
But on top of all this it turns out that Mrs. Hughes has an impacted crop. We’ve been watching her for a day or two, we’ve noticed in the evening her crop swells and starts to bounce all around when she takes off running across the yard. We had noticed that it had been shrinking up at least a little in the morning but today I grabbed her while she was still in the run to check for myself and just like I’ve been reading about–a golf ball sized lump in her crop. This has been our first experience with such an issue but I watched a video on it first and then gave her a good massage to attempt to break the ball up. It seemed to have worked but I’ll be keeping an eye on her for the next couple days nonetheless. Luckily she seems like her normal self, hasn’t been lethargic or anything so, again, I’m hoping this was a problem we solved early before being allowed to escalate.
I’ve noticed that instances like this–sick animals or even the potential for sick animals–have a seriously triggering effect on me now. We had one of our chickens, Dorothy, die two months ago–most likely from egg peritonitis. We took her to the vet, gave her antibiotics, but she didn’t make it. We also had to take one of our cats, Fin, to the vet a little over a month ago for an eye infection, and around the same time Mia came back from a camping trip with me covered in no less than a hundred ticks. Luckily those two are both fine, but all of these events have shown me that I carry a lot of trauma from Milo getting sick and dying. Now I think one of our animals might be having some potential medical issue I get sent spiraling and become incredibly stressed out and emotionally drained. Breana and I talked recently and both acknowledged this feeling. I think it’s just something we are going to have to live with now.
Here's a picture of Dorothy chilling with Mia.
7/4/2022
The other day, after whining that I’ll probably never write a novel, I sat with my notebook for hours trying to conjure up something that I honestly thought I could contribute to. After combing through ideas one stood out in particular as something that I feel like I might be equipped to try–a cookbook. There are millions of terrible ones, a lot of good ones, but few instructional ones for homecooks as to how to think about food other than following a recipe verbatim. Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio” being a perfect example of one that challenges home cooks to think about how they cook differently. I’ve bought that book for many people as I think it’s a great introductory text to people who really want to better understand the foundation of cooking. As a home cook, and one who cooks regularly for people in the firehouse, with ten years of experience working in professional kitchens, I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions about food, cooking techniques, tools, etc. that chefs employ in restaurants. It’s a broad subject, one that I’m still exploring as to how in depth I would want to take it, but it’s an idea that has now gained considerable real estate in my head. I’m pouring through books on food and cooking that I own and seeing where I might be able to add some unique perspective.
Right now I’m not outlining anything for it. I’m just writing. I think if I can produce enough material I can then distill that down and better figure out what I’m hoping to convey and accomplish with such a book. I’ve been working on it now for a couple days and my blogging is taking a hit from it but it’s nice to have a long term project with a goal in mind again. I want to keep updating this as I enjoy it a lot and this has become some form of therapy for me, but it may start becoming less frequent as I continue to brainstorm this cookbook. I’m hoping to settle into a regular working routine soon but right now I’m just excited about this new idea.
