Just a quick post to say:
Recipes to make your own candy bars! (Including peanut butter cups!!!)
Blog » October 2007
#31 in our ongoing series, "Reasons You Don't Want a Website"
You know what the best part about having a business is? Answering the same questions over and over again. What are your hours? What's your address? Do you take credit cards? And the more esoteric ones: what does your company do, exactly? How can I do X with product Z? What is the meaning of life?
Sure, it might take hours out of your day to answer these types of calls and questions, and they may pop up at the least opportune moments. But really, nothing is more fun than saying, "We close at 5pm weekdays, and we're closed on Sundays" 4 or 5 times a day. Because how often do you get to deal with questions you actually know the answers to, right off the top of your head? (You could answer these in your sleep!)
Apparently if you have one of those new-fangled "websites", you could put all of that information up there, and then your customers could find the answers without your help. They could find them when you're busy or closed. They would even find your phone number right next to the answers, in case they had follow up questions. That could free up a lot of time in your day, but what exactly would you do with all that extra time? Relax? Land a new sales account?
I'd rather answer more repetitive questions, thank you.
Today the chickens are 4 weeks old. They are mostly-feathered, and spend their days either huddled inside (if it's raining) or wandering outside (if it's clear). About 10 feet away from their house is a pine tree, from here forward known as 'the chicken tree'.
We have no idea what it is the chickens love so much about this particular tree, but love it they do. When they hop out of the house in the morning, they'll eat a little grass and then they'll notice the tree, and SQUEE they all run over to it yelling and chirping and flapping. Then they spend all day hanging out in the tree.
Notice the sneaky chicken feet in the left of that picture. (Which, by the way, are freakishly large. Somewhere around week 3 a chick's feet get huge.) Sometimes they'll try to hop up on one of the lowest branches, which will of course make that branch bend right down to the ground. Most of the time they lounge, and take dustbaths. Question: How does rubbing dirt all over yourself result in any sort of cleanliness?
Getting the chicks to leave the tree at the end of the day involves a broom handle (to herd them out of the area under the branches) and lots of yelling "Chickens! Stop that!" as they try to sneak back. You can't really herd them properly, because they are missing both the "stay close to my fellow chickens" gene and also the "don't let humans touch you" gene. They just wander all willy-nilly around the yard until you've picked each one up by hand and plopped them in the house.
I don't have any weight reports, because I don't think the chickens will stand for being stuck on the scale anymore. Since these are meat chickens, I can say: about Cornish Game Hen sized!
Today we turn our attention to candy apples. When was the last time you had one of these? Probably at some county fair, where it was $3 and full of smooshy apple. Ick. I was never a fan, until I made my own three weeks ago, and YOWZA.
Candied apples are super easy to make. Here's what you need:
- Apples. We had cause to be near Poverty Lane Orchards last week, so we stopped and picked some apples. They have Macs and Pippins there, but we went straight for the heirloom orchard -- just shy of 200 trees, growing at least 50 different varieties. The apple varieties all have different purposes (fresh cider, hard cider, baking, eating, etc), and they gave us a tree list and encouraged us to sample every tree. So we did. Many apples were bitten. Some were savored, some were spit out; such is life in the heirloom apple orchard. For the candied apples, we went for tart-crisp varieties.
For the sticks, you can use popsicle sticks or whatever you have hanging around. We used some unused take-out chopsticks (broken in half). Spear your apples right in the middle, then give them a little shake to make sure they're not going to fall off the stick.
- 1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 glug corn syrup
1 cinnamon stick
This will make enough for 6 medium-sized apples. I realize that you certainly don't need any more corn syrup in your life, but a little glug (a tablespoon or so) will help keep your sugar from crystallizing while it's boiling. If you don't have any (or don't want to use it), you can leave it out. The cinnamon stick adds a nice flavor to the syrup (anise seed is also tasty). - 1/4 tsp cherry flavor
5 drops red food coloring
You can use any flavoring you want -- we used this tasty cherry stuff from King Arthur (incidentally, only 20 minutes from the orchard!). You can also use any color you want, too. (Orange apples for halloween!)
The next step is to boil the syrup. There's nothing to it -- just stick the pot on the stove and let it go. Don't stir it (except to make sure that all the sugar dissolves), and boil it until it reaches 300F on a candy thermometer. Be careful -- as one recipe says, "Do not touch the syrup at any time -- it burns treacherously." If you don't have a thermometer, then drop a little bit of syrup into a glass of water. If the syrup turns into a little bit of hard lollipop, it's ready!
Stir in the flavoring and color, then go over to your apple-twirling station.
Tilt the pan so that all the syrup pools at one end, then grab an apple and twirl it in the syrup. It should pick up a nice even coat of candy. Put it down on parchment or foil (not wax paper -- it'll melt) and go to the next one. (If you're doing lots of apples (like a double batch), I gather that you're supposed to stick the pot over some boiling water to keep the candy from hardening too quickly. )
Ta-da! Candy apples! Delicious, and really healthy, too! (What? You're eating an apple...) Once they're cool, wrap them so the candy doesn't get sticky. You can store them in the fridge, but they're best eaten at room temperature.
OK, so I know that I just linked to Glen over at The Wind Blog, but holy synchronicity, Batman! He's been at a wind conference, and the talks he went to on the third day were all about the manufacturing supply chain for wind turbines (both in the US and Canada). He says:
I recall a comment from Fred Gallagher, a former President of the CanWEA. He made this comment in about 2002. He said political support for wind will never be strong or sustainable until Canada develops a supply chain, that has many jobs dependent on the industry. In Germany, 10’s of thousands of wind industry employees marched on the Bundestadt when the government talked about changing its pro wind policies. The policies did not change.
I hadn't actually thought about that when I posted last week about where our solar system parts come from. But Mr. Gallagher is exactly right -- when American jobs are supporting the wind and solar industries, then politicians will actually have to care about the clout of renewable energy companies and supporters. So, um... Buy American (Solar)(And Wind)(And MicroHydro)!
We were talking about our solar setup the other day, and realized that almost all of its components were made in the USA. That's kind of interesting, given how often high-tech stuff comes from overseas, and especially given that Europe's adoption of solar technology is so far ahead of the US's.
- Evergreen Solar Panels -- Made in Massachusetts, only 3 hours from us. These were shipped straight from the warehouse, and we actually received them before we even had a shipping confirmation.
- Outback MX60 Charge Controller -- Outback is creme-de-la-creme in the solar world, and they're headquartered in Arlington, WA. A call to customer service confirmed that they manufacture their products in WA, as well.
- Trojan T-105 Batteries -- These are good "starter" batteries that can handle the sometimes-crazy learning curve of new solar users. The company is headquartered near LA, but I think our batteries were made in the Atlanta, GA plant.
- SquareD and Bussmann -- These companies make some of the nitty-gritty parts of the system: fuses, fuse boxes, etc. They both have manufacturing plants in and out of the US, but the parts we have happen to be made in the US. (According to the SquareD website, you can special-request "domestically-made" for any of their products.) (Special bonus facts! Bussmann fuses are used in Disneyworld's monorail! And the Mars lander!)
- Xantrex Inverter-- Who knows where this was made! Xantrex is headquartered in Vancouver, and has facilities in WA, CA, IN, and Barcelona. I'm guessing that our little inverter was made somewhere in the US, but I have no proof.
I think it's pretty cool that you can build an entire solar system without leaving the country. One of the buzz-phrases about alternative (read: non-oil-based) energy is that it can reduce the US's dependence on foreign oil sources. Well, voila! Solar Power: Made in the USA (and in space. By the sun).
One of the blogs I read is called The Wind Blog. It's written by Glen Estill, who (among other things) runs a wind farm in Ontario. We're talking megawatts of electricity generated by wind turbines*! He had a great post the other day about a local school district holding a conference all about environmental awareness, and also about potential careers in green fields. It sounded totally awesome, and like something I would have loved in high school.
* When we were driving across NY state last month, we stopped at a little picnic area just in time to see a single GIANT wind turbine blade go by us on a semi truck. It was so big that it was really hard to comprehend what exactly we were looking at, and how big its tower would be. It was like looking at Megatron's head, or the huge toes of those Argonath statues in Lord of the Rings. (Argonaths! You know, those big statues of the old kings of Gondor along the River Anduin. Right? Right.)
In their official 14 days of life, the chickens have grown 800%. They're huge!
They are probably not going to become enemies of Godzilla going from 1.25oz to 10.5oz, and we still move them from the poultry house, where they sleep, to their outside feeding space with a Rubbermaid container, so perhaps huge is relative.
They've also started chest-butting each other, flapping their wings while running, and scratching the ground for food with their feet -- in other words, they've begun to be chicken-y. Chest-butting, in particular, is a bit odd, like watching teenage boys celebrate a touchdown constantly for an hour.
Their wing feathers are coming in, and their combs are getting bigger. If you've ever wondered about that whole "birds evolved from the dinosaurs" theory, feel free to come over and check out their feet, because they are truly freaky.
Since moving in to the poultry house about 4 days ago, the ducks have been totally incredulous that all these weird peepy things have to sleep in the same space. In fact, they pretty much look askance at the chicks all day long.
