First up, pics of the smoker! Ugh.. and now photobucket is messing with me.. I cannot.. for the life of me.. flip these images upright! They look normal on my computer and as soon as they go online, they're sideways! Argh! Ok.. so if I rotate the original and then save a copy in photobucket... the original turns into a misshapen blob.. and the copy is fine... >.<
*gasp!* What a bloody fight to post links to two lousy little images.. yeesh...
Now for part 2! I'm always looking for new things to cook that are tasty, so I came across a good recipe for Ramen soup. For the uninitiated, ramen is Japanese egg noodles in a specific soup broth with a variety of toppings and condiments. Ichiban noodles that you can buy in the store are the cheapo quick version of ramen.
So.... some top quality soy sauce, scallions, hard boiled eggs soaked in mirin (sweet sake - rice wine) and soy, a shitake mushroom base for the soup, and a few more goodies added in and we have a definite winner! 30 minutes prep time for the soup base which can be frozen or refrigerated, and 30 minute prep time overall for the actual meal and is it ever tasty!
And finally, the last part of the post. I've been working on refinishing some furniture for our next door neighbour (nothing too special.. the pieces are not terribly well built, so not much to really say there) but in between times I added a couple of things to the yard to deal with a persistent problem in our neighbourhood.
For the longest time we've had trouble around our place with people letting cats outside in absurdly cold weather. The worst offenders are the low income and Treaty 7 (Urban Indian) houses around us, including letting an 8 week old kitten outside to fend for itself. The kitten we rescued from a pair of tomcats and sent to a better home at friends of ours in Vulcan. Generally the cats vanish in early Fall and reappear in the Spring, they obviously have homes somewhere. This winter was a bit different though. Two cats would come and visit us consistently, one being a little tabby female who was very friendly and terribly fierce towards leaves and dead grass :P The other was a young orange male who is very afraid of people, but will sit under the car or trailer and cry if you come outside and startle him.
Needless to say, even when the weather got cold neither of these cats seemed to have anywhere to go so I took steps and built a pair of "kitty-bunkers" from scrap wood I had floating around the yard. The tops are shingled and flip up so I can get inside and add food and water, and packed around with snow so that they insulate well. Inside, the door is offset from the main area so the wind is cut to nothing and some of the heat is retained, and I put a $6 rope light into each one. You're not exactly supposed to use a rope light for a heat source, but they're warm to the touch rather than hot, and warm enough to keep the water in a container sitting directly on top liquid at -35 Celsius. Best of all, they're sealed acrylic, so they're completely weatherproof.
Judging by the footprints around the bunkers, and the empty food and water dishes that I fill up every 3 or 4 days, my efforts are appreciated, and we've seen both of the cats going in and out of them. Best of all, after our weeks of super cold weather, both cats have the tips of their tails and ears intact.. so it's warm enough in the shelters to prevent frostbite as well :)
Total cost to me?
$4 a month for cheap dry cat food
Power consumption... 2@15w x 744h = 22320/1000 = 22kwh x 0.08/kwh = $1.76/month
Water - negligible.. possibly a liter a week
3 hours to build them both using scrap wood destined for the garbage anyways (water damaged)
Leftover shingles from the shed
$12 in rope lights
Worth it to keep two cats from freezing to death, even if they aren't mine. And the added benefit? A cat will never defecate near it's nest when food is present or mark the territory directly beside it because the scent attracts scavengers and predators. I can't do anything to keep the cats from marking the corners of the yard (that would be the big tomcats we see all summer long) but a small sub-level male and a female will do what they can to avoid confrontation. So that means no little surprises in the garden anymore, and I haven't found any evidence of marking anywhere (should be easy enough to see on white snow :P ) Plus, the woodpecker that frequents the backyard and keeps drilling holes in the soffit and fascia on the sides of the house is keeping his distance now :)
