tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15683059751112627532024-03-12T16:21:55.973-07:00Tales of an Semi-Urban Neo-HippieLyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-90355690960738839312015-01-13T12:34:00.000-08:002015-01-13T12:34:23.376-08:00I've moved!There's probably no one around here, because I haven't blogged in so so so long...but I've moved! Big time moved, like Los Angeles to Canada moved. Since the location is so different, even though the hippie girl is still the same, I've created new digs for a new start. Cheers!
Find me at http://ironwoodmapleleaf.blogspot.ca/
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-84887259326823806612013-03-27T20:42:00.001-07:002013-03-27T20:42:25.083-07:00Back in LASince I last wrote, I've been through Berkeley, Oakland, Chicago, Tokyo, New York City, and finally home to Los Angeles. It was a long, strange trip - but so good. So so good.
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There were hikes, temples, gardens, ferries...tons of martial arts training with fantastic teachers, and some life altering experiences. I'm glad to be home, but trying to carry those feelings with me so that they don't get lost in the mundane.
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Also, I am feeling leaner and stronger after two weeks of working out like a fiend and eating like a monk. If only I hadn't also been drinking like a Norwegian...Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-12708023157486665142013-02-12T03:01:00.002-08:002013-02-12T03:02:32.568-08:00MegabusI'm on the second story of a double decker Megabus, scooting along towards Oakland in the company of a lot of cheerful Rastafarians. The bus is pretty swank, way nicer than Greyhound for a lot less money. One of my resolutions for this year was to visit Grandma Teddy more, and so I'll be on this bus at least once most months. <br><br>
Two births last week, and I'm feeling tired, out of shape. And gross from too many late night takeout meals. Time to spend some time on myself and my health. So...for a few days, starting now, I'm cleaning this up. Lots of water, light meals of healthy stuff, long wals. Hold me to it, please. <br><br>
Naptime, then sunrise on the bus. We have skylights. It's pretty awesome. Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-68055732752715597422013-02-05T11:26:00.001-08:002013-02-05T11:26:49.806-08:00DuplicatI have this favorite apron that I bought in Japan a few years ago. It just so happens to have a really nice shape, good pockets, and it has a kitty. Very important. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wear my aprons a lot when I'm around the house, because when I'm on call (which is pretty much all the time) I have to have my phone on my person. Stuffing a fat smartphone in jeans is not so comfortable, and if I'm wearing pocketless skirts or dresses, forget it. Aprons are like instant pockets. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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See how the cat fears my grimy hands? Poor kitty was getting pretty grungy, so I made another in the clone lab.
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I copied the pattern from apron #1 and tried to use all the same construction, including nice details like a bias-taped hem. Unfortunately I forgot that about corduroy's nap, so some of the pieces have a different sheen than the others. Oh well - it may be a fancy apron, but it's still an apron.
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The cat's on the other side now. All the stuff to make this - rusty red corduroy, matching rusty red cotton for the ties, bias tape, felt, embroidery thread - was all stuff I had lying around. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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And then I went and busted up some concrete. The end.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-37340504905021704842013-02-03T13:31:00.000-08:002013-02-03T13:31:32.226-08:00Laid in Los Feliz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How could they not be happy, living in a neighborhood called "The Happy"? I got a giant box of egg cartons on the internets, and am selling a couple dozen to friends each week. My egg money buys me a lunch or two and it feels good.
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Someone found a stray chicken in the neighborhood and brought it to me, thinking it might be one of mine...so now I have 13 chickens. The other girls are beating her up, so she's hanging out with me while I work. Very sociable little chicken she is; she keeps sneaking up behind me then running away when I turn around.
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I don't watch sports, but some part of me does wish I could be vegging out in front of a big screen with a giant plate of nachos and chicken wings (don't worry chickens, not anyone you know) and some good movies. Instead I'm dealing with this: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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and trying not to think about this: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Los Angeles noise ordinance prohibits "construction noises" on Sundays, so I guess the rotary hammer will have to wait until tomorrow! I'm looking forward to having a little less concrete in my life.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-20397674524786778262013-01-15T18:23:00.000-08:002013-01-15T18:23:42.345-08:00Sick sick sickThis week nothing has gotten done, because I have had a cold, or something like that, which knocked me on my ass for a few days of coughing sneezing puking misery. It probably wouldn't have lasted so long, but you know what's a great thing to do when you're sick? Go camping! Go camping somewhere even colder than your own uninsulated drafty house. That'll do it.
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Anyway, home now and finally feeling a bit better. No, I haven't had a flu shot. I've never had a flu shot - I don't really believe in getting vaccinated against things that wouldn't permanently maim or kill me (so I might feel differently about the flu shot when I am old or otherwise compromised). As far as I can tell, I get the flu about as often as people I know who get the shots religiously. A reminder to take a few days off isn't such a bad thing, except for the house going to hell in a handbasket while I'm lying around with the cats. At least someone took care of the chickens for me, and we have so many eggs that I'm wishing I could sell a couple dozen.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-91732204148530722982013-01-08T18:09:00.001-08:002013-01-08T18:09:21.358-08:00New BeerAfter a long discussion about how we shouldn't start any new projects until we've closed up all the house's open wounds, and how finishing things is good, and blah blah blah, I hear a funny noise while I'm cleaning up in the garage and whoops! My lovely husband has started ripping out old plaster and lath. Oh well - that rotten plaster was pissing me off too. You should probably know that taking off a door (that has no porch or overhang) and replacing it with only a badly installed security screen, will cause your plaster and doorframe to rot. Consider yourselves warned. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Previous owners of our home were not too bright about this sort of thing. We're taking this serendipitous opportunity to fix some really bad wiring too.
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If you're not into home improvement, hey look a bunny!
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He's got some ears on him, that one.
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The main event last week was to execute the next step of turning this:
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into some form of drinkable hooch. I was all afraid that it had gotten screwed up when the gasket blew and the airlock fell off, but when I opened it up it smelled good. I have to keep reminding myself of something my SCA brewing mentor used to say (and probably still does - hi Henry!) - peasants brewed every day...and they somehow managed it without food grade plastic buckets and degrees in biochemistry.
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The next important step in any brewing process is to pour yourself some of whatever you brewed last time. It's a good reminder that this crazy stuff actually works, and gives you something to do while you stand around siphoning proto-booze.
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Usually I like to use a tourniquet to tie the siphon to the bucket handle, so that it doesn't dip too low into the muck at the bottom (as a medical professional, I have that sort of thing lying around. Afterwards I checked its blood type) but this time I forgot to get the siphon, so I had to just stand around drinking beer while holding the racking tube. Worse ways to spend an hour, I'm sure.
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The last step in brewing is to wash up all your gear to avoid incurring the wrath of others in the household. In the past I would have thought that no one could get angry at a person who makes alcohol appear, but I was wrong...plus, that muck at the bottom of your primary fermenter gets really hard to scrub off after a while. Next week, bottling!
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-4373269258196740852012-12-31T20:31:00.002-08:002012-12-31T20:32:21.843-08:00Next Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I told all the chickens last week that if they didn't start laying again, I was gonna eat them, and that I was already shopping for their replacements online. It worked! Four eggs already in the last couple of days...which is good, because I don't think I'll have the mental cycles to raise a new group of hens this year.
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New Year's Resolutions that I intend to keep:</b>
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Stay up to date with all my schoolwork. I'm not paying good money to waste time.
Go for a walk at least twice a week.
Drink at least as much water as I drink coffee.
Visit my grandma more.
Make more homebrew beer and mead.
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<b>Resolutions that would be nice, but seem pretty damn unlikely:</b> <br>
Learn to read katakana and hiragana (phonetic japanese).
Do yoga (more than one sun salutation a month.
Eat the vegetables in the fridge, rather than letting them get old and giving them to the chickens.
Write posts here more regularly.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-38055856968251604502012-12-28T18:38:00.002-08:002012-12-28T18:42:28.967-08:00Rabbit RexExciting events this week: I ate the first pomegranate off our tree, and I got a new rabbit, who will be replacing the Californian as the big rabbit around town. This one is a black otter standard rex, and he is the softest thing I have ever touched. I haven't managed to get any good pictures of him yet, but he looks a lot like this one:
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I really wanted to like the Californian and New Zealand rabbits, but I just don't like those pink eyes. Marta (the flemish/NZ cross doe) wouldn't have anything to do with him either. Can't say I blame her, those red eyes would creep me out too. He's up for sale now, and I hope he finds a better home.
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So far the rabbit project has had it's ups and downs - on the upside, they are damn cute little things, and the garden has been loving the fertilizer. On the down side, all efforts to breed have been a fail. Marta wouldn't accept any advances from the rabbit who was supposed to breed her, but when <a href="http://urbanneohippie.blogspot.com/2012/09/mochi.html">Mochi</a> squeezed through a gap and came to visit, of course that worked. Unfortunately, she had that unplanned litter on one of the coldest nights of the year, and I hadn't known to get her a nest box. None of them made it, and I felt so horrible when I found them in the morning. Mochi is a sweet little thing, but he'd better stay in his own part of the hutch from now on.
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In a couple of months I'll likely be adding another rex doe to the herd, and then we'll see what happens from there. I hadn't really planned to have more than one male and two females as permanent residents, so bringing Mochi home kinda threw a wrench in there. I can't get rid of him, though - even the husband sneaks out to pet him!
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-37877045197545310152012-12-13T00:57:00.001-08:002012-12-13T00:57:20.940-08:00FugueI've been in a bit of a funk lately about the house. I love the place, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it seems like things are going wrong faster than I can fix them, and I'm tired. School and clinical work is a huge time commitment, the husband is working insane hours, and when I'm not doing prenatals, homework, or at a birth I'm just so damned tired that all I want to do is read some fluff and pet the cats.
Right before we left for Japan, I discovered that the front bathroom shower is leaking massively under the house (all the other showers leaked, so I don't know why this surprised me) and one of our circuit breakers went off and won't reset, so most of our living room has no light or power. However, I did get a tree and some LED lights up in the corner with the only working outlet, and stockings are attached to the mantle with traditional holiday C-clamps.
One way or another, we will carry on...and these house doldrums will be over soon. It is not financially an option to pay others to do work for us right now, so I'll have to put my big girl pants on and do it myself if I don't want to be sitting in a cave in the dark come New Year's.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-42744808930923446482012-12-04T10:24:00.001-08:002012-12-04T10:24:12.138-08:00And we're back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Merry Christmas from Japan! I made it back on Sunday morning, sick and miserable with a cold, and proceeded to sleep through most of the next 24 hours. I'm feeling better now, but still slow-moving and not so excited to go back to work tomorrow. Less jet-laggy than usual, more of a culture-lag. Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-90646434650675297912012-11-13T18:02:00.003-08:002012-11-13T18:02:36.514-08:00Socks for the road<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After way too much dithering and magazine searching, ravelry browsing, and even yarn buying (even though I wasn't supposed to...oops) I decided to make some socks. Really boring thick wool socks, because I found myself about to buy some at a store the other day and thought, F-this. I'm making socks.
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I have never made a pair of socks before, but I made <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/projects/recklesscraft/fireside-stocking">this</a>, which is like a giant sock, and I've made lots of other much scarier things, so I am confidant that I can make a sock. Two might be asking a lot.
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Of course, that means I had to pack enough yarn for four.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-1778129359850313632012-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:002012-11-10T19:33:09.014-08:00Sleep Deprivation and Yarn TrippingThis week I attended two births, which both ended well, but were long...I missed two nights sleep, and though you can try to catch up, it still takes days to recuperate. That half-gallon of coffee I drank today probably didn't help either.
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We head out for Japan on Thursday morning, and nothing is ready. I haven't gotten my homework assignments finished, though I made mighty progress, and I still have the all-important task of deciding what knitting to take with me. It has to be simple enough that I can work on it on trains without buggering it all up, complicated enough to be interesting, doable with stash and patterns I already have, fit in my purse, and generate a finished object that I want in the end. Not too much to ask, right?
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I always end up buying yarn souvenirs in Japan, too. They have the cutest cheap yarn, and a nice assortment of the finer-gauge yarns that I like without the barfy baby colors. In case you're ever traveling in Japan and need to know, here's a useful yarn buying guide:
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Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-90407105161684882032012-10-29T11:54:00.001-07:002012-10-29T11:54:40.093-07:00The Girl Cave<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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is where I spend most of my days now. I'm chaining myself to the desk until I finish my homework (or at least, that's what I keep telling myself). This fall we're going to Japan for a long trip, and I decided yesterday that I was going to finish the next 5 homework sets before I go in three weeks. That's about as much homework as I've done in the last three months, but there's nothing like a deadline, right? Right?
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-5112032826162605502012-10-16T23:57:00.000-07:002012-10-16T23:57:19.594-07:00Art Deco-ratingA few years back we ordered these "swimsuit form" mannequins from some mannequin dealer, who met up with me in the parking lot of a Carl's Jr. to make the sale. He wore a cowboy hat and drove a huge white pickup truck whose license plate read SXYMNQN. I love Los Angeles.
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I'd been meaning to do something with them for all this time. They started out a strange pink color, so giving them a copper base coat helped a lot, and now I'm working on giving them all tattoos. These 4 ladies will be hanging in our grand room to give it a bit of funky sexy art-deco porn style. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The cats are strangely attracted to them - I have no idea why.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-20867283649094503062012-10-01T23:03:00.000-07:002012-10-01T23:04:08.014-07:00Art SchoolAll the really cool skills I have I learned in art school. People say art school is useless, but if you go to the right kind of art school (the kind where you spend a lot more time buying supplies at Ace Hardware than <a href="http://www.dickblick.com/">Dick Blick</a>) you'd be amazed how many problems you can solve.
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We bought this motorcycle on Craigslist a few years back. It was a salvage job and had a rough life before we got it, which I made a lot worse by putting in my novice miles on it. I dropped it three times - always while trying to park, or get out of a parking spot - and each time the fairings got a bit worse.
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Then another of our intrepid household put in her novice miles on it, and dropped it a few more times (always on the opposite side I did...funny) and the fairings got a lot worse. Some were even lost, never to be seen again. It was time for this bike to see some love, but there was no way I was going to shell out $500 for a new set of fairings for a chop-job bike that is probably going to get beat up by the next n00b who gets their mitts on it.
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See above comments about art school, resourcefulness, and my deep, abiding love of 2 part epoxy resins.
First:
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Second:
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Third:
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And one more:
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In this one, you can really see how bad the damage was. I was able to recreate entire sections by making a waste form out of crumpled brown paper, then layering pieces of fiberglass to make a strong backbone. The surfaces weren't great, so I used Bondo to smooth them, primer, and paint. The colors are pretty close, though the Rustoleum red is a little darker than Honda red...but there was no budget for little $40 cans of colormatched paint in this project. The bike looks better than it ever has since it came to live with us, anyway!
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-7463514476828221712012-09-24T14:20:00.001-07:002012-09-24T14:20:58.184-07:00Mochi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Found wandering all by his lonesome on a Hollywood street corner, this friendly little dwarf rabbit finally made it through quarantine and has been installed in the rabbitat. He celebrated his first night there by squeezing through a gap to visit the girl next door...hopefully she doesn't give birth to a litter of flemish giant/netherland dwarf crosses next month!
I hadn't anticipated having any rabbit so small, so I had to close up some gaps and make his home more appropriate. This one is just a pet, so friendly and personable that he has charmed even the rabbit-resistant members of the household.
Mochi is named after Japanese folklore, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit">where the moon rabbits are making mochi</a>. Clearly he had to give it a taste test, because his paws and chin are white. Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-91155314736608285592012-08-18T11:53:00.002-07:002012-08-18T11:53:14.021-07:00The Watering Hole...was a bar my dad used to go to before I was born. Now, it's a nifty backyard watering system.
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This keeps the chickens and rabbits well supplied with clean, fresh water - very important when we're having a heat wave, and hard to do when I'm on call so much. Two births in 24 hours this week!
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The central feature is this bucket, which clearly needs a more stylish hat. The hose coming in at the top is attached to a float system that keeps the bucket topped full all the time. From here, the water is gravity fed out two hoses that fork off to the rabbits and chickens.
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I cannibalized the chickens' old auto-watering trough to build this, but I hear you can do the same with toilet float parts.
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The chicken's watering bar is now the coolest place to hang out in the coop. It is a PVC pipe with five <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poultry-Nipples-Sanitary-Chickens-Turkeys/dp/B006LAVDLI/ref=pd_sim_petsupplies_1">saddle type nipple waterers</a>.
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We tried to "teach" the chickens how to use them, which was hilarious and entertaining, but didn't seem very effective...but when I looked out the window an hour later they were all drinking from the founts. Go figure.
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The rabbit system features smaller clear tubing that runs the length of the hutch, with forks every two feet that go to little metal drinking nipples. I ordered those direct from China and ended up with 20 of them for much less than the cost at Klubertranz or Bass, but no instructions and weird sizing. Overall, it probably wasn't that great of a deal, especially since I only really needed five or six of them. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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All in all, I think it cost a little over $100 to build, and a couple of days to put together (including troubleshooting and drying time for silicone sealant). Each morning this week I've checked to make sure that the water is running and there are no leaks, and so far everything has been working wonderfully. It is a huge relief and I think it was well worth the money! I'm hoping that all the animals will be healthier and happier too with clean water all the time.
Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-37215106217920370772012-08-06T12:54:00.000-07:002012-08-06T12:56:12.117-07:00Doula lifeLast night I got home late from a long birth, had some top ramen (I added some miso to make it more like real food) and fell into bed for eleven hours. I'm usually a light sleeper and can handle sleep deprivation and interruption fine, which is good or I wouldn't be able to do my job, but it was a beautiful luxury to know that I could sleep as long as I needed.
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I have the house to myself for a few days and that's really good too. I love my little family, but after a tough birth, I'm all out. I don't have any social graces or giving left in me, so it's better if I can putter around by myself for a while and process all that happened, good and bad, to make me a better future midwife without having to explain what I'm feeling by telling someone else's story.
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This afternoon I was supposed to go to a workshop on preventing postpartum hemorrhage, but it got cancelled and I am so deeply relieved that I have a long afternoon of alone time stretching out ahead of me, with no more pressing concern than whether the lovely cared-for feeling of having food brought to me in a restaurant is worth the tradeoff of having to talk to anyone who isn't a cat. Usually after a birth, I treat myself to one good meal of whatever I feel like I need, but today I can't figure out what that is, so I'm having a Sapporo for breakfast while I think about it. My muscles feel like they've been massaging someone else for 20+ hours, so it's medicinal!
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I love my work, and I mean that in all ways, cynical and not. I'm almost to the end of doula work before I start going to births with the midwives, though, and it will be such a relief to be dealing with birth in a less interrupted, artificial way, and not feeling such a weight of fighting for so much with so little actual power. It is amazing to be there with families in their moment of transformation, but it is frustrating to be caught up in a model that I don't believe is right for 90% of the women in it.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-77314322149482647312012-08-01T09:55:00.001-07:002012-08-01T09:55:27.785-07:00RabitatFinally, after a long delay...the rabbits get their new habitat.
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A couple of weeks ago I lost one bunny - she had cut her foot on something, and though I cleaned it up and doctored her well, she died a couple of days later - maybe tetanus, or some other infection? I felt really bad about it, and it upped my motivation to get the bunnies out of their slumlord hovels and into a better place.
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The cage wire was the most expensive part - 20 feet of strong galvanized 1/2" x 1" wire cost about $100. The wood struts - all the blue in the photo - are furring strips, so that was about $20. Everything else was salvage - the roofing is made out of cabinet doors from dismantled built ins (have I mentioned the previous owners' extreme fondness for badly designed built in furniture?) and the sides and inner shelves from old pine 1x12" boards.
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The doors were the fun part - they are also salvaged cabinet fronts, and I decided at 10pm that night that they should be fun, so I drew designs freehand and cut them out with a jigsaw. The trees are my favorite, though they took the longest. It kinda makes me want to buy a scroll saw, so that I can do better versions for the house.
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Serendipitously, I was given another girl bunny a few days ago. A woman nearby who gardens in an empty lot found this rabbit hopping around in the yard of the house next door after the owners moved out and left her. So far she and Marta the flemish giant mix seem to be getting along well - they have two big sections of the rabitat with a connecting door. Charlie Boyfriend has a section to himself at the other end.
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Still to build is the automatic watering system, but that will have to be another post for another day! I'm working in the midwives' office 3 days a week now, so I have a lot less time for building crazy stuff in the backyard and finding new and creative ways to injure myself.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-13881293557398946832012-07-12T03:11:00.002-07:002012-07-12T03:13:14.848-07:00Merry MeadGood mead takes time. It isn't a lot of work, but you have to start with good ingredients (simple: honey, water, yeast) and find it a cool, relatively stable place to spend a few months. This is the first place I have had in LA that could meet that last requirement. My study/laboratory, on the first floor of the Northeast corner of the house, is sort of like a drafty wine cellar...so last fall I brewed up a 3 gallon batch of mead and left it sitting there until last weekend.
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Honey quality definitely matters - I haven't made friends with any local beekeepers here yet, and our local health food store got bought by <a href="http://www.lassens.com/retailer/store_templates/shell_id_1.asp?storeID=V92HGBD7X6SR2LR60G03N0ET9MR4BDF3">Lassen's</a> and stopped carrying bulk honey, so I used Trader Joe's Mesquite honey for this batch, along with White Labs sweet mead yeast.
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My mead recipe comes from my SCA days. Purists only here - no spices, fruits, or additives. Those all help if your honey isn't great, but if you've got good honey, let it shine. 3-4 pounds of honey per gallon of water for a sweet mead.
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Bottling is the fun part (in addition to drinking, of course). My bottle corker was one of the first big purchases I made when I got a "real job"...hated that job, but I still have the corker. It's 3 feet tall and definitely a commitment to make space for in the kitchen, but you have to have priorities, right?
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Corks go here:
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Then you pull the giant lever to squeeze the cork and push it in:
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And celebrate!
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I ran out of bottles with a little mead left in the carboy, so I filled up a couple of mason jars to stash in the fridge for later, then had a little taste to see if it was good yet (sometimes it has to age a while in the bottles before it's really good). Before I knew it I was lying on the floor, drinking directly from the bottle filler and mumbling about Valhalla. Good stuff, that mead.
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Come to think of it, that bottle corker was just about the most satisfying $200 I've ever spent. When I think of all the money I frittered away from that high paying job, because I didn't have a clue about money, I really wish I had bought the cider press too...Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-16186875538736789382012-07-06T23:10:00.002-07:002012-07-06T23:10:43.281-07:00No Bonfire, please.It is hard to take sexy pictures of bathrooms, so I'm not sure if these pictures express how awesomely happy I am with this project.
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Vanity, now with open base that makes the bathroom feel much bigger.
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Floor, all clean and shiny and cute, with zero linoleum.
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And of course, awesome vintage wallpaper. The photo can't even capture the 50's glam of this ridiculous green-floral-on-metallic-silver ridiculousness. The ceiling is pure silver, because of course we wouldn't want to go too far. The husband thinks it's hideous, but I say he's touching that wallpaper over my dead body. I also say that he can't have his disco ball back.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-26761146078624677532012-07-03T09:17:00.001-07:002012-07-03T09:17:16.443-07:00Like that story about the lily...Last week I replaced the faucet in our front bathroom. The old one was cool and brass and oddly phallic looking, which was a plus, but it was leaking like crazy and not repairable. Cue new faucet, which looks pretty nifty on the (pre-existing) real marble countertop after a good polish:
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but then the new faucet and shiny marble made the crummy old water-damaged vanity it was resting on look bad, so I had to rip that out and build a new one. While that was happening, I decided to investigate the peeling linoleum, and found cute little hex tiles underneath:
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Turns out those little tiles are also Carrera marble. Who on earth would glue crappy 80's linoleum to marble tile? I like to think it was a time traveller from the future who wanted us to be able to buy the house cheap one day.
The husband was away on business trips, so there was no one to stop me from going manic and chipping away all the linoleum and adhesives. There were some friends visiting, so they got Tom Sawyered into helping...or at least one of them, who has my kind of OCD, was helping, while the other one lounged in the bathtub in his jammies drinking cocktails and telling us stories.
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Seems like a gameboard for some dystopic future version of Settlers of Catan, doesn't it?
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Now the floor has been cleaned, minor earthquake damage repaired, and polished. The new vanity is being stained out in the garage, and the whole thing should be put back together again in a couple of days. As far as costs go, this project was cash cheap and labor spendy, and that's the way I like it. New Delta faucet @ $128 on Amazon, wood for the vanity @ $60 from Home Depot, and about $20 worth of adhesive stripper.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-71337583021283811982012-06-13T21:10:00.001-07:002012-06-13T21:10:20.344-07:00TodayIt just got to full dark, and there are firecrackers and sirens going off in the neighborhood. Hard to tell if these are related - we're in such a multicultural place that there's always someone celebrating the independence of somebody from something. The intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia is a strange conjunction.
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Today I babysat a 14 month old for ten hours, as an emergency backup sitter. She was one of my doula babies, and it has been such a pleasure to see her grow (and she still throws herself at the world with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm she was born with). I tried to take a picture, but my camera wasn't fast enough for her and then she started chewing on my phone. I managed to keep her from eating more than a reasonable amount of dirt and we made it through the day with only one major cheerio-flinging meltdown.
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Back at home, I'm drinking the results of my first homebrew experience. It was meant to turn out like Fat Tire, but it ended up being darker like a Newcastle, but much more complicated. Definitely a beer-drinker's beer, and I'm loving them. I'm already thinking about the next batch, but trying to take some time off, go easier on myself, and get enough sleep for a change! I signed off caffeine for a few days and I'm hoping that will help me get my groove back, or at least make the coffee start working again when I go back to it.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568305975111262753.post-7362840063878038242012-06-04T09:39:00.003-07:002012-06-04T09:39:33.992-07:00Termite Farm<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCsgvsb6SH-vfUUQFpmkB_FGLVdzgmpG-ZMsYHUK_IbvFgMngoIxsvvMTuHpVkntRQ0HuXJoaDRVfArihY7gWtOYI75MpADIs_QmWtYBJs0cyQT3MH_7NoW3bCsz4n4sqrGzcILbcxUxz/s1600/DSC02851.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCsgvsb6SH-vfUUQFpmkB_FGLVdzgmpG-ZMsYHUK_IbvFgMngoIxsvvMTuHpVkntRQ0HuXJoaDRVfArihY7gWtOYI75MpADIs_QmWtYBJs0cyQT3MH_7NoW3bCsz4n4sqrGzcILbcxUxz/s400/DSC02851.JPG" /></a>
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Kind of amazing, but mostly creepy. The house was tented before we moved in, so nothing's alive in here. The wood is so gone that I was able to pull it out with my hands.
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Lucky for me that they didn't get into the structural supports yet, so I'm replacing the framing around this basement/storage area and building new doors for it.Lyssahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09063475025297754001noreply@blogger.com2