Terraforming Galaxies

The Harbinger

I have an entire Sci-Fi section in my online store!

The Snowshoe Cat Enigma

What are Snowshoe cats?

My Snowshoe, Mei Mei (Little Sister), loves water.  

 This really is how she drinks, all the time.  I have never seen her use her mouth like the other cats.  She can also open doors (we have handles, not knobs), including the shower door.  And she can close doors, also like the shower door.  It's the most fun to close the shower door when another cat is inside.

 

I love Mei Mei's pretty blue eyes and pink nose

  When I first adopted her, I just thought she was a mutt that had some Siamese blood in her line, but hey, looks like she's her own breed of cat.  I looked it up and the bred was created in the early 1960's by Dorothy Hinds Daugherty.  The International Cat Association (TICA) accepted the Snowshoe as a championship breed in 1994.  In temperament, Mei Mei is pretty much exactly like every cat I've ever owned.  But then, when I had a purebred Ragdoll from a certified breeder, aside from his size and colors, his personality was pretty much exactly like any cat.  In other words, don't believe all the mystical magical personality traits breeds are SUPPOSE to have.  Although Mei Mei loves her fountain, I have a torty that adores drinking the same way from the swimming pool.  Mei Mei's  meow is not like the other cats, but not like a Siamese either.  It's more of a, "Mur, murreow," instead of a simple, "meow."

 

Her sister (died last year) was black and white.  Her name was Xiong Mao (Panda Bear).   But all the other kittens in the litter looked like Mei Mei.  

I don't know what killed Xiong Mao. Suddenly one night, she looked dehydrated (her fur looked bad). Took her to the vet, he said she was dehydrated and gave her fluids and sent her home. I couldn't get her to eat and she looked just as bad the next day. I brought her back to the vet and she had a fever and was jaundiced so he kept her there, hooked up to an IV for fluids and antibiotics. Later, her temperature dropped and he took her to an emergency clinic for plasma.  At 5 years old, she was still a young cat and she fought. She'd rally and he'd get ready to call me to come get her then she'd fail. She'd rally, then she'd fail. Finally, he went to pick her up out of her cage and she screamed in pain and died. He sent her body to the cat version of the CDC for an autopsy but never told us what happened with that. We paid extra for it but he would never tell us.  Every time I brought it up, he changed the subject. I needed to find out what she had so the others wouldn't get sick but I found out nothing. A few weeks later, Mei Mei showed the same signs. She was dehydrated and had a fever.  Instead of taking her to the vet, I made a mixture of yogurt, olive oil, and water and force fed her every couple of hours for 2 weeks. At one point, her temperature dropped to 98.2, just like her sister, and her breathing became rapid.  The vet said to warm her up and that she probably wouldn't make it through the night. I held her against me in a blanket and kept her warm and fed her until she seemed to stabilize. And then, after a couple of weeks, she began to eat again but was very anemic and had to go on medication for a while. None of the other cats ever caught it. FIP test came back negative.  I still don't know what it was since we have no poison plants in the house, didn't see any skinks around the house, and they're kinda rare around this neighborhood anyway, no chemicals, and they're all indoor cats. Doubtful, but maybe it was something genetic?

Mei Mei has been perfectly fine ever since.

And yes, I've changed vets.

Smoking Fatties This Weekend!

I've been studying with the online masters all week and this weekend, we gave these a try!  Everyone else buys a tube of store-bought sausage but I really like the way mine homemade sausage tastes so I made my own.  Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding pork at the grocery store so we settled for hamburger.  I guess these are closer to a grilled stuffed meatloaf than a proper sausage fatty.  But these are pretty paleo and SCD diet ready.  Adjust your cheeses to your needs. 

This is the ground meat with, now mine is to taste.  Like, I really like rosemary, so I use a lot from my garden.  If you like a lot of onions and garlic, add a lot of the powder or use fresh.  But in this mix I have:

rosemary, sage, red pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, ground cloves, ground pepper, ground anise seed, dash of cinnamon, and basil.

 And apples. 

 Although fabulous in my Thanksgiving sausages, the apples do impede rolling.  Avoid chunks of other food like onions and apples.

 I would recommend that you use parchment paper to work on instead of wax paper.  Wax paper just tore all up.

Bacon weave!

Now, I have to say, I LOVE bacon!  LOVE IT!  But it's such a strong flavor, along with the sausage meat, you really need to push the envelope for the center filling. 

 This first one is inspired by Sonic.  I love their Supersonic breakfast burritos...when they can manage to do it right.  85% of the time they leave off half the ingredients so I stopped bothering with them entirely a couple of years ago.  But here, I can finally get what I want!  That's chipotle salsa, cheese, homemade hash browns (instead of tater tots), diced green chili peppers, and scrambled eggs!

Here are the leftovers from the Reubens we've been having all week (smoked a homemade corned beef last weekend).  So this is homemade Thousand Island Dressing, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese.

tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and sausage

 Mexican style with salsa, cheese, grilled onions and peppers

This was dinner.  So far, it's a good start but it's not quite there yet.  The fillings need more punch or the meat needs to be thinner or maybe go without bacon (sacrilege!) but right now, all I can taste is bacon and some meat.

Oh well.  Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow!

Knitting Cat Beds from Yarn Stash

If you've knitted a few projects, you've probably created a yarn stash.  Perfectly good yarn, pretty colors, just not enough to DO anything serious with it.

But hey, if you have a cat or know someone with a cat, you should knit that yarn into a cat bed.

This is an easy knitting project that you can do while sitting on the couch, watching tv.

And don't worry about knitting too many little cat beds.  You can give these away as charity to your local pet rescue centers or your local no-kill shelters.

Can't Hug Every Cat

A quick Pattern for Basic Cat Blankets

Find out what's near you and just drop by with a plastic bag of knitted blankets.

Patterns for knitting blankets for cats

easy pattern for cat sized blankets

2 felted cat beds

2 more round cat beds

knit a decorative cat bowl

fancy felted cat pottery

Knitting Kitty Pies 

I don't knit rectangles. You can, knit any charity cat blankets any way you want, but I knit circles. It's easier and faster to knit up so here's my pattern:

Pick circular needles of your choice. Pick a size that won't bog you down knitting teeny little stitches for weeks but not so big that little kitten feet will fall through the stitches when it's laid out flat. You can either get these started on the circular needles, going back and forth (knit one side, flip it and purl the back) until you can start knitting in rounds or you can get it started on dpns. If starting on circular needles, leave a long tail to knit up the middle into one piece after you start the rounds.

 starting on DPNs

continuing on circular needles once it's big enough.  Already sewed up the center.

cast on 9 stitches

Row 1: knit around

Row 2: knit 1, make 1

Row 3: knit around

Row 4: knit 2, make 1

Row 5: knit around

at this point, it's easier to place a stitch marker at the end of each new stitch. So you'd knit 3, make one, place the stitch marker, all around. From this point, no more counting needs to be done. Look at the stitch before the counter. Does it look like a purl? Then you knit this round. Does it look like a knit? Then you add one. Very simple.

When the diameter is the size you want, finish it now or just knit a few rows so it pops up around the edge and then knit with a fluffy festive yarn. Or not. It's your choice.

I have made them with one skein of yarn at a time, 2 skeins at the same time for a flatter cat bed, and with felted wool.

I've got a felted one upstairs that Mei Mei loves. She likes to get underneath it and pretend she's The Horta. A regular one downstairs under the mirror that's a big hit with everyone at one time or another because it's under furniture.

If you have wool yarn, try a felting project!  You just knit it big on big knitting needles, then wash in the washing machine in hot water.  The hot water makes it shrink and the agitation felts the wool!

This is a wool cat bed BEFORE I washed it.  Notice that it's so big that the side are all rolled up and over.  Wool yarn will shrink 15-20% during the felting process. Maybe even more, depends on your yarn.

Here's the finished project.

The colors DID fade but, I dyed this with Kool-Aid and Easter Egg dyes so it's not as color fast as store bought yarn.

Start with plain wool yarn.

While watching Star Trek:TNG in my pajamas, I unraveled the skein and tied it into sections

Kool-Aid, cake icing dye, and Easter Egg dye!

 

 in the sink, I pour hot dye all over it and let it sit for a while

 

After it's rinsed and dried

roll it into a ball.  A festive festive ball of yarn.  In front of a kitten.

About Dye Colors

Easter Egg Dye

Hints and Tips

Kool-Aid Dye

Hints and Tips

Wilton Cake Decorating Colors

Hints and Tips

 

 

But you don't HAVE to use wool!

 Spreading the project out on DPNs and circular needles to check for size

 Yarn is approved

 

Need a Cat Stroller? Of course you do!

Went to the vet today, got my girls (Mei Mei, Calia, & Ceilidh) shot.  Professor Fuzzywinkle isn't due until end of July.  I took them in the stroller and the staff just couldn't stop talking about how cool it was and where could they get one and they know people who would love one of these.
Here it is:

 I got this mostly for the yearly check-ups, I mean, seriously, Farmer's Carry 2 carriers and have son or spouse come with me to bring in the others? Or make several appointments? Tedious! And then with fostering kittens, do you know how many carriers that is?  At first, sure, they all fit in one and it's cute, but kittens do the darnedest thing.  They GROW!  You ever try stuffing 5 teenagers into one cat carrier?  Yeah?  Now try it with cats.
See what I did there?

So I bought a cat stroller for cheap.  I've had it since October.  It hasn't taken regular constant hard use yet and it would never withstand an angry feral or a kitten who really wanted to tear his way out of the mesh, but so far I've had no problems whatsoever.

Check it out, this one is lower in price than the one I bought! 

SCD-Chawan-Mushi, Japanese Egg Custard

Officially called, Chawanmushi this is a little dish that I ate a lot in Tokyo and it's perfectly healthy and very versatile. 

Sorry, no really fabulous pictures of Japan.  My camera broke the first day we went  out sight-seeing.  And THAT'S why I'll never buy Canon again. 

1st, you can either go all out and purchase handleless cups with matching lids (actually considered to be bowls)  on Amazon, and I have a couple that I bought in Japan, but I've also been known to use whatever mugs or ramekins that I have clean and some cling wrap or tin foil as a lid.

Basically, for 4 people, you need:
3 eggs
2 cups Dashi (2 tsp dashi powder and 2 cups hot water)
2/3 tsp soy sauce (again, this is for flavor.  You can skip it if you cannot digest soy)
a dash of sake
1 tsp mirin

and now the ingredients are whatever you want to add.  Traditionally you can add ginkgo nuts, but I really don't bother.  Just pick some things from this list and add as much of it as you'd like:
8 canned boiled ginkgo nuts
3 ounces of chopped chicken
4 small thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms
4 ounces lump crabmeat
4 medium shrimp, heads removed, peeled, and deveined, halved lengthwise

This is a perfect use for a small amount of leftovers.

I had it in the winter, so it was served hot.  You can also serve it cold in the summer.

So, whip up the eggs, pour into bowls, place the meat and nuts and mushrooms into mixture.  All of this goes into a bain-marie.   Arrange covered cups in a large pot with hot water to 1/3 of the height of the cups.  Cover pot and steam the bowls over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes.  Don't let the water boil too vigorously.  To check, insert a skewer; if clear broth comes out, the dish is done.