Candace's Caravan

On Tuesday, I had a tough time making myself get up early enough to meet with the cycling group for breakfast at 9AM.

Instead, I met up with a friend for an early afternoon ride on the bike trail by the American River.


I started from the Meadowview lightrail station and rode to the Sunrise station. There was an underpass crossing just on the other side of Folsom Blvd. From there, it was a matter of riding the side trail until I got to the river parkway access area near the rafting rental place.

Jill was waiting for me on the Sunrise bike/ped. bridge. (This is the same bridge that is not far from Slocum House and Old Fair Oaks Village.)

I immediately realized that it was colder than I'd thought, initially. We saw some frozen water right at the edge of the paved bike trail.
-


-

I wished I'd had some glove liners and a knit cap for my head.

Still, the sun was out and the air was clean

-
r.

It was the first time I'd been on my bike for a week.


The squirrels were out and at their most active state. One was racing us along the trail.

Another, at the end of the ride, raced us on the bridge and crossed in front of Jill,then ran faster and cut across just in front of my tire!

Crazy, daredevil squirrels high on high acorn counts in their stash, no doubt.

Article about old CHAOS member Chris Clark:

link to article about hummingbirds.

Both he and Jen Marks moved to Connecticut last summer.

Blueberry-Lemon Coffee Cake



Ingredients

* Cake:
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/3 cup almond paste
* 2 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
* 1 large egg
* 1 tablespoon lemon juice
* 3/4 cup fat-free milk
* 1 1/2 cups blueberries
* 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
* Cooking spray
*

Topping:
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 3 tablespoons sliced almonds, chopped
* 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare cake, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Place 1/2 cup sugar, almond paste, and 2 tablespoons butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add egg and lemon juice, beating well. Add flour mixture and fat-free milk alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries and rind. Spoon batter into a 9-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray.

To prepare topping, combine 1/4 cup sugar and remaining ingredients in a small bowl, tossing with a fork until moist. Sprinkle topping evenly over batter. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack.
Nutritional Information

Calories:
196 (30% from fat)
Fat:
6.5g (sat 2.1g,mono 3.2g,poly 0.8g)
Protein:
3.8g
Carbohydrate:
31.6g
Fiber:
1.4g
Cholesterol:
27mg
Iron:
1.2mg
Sodium:
243mg
Calcium:
82mg

Lorrie Hulston Corvin, Cooking Light, JUNE 2005

Interestingly enough, there has been a lot of initial study into the use of hookworm infestation in the intestines to treat symptoms of asthma, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Crohn's Disease.

Hookworm Treatment
BBC article 1


This guy didn't want to wait for the industry to bring a viable product to market. He booked a flight to Africa and walked around barefoot near open air latrines to get his worms.
-
BBC article 2

another article on practical use of hookworms to treat asthma (a personal log of one patient.)

Statue and night sky over Easter Island.

... by making things fun.

I like this philosophy.

-

Instead of going to Yosemite where the forecast was for snow and cold, high winds gusting, I opted to spend the weekend in the SF Bay Area.

The weather was warm, sunny, and not too breezy...in short, it was ideal!

I arrived at the Etna house and carpooled with Don to the Lakeshore area dimsum place is a regular place for them. The food was very good. I hadn't had anything to eat, yet, and was very hungry!

Afterwards, Don and I parked at the West Oakland BART station and rode the train in to Powell St. station to catch the last part of the Love Parade.
-


The parade was part of a 21 DJ event at the Civic Center this weekend. The parade seemed to be mostly floats/truck loaded with speakers and DJ's with their costumed entourages dancing around to booming club music.


The Not Strictly Bluegrass music festival at the Golden Gate Speedway was much nicer in terms of enjoying the music. For a 2 day free festival, they had some big names on stage. Steve Martin's banjo band was there playing. The stage where they performed was totally mobbed. Jorma Kaukonen and Boz Skaggs were also on the playlist on one of the 6 stages there.

We met up with Paola and Torsten at the jazz stage. A singer onstage was singing scat.

On the bill for the other stages: Steve Martin's band. Boz Skaggs. It's been years and years, but I really like the Silk Degrees album that came out in the late '70s.

Dinner was at a Vietnamese place near Market and 6th called "Tu Lan"
-

-

On Sunday, Richard, Don, and I went to the Mrin Headlands for an easy coastal hike to the Pt. Bonita lighthouse. We parked and st


-
arted at the ridge over an inlet not far from the YMCA youth hostel.

This is hardly surprising. Silly, though.

Article on overuse of analgesics for 'prophylactic' purpose.

I heard that there was one woman airlifted off the trail in the Sierras last year due to internal bleeding in her stomach. It was a case of overuse of ibuprofen.

link to article

Dave & I re meeting up with Jill at the park in Old Fair Oaks for a country breakfast and music (Funkengrooven, Mumbo Gumbo, etc.) today.

As soon as Dave gets back from work.

Someone posted a recipe for homemade laundry soap on a local bulletin board.


I am going to try this.

****************************
596 messages
Posted 9/18/2009 4:32:53 PM
19
Report Message
Once upon a time I owned a company that made all of our own natural organic products. When we made soap we would always save the leftovers for laundry day. It used to br a jug of soap scraps that I jellied and would add to the regular detergent. Then I started doing research about those boxes and found out that they are mostly fillers and fabric softeners and water softeners to make them work in a mass type of market. The actual detergents needed to clean the clothes was quite minimal. It is about managing the municipal water sources of the customers. With EG's hard water, it takes about 3 to 4 months and I notice that the whites need to be bleached, but bleach is cheap, and a simple box of water softener for the whites is also a very economical option. I do not have a problem with fading of colors any more than normal.

Happy to share the recipe.

1 bar soap (Fels Naptha or Ivory is my preference)
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup WASHING Soda

Grate the soap as fine as possible.
I use my food processor because multiply this basic recipe several times. It is important that it be as fine as possible so that the water dissolves the soap rather than gumms it up. It is fine to use this basic recipe if you just want to give it a try for yourself. Fels Naptha soap is at Winco in the Laundry Aisle and is meant for laundry use. I use this bar rather than those fancy stain sprays.

Measure the dry Borax
" 20 Mule Team Borax" found on the top shelf at Winco's laundry Aisle. Borax is a sodium based mineral that is mined, and has many cleaning uses, but it is natural and does not contain chlorine or phosphates.
The company maintains that this product that they have mines sinec 1891 is harmless to septic systems, plumbing and washing machines and I have never had a problem with it, but I would be very careful with using it on one of the new high effeciency type machines.

Measure the Dry WASHING Soda (Yes it is Arm and Hammer. Also at Winco in the laundry aisle) This is NOT Baking soda and cannot be used interchangeably. Bicarbonate of Soda based but much cruder type production and a totally different type of processing.

Now here is the kicker...
Use 1 tbsp. per large load
2 tbsp,. if heavy soil or extra large load

It takes a bit of getting used to, as you will really feel like you should be adding more, but really you should not have to. If I have a load of towels from people showers of the day... 1 tbsp. a load of towels from washing the dogs 2 tbsp!
This formula has a light fragrance from the soap, but it in not at all overpowering. If you want your laundry fragranced use fabric softener. Sometimes I do, but usually I do not.
When I do however splurge on a bottle of fabric softener I dedicate 1 specific "laundry" rag and soak it in the softener. Let it air dry with the softener in it and throw it in the dryer with the damp clothes. I can get several loads out of it this way before I resoak it and start all over again with the same rag.

These may not be solutions that work for everyone but they sure work for me! Happy laundry day!!

Artful home

Well,HECK!!!


This sounds nigfty.


-

This looks niftier than my Km.

My Burning Man campmate, T. Mikey, is in the new regarding the "AtrPrize contest.


Someone also blogged one of his photos from 2 years ago. Check out the temple photo.

Yen and Kevin hosted the 2nd Annual Pharmacy department Crawdad feast today at Kevin's home in Folsom.

A lovely time was had by all.

There large buckets of crawdads were purchased from a vender in front of one of the large asian grocery stores on Stockton Blvd.

Yen made a boil marinade of Sunny D, crawdad spice packet from the vender, and butter. Spicy sausage, corn on the cob, and a few crabs were included in the brew, which yielded highly delicious crustaceans for those willing to shell them to get at the tidbits.

Saturday, we slept in late and had a leisurely morning and early afternoon before heading out to TRV and then to Berkeley for Steve's birthdyparty barbeque.

It was good seeing people. The turnout was pretty decent. Richard W. was there with his paella pan making everything from scratchc.

The gas grill was fired up so people could cook up the various foods. We'd brought some fresh corn on the cob in Lodi to share. For our food, we'd brought a few frozen Harris Ranch beef patties. (Yum)

The crowd was mostly from 3 groups: river rafters, CHAOS people (hiking) and Morris dancers.

Huitlacoche .

Lalo's Resturant in Sacramento carries Huitlacoche quesodillas ontheir menu.

Must go to try some!

This student takes a photo of himself every day while traveling from Beijing, China, to his home in Bad Nunndorf, germany.

link to video.

Useful information for hiking.

Here's a good aticle comparing what's available.

The Bearikade Weekender is tempting.

I don't ;ike the BearVault's series of failures.

William Shatner is so funny!