Pinky and the Roshi

I feel quite unproductive. I need to exercise, clean the house, build those damn bat houses and owl boxes ive been meaning to.
But I think I just need to rest right now, its okay.
I just worry that the days are starting to mesh together, run on by without any meaning. And then suddenly Eric (my brother) will be back from NY, and Ill be all pissed off because I didnt get enough alone time. Well, its only not enough alone time if I dont make the most of it. True, Im really happy being alone and would prefer it stay this way evermore, but, reality is that isnt going to happen.
Ive done a number of things tho the past couple of days that are somewhat interesting, despite my unproductiveness.
- Set up my webcam at the window, and set it to take a snapshot every 20 minutes. At the end of the day, Ill stick them all todether in a slideshow for a time-lapse movie of the day. The effects wont be REALLY cool until I mesh together time lapses from each day in a month long or year-long movie.

- Nursing my hacked pinky. I chopped off the tip, about a 1/4 inch, not huge enough to go to the hospital, but not a tiny cut either. Im definately missing a chunk. Happened last night while peeling a papaya for an amazing dip I managed to complete even with the gimp pinky. (Basically - cooked sweet potatoes, papaya, chopped onions and bell peppers, black beans, a little vinegar and lime, chili powder, and garlic, served with tortilla chips - zomg its gooder than it sounds! really! better than salsa!)
As for the pinky, well, it was gushing needless to say. haha, great, I know, talk about a chopped pinky right after a recipe, mmmm. Lots of blood. I wrapped it with like 20 bandaids. That was a terrible idea. The inside ones didnt stick at all cuz of all the blood. And this morning it was half falling off so i decided to try and pull it off and try another tactic .. BAD idea. It hurt SO bad to take them off. Im glad i finally did tho, because it is much more comfortable to have a wab of cotton coated in neosporin, and then wrapped with tape. Bandaids suck. really.

- OH! YEAH!! I havent told you yet about this. On Christmas day, I was about to go up to volunteer for the free dinner thing, when my cat pazu starts buggin out by the window. I look out to see what hes lookin at, but all i see is his reflection. .. .. Wait, what? Double take, its another cat sitting on the windowsill!!! It looks alot like Pazu. It has lots of porcupine quills in its face, and its looking at me and meowing. I run outside, but as soon as it sees me it takes off running. I put on my brand new xmas-present-from-dad snowshoes, and track it through the woods. I actually was quite proud of my tracking skills. I mean i havent been trained or anything, and it took a while of me going back and forth figuring it out, but I did! At first I was following the cat, but every time it saw me, even if I was 500 ft away, it kept running. I didnt want to keep driving it further and further away in its condition, so I started hunting around for where it was sleeping. Sure enough, I found it, a small depression in the snow, melted down to the leaves, with some cat scat buried around near it. So I left a towel and some food.
I called my brother and my mom to ask if they had any ideas. My brother really made me angry, he just said "let it die." Now, first of all, hes trying to preach back to me my own philosophy that ive preached to him previously. nature is nature, and sometimes its cruel. Nothing you can do about it. If it died, I wasnt going to get all worked up about it.
However, in practice that is selfish, lazy, and cruel. To NOT do anything when you have the power to help another being is not just nature being nature.
I got really upset by his comment, but it didnt deter me.
The next day the food was gone, so I left more. The day after, I saw the cat again running around the house, and as soon as it saw me, again it ran away. I didnt follow this time but instead left food outside the house and piled towels inside the broken cold frame. That night was a terrible storm, lots of driving snow, very very cold, strong wind from the south. I was really worried about the cat.
But the next afternoon, the food outside the house was gone, and I could see cat tracks in the snow so I know it wasnt a racoon or something.
I left food out for it one more day while I ran up to town and got a live animal trap. It took some tweaking to get it to set right. I used Pazu as a test cat, put some tuna in the back and he went right on in. Im glad I did that because it helped me to make fine adjustments to the sensitivity of the trap, and also see where I needed to put the food to get it to trigger correctly.
Pazu was startled when it finally closed on him, but remarkably calm. I took him out and pet him, and then went about getting more food to set it up for the stray cat. When I came back, pazu was right back in the cage, finishing off the last bits of tuna. LOL.
I set the trap outside, with a towel underneath it to make it easier on the cats feet and not so cold to step on. 5 hours later on my break from work, he was in it!
I brought the trap inside and closed him off from the other cats. He meowed alot. I put a chopstick through the holes of the cage and he rubbed against it, he seemed very needy to be pet. I poured a mixture of 1 part milk and 4 parts water into the dish in the cage, which he drank right up ravenously, and I gave him more as well as some dry cat food. The way he ate seemed very aggressive and desperate. I dont blame him, who knows how long he had been starving. But his mannerisms seemed very feral, however his response the chopstick let me know that he must have been socialized to humans at a young age.
Without thinking about it, the name "Roshi" just slipped out of my mouth. His ears perked and he rubbed against the side of the cage, so I guess thats his name. It turns out it was a good name because its non-gender specific (even tho he looked like a male, I couldnt tell for sure at the time), and also because hes a samurai cat with 12 swords in his face!
My friend Whitney who runs C.R.O.W. for Cats paid for a visit to the vet, and we got the quills out, got him neutered, and vaccinated. Good deal. She also gave me food and stuff for him. Really really great. I couldnt have afforded all this without her, and Roshi is doing wonderfully.
He is very stinky, and I think he might have worms, but otherwise he has already healed up nice, and is very very sweet. Him and Pazu get along well, which is great. Pazu needs a little brother to bug and play with.

-watched the American Ballet Theater version of The Nutcracker. Wished I could be so nimble and jump so damn high. Damn.

- Made sweet sesame balls and Mochi. A chinese / japanese treat of sweet rice flour, sugar, sweet red bean paste, and sesame seeds. Im experimenting with the leftover dough to find other ways of eating it. Its not good by itself. It tastes kind of like playdough. Actually exactly like playdough. As soon as you add the red bean paste however, its delicious.

- Am drying cranberries in the oven. I Love dried cranberries with a passion, and this is the cheaper and better way to do it than buying them. I can leave out the sugar. A little honey is nice but not necessary.
For anyone who is interested :

How To Dry Cranberries in Your Oven

1. Put 1-2 bags of cranberries in a pot with about a half cup of water. Put the lid on, and turn the heat on medium. Add sweetener if you like. Try OJ, a half cup of honey, or brown sugar.

2. When it starts to boil, give it a good stir. Listen for the cranberries popping. You want all the cranberries to pop. If some dont, thats ok, use your stirring spoon to smoosh them against the side of the pot until they crack open.

3. After about 10 minutes, or when it starts getting quite thick and most cranberries have popped, turn off the heat and let cool for about 10 more minutes.

4. Meanwhile, take a cookie sheet or baking tray and line it with 2 layers of paper towels, and 1 layer of Parchment Paper. Note : DO NOT USE WAX PAPER. I made this mistake the first round. They are not the same thing and wax paper is a nightmare to get the berries off of later.

5. Pour out the cranberries onto the paper covered tray and spread them out evenly. You want a pretty thin layer. If you need to, use a 2nd cookie sheet.

6. Put it in the oven on very very low. Im talking 100-200 degrees.

7. Check on it in about 3 hours. Flip over the paper towels, or put down new ones if needed. Scoop off the berries and replace the parchment paper. Put it back in the oven.

8. Check on it again in another 3 hours to see if its done. You shouldnt need to change the paper again. You will probably need a few more hours. In my dry climate, my berries are good and dried, but not brittle, still have a nice chew, at about 8 hours. I like to go about 9, but rarely keep track, just check on them every 3-4 hours and see. Remember when they cool they harden up a little more too. They should seperate somewhat as you peel them off, although mine have not gotten to be as individual as the store bought ones, a little more like small clumps of fruit leather. Whatever, I dont care, it tastes good.
I store them in a ziplock in the fridge since they dont have any preservatives. Not sure how long they last technically, but should be a while. Drying is an excellent preserving method for fruits, and the native americans did it all the time without ovens and fridges. So it should last quite a while.