Fresh Butter, By Hand

Tonight when I returned home a little late from the VFW, Ikuko was putting the finishing touches on a nice chicken stew with lots of root veggies including my favorite, rutabagas. She makes her chicken stew with just white wine, salt and pepper, some garlic, a small handful of dried marjoram and finishes it with heavy cream.

The cream container was still sitting on the counter. The cream was left over from holiday baking and cooking. She said it was still good but was getting old so she was going to throw it away. Remembering back seventy-some years to helping Grandma Mac churn butter, I said, "Don't throw it out, I'll make some butter," She looked at me doubtfully but after fifty-two years of marriage she has learned that I know what I'm talking about. At least sometimes.

The stew was excellent with succulent chicken, delicious veggies and tasty sauce. Marjoram and chicken, enhanced with the wine and garlic get a synergistic boost. When the flavor of the rutabagas joins in, it's heaven on earth.

After dinner I was ready to start making butter, but Kuro had other ideas. It was, afterall, time for his walk, so nothing would do but I get my jacket and reflective vest and he, his leash, and off we set. It was warmer tonight with very little wind so we were warm and ready to go to work when we got home.

Not being a professional blogger, I didn't think to document the progress of the butter making until halfway through but this isn't a cooking blog, it's more of a whatever-catches-my-attention blog. I suspect there are plenty of places on the internet where a person could find descriptions and even U-Tube films of how to make butter at home.

Back to the butter, or should I say cream, at this point. Strange as it may seem, we don't have a butter churn amongst our kitchen equipment, so I started by using a hand-held mixer to whip the cream until it was past the "stiff peaks" stage. I'm not sure if I could have kept on using the power mixer but I stopped and switched to a wooden stirrer I made out of maple a few years ago. (Maybe I should have looked for a U-Tube video.) It's a pleasure to use but my arms and shoulders began to tire after thirty minutes of mixing. Thank goodness the butterfat began to come together about then.

I patted and pressed the butterfat and then squeezed the buttermilk out. Next was washing in cold water followed by more squeezing.

After washing and squeezing some more I consolidated the butter into three pieces and weighed them.

 I should mention here that we like unsalted butter. If you prefer salted butter, this is the time to add the salt. Add in your favorite kind of salt and knead the butter some more while it's still not refrigerator hard. Since I'm sure I didn't do a real good job of washing all the buttermilk out of the butter, it would be excellent for using in browned butter recipes.

The cream container had been about three-quarters full when I started, so from the approximately three pints of cream we ended up with 1 pound four ounces of butter. 

Economically, it doesn't make sense to make your own butter at home, unless you have access to fresh milk from a friendly dairyman for little or no cost. But, on the other hand, instead of pouring the old cream down the drain, we now have fresh butter. 

It would have been nice to have a churn but it was rewarding to make do with what we had handy. My arms and shoulders will be a little stiff tomorrow but I got to burn off a few of the excess calories from the chicken stew. 

The best part was watching the expression on Ikuko's face as she saw the butter materialize from that cream. Her disbelief turned to pleasure as she watched that old magic of white cream turning to yellow butter using nothing but elbow grease. 

Older son, Glenn, and Monica live nearby, have backyard chickens, and sometimes present us with fresh real free-range eggs.Tomorrow morning I'm going to have a couple of their eggs cooked in browned butter with buttered toast.  Yum, yum!

A cold Fog in Magnolia

Tonight it was 38 degrees outside when my little dog, Kuro, and I left for our walk. Earlier in the day there had been a breeze from the ENE but tonight it had died down to a gentle zephyr off the sound from the west. As we headed out, our street was clear but when we topped the hill to our west the cold fog began to roll in.

Fog reduces the colors that normally are shown by our LED street lights. 

The night air was tasty with plenty of moisture dripping off my mustache and occasionally I tasted a little salt from the the bay, not far below.

The warm glow of the tungsten filaments in the house lights was welcoming compared to the cold of the LED lights. 

Whoever owns this house and flagpole properly displays a flag lit from below, even in the fog. I see he's also a Seahawks fan.

Kuro was all in favor of a longer walk in the fog. He doesn't mind the cold when he's walking. I was warm enough until we came to the cross streets when the gentle wind wrapped the fog around my ears and stuck its cold damp fingers down the neck of my jacket.

Even though I wore my reflective vest I was a little worried about distracted drivers not being able to see us in the fog so we headed back home. 

It was a different kind of walk. Quieter with different lighting and the taste of salt water fog to sample now and then.

Click Here for an Apology and The Full Blog

I must apologize to my regular readers for throwing a curveball with yesterday's post. With the shorter email notifications you need to click HRodenberger's Blog at the top of the email, or just under that, the title of that day's post, e.g.: Click here for an Apology and The Full Blog to be directed to full post on the blog website.

This is the beginning of the third year I've had this blog and until now I've left it to find its way more or less by itself. Readers who wanted could sign up for email notifications of new posts. After signing up they would receive notifications of new posts in the form of the complete post in a rather plain form. If they clicked on the hyperlinks shown above, they would jump to the website where the post would be fully formatted and the photos would be displayed properly. I suspected many readers didn't know or just didn't bother to make the jump.

Lately I have been reading the administrative background and instructions from Blogspot. I found that there was a way to send out a short "leader" type introduction to the post with the notification email. If people were interested in reading the full post they could click on one of the links and go to the regular website.

Going to the full website would serve two purposes: One, they would see the post properly formatted and with pictures displayed the way I intended and, two, since Blogspot tracks visitors (anonymously) I could track the interest my readers had in the various topics about which I wrote. When they read the post in the email, that reader doesn't show up in the statistics for that day.

As I say, the statistics are collected anonymously so I never know if any particular person has read a post, or even visited the website but, overall, they are quite interesting. There are numbers for the total readers, pageviews by post, by country, by operating system and by browser. They also track referring URLs and referring sites.

So far this week, there have been 17 pageviews for the Phonak post, five for the VA post and one for the Tangerine Orchard post from November, 2015. So far there have been visitors from The USA, France, Germany and India. Some posts (for instance, the various posts from Vietnam and the one on climbing Mt Fuji) seem to get views at least once per week and some posts only get a few one time and are seldom viewed again.

If I know what interests people I can write more on those general subjects. Or not. I'm not trying to go commercial or make money on this blog, but I'd like to post on things that interest you.

Hopefully it hasn't been too much trouble to make the switch to the new notifications. I hope you are interested enough to stay with me. Let me know via the comments, or email, if you have a subject you'd like to read about.


 

Modern Phonak Hearing Aids

Last week I posted about my satisfaction with the VA Hospital Audiology Department and their service concerning my hearing aids. Today I'd like to detail how these hearing aids make life so much better for me.

Since I have complete hearing loss (as a result of a childhood fever) in my right ear, I'm fitted with a "bi-cross" aid. It picks up sound on the right side of my head and transmits it to the aid on my left side that combines that sound with the input from the microphones on the left and feeds the blended product into the ear canal of my good ear.

These are my new hearing aids. The one on the right goes to my right (deaf) ear. If you look closely, you see the part that connects the earpiece to that hearing aid is just a clear plastic tube. Again, if you look closely, you see that the earpiece is a piece of clear plastic covered with the rubber dome that holds it in place in my ear canal. The only job of that earpiece is to hold, via the molded plastic tube, the hearing aid in place behind my right ear. 

The purpose of the right side hearing aid is to pick up sounds on that side and transmit them to a receiver in the hearing aid for my left ear.

Now to the hearing aid for my good (left) ear. The aid on this side has two microphones just as does the one on the other side but in addition to amplifying the sound picked up from this side it also melds it with the sound transmitted from the other side so I hear one stream of sound.

 If you look at the plastic connecting tube on the left you see it contains a thin wire that carries the sound data to the small speaker that you can see in the earpiece. 

The rubber dome makes it more comfortable to wear that foreign object inserted into the ear. In addition, the small holes in the dome allow natural sound to get through to the eardrum. The little plastic tails going off to the bottom of the frame are designed to curl around the inside of the exterior ear and stabilize the business parts that are worn behind the ears. 

I have been pleasantly surprised to find that the first set of batteries for this newer aid lasted almost exactly seven days. The same batteries in the old hearing aids lasted only two to three days. When I complained about the short lifespan, the technician told me it was because my hearing loss is substantial thus requiring more amplification and the aids are the bi-cross model which takes more power. The batteries are the same so there must have been big improvements in power use.

Next came the fitting and tuning. This was the magical time when I sat it front of a monitor, the technician inserted a tiny microphone into my ear canal and tuned the aids to match my hearing loss. 

I'm not sure what it's called by the hearing specialists, but by tuning the hearing aids, I mean adjusting the amplification so that sounds in the upper frequencies, where my loss is greatest, are amplified the most. Sounds in the lower frequencies, where my hearing has not suffered as much loss, are amplified less. The desired result of this tuning is more or less equal sound perception no matter where on the frequency spectrum any particular sound might fall. 

When I first tried this type aid about seven years ago I was amazed at the sounds I had been missing. From the calls of the little birds in my backyard to the high pitched beeps emitted by many electronic devices people use everyday, I missed out on those sounds for many years.

 I've been missing high frequency sounds for many years because the primitive bi-cross aids I was given in 1979 and the ones I purchased in 1986 were basically nothing more than speakers with adjustable volume controls that amplified all sounds indiscriminately. I couldn't wear those aids for long because the loud low pitched sounds drove me crazy if I adjusted the volume loud enough to hear the high pitched sounds. I wasn't the only person with that complaint and it was common for people to buy hearing aids only to put them in the drawer until their hearing became so bad they had no choice but to wear them if they wanted to hear anything.

Of course, even though these are wonderful tools, because I have only one working ear I can't tell where a sound comes from. Your ears are designed so the small phase difference in the sound wave as it hits the ears on different sides of your head lets your brain tell the direction of the sound. This sound locating ability that works so well for most of the population doesn't do anything for a one-eared person like me. Even people who know the theory will answer, "Right over here." when I ask, "Where are you?" It would be much better if they would give a description, "In the kitchen, upstairs, next to the bandstand," etc., but old habits that work so well with most people are hard to modify.

Here's another part of the amazing package of electronics that allows me to get the most out of my limited hearing. 

This gizmo (ComPilot, to use its proper name) is worn on my chest dangling from the cord (also the antenna) that goes around my neck. This unit is synced to my cell phone and relays that signal to my hearing aid. It has its own microphone so I can carry on a hands-free conversation. The large square button on its face is the switch that answers or ends calls or redials the last call made. There are volume controls and syncing controls and an on-off switch. There are also ports for charging, connecting to external devices and one to connect to Roger/FM (Europlug)

I'm just getting to know this new ComPilot but find that in addition to what I've listed, it can forward calls, voice dial, dial a pre-programmed preferred number, hold calls and more. I've already ordered an external microphone which clips to my collar and allows me to wear the ComPilot under my shirt. 

A new and especially nice feature for people like me who only have one ear and thus are unable to hear in stereo, is the wire shown on the left, above. This wire plugs into the ComPilot and connects to any number of devices. It will plug into my cell phone, a TV, an MP3 player or the seat sound plug on airplanes among others, and combines the stereo output of the remote device to a monaural input to my hearing aid thus allowing me to hear both tracks of stereo music or conversation. I anticipate that this feature will be useful on flights where I can watch movies or such and actually hear both sides of the stereo sound track. I'm anxious to try it out.

So far I'm happy with the set up. What a boost to my hearing. 

Now if they could just figure out how to give me stereo hearing again.

VA Health Care

Wednesday I went to our local VA Hospital to be fitted with new hearing aids so I decided this post should be about my experience with the Veterans' Administration Health Care program.

Before I start, "Let me be perfectly clear," as some of our politicians have been known to say, before they give a perfectly unclear, and in some cases, perfectly untrue, version of the truth as they see it.

When I report on the state of the VA Health Care system, I can only report from my perspective and based on what I have experienced. Sort of like the blind men who each truthfully reported on the shape of the elephant based on that part that he had carefully examined, I freely admit that I haven't examined the entire animal.

Along similar lines, I try to remember that when I read about "The state of our education system," How to fix our Social Security program," "The trouble with Trump," or even, "How to fix our national government," those writers are writing from their personal perspective and based on what they perceive. In addition, their verbiage (whether or not they actually believe what they are writing is a question for another day) is shaped by their desire to eat. If they don't write what their readers want to read (or their editors want them to write) they don't eat. That's a simplistic conclusion but a pretty effective cudgel. In my case, I don't get paid for this blog so I'll try to report objectively on the subject.

Back to my experiences with the VA Health Program, hereinafter abbreviated as VA.

Like most veterans who seek help from the VA, I have a medical problem related to my service in our military. As with some of our other benefit programs (the Social Security disability program comes to mind), our Congress has relaxed, or should I say "broadened" the standards for receiving treatment. But, never mind, in my case I have clear cut and documented, "service-connected hearing loss," as the legaleze reads. Actually, that's no surprise since, in the fifties and sixties, we routinely fired rifles and worked around loud noises without benefit of hearing protection.

Incidentally, the pendulum may have swung a little far the other way, but I'm glad to see personal protection, of various kinds, mandated by the military and most of industry. Too bad many of our younger population don't listen to the advice of doctors and old farts like me who say, "WEAR HEARING PROTECTION!" and "turn down the volumn on those hearing-killer earbuds and earphones."

"But I wander," as a good friend is known to say. I had a hearing test at the VA Otolaryngology Department in early December which confirmed my degree of hearing loss. They ordered new hearing aids and scheduled me for fitting and tuning.

The librarian at our VFW Post had put aside some boxes of books to donate to to the VA so I picked those up and went to the hospital early to drop them off at the Volunteer Services Office. Their friendly staff quickly processed our donation so I arrived in the Hearing Section well before my appointed time.

The waiting area was a little Spartan but comfortable so I cooled my heels and made a few notes on the memo app on my phone for a future blog post.

Seems like I can't help but digress today. But that's a subject for another post--The many uses of that magic gizmo most of us carry around, that conveniences, connects and, occasionally, confounds us. Young people can't imagine such a state of affairs but "in the old days" people actually carried a paper notebook and pen to make notes. Hard to imagine, but it's true.

At 1515 (3:15 P.M., in American civilian time), right on time, the technician came to the waiting area, called my name, escorted me to the sound booth, introduced herself and proceeded with the fitting.

The service was excellent, the technician went to extra lengths to make sure my new hearing aids were tuned correctly to my hearing loss and she patiently answered all my questions. In another post I'll describe my new ears and how they work.

As did the blind men reporting on the elephant, I can only report on what I experienced in the VA, but my apprehension of the elephant is different from what I sometimes see in the popular media where we often are led to believe that the VA Health Care system is unsatisfactory and kills veterans. I'm sure their service, like that of any giant organization, will have its problems but that's normal and I think they are working to make corrections.

Over the years, when dealing with the Seattle VA Hospital, my experiences have been uniformly positive. Waiting times for appointments, waiting times when seeing a doctor or technician, quality of the goods provided and overall service have been very satisfactory.

In summary, based on my experiences, I highly recommend using the VA system if you are eligible.

Mini Schnauzers

I came late to the world of mini schnauzers. In the last, almost twenty years, we have had two and they are amazing little dogs. My sister, Sue, recommended I write about dogs and a friend wrote about his daughter who works with rescue schnauzers so I decided to post an entry about the little guys.

When I was young our family had a dog, probably a shepherd mix, but just a dog. In those days purebred dogs were rare, at least in our social circle. I don't remember what happened to that dog. I suppose the folks gave him away when we moved back to Orcas Island after the war.

The second dog I remember was a scotch terrier given to us by an uncle in early 1953. He was a friendly, feisty little dog and we enjoyed playing with him. We lived in Bellingham at the time and the dog had been raised in a rural area on Orcas Island so it wasn't long before he got in the way of a car and went to doggy heaven.

In 1975 we adopted a small mixed breed, mostly dachshund, puppy from out local shelter. Chibi (Japanese slang for "short" or "small") grew into a good little dog who was a great companion for our two boys as they grew up. She traveled to Panama with us in 1978. She had to stay in quarantine for thirty days and I'll never forget the look in her eyes during the last part of that ordeal. It was tough on her to live in a small cage for thirty days after running free in our house and yard during the first three years of her life. Chibi came back to Seattle with us in 1981 and, after living a good life, died at her appointed time of old age.

Our next dog was a chow chow named Hiro. He was a good guard dog who liked to sleep outside even though he could come and go in the basement through a dog door. He was restricted to the basement and the kitchen but seemed content since his main job was to protect our backyard. In the evening when he was invited into the kitchen he would flop on the floor between our dinner table and the door, always looking toward the door, on guard even while waiting for his own dinner.

Now we come to the schnauzers. In 1998 I was working long hours away from home and our boys had grown and moved out so my sister bought a mini schnauzer puppy to keep my wife company. He was a black model with a small white spot on his chest and a couple white paws so we called him Kuro ("Blackie" in Japanese), which is a popular Japanese name for a black dog.

Kuro went through the usual growth stages, learning toilet manners and also learning not to chew every available thing that would fit into his mouth. He grew into a good dog but was a little hyper and barked unnecessarily. He was smarter than the average bear, learning a surprising number of human words and, perhaps more importantly, learning visual and verbal cues to determine the moods and desires of his master.

Kuro number one was a good dog. As I said, he was a little hyper and liked to bark unnecessarily, but other than that he was smart and well behaved. He was a good companion for ten years but then he developed cancer that spread quickly. His walks were shortened to a mere block or two and his appetite diminished to almost nothing. Finally he couldn't get up to go outside anymore so I had to take him to the vet for the end-of-life shot.

I carried him out to the car on his bed, Ikuko told him goodbye and I drove to the vet's office. We were shown to a nice little room to wait but when the vet came in with his assistant carrying the needle on a cushion, I got emotional and had to say a quick goodbye and leave just as quickly. I couldn't bear to see my little friend go.

In retrospect, it was best for him and our family. More than once, I've said it would be a good thing, as humans, to have the same option. I know there are many ethical, religious and moral questions and obstacles but, if a person freely chose at an earlier and pain-free time to exit this life in dignity, I would be in favor.

But enough philosophy.

It took us a few years to get over that loss but he had been a good dog so in 2013 we visited a family who had advertised a litter of mini schnauzers. The woman said her female had gotten pregnant accidently while they were babysitting a friend's male schnauzer. It was kind of a fishy story but we decided to look at the pups. There were two males and two females. The females and one of the males were normal puppies but the second male was smaller and had a hernia on the forward part of his belly.

As this pup cuddled in our laps, displayed that floppy right ear and looked engagingly into our eyes, we decided to adopt the "runt of the litter" knowing that if we didn't buy him, he probably would end up being unwanted and eventually going to the pound for disposal with the other unwanted pets discarded by our society. Besides, during the years I've heard that the runt of the littler often becomes the best of adult dogs.

From the beginning, this Kuro was a wonderful dog. Even as a puppy, he was anxious to please and quick to learn. Maybe he was afraid we might send him back to that litter where he was picked on and neglected.

As he grew he picked up words and habits that helped him fit into our family. I use a fifteen-foot retractable leash and after just a couple trials he learned to wait for me at curbs. When I would tell him, "OK" he would run ahead until he found a good smell and then he could sniff a little longer as the leash retracted and then extended as I walked at a slower pace.

He has learned many people words, so when he hears me say, "Time for a nap," he heads for my recliner and waits patiently while I spread an old Army blanket over my lap and the leather arms of the chair before he hops up and nestles in to keep me company during my nap. "Time for a walk," sends him bouncing toward the door to wait while I get the leash ready and dress according to the weather and season. This time he doesn't wait quite as patiently but keeps watching closely until he's hooked up and we head out the door.

Kuro likes his walks. Here is a photo of him taken 9/20/15 around 7:00 p.m. as we paused on a walk.

The photo above is a cropped version of the photo below and was taken on 9/7/16 around two in the afternoon. Tsugumi, shown in the full photo below, wanted to go for a walk with Kuro so we set off on one of our usual routes. Tsugu-chan was visiting from Japan with her mother and mother's brother and sister. They are one of my wife's sister's children and grandchild. Kuro didn't mind her holding his leash. He can tell good people from bad.

This photo was taken 12/15/15 just before five in the afternoon. Kuro thinks my office at the VFW is haunted so he doesn't like to go in there. He stayed in the car while I took care of some business. When I went out to check on him he was shivering so I invited him to ignore the ghost(s) and come inside. I wrapped my feather vest and a windbreaker jacket around him but he wouldn't relax. Here he's looking over my left shoulder at something I couldn't see. A ghost? Hmmm, I'm not sure, but he was happy to head for home a little later. 

Kuro living the life of Reilly and keeping warm under his specially made blanket. 

This photo is one I posted to this blog on 9/20/16. Kuro wasn't interested in the
view so he watched out for bad guys as I watched Elliot Bay.

There is a light misty rain here in Seattle this afternoon. It's a nice break from the cold weather we've been having and Kuro wants to go out early, rain or not, for a walk around our neighborhood.

If you've never had a dog you probably don't understand, but if you've ever owned (or been owned by) a dog you can understand why they are such good friends and even medically beneficial for people.

OK, off we go for a walk. Come on Kuro. . .

Walking at Night

I was going to title this post "Walking in the Dark" but when we walk around Seattle, even at midnight, we have street lights, porch lights and reflected big city lights so we never walk in darkness.

It's nice to walk during the day. The scenery attracts attention and the colors are more vivid. There are more people about and many people feel safer in the daylight hours.

In my part of the city we have views of both the Olympic and Cascade Mountains. Rounding a corner or coming upon an open spot, sometimes one or the other pops into view. Sometimes by turning 180 degrees I can see both ranges from the same spot. The distant scenery is a great attraction of walking in daylight hours.

Walking at night, on the other hand, brings an enhanced sense of space. Distant views hidden in darkness, I concentrate more on the space in my small circle of awareness. The coming cross street, the house with many lighted windows across the street and the darker places under overhanging trees compete for my attention. I notice things I wouldn't have glaced at during the day. As an added bonus, when the clouds are scattered I can track the progress of the moon both across the sky and through its phases.

We were the last neighborhood in the city, but a couple years ago Seattle made the transition to LED street lights here in Magnolia. Replacing the older yellow-hued sodium vapor lights with LEDs was a big improvement in my opinion. The lights are brighter, the colors truer and, as a bonus, the city (taxpayers like us) saves money.

This photo shows a view down McGraw Street through Magnolia Village. The street is well lighted yet there is very little wasted light shining into peoples' yards or windows.  

This view of a residential street (26th West), although not as bright as the main street, shows good lighting. You may wonder why the crosswalk is in a darker area. I don't notice it much when I walk that way but did wonder at the picture. Turns out a telephone line splice junction blocks the light from the LED light almost directly above it.

Contrast is sharp from the LED lights. Here you can see my shadow as I snap the picture.

Color rendition is remarkably true with the LED lights

 

I took this photo in the middle of November before cold weather killed many of the flowers but notice how well the colors show up under the LED lights. It's almost like walking in the daylight.

More natural colors and high contrast even in a dimly lit part of a side street.

Some people worry about safety when walking at night but I have a brave little Schnauzer to watch out for me. I also wear a reflective safety vest in the winter darkness and stay alert to my surroundings.

Walking at night is a nice change. Kuro doesn't howl at the moon but I think he appreciates a walk at night too.