Banishing Burdock

It's been raining for what seems like weeks now.  When the glowing orb so commonly referred to as "the sun" makes its rare appearance, we run for the mowers and attack the lawn.  The window of opportunity is so slight to get this task completed, it takes precedence over most everything else.  We mowed the lawn about a week ago, and with all this rain, it's due to be cut again.

The dandelions have sprung up and are seemingly taking over.  But they look so pretty, and once they've bloomed, they take a back-seat in the garden.  After a while, everything seems to blend together, grass or dandelion, it's all green at the end of the day.  I've stopped wearing my glasses outside, and I have to say, I enjoy the blur that results when I don't wear them.

 

One of the biggest thorns in my side (pardon the pun), are these wonderful burrs.  Did you know this plant was the inspiration for Velcro?  That, and the word Velcro is a portemanteau, made up from the word velour and crochet (which means "hook" in french)?  And don't you feel like a better, more interesting person with that nugget of information bopping around in your gray matter now?

The burdock plant shown in the first photo is sometimes mistaken for rhubarb plants by the uninformed.  Certainly, the leaves are as large as a rhubarb plant when left to grow unchecked, and easily crowd out most everything around it.  The plant's stalk can grow to a height of 7 or 8 feet in our fertile soil.  I have been fighting this plant for years now, but now we're down to the final battle.  This year - it's them- or me.

Poor Popina.  With her unfortunate long fur, she brings these burrs home with alarming frequency.  Actually, she's more of an ally, considering each burr I pull out of her fur will never see the great out-of-doors again.  I gave up wearing anything with laces years ago; it became prohibitive snagging burrs all the time.  Don't get me going on polar fleece either, because it's a veritable magnet as well.  Some burrs also have microscopic little splinters that dig into your skin.  Just like thorns of a cactus, you can feel them, but you'd need a magnifying glass to properly see them and tweeze them out.

So this is the year I have declared a full-out war.  No burdock plant will go unchallenged.  I might not get each one pulled out by the roots, but I promise to maim, harm and otherwise render useless each and every one of these infernal weeds this year.

Spurred on by the rumour that Canadian Tire intends to phase out their iconic Canadian Tire money, I went to buy Fiskar's Deluxe Weed Remover.  (Did you know the Fiskars company was established in 1649?  That's 362 years ago!)  This particular weeder was 25% off, plus I had a wad of Canadian Tire money burning a hole in my pocket.  This is just the sort of superfluous item I'd love to spend my hard-collected Canadian Tire money on before it expires.  Years from now, as I look over our pristine lawn, I'd like to think back on the day I got a free gardening implement.  Sure, I've got other hand-weeders, but this weeder seemed to talk to me.  I need a work-horse, a Sherman Tank, the missing link that will help me win the war on weeds.

I have to apologize to the long line of people behind me at the cash, but with all due respect, I did pay with actual Canadian Tire money in full dollar denominations.  I didn't have to count out hundreds of 5c and 10c bills (although I was tempted), but just smacked my 40 coupons on the counter and smiled heartily at the cashier as she rolled her eyes.  I bet she's waiting for the day Canadian Tire finally decides to do away with this obscure rewards system in favour of something more modern and easy-to-use.  For some bizarre reason, I was given 10c back in Canadian Tire money, quite ironic since I was trying to get rid of it in the first place.  Even more ironic was the fact I was given a 5$ Canadian Tire gift-card as a bonus.

So, I feel good about my new weeder.  I like the 25-year warranty, the fact it's made in Finland, and it's tough stainless steel claws.  It's nice to have good ammo, and it's even better when its free.

Maybe one day, when it finally stops raining, I can actually get to use it.

The Happy Cranker

My CSM ramblings have been mighty sporadic.  2011 will be THE year that I crank out a pair of socks!  The time has come to put these babies to use!

I finally went out and bought a proper stand for my CSM.  Taking a page from The Soxophone Player's blog, I went to our local Canadian Tire and bought myself a grinder stand.  Like pretty much anything tool- or shop-related at Canadian Tire, if you wait 6 weeks, you're bound to get what you want at 50% off.  The price was right, and the grinder stand makes for a nice, sturdy base on which to mount my CSM, without taking up the same footprint as the ubiquitous Black and Decker work-bench.  With our on-going renovations upstairs, the logical place to put my CSM was under the stair, so I needed something compact.

I put away my most recent acquisition, Victoria, and pulled out good ole' Marie, both Legaré 400 models.  Both machines are nearly identical, but Victoria had been driven much harder than Marie, so I wanted to have her cams brazed and reshaped, but simply haven't gotten around to it yet.  I put Marie on the stand, and using Albert's Auto Knitter yarn mast which has a much nicer heel-uptake spring, I am up and running.

I ordered new heel forks, something I procrastinated about, because I had the good intention of making my own.  The fact that we have a drill press smack in the middle of the living room would motivate me to this extent.  In the end, I couldn't be bothered, so I contacted a heel-fork maker in the States and had her send me two pairs.  The old heel forks that came with the machine are in a V-shape, and have nasty little hooks on the end that of course grab the knitted tube ferociously.  At some point during my heel-making frenzy, I bumped my knee on the heel fork's weight, and down came the fork, weight and all.  Unfortunately, I also had my hand under the machine at this precise second, and managed to impale my palm with said heel fork.  Thankfully, I only nicked myself, but this incident served to expedite my ordering of new heel forks.

I also ordered a new yarn carrier that I am hoping will simplify things even more.  The face of both my Legaré yarn carriers are very worn.  Unlike the Auto Knitter, whose yarn carrier can be adjusted up and down, as well as in and out, the Legaré yarn carrier can only go up and down.  On Victoria, the yarn carrier had already been shimmed (there's that word again!) out with a piece of folded-up tin-foil.  On Marie, it was shimmed out with a washer.  The faces of these yarn carriers are deeply gouged from striking the needles and latches, and my hope is that the new yarn carrier will be a bit more needle-friendly.

Thanks to Sarahspin's wonderful YouTube video, I have completed heel after heel after lovely heel.  I might be personally responsible for 1,000 or so views on this video.  Her "one up, two down" narrative has been repeated so often, I'm sure I'm saying it in my sleep.  Another detail that aided my heel progress was...wait for it...marking my cylinders!  Whodathunk such a simple thing could prove to be so beneficial?  I don't know what kept me from pulling out some nail polish and making a few marks earlier, and it seems stupid to state the obvious, but really...what was I waiting for?  Someone, smack me upside of the head, please.

The above kludge-to-end-all-kludges came about since I was having yarn tension issues.  I had wound a wonderful centre-pull ball, as many advise, yet with the older Legaré yarn mast, the heel uptake spring was giving me fits.  When I used my paint roller/broom handle contraption, I had a more consistent feed, which worked better with the Legaré yarn mast.  I also could have cut a perfectly good broom handle, but why waste something like that on a kludge?  When I changed to the Auto Knitter yarn mast, I kept the above contraption in place.  The magnet around which I wound the elastic comes courtesy of Lee Valley, it's a stand-off magnetic tool holder that I stole borrowed from Eric's drill press.  Sometimes you just gotta make-do.  This was one of those times.

When I get the new yarn carrier, I'll go back to my centre pull ball, although I like the ease of feed I get from the paint roller.  I might find a way to incorporate that into the design modifications I have in mind for my stand.  Ideally, I'd like to make a solid wood top, with a semi-circle cut out that would permit the CSM to be recessed a bit.  This would decrease the leverage of the CSM on the stand, because I do find the current stand a bit tippy, if say, a cat decided to play with a tube-in-progress, (something that could realistically happen in this house).  If the stand had 4 legs instead of 3, I'd be more comfortable, and short of bolting it into the floor (that's how it's intended to be used with a grinder), I'll have to make do for now.  I have visions of a wooden top that would incorporate several recessed rare-earth magnets around the edges that could hold all my tools easily at hand, as well as accommodate a more user-friendly lamp.  I have a couple of modifications that I am ruminating, but I'd like to be a bit more proficient in CSM-ese before having a new top custom-made.

It seems like I am stating the obvious here, as no self-respecting office worker should sit on anything but the best of chairs, so should no cranker sit for any extended period of time on, say, a wooden bar stool while cranking. This is exactly how you could find me, hunched over my CSM, for hours on end.  Eric looked at me as I stood up and massaged my aching sciatic nerve, and suggested I might want to borrow his drafting chair.  Brilliant suggestion, my dear!  One does tend to get caught up in the throes of the CSM, and not realize just how unergonomic the experience can be.

So, stay tuned for another episode of "How the Sock Turns", right here at Shim Farm Central.

Homemade Pasta, Anyone?

I have to admit, I had coveted the KitchenAid pasta roller for a long time, and when I found it on sale at Canadian Tire, I knew I had to strike. I haven’t regretted the purchase, so if you’ve been dreaming, do yourself a favour and make this acquisition a reality. I’d been asking Santa for quite some time, but my requests fell on deaf ears. (Santa, if you’re listening…well…you know the ice cream maker? It’s next on my list…)

Making pasta is simple: flour, salt, eggs and a bit of water.

I’ll walk you through the painfully easy process.

We’re 2 people, so I use the rule of thumb of one egg per person. That’s to say, if you’re four people, simply double the recipe below.

Here we go:

Homemade Pasta

1¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon water

Use the KitchenAid paddle attachment for this step:

Place flour in bowl with salt, mix well. Beat egg in a measuring cup, add water, and add this egg mixture to the flour. Mix well.

You will have a shaggy mixture. Stand back and let the mixer do it’s work. Slowly, the mixture will become more homogenous. Depending on the weather, you might need to add some more water or flour; I invariably end up adding more water.

Change from paddle to kneading attachment, and your dough will start to look like this:

When the mixture is smooth to the touch, and doesn’t stick to your fingers, you’re ready for hand kneading. Simply knead the dough until it’s elastic and smooth. You’re hands will tell you when you're done, but a minute or two should suffice.

Wrap your dough in some plastic wrap, and let it rest in the fridge for an hour or so. I tend to flatten my dough into a round flat shape.

I cut the dough into slices as such, since I find this facilitates the rolling process:

Flour the board and the cut pieces a bit so nothing sticks, and cover these resting pieces with your plastic wrap while you’re rolling your first piece:

The KitchenAid pasta roller makes quick work of the dough. You always start with the largest opening, so set your machine to setting 1 on the dial. I always pass the dough through about 5 or 6 times at setting number one. Some advocates stress the dough should be folded in half along the width, however I find this step tedious and useless. I just keep feeding it through again and again. You will find the pasta becoming smoother and sturdier. Adjust your machine to setting 2 and pass the dough through again, 2 or 3 times should do it. For fettuccini, I always go to setting 4, for spaghetti, I use setting 5.

While I am rolling, my pasta sheets need somewhere to do. I forgo the broom-handle-over-a-pair-of-chairs à la nonna, and simply let mine rest over the handle of my wall oven. It works for me, and the cat seems to enjoy it as well.

The KitchenAid pasta roller comes with 2 cutters, one for fettuccini, the other for spaghetti. Tonight we’re having Fettuccini Carbonara, so I’m using the larger cutter:

(It's always helpful to have a cat attentively watching you; Howard is actually waiting for some catnip to magically appear...)

Et voilà, a meal fit for a king! Your pasta is now ready for a pot of boiling salted water, and doesn’t need to cook for longer than a minute or two. Watch like a hawk, and drain when al dente. Serve immediately with your favourite sauce.