If you happen across a second hand firearm in a somewhat loud caliber, and the first four shots on the target group high and right, what does that tell you about the previous owner?
Yup, he cranked the rear sight all the way up and to the right.
10m, standing, 240gr cast reloads I got with the ’94 Winchester, 1400 fps.
My excuse? It was windy. (Actually, I suck at standing).
I started building kitchen cupboards somewhere around August 2008 — well before we moved in. Well, I finally fitted the last cabinet doors — the two on the pot drawers under the prep bowl.
And… our first tomatoes of the season have shown up.
While the cocktail tomatoes are first, I have no idea what other kinds of tomatoes we’re going to get. They all came up from the worm compost that I spread in that part of the garden, so it’s a conglomeration of all the tomatoes I’ve used the past year or so.
Last night I made Pioneer Woman‘s Beef Stew with Mushrooms. And it ROCKED.
So here’s the interesting part. Right now, at the SPAR around the corner, beef goulash sells for R59.99, while corned beef sells for R49.99. It seems like a sin to cut a hunk of meat into little cubes, but it’s cheaper, so what the hell.
I knew that the corned beef would make the dish very salty, so I didn’t add any additional salt.
Used 750ml of meat stock that I’d cooked a few months ago — this is the kind of nom you miss out on if you feed the bones to the family dog :-)
Highly recommended.
I wanted to use low-voltage LED undercounter lights in the kitchen. I liked the strip lights from LED z Shine, so I phoned a rep, who promised to get back to me and then… things went quiet. Contacted them recently, but they don’t deal direct and suggested I go to Eagle. The guy at Eagle was particularly non-helpful, said he’d have to order the stuff in and made it clear that he didn’t really want to do that.
So the other day in Cape Town I walked past an electrical store (RG Jack in Bree Street) on my way from the toy store. Popped in, found this 220V fluorescent strip light. It’s rather expensive, almost R600, except they then give 55% discount so it’s R255 out the door.
It’s also rather bright :-)
Now I still need to add two switches, one for the undercounter light and one for the downlighters that still need to go into the glass cupboard.
We had our Cape SAAACA (firearm collectors) AGM at the Castle in Cape Town last Saturday. While waiting for the chairman to pitch (the N1 is chaotic, they’re upgrading the Koeberg Interchange) they hitched this horse.
I doubt I’ll ever have horses, but if I do…
My father turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. This posting is late, because I have been busy. The crazy season is upon us.
We drink a lot of bubbly, and we’ve sabraged using anything from a sword to a kitchen spoon. It’s not difficult if you hit the bottle right (and yes, we are intimately aware of the other meaning of hitting the bottle. 14 Bottles of bubbly bit the dust on the day).
Which leads us to… how not to sabrage.
We had a visitor for Sunday lunch, and I made the ever-popular Upside-Down Chicken which is basically beer can chicken (I use the AGA recipe I got from the American Grassfed Association, looks like the link is dead at the moment) using a pottery megafter some friends made for us.
Pioneer Woman posted a recipe for Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges and she made it sound so nice that I had to try it. Couldn’t find Acorn Squash, used Hubbard Squash instead. ’twas good, but I ended up with quite a bit left over.
Meanwhile, we’re in a USA frame of mind (thinking of visiting) and with Halloween coming up and all, someone mentioned pumpkin pie. So I made pumpkin pie, using the first recipe I Googled across.
And it’s good!
But I suspect Vanilla Basil‘s recipe for A Not-So-Pumpkin Pie might be better.
Meanwhile we’ve been in the house for a year and we still don’t have a door on the master bedroom. Eish. We do have a new front door though.
Welcome to our home.
Rather boring, isn’t it? Ugly, even.
A new front door has been on the list ever since we moved in. We just never got around to doing something about it until this weekend. Went over to Glasscraft in Lakeside.
Decisions decisions :-) We considered the two on the left, we did not consider the two on the right… although that tree has a certain charm…
The door on the left was the most expensive door in the place. It was on our shortlist. The door on the right happened to be the second most expensive door in the place. It won by a small margin.
Yup, that’s the way our taste runs…
At the National Championships, I borrowed Gunther’s Freedom Arms .22 revolver. Gorgeous gun.
Walked over to him after the event, said “I owe you money”. “Huh?” “Well, you’re not getting your gun back”.
Now with a gun like this, those are fighting words. Good thing we’re buddies.
Ludi overheard and mentioned he had a Freedom Arms revolver for sale, on behalf of someone else. This only happens when someone dies or emigrates — there is no upgrade path, so people tend to hang on to these things. Fortunately, in this case, the fellow emigrated. So that same evening I bummed some computer time off a friend, and a ridiculous amount of money changed hands.
Behold, Biatchez! My shiny new toy (apologies for crappy phone photograph).
Now to convince the nice fellows up in Pretoria to give me a licence before I die or emigrate… :-)