Chit Chat in VOLTVILLE Thread #2 :)

[awsum140]

'moanin, Voltiepeeps.

Good morning Volties. Things are about the same with us. One big roller coaster ride of ups and downs but we're both still here. On a brighter note we became Grandparents to an 8lb 9oz 21" long baby girl Friday. Time to get ready for Church. Hope everybody has a bodacious Sunday. Took all the time to type this this morning and didn't hit post. I should stay offline until I've had at least two cups of coffee.

Congrats, Wuzz!! Try not to spoil her too much (NOT).

Nothing much going on here, just the normal humdrum of daily chores. On Saturday I baked that cake and it was a total disaster. The cakes wouldn't come out of the pans, despite being greased, heavily, and ended up piles of crumbs sort of shaped like layers. The icing ended up too thick, especially to try spreading onto layers crumbs, so it all ended up in the garbage can. There was a "store bought" German Chocolate cake for my grandson but it sure wasn't close to the real thing other than the name. The Oreo ice cream cake was pretty good though! My daughter made corn dog muffins with mini franks in them. They were great and I had to heavily restrain myself.

I am guessing the baking soda was too old and that's what caused the problem. It's supposed to take about a half hour to forty minutes to bake and it ended up being in the oven for almost an hour. Even then it wasn't completely cooked through, still showed spots of moistness in places, and didn't rise properly. It tasted great and the texture was right though. I could have "thinned" the icing with the microwave and a sprinkle or two of milk, but given the condition of the layers even then it wouldn't have worked. Even my Mom, a master baker, had problems with German Chocolate cake a few times, the same exact problem and end result. I may give it a try again next weekend, but want to get new baking powder and some new pans with "auto release" or maybe use parchment paper in them.

 

[Tritium]

Awsum fly over here for few lessons and recipes

 

[Wuzznt Me]

Good morning Folks. Going to be hard to spoil her with 1,300 miles between us Lizzie but we'll try. Y'all have a great day.

 

[awsum140]

It won't be too hard, UPS, USPS and FedX make it all very easy.

Tritium, if I did that I'd have to spend at least six months, three sight seeing and three cooking!

 

[wvducklady]

Good morning, Voltpeeps.

Wiseguy and I had a very exciting drive Right at the beginning Wiseguy hit a big bump and scared himself and started running out of control. I was Whoaing like crazy and he stopped before he hit a fence!!!! We took a moment to calm down. The other ladies were very impressed with my getting Wiseguy to stop.

Off we went on the dirt, then onto the asphalt. Wiseguy decided that water main covers were very scary and there were lots of them. He was pretty jumpy yesterday but we did okay.

The ladies went up a goofy incline to get to a crappy road covered in horse chest high mustard. Wiseguy said "I don't think so" and turned around. I said "Let's try." He said "Okay" and we made it up the incline. We did fine on the crappy road with lots of bumps and tall weeds. We were going by the Bunny RAnch [it's a brothel] and almost back to where we started when Wiseguy saw the big boulders. He didn't like those and was shying away from them. Goofy horse.

Good job Wiseguy! And you too! It sounds like he had a great day full of learning and seeing new things

 

[wvducklady]

Good morning Volties. Things are about the same with us. One big roller coaster ride of ups and downs but we're both still here. On a brighter note we became Grandparents to an 8lb 9oz 21" long baby girl Friday. Time to get ready for Church. Hope everybody has a bodacious Sunday. Took all the time to type this this morning and didn't hit post. I should stay offline until I've had at least two cups of coffee.

Congrats on becoming grandparents! That is great!

 

[wvducklady]

The baby chicks are doing great No more hatched.

 

[Wuzznt Me]

Awsome (not you Roland) Ducklady. Love critters. I'm feeding about 5 deer in my back yard now, Brer Rabbit and a bunch of others in the front yard. Neat thing is all of them are leaving our veggies alone.

 

[wvducklady]

Awsome (not you Roland) Ducklady. Love critters. I'm feeding about 5 deer in my back yard now, Brer Rabbit and a bunch of others in the front yard. Neat thing is all of them are leaving our veggies alone.

I love critters too I too have noticed when I fed the wild critters that they left my other stuff alone.

 

[Renolizzie]

Critters are neat!!!

Love the photos of your chicks, Ducky!

Good morning, Voltpeeps.

99 degrees yesterday, which is absurd. It will be hot again today. I'm enjoying the coolness before the dawn I hate when it is this kind of hot. You really are trapped inside the house much of the day. The new French doors are wonderful and they let us cool the house off in the morning efficiently. That is a real bonus.

Pony Balony got out of the pen yesterday morning. We have had one pipe horse panel propped against the veggie fence for years. I guess Pony saw the weakness in the system and pulled the panel out into the horse pen and escaped. Hubby caught him no problem which is good.

The farrier came and said our horses have good feet and he always says I am one of the few people that work with my horses. I want to work on the deck some more today. Hubby hurt his wrist falling off the deck. Don't ask, it was a goofy fall. He set his chair down towards the edge and then a chair leg slid over the board and off the edge as he sat down and he rolled into the dirt. I am supposing this means he won't do any work on the deck today but I can screw down the boards we do have in place. We have a number of boards down that only have a couple of screws done.

 

[Wuzznt Me]

Good morning Volties. Sounds like Pony's got some horse sense. I used to think that made them easier to train but now I wonder if I didn't get outsmarted a few times. I've never understood people that get an animal that expensive to maintain and treat it like a yard dog or something. If you work with them they return your efforts ten to one. If you're not going to why have them.

 

[awsum140]

'moanin, Voltaticalytes.

That's even true of a "yard dog", Wuzz. Work with them and they'll be your best friend for life. Heck, just give them attention and they'll be your best friend for life. I'll never understand people who have pets and just ignore them other than to throw some food in a bowl once in a while.

The chicks look cute, Ducky. I can't let Mrs. Awsum see those photos or we'll end up in the "should we get some chickens" discussion, again.

Lizzie, watch those falls. I built an addition on our house years ago. My son was helping, about 13 at the time, when we were putting the decking down, 3/4 tongue and groove plywood. He slipped off the joists and went down sideways across them. Cracked two ribs in the process, but he was young so it wasn't too bad. We don't bounce like we used to though, so careful.

We finally got some rain overnight, over a half inch between midnight and 3AM. It's still solidly overcast and they're saying "pop-up" storms are possible all day and likely late this afternoon. We can sure use it, though. Tomorrow I'll be taking the mower for a ride.

Inside duties for me today, mix some new liquid flavors and work on a new mod. Vacuum, dust, set up dinner, yadda, yadda.

 

[Renolizzie]

We got all the deck boards in place with a few screws and now I am working on screwing all the zillions of other screws to tack each board down to each joist. Trust me, it is a lot of them. However, the deck looks great and I will take a picture when it is done. Of course, I will have to stain it sometime next week.

 

[SandySu]

Hi, guys. I've been around, but busy and not too much news to report, thus silent.

Lizzie, I hope hubby is doing OK after his fall off the new deck. Will it have railings when it's finished? That would prevent such a thing.

As for Wiseguy shying at boulders, Penny used to, too. And logs half buried in tall grass, etc. I have a theory that horses are programmed to shy at lumps like that because it could be the shape of a predator waiting for them to pass by. Of course, a horse can be trained to overcome his instincts, but I think it's natural to spook at such things when they haven't been exposed to a lot of them. Penny used to even shy at round bales of hay in a field. I'd ride her up to one and let her take a bite, meanwhile, saying, "See? It's food!" But next time around the field, she'd still shy at them. As lovable as Penny was, I never thought she was one of the most intelligent horses I ever met.

Wuz, congrats on the granddaughter! What's her name?

Awsum, I'm sorry your German chocolate cake didn't turn out. You mentioned using baking soda and then baking powder. They are 2 different things and aren't interchangeable. Do you think you used baking soda when it should have been baking powder or vice versa?

Duckie, the chicks are very cute. I especially like the blonde. I hope we see more pics as they grow.

As for tutoring, the kids are out of school now, so I go in the mornings. This summer, I'll give them a bit more homework, since they have more free time, and every time, they'll have to write something. They really need to improve their writing skills -- all of them. However, the original girl recently wrote a short story that was about 4 pages long. It took her a while to do it, but I didn't tell her how long it had to be, and let her just develop the story as she saw fit.

I had a showdown with her older brother. He tends to be lazy and sloppy, and I finally had enough and laid into him. He actually had tears streaking his face. Since then, he has improved, but not enough, and one lesson, he started in on his attitude again, and right away, I lectured him. I asked him if he wanted me to lay into him again like I had recently done, and suggested that, since that wasn't pleasant for either of us, he should avoid it by being more cooperative and industrious. He straightened out again.

The little boy is speaking more English all the time. Lately, I had him learn to recite the vowels, though I'm not sure he understands what to do with them yet. We're working on that. He can read simple sentences like "I see a red car." So now I'm working on him copying sentences he's familiar with reading, but he needs to make the first word of the sentence capital, copy the punctuation at the end, and put appropriate spaces between words. The first time I told him to do it, he capitalized everything. He misunderstood my directions, so I pointed it out to him, and he got more homework of the same thing. The latest is to get him to make spaces between words and to remember periods at the end. He did the question marks OK, and I think it's because they are bigger and more noticeable.

I got a list of sight words for 1st graders from the Internet, and we're working on learning them all. He still doesn't know enough words to read a story, but we read together with me supplying the words he doesn't know.

The other girl came back from her visit to China on the Memorial Day weekend, and just now, she's caught up to where she was before she went away for about a month. She is a hard worker, so I'm hoping she'll be doing grade level by the time school starts in the fall.

 

[Wuzznt Me]

Wuz, congrats on the granddaughter! What's her name?

Thanx Sandy, Chloe Makayla.

 

[Renolizzie]

Thanx Sandy, Chloe Makayla.

Wuzz, Such a pretty name. We have a Makayla in our neighborhood. She is a wonderful girl.

SandySu, interesting post. Enjoyed hearing about tutoring the kids. Did Penny ever run away with you?

Good morning, Voltmaniacs.

The deck is looking good but I need to buy another box of screws, maybe two boxes. I am building a 30 or 42 inch "step" for in the front since the step down off the deck is too far for comfort. Probably a foot or so. I'm thinking a few large over sized pots with plants in them to encourage people to use the steps and not go over the side of the deck since the step will only be in the middle section of the deck

It was 100 degrees yesterday and it is supposed to be 100 degrees today. I'll be leaving here to clean at 11:30 and coming home at 4 pm so it will be a very hot day for me.

 

[Renolizzie]

Good morning Volties. Sounds like Pony's got some horse sense. I used to think that made them easier to train but now I wonder if I didn't get outsmarted a few times. I've never understood people that get an animal that expensive to maintain and treat it like a yard dog or something. If you work with them they return your efforts ten to one. If you're not going to why have them.

I totally agree. I got the horses so I could learn about them and interact with them, otherwise, what would be the point of owning them.

 

[Renolizzie]

@wvducklady Loved seeing the pics of the chickens. Chickens are so cool.

 

[Renolizzie]

I have plenty of juice mixed awsum but I sure do need to get new cartos. I have put that off a few days too long.

 

[awsum140]

(still) 'moanin, here, Volties.

Sandy, that was, indeed, baking soda and I double checked before putting the measuring spoon in. I do suspect that because the box is probably close to five years old by now, we do lots of baking. Something sure messed up the batter though and it wouldn't rise or "set".

Keep on top of that kid. He does seem to need to learn self discipline when it come to his work. (I'm getting more and more dyslexic, just had to fix hwne).

Lizzie, you never have enough liquids, especially after the nannies at the FDA got done with things. Cartos are a whole other matter and I'd strongly suggest looking into RTAs. You can buy premade coils from a number of vendors in kanthal, nickel, titanium or stainless so no coil winding, and wick them with rayon, cotton or whatever you like. Easy to maintain and fill, too.

Taking a little break from harvesting the current weed crop. Gotta get it done so I can do a little shopping and pick up some lobster tails, our anniversary is in a few days.