The Girls Next Door

The twin girls that live next door recently discovered that we have three guinea pigs.  A week or two after this discovery I answered the door to find the twins and a friend standing on my porch.  Could they visit with the pigs? 

I suspected that the friend was added in hopes that if I let them play with my guinea pigs, no one would feel neglected:  there would be one little girl per one guinea pig.  And their timing couldn't have been better.  They rang the doorbell just as I was getting ready to clean the cages. 

I invited them in and told them they could hold the pigs for as long as it took me to clean the cages.  They swept through the living room descended on the cages like a force of nature, a whirlwind.  I pig-proofed the kitchen and ushered the girls in.  They sat on the floor, each with their own pig, asked me questions and babbled to each other all at once.  Wow.  The pigs didn't know what to make of it either.  Bertie was terrified; she wouldn't come out of her cozy.  Pinni managed to pee on one of the girls, twice.  Willow, meanwhile, charmed everyone and basked in the attention.  The girls were thrilled - they got play with the pigs and feed them bits of lettuce and cantaloupe while I cleaned the cages.

One of them asked how often I cleaned the cages and was surprised that this was a weekly chore.  Every Saturday?  Oh, joy!  I now listen for the doorbell on Saturday afternoons, when they know I should be cleaning the cages.  The pigs require supervision, right?

Subsequent visits have been calmer, if not quieter.  Even Bertie has relaxed a little.  Pinni still manages to pee on at least one of the girls each time.  None of the pigs are too certain about being bundled up in cozies then cradled, rocked and cooed over like babies.  That may take a bit more adjustment.

I find myself attempting to answer questions asked by two or three kids at once.  Occasionally I'm answering one's question while another is relating some story of family pets.  It's tricky keeping track of pigs, kids, stories and questions all while I'm trying get things done.  It's a lot like juggling.

Pinniped is exhausted after entertaining three little girls.

After an hour or so, I finished cleaning the cages.  The pigs went back into their cages with sighs of relief.  The little girls, for the most part, were sated.  They gave  farewell pats to the pigs, parting questions to me and informed me they'd be back next week for another visit.

My trio were exhausted; I soon found them flopped all over their cages.  I was pretty tired, too.  It's a lot of work to clean two pig cages while supervising kids and pigs to ensure they don't accidentally hurt each other.  I don't think the pigs or I could handle this much excitement more than once a week.  Don't get me wrong - it's a delight to have the little girls for a visit.  They were so excited to have some one-on-one time with my pigs.  I'm just glad I have enough well behaved (non-biting) pigs to go around.

Pinniped Guards Hay

I had separated Willow from the Newbies for a number of reasons.  One major issue was that Pinni was guarding and eating all of the hay and pellets to prevent Willow from eating any.  Pinni became a moose of a pig and Willow kept losing weight.  It was an unacceptable situation.  So I split them, and arranged the cages so they could interact with each other.

I regularly stuff hay between the grids, so that the three guinea pigs can spend some time in close proximity.  It's the guinea pig thing to do:  the best food is always what everyone else is eating.  So the fact that Pinni will eat hay on one side while Willow munches on the other side is not unusual.  But what I witnessed the other day indicated that I have little chance of reconciling these three sows into a single herd.

Pinniped, unnecessarily guarding the leftover hay

I discovered Pinniped curled up around the remaining bits of hay that I had stuffed between the grids.  At first glance it appeared she was sleeping.  I thought it was a little odd, because that's not her normal sleeping spot.  But on closer inspection, I could see her body was in "guard" position.  Sure enough, if Willow came close to the strands of hay, Pinni would suddenly wake up and start eating again.  If Willow walked away, Pinni would drift back to sleep.  Pinni is still trying to assert her dominance, even though there was no possibility Willow could eat the hay that was on Pinni's side of the grids! 

What a bad pig!  Or perhaps just a very foolish pig?  It appears that Pinni still considers Willow a threat to her standing in the pecking order.  Willow hasn't made any attempts to regain control as Boss Pig in well over 18 months.  She would be quite happy as a quiet little subordinate, but Pinniped seems unable to just leave Willow alone.  Poor pigs, caught up in the drama of social status.

Experiments in Dipping Toffee

For all the toffee and candy dipping I've done, I've never really looked at how to temper chocolate. I melt; I dip.  Last week, I was leafing through one of my chocolate cookbooks and read through the instructions for tempering chocolate.  I thought I'd give it a try.

The various stages of toffee dipping

I got mixed results.  It took a bit of time and patience to go through the steps (at least according to this cookbook) of tempering the chocolate.  I dipped at a lower temperature than I have before.  This made the dipping go so much faster and easier.  I was amazed by the lack of puddling under the toffee.

The drawback?  I didn't temper it right.  I got faint blooming on almost every piece, which is more than what I usually get.  On the other hand, it's so consistent, it almost looks like it was on purpose.  I was a bit timid about trying this, so I worked in a few small batches.  I followed the heating temperatures precisely, but didn't test properly.  Given what I've now been reading, I might have had better luck if I had melted my chocolate in one big batch.  So now I got something things to try for the next batch of toffee or the Easter candy making event I have each spring.  I would love to make a batch of butter creams or peanut butter eggs that don't end up with a puddle of chocolate underneath them.

Ginger Stars and dipped toffee

Since I was in the experimenting mood, I decided to cover a third of the toffee in milk chocolate.  It melted and tempered a few degrees lower than the semi-sweet chocolate (and it also bloomed).  I liked working with the semi-sweet chocolate better than the milk chocolate, but I guess I'll need to ask people which tastes better.

Almond Buttercrunch is dipped; Ginger Stars are baked and iced.  All that's left to do is bag 'em and tag 'em (and give them away).

Please, sir, I want some more.

Please, sir, I want some more.

The problem with a long weekend is that the girls get notions.  On a normal week day, they get fed at very regular times.  It usually takes until Sunday afternoon for Pinni or Willow to realize that the schedule has changed, and they'll try to push their luck.  Being a holiday weekend, the begging started in earnest by Saturday.  They've been inquiring about food any time either one of us has walked through the kitchen. 

It's amusing to identify who's asking.  Pinni has a fast, short wheek, that is often voiced while she's moving around the cage.  It sounds like a question:  Will you feed me now?  How about now?  Now?

In contrast, Willow demands to be fed.  She stands in the middle of the cage, to be as visible as possible and wheeks loudly.  If she's really bad, she'll chew the bars to make her point.

Bertie just needs a tin cup to bang on the bars

Bertie doesn't wheek.  She let's the other two do the dirty work.  However, she's not shy about stepping forward if there's the possibility of someone bearing food.

Initially they were told "No", or got picked up and wuzzed, but eventually their cuteness wore us down. I gave in this afternoon and they got their 3pm snack early.  And then they got their 3pm snack.  And again at 6pm.  We're currently watching football (go Patriots!), so we may succeed in giving carrots at the proper carrot time (7:30pm).

Black Friday

My Black Friday consists of staying far away from any stores.  One year I went to Natick Mall and although I had fun (and a good deal) I vowed not to do that again.  Instead, for the last several years, I spend the day after Thanksgiving wrangling guinea pigs, making toffee and cookie dough and then go to the Rehoboth Contra dance in the evening.  It's a good way to spend a day.

This morning was the shortest pig-shoot we've ever had.  Especially with these three.  In one hour we shot 130 photos in two short sessions and from that bunch found a few decent Christmas photos.  By comparison, the normal Christmas photo shoot requires at least 400 photos in four sessions to get a decent photo.  And the winning photo?  The second one taken of the whole shoot.  Figures.  I didn't even need to Photoshop out any hay, fur or poo.  Amazing!

Could you please identify the creature that stole your carrot?

I end up with several cute photos that can't be used for the card because it didn't crop well, it's missing a pig or two, or it's out of focus.  Often, we've caught some pig being bad.  The best outtakes tend to happen at the end of a session, when we're all a bit frazzled.  We had piggy porn and snowman taste-testing and goofy expressions.  My favorite non-contender was this photo of pigs and props in a row.  It was too wide to put on the card and Pinni was a little hard to see.  What a long lineup of pigs, snowmen and a penguin. 

Thanksgiving Baking Frenzy

Apple Pie, take two

I have been promised to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving.  I love when I'm volunteered to do something, especially something that I've only done once before.  Ever.  Thanks.

I made enough pie crust this time, but still didn't quite get the edges right.  I think the third time will be a charm.  This pie is certainly more presentable than my first.  We'll find out this afternoon how it tastes, since I also modified the filling since my first attempt.  Muahahah!  This will get served to an unsuspecting houseful of guinea pigs!

Since I had the oven going, why stop there?

I had tried out a recipe recently called Crunchy Topped Apple Oat Bran Muffins.  Oat bran muffins can be so dry and tasteless; I had agreed to try this one last recipe before I gave up.  These got The Stamp of Approval.

Obviously, the food photography skills need some work.

The entire set of muffins were spirited off to the office.  What didn't get eaten before last weekend went moldy (because they hadn't been put in the fridge).  I was informed I needed to make a replacement batch (oh, and they should be bigger, and have more crunch topping).

Since I was already peeling and slicing apples I made a replacement batch of muffins, too.  Bigger, but with the same amount of topping.  Then I promptly put most of the batch in the freezer. 

I had made cookie dough last week that was in the freezer, awaiting to be baked.  The oven would be going.... so...  I baked two batches of cookies, too.

And I wondered why I was up until 10pm pulling stuff out of the oven?  I forget that I can't stuff everything into the oven at once, especially when some things cook at different temperatures.  When I finished, the counter was strewn with pie, muffins and bags of cookies.

What a good way to start Thanksgiving:  My fridge and freezer will be packed with goodies.  Willow, Bertie and Pinni have apple skins for treats.  The kitchen sprites visited this morning, and much of the mess I left has disappeared.  Life is good.

Boy in Blue

One ornament is complete.  Feedback from my co-workers indicate it will be a hit (and it passed the Rich Test).  You'll have to wait until Christmas to see.  Sorry.

In the meantime, here's a small preview of next one I'm working on.  I've got legs and boots.  The legs are looking terribly bow-legged at this point, but things will straighten out a bit once I work on the upper body.  He's got swashbuckling boots, so expect something with flair!  And he'll be dressed primarily in that dark blue blob on the left.  Any guesses on what country or time period he'll be from?

The Swing of Things

We seem to be in-between pig dramas at the moment.  It gave me a chance to write about the goofier side of guinea pigs (see Pigs Lie) and focus on my holiday projects.  Here's a quick update on the girls:

Willow, Bertie and Pinni, all enjoying a bite to eat

Pinni is, of course, Pinni.  She's her normal cushy, nosing-around self and still complains loudly when I pick her up.  She eats like a horse and is as healthy as one, so I have no complaints.  She and Bertie do quite well together, rumblestrutting at each other and having who's-nose-is-higher contests.  I often find Pinni and Bertie sleeping near each other.

Bertie seems to have leveled off with her viruses.  She's still too light for my liking, but her attitude is back to her cheerful, goofy self.  I'm so happy to hear the random thumpa-thumpa as she runs laps around the cage.  She's keeping her weight above 900g without extra assistance from me.  I still hope at some point she'll fatten up a bit more.

The interesting outcome of Bertie's illness is that she developed a taste for Critical Care (amazing, eh?) and she actually likes being held (not for long, but she no longer quakes at it).  She isn't as skittish as she was just a few months ago.  It's an unexpected change.