That 'fancy' tea pot

When I bought that thing my honey told me he'd gimme a week before I broke it and ended up bleeding.  Now normally that would be totally possible but this time, this time, I fooled him!  It finally broke in August.  So now I know how many months there are in a week.  It took me only two days to buy another one and guess what honey said... That's right, not a word!

Speaking of the 'coffee pot'. Technically, it's a tea pot, hence the whistling.  I use it on the stove top instead of the saucepan.  Since writing (has it really been over a year? OMG!) Honey has upgraded our solar system and charging system so that I now have a working microwave on the counter in the kitchen.  I know where else would it be? With me you never know! 

Also since the last writing my Mr. Coffee died a respectful death after a long and productive life.  ***Moment of silence appreciated*** I have paid and brought home two electric pots.  I got to use one for about ten minutes longer than it took me to lose the receipt.  The other is only two weeks old and while leery I have hope.  But here's the thing...  Why is it that there isn't an affordable coffee pot, lets say in the under $30 range, on the market that doesn't split my coffee between the cup and the floor.  I know I need coffee badly in the morning but not so badly that I want to apply it to my socks while waiting for the microwave to heat.  So far I have personally tested 3 in the last year, all different brands, all pot lip shapes different and what I have learned is that my socks are absorbent and my pots are, hmm shall we say 'splishy'?  Never one cup gets poured that doesn't find me wiping up the spills with a  papertowel; down the front of my white cupboard doors, on my brightly colored floors or puddling across my counter top.  My nifty little teapot doesn't spill a drop. Not one.  It's shaped like a coffee pot you'd find in a restaurant.  Why are home pots not shaped like this?  Is it too much to ask? All the pots available have different ways of putting grounds in.  Come on, it's a paper filter and some chopped up coffee beans.  Most of us are not quite coherent when tackling this, our first job of the day.  Need we make this difficult?  What's with the little springy button thingy on the bottom of the filter basket?  By the time I manage to convince the pot base to let me have it and get it dumped I set it on the counter and reach for the filters and it's skittering like a weeble off onto the floor.  Some of the pots I looked required me to open pretty much the whole top of the base where water could be added and the filter dropped in all in the same opening.  There's too much chance of me dumping one, the other, or both into the wrong place!  Who needs to sneak a cup while the pot is brewing?  That's the whole purpose of the springy thingy.  I get it, sort of.  When you take a cup before all the water is processed its like stronger than steel.   I need a jolt sure but wow not that bad!  That liquid steel could wake up petrified fossils! Yeah thanks, I think I'll stick with the boiled twice over stuff, there's less chance of hurting myself from the jolt!

But really, is it too much to ask for an affordable decent pot that doesn't require the user to actually think? 

Well boil my coffee!

Ok so how long does it take to boil coffee? Another simple answer... It takes about ten seconds less than it takes to do whatever it is you decided to do while waiting for your coffee to heat!  And why, exactly, would I want to boil my coffee you ask? This answer isn't so simple.  We live off grid, totally dependant on solar panels and a generator.  When the generator is running or the power is high I make my coffee in the pot just like I would if I lived in town.  Later when I want more coffee I reheat it in a little sauce pan on the stove. Yes, we have a microwave, four in fact, but I could pour a cup of coffee and run around the yard with it between my knees and get it hotter faster than any one of them so it's a sauce pan for me.  Until today that is.

I have a new purchase! Goody! I bought a tea pot that looks just like a coffee pot at a restaurant only this baby whistles!  Now when I forget my heating coffee the pot will at least tell me that its boiling when it starts boiling as opposed to five minutes later when my nose tells me when it catches the scent of burning coffee.  When I got it home the first thing I did was fill that baby up and let it go while I got the rest of the stuff out of the car.  Then I sat down and got lost in FB and wouldn't ya know it my sweet little tea pot whistled for me!  Our 'little' rottie was in the house and he got all bent outta shape when it started whistling.  He ran full tilt up under the table and sat there shaking and barking like a dog possessed! 

Tonight is "Date Night" for the hubs and I.  I just love date night.  I pick him up at work and on the way home we stop at Denny's for a bite to eat.

Oh before I go too far with the "hubs" thing I gotta say I'm not married.  Neither is he.  At least not legally.  Ours is a marriage of the heart.  I'm the wife of his heart and he's the husband of mine but in truth there is neither a husband nor a wife living here. I just wanted to clarify that. I don't know why, I just did. There. It's done now. So am I.  I'm gonna go start a fire and warm my fingers, it's funny how they get cold when I type.

The Daily Gripe

Ok so I have chickens, a lot of chickens.  They're friendly, well most of them are, there's a few stand-offish ones but we won't talk about them.  At last count there were 22 of them.  The hubs counted them, I don't know how because every time I try they are so busy moving around and jockeying for position at the feeder that I can't keep track of who I counted and who I didn't! Anyway, I say I have 22 chickens out there meanwhile he says that we have 22 chicken DINNERS out there. Why? Oh that's a simple answer!  See the girls have taken a break.  I don't know if this is a normal thing or if I'm doing something wrong but they aren't laying. Not one of them.  I suspect that they're going through the molting process and when chickens molt I understand that they stop laying to conserve their energies for feather making.  I have sort of read up on why they don't lay and suspect that it may also have something to do with the time of year and the shorter days.  They seem to not lay about this time of year every year; they also seem to molt this time of year every year.  I'm not 100% sure though.  The one thing I'm 100% on is that I feed them daily and wait patiently for something other than ick to come out the other end and I get nothing!  In the mean time I'm down at the grocery store buying eggs.  I'm feeding 22 (supposedly) laying hens and buying eggs! Where is the sense in that?

Does this mean I'm a Blogger now?

So here I sit before my computer staring at a blank screen. I'm not sure I know what to write. I'm a little lost, maybe out of my depth here, but I'm going to give this blogging thing a try. I guess for now that's pretty much it; I need to explore the template on this thing before I go any further so until later...