Robot Claw

Yesterday was July 4, which meant fireworks! As usual we invested heavily:

Probably the most absurd of the bunch:

Once the sun went down, the usual celebration ensued:

As you can see ‘the Kims’ joined us for BBQ and fireworks, and they even performed a (fake) ‘ritual Korean dance’ for our amusement using the handheld sword fireworks!

Halfway through us setting up fireworks, a guy ‘just down the street’ started launching incredible rockets and mortars into the air from his front yard! We walked a few driveways down and enjoyed a show that lasted for over nine minutes!

It was incredible, with endless skybursts and massive booming explosions right down the road! It may end up being one of the most amazing fireworks displays we’ll ever see!

It was a great evening. Not only was there good food (thanks Jessica!) and hours of fireworks, we were also surrounded with fireflies and even saw a beautiful big fox run along the edge of our backyard just before sundown!

I’ll have to put the wildlife camera out again…

It’s been a while since I’ve shared my culinary skills and I know you’ve been salivating for more. I’ve made sandwiches and soup and even pasta before so today let’s make… this:

“What is it?” you ask? It’s the Happy Kitchen ‘taiyaki and dango’ kit. It’s a candy-making kit where the candy looks like classic Japanese treats. But could it ever look as good as the packaging? And looking at these instructions didn’t inspire confidence:

Thankfully English instructions were available online. They were very clear and make things look easy. But could I reproduce the results on the box???

That’s the contents. Everything except water is provided, and the various elements are prepared individually. The six packets contain various powders that mix with water to create the sauces or jellies or dough to make the little foods.

Here’s the ‘rice’ cake, which has the smell and consistency of an actual mochi:

The mixture was extremely rubbery and difficult to shape – a bit like an eraser – but you can see I managed to shape it into the sizes required. This was the only mildly challenging part of the whole process.

Taiyoki are fish-shaped cakes with filling inside. The kit uses water-based dough which is microwaved to produce the little cakes. I was particularly amazed this step worked!

The various base pieces were then mixed with sauces (chocolate and ‘dango’) and a fake strawberry gummi that you can see setting in the earlier mochi photos. It was fun and much easier than I thought it would be.

The final step was to make the fizzy ramune drink (by simply pouring a powder packet into water) and I was done. Look how great the finished ‘meal’ looks:

Naturally you’re not surprised because you know my skills in the kitchen, but for a first time making candy I’d say this all turned out better than I expected!

But how did it taste?

We thought it would be dreadful, even inedible, and assumed it would taste of chemicals. To our surprise the taiyoki tasted like a chocolate pancake, the strawberry gummi tasted like a real strawberry and even the little dango were sweet and chewy! The ramune was incredibly sweet, but then I drink Mt Dew!

Overall a big success! Fun and easy to make, tasty and it looked great: who said I couldn’t cook?!?

When we bought this house, it came with this mower:

It’s a Snapper Quantum XM and it’s a mystery how old it is!  We both recall the owner saying something about it being old and almost dead when he passed it onto us, and I thought he may have said something about it being as old as this house. I’ve done a bit of research and determined that’s unlikely, but it’s at least pre 1998 and possible dates to around 1988-1990. Snapper seems to have a rabid following due to the reliability of the (old) models, but it’s much harder to find info on the push mowers (as opposed to the ride-ons) and identifying the age of this particular one was complicated by the fact it was manufactured up to 2006. My guess is 20-25 years though, which is a good long life for a mower!

Because it’s now dead!

To be honest it probably could live on for a while, possibly a good while. The engine starter string snapped at the base so I can’t start it, but for the past two years it’s been a tricky beast to get working anyway and given that it’s almost to the point of shaking itself to death I figured it was time to let it retire. So the very day it broke, indeed the very hour, I drove to the shop and bought this:

The curse of home-ownership is of course yard work, but I consider it a sacred duty and will do it myself until I can’t. I may as well therefore have good tools. This guy wasn’t cheap ($400 + tax) but is very highly reviewed and will – I hope – last at least several years!

Unlike the old Snapper it’s self-propelled, which means less effort mowing. I haven’t used a self-propelled for over a decade though, and was surprised by how quickly they move now!

It’s so clean and new!

And it has two blades! (Although I didn’t know this when I bought it…)

It didn’t take long to get it ready and started easily first go. And…. it perfoemed it’s only task and cut the grass well!

Next time you visit if you want to mow our lawn just say the word and I’ll let you take it out for a spin 🙂

And what about the old Snapper? I was going to bring it to the tip for destruction but now I feel I need to pass it onto a new home and someone who will repair it and maybe keep it going for another 20 years? So out to the curb it’s going to go, in the hope someone may see it and drive away with it!