No Chaser

Wintry Mix

The trees sound different when the wind blows through them because they're covered in ice.  Frozen rain leaves icicles, sharp and cold, hanging off of cars and garbage cans and rain gutters.  The porches and sidewalks become quite treacherous, especially for small spastic skittering dogs.  Frozen branches crash down in the wind.  But with wintry mix, the snow eventually comes along to sprinkle it's powdered sedative over all of that.  After midnight tonight, snow.

posted by: NoChaser at November 30, 2006 22:03 | link | comments (2) |

Milk Monitor

One of my favorite blogs, Smell of the Day, evokes for me this memory.

When I had this job, the milk cartons were in a thick wire crate.  The lunch-ladies would put it onto a wagon for me along with my cashbox and straw dispenser, and I would wheel the wagon out to the entrance to the cafeteria.  When students came through the line, I would take their dime or free milk ticket and give them a carton and a straw.  If I was feeling generous, I'd let people work the straw dispenser themselves even though it held up the line.  It was the kind where you push a lever and two wooden arms would disappear into the dispenser, with it's logpiles of straws laying tantalizingly behind plexiglass, and emerge with one straw just for you in it's little notched arms.

posted by: NoChaser at November 22, 2006 08:38 | link | comments (1) |

Making Kibble

At the risk of scaring away readers, I am admitting right now that I make kibble.  My dogs are vegetarian (before you have a hissy fit, this is approved of by both their new-age vet in Seattle and their aggie extension vet here in the land of corn).  Because they are vegetarian, they do not eat commercial dog food, which is crap anyhow, but that means I have to make their food.  Sure, there are a few companies that make veggie kibble that I could easily buy at the store if I lived anywhere reasonable, but here in the land of corn, I'd have to mail order it, like everything else I desire from the civilized world, so . . . I make the kibble, and the wet food, but we're talking solely about kibble here in this entry.

Kibble is a staple of any pet diet.  Purina, for example, manufactures various pet "chows" or kibbles, including Puppy, Cat, and Dog Chow but extending to such things as Rabbit Chow, Goat Chow, and even Elk Chow.  My repertoire is limited to dog chow.

Making kibble is a lot like making biscotti although I make the former far more often.  Every month or so, I get huge bags of wheat, rye, and soy flours and some cornmeal and then measure it out into batches that I then stir their vitamin supplement into and pour into a large container for storing.  Every couple of weeks, I take some of this mixture and blend it with water and oil, shape in into loaves, and then bake it on both sides for twenty minutes.  Then, I generally enlist the aid of Clonkmeister who will dice each of these loaves into small kibble-sized squares, which go back onto the baking sheets and into the oven for several hours until crunchy.

This is where the dogs come in.  They love kibble-making day because they are the official kibble-testers.  They get a baseline sample when the chunks go into the oven and then sample every hour or so until the kibble reaches optimum crunch, a level indicated by the sound emitted via doggie mastication.

Sometimes, I really hate making kibble and will put it off.  Sometimes I really like it.   I always like how happy it makes the beasties.  I love cooking for people and making them happy with food, and I feel the same about my dogs.  I know that their fresh kibble and their homemade wet food makes them particularly happy and healthy -- the chihuahua used to resent mealtimes when he ate the bad old store kibble from his former owner -- and it's rewarding to provide for them in that way.

Caveat to those considering making kibble:  I have very small dogs, and when I was considering getting a Bernese, one of the main things that prevented me from doing so was the idea of how much kibble I would have to make to keep up with the feeding needs of a large dog.   

posted by: NoChaser at November 18, 2006 12:12 | link | comments (4) |

it's a very deep sea . . .

Deep deep deep in the sea of late, dredging up things I've been trying to write about for years and maybe finally figuring out the right form, the right level of intensity, the appropriate tone.  As the song says, "perhaps I'll come to the surface and come to my senses." 

posted by: NoChaser at November 11, 2006 20:07 | link | comments (1) |

Dewey Joy

I was grinning uncontrollably yesterday afternoon and didn't even know it until someone asked, in a friendly and intrigued manner, "What are you smiling about?"  I wasn't sure what it is was, perhaps just a random good mood, perhaps some happiness at the prospect of my first work-free weekend in a long time.

After thinking about it for a bit, though, I realized it was because I had spent all morning (8a-1p) learning about the Dewey Decimal System.  Now, if you have ever followed the top link in my list over there on the left, you will have experienced some Dewey joy of your own.  Or, possibly you learned the basic Dewey list of subject headings in your youth and absorbed the number of your favorite subject (e.g., 800=Literature).

But, this is nothing, I tell you, compared to the thrill of learning how this system really works.  In its attempt to classify "the entire world of knowledge," Dewey is as radiant and limber as a yogi. It offers a thousand options just in the first three numbers alone, and it really starts getting good after the decimal point.  This is where you have the opportunity to build a number of your own, adding little coded bits of information to more fully specify the "aboutness" of the book you're classifying.

I feel somewhat foolish for my previous ignorance about this system.  I had assumed that Library of Congress was better, more modern, more intellectually ripe since it is newer and used primarily in academic research libraries whereas I've seen Dewey only in school and public libraries, and in the really old collections of academic libraries.  Boy, was I wrong.  Sure, Dewey has vestiges of its 19th-century origins, but it is constantly updated and infinitely flexible.  What's more, from a cataloger's perspective, the Dewey is more intellectually satisfying since it offers you the opportunity to build your own numbers.  LC numbers are simply assigned.

I thought MARC -- the code used behind the scenes in a library catalog -- was fun; Dewey is probably 500 times more exciting.  We'll be working on building numbers next week.  I can't wait.

posted by: NoChaser at November 04, 2006 06:42 | link | comments (2) |