Getting juiced

For many years I've been having orange juice with my breakfast cereal. For a while I was even using the juice on my cereal. I haven't been a milk drinker for many, many years. Now I use soy milk on my cereal.

For many years I've been telling myself that orange juice from concentrate isn't much more than orange-flavored sugar water that is fortified with vitamin C.

I've been saying we should get a juicer so we can make wholesome juices that have more than just sugar and flavor in them.

A couple of months ago I was down to one can of orange juice concentrate when we went to Costco. We came home with a new six pack of OJ.

A week later we went to Costco again. I don't remember why we needed to make a return trip in such a short time. We came home with Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer Deluxe. Impulse shopping at Costco is so easy (and fun!).

We have a new gadget! We've used it every day since then!

Carrots. Celery. Apples. Ginger. Pineapple. Pears.

Wholesome juices!

Here is this morning's juice. One glass has been made and one has its raw ingredients still to be processed.

Here are its insides after everything has gone through.

The spinning blade grates the vegetables and fruit into very tiny shreds and the juice is spun through the filter. The pulp works its way to the top of the filter and is flung toward the collection bin. A lot gets stuck in the chute along the way.

The recipe book suggests that we collect the pulp and make tasty treats like muffins. We just compost it. Even if the muffins were good for us there is no way that we could eat enough to use much of the pulp.

Since we've started using the juicer I haven't mixed up a can of orange juice.

What do I do with all that OJ?

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A turtle made from old sweaters.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A plaque from La Pointe Pottery. This was a Christmas present from Karen!

Solarography, Summer/Autumn 2011

I found some coffee cans at work on the "Free to a good home" table. I had made some solargraphs using 3-pound coffee cans I had gotten from the same table. I had made some with Guinness cans and quart paint cans. I found the smaller, 12-ounce coffee cans just before the summer solstice and decided to add one more round to the solarography project.

I put the cans back on the chimney's spark arrester the evening of the summer solstice. They just barely fit under the cap of the arrester. They came down the evening after the winter solstice. So it includes the day before and the day after the winter solstice. The overlap of the sun's path probably isn't noticeable but it's there. Oops.

Here's the view from the chimney looking to the southeast.

The dark bits at the bottom corners are little magnets I used to hold the paper tight against the can.

Here's about the same view taken with my fisheye lens. The sun is in the tree on the right.

And, just for fun, here's the picture in black and white to compare with the black and white solargraph.

Here's the view from the chimney looking to the southwest.

And the fisheye lens's view.

And the black and white version.

My original proof-of-concept attempt at solarography used a tiny camera made out of a 35mm film canister. I made another camera with it and strapped it to the weather station's tripod. For such a tiny piece of paper it captured a rather detailed image. It's looking south. Too bad its hole was centered on the side of the canister so it didn't include the full wintertime path of the sun.

 The fisheye view from the weather station.

 In black and white.

I haven't loaded the cameras up again so don't expect these views again. I need to find other places to put cameras. The little, 35mm film canister could be put out in the wild with some chance of its being left alone. But I have only one. New ones come with rolls of film. Film? Who uses film? Is there anybody out there who kept such ancient artifacts on the off-chance that might someday be useful? Mom?

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A nativity scene by Randy Chitto.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A sand painting-like turtle ornament. We recently picked this up in Madrid.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Another ornament. Etched glass.

We rediscovered this one that had been stuck in a box marked "Stuff" for years.