| MAP | 3.3 | 2009/05/05 10:00:52 | 37.284 | -121.658 | 7.2 | 16 km ( 10 mi) E of Seven Trees, CA |
Showing posts with label earthquakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthquakes. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2009
It woke me up
Meant to blog this yesterday, but forgot. Work's been a bit busy. I was woken up at 3:00 on Tuesday morning when the house was shaken (not stirred). This site lists the quake as a 3.3 about 20 miles away on May 5 at 3:00am PST. Worried briefly about how we would get the boys out if the house fell on all of us. Then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
What the haybox?
After the rave reviews of my chicken soup (Teddy asked where I got the great recipe from), I was searching online for more thermal cooker recipes. Yes, I have slow cooker cookbooks, but I wanted to see what else was out there.
I found this cool site today, and got immersed in various methods of fuel efficient and fuel-free cooking. I've read about solar cookers before, and ever since hearing the phrase, "Hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk", I've been fascinated by the idea of cooking with the sun. My only venture in this area has been making sun tea using a big clear glass jar on days when the temp goes over 100 F. My sister-in-law introduced me to that practice--and it's wonderful on a hot summer day.
But honest to gosh cooking of real food--using NO energy at all? Way cool concept! I found these pages today that I am itching to try some weekend when we are not running around like maniacs with chores and kid activities (my calendar says this should occur on the next blue moon when Venus enters the house of whatever...)
Back at that first site, I'd never heard of a haybox before, but now I have! DH was wondering what was really the difference between our new fancy-schmancy thermal cooker, and putting one of our regular pots inside one of our ice coolers. My first thought was, well, would styrofoam melt from the heat? After reading about hayboxes, and how they were used during WWII to conserve cooking oil, I think DH's initial instinct was right. We could use our cooler the same way, if we had enough insulating material to fill up all the air, and some mylar to keep the hot pot from melting it. We may keep an eye open at the summer yard sales to find something to experiment with. Of course, an old cooler stuffed with styrofoam pellets is not as nice to bring to a pot-luck as our thermal cooker, but it would be fun to test out.
In order to put a rational spin on my obsession with fuel-free or low fuel cooking, I have 3 good reasons, allowing me to deny my OC tendencies...
I found this cool site today, and got immersed in various methods of fuel efficient and fuel-free cooking. I've read about solar cookers before, and ever since hearing the phrase, "Hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk", I've been fascinated by the idea of cooking with the sun. My only venture in this area has been making sun tea using a big clear glass jar on days when the temp goes over 100 F. My sister-in-law introduced me to that practice--and it's wonderful on a hot summer day.
But honest to gosh cooking of real food--using NO energy at all? Way cool concept! I found these pages today that I am itching to try some weekend when we are not running around like maniacs with chores and kid activities (my calendar says this should occur on the next blue moon when Venus enters the house of whatever...)
- What is a solar cooker?
- Make a solar cooker with the mylar windshield reflector from the car
- Cool kids project cooking a hot dog in a Pringles can (OK, don't bug me about the junk food nature of this project--I think my kids would be into it)
Back at that first site, I'd never heard of a haybox before, but now I have! DH was wondering what was really the difference between our new fancy-schmancy thermal cooker, and putting one of our regular pots inside one of our ice coolers. My first thought was, well, would styrofoam melt from the heat? After reading about hayboxes, and how they were used during WWII to conserve cooking oil, I think DH's initial instinct was right. We could use our cooler the same way, if we had enough insulating material to fill up all the air, and some mylar to keep the hot pot from melting it. We may keep an eye open at the summer yard sales to find something to experiment with. Of course, an old cooler stuffed with styrofoam pellets is not as nice to bring to a pot-luck as our thermal cooker, but it would be fun to test out.
In order to put a rational spin on my obsession with fuel-free or low fuel cooking, I have 3 good reasons, allowing me to deny my OC tendencies...
- We live in California, and someday a big earthquake may cut off our access to fuel for a few days, so cooking with the sun would be a handy skill
- We like to go camping in the summer, and this could save from using up so many of those little fuel cans. Plus frees people from babysitting the food cooking on open flame, so we can just play in the river instead
- It's better for the environment--less fuel burned, less pollution, less drilling needed, etc.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Earthquake today
I didn't feel the earthquake that hit Northern California today, but through the wonder of email, I heard about it pretty quickly. My friend A (I'll think of a catchy nickname soon, promise!) was the first to alert me, and she also sent this handy link from the US Geological Survey.
My coworker told me that through one harrowing week of frequent shakes, she and her husband were training their dogs to come stand in the doorjamb (did you know it was spelled that way? I just found out thanks to Dictionary.com!) when the earthquakes came. The dogs figured out the lesson and did one better--they started moving en masse to the doorjamb 15 SECONDS before any of the humans could feel the next quake. WAY COOL.
My kids were fascinated by this information, and decided that scientists need to round up all these smart animals, and study them to figure out how they can tell. Barley also did a great little comedy schtick wherein a dog starts running for the doorjamb, telling his owner, "Come on, come on, here comes the earthquake!" When the slow-responding human gets knocked down by the furniture, the dog says, "Told you so!" DH points out how way cool that would be, especially the part where THE DOG TALKS! We all had a fit of giggles before we could finish dinner.
So, I tried to find information online about earthquake predicting pets, and I found this interesting story about animals saving residents from an earthquake in China. The results are not conclusive enough for seismologists to predict when "the big one" is going to hit, but some of the data quoted in the article is very interesting. This whole thing adds weight to our boys' campaign to get a family dog. The goldfish just aren't much use in an emergency.
My coworker told me that through one harrowing week of frequent shakes, she and her husband were training their dogs to come stand in the doorjamb (did you know it was spelled that way? I just found out thanks to Dictionary.com!) when the earthquakes came. The dogs figured out the lesson and did one better--they started moving en masse to the doorjamb 15 SECONDS before any of the humans could feel the next quake. WAY COOL.
My kids were fascinated by this information, and decided that scientists need to round up all these smart animals, and study them to figure out how they can tell. Barley also did a great little comedy schtick wherein a dog starts running for the doorjamb, telling his owner, "Come on, come on, here comes the earthquake!" When the slow-responding human gets knocked down by the furniture, the dog says, "Told you so!" DH points out how way cool that would be, especially the part where THE DOG TALKS! We all had a fit of giggles before we could finish dinner.
So, I tried to find information online about earthquake predicting pets, and I found this interesting story about animals saving residents from an earthquake in China. The results are not conclusive enough for seismologists to predict when "the big one" is going to hit, but some of the data quoted in the article is very interesting. This whole thing adds weight to our boys' campaign to get a family dog. The goldfish just aren't much use in an emergency.
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