Skyfiery Shadowolf

The parentals bought THREE huge cartons of mandarin oranges for Chinese New Year this year. Now we have too many and they're trying to make me eat more of them, or take the oranges to the office for others to eat.

I decided to just peel four of them to make some fruit enzyme (which concentrates the good stuff so that apparently, the health benefits are a lot more or a lot more concentrated).

The MOST important thing to note when making fruit enzyme is that the fruits must be absolutely dried. If not, mold will grow.

I don't have a dehydrator (and frankly, I prefer not to use one because it uses electricity), so I just laid all the slices out on flat places and covered the plates with a food cover.

Since I did it last night and only filled the jar up this afternoon, they've been air-dried for about 13 hours.

Dry enough, I hope.

Shall let everything infuse for about a month or so (assuming mold doesn't form THIS time), and then start taking the honey with my water kefir (and possibly feed the orange slices to my worms).

I'm tempted to start another jar with another combination of fruits and veggies, but meh...I might not be able to finish eating it so fast anyway.

( Fruit enzyme in the making )

Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe Chinese New Year's spring cleaning every single year?

( Dreamcatcher )

I haven't done this for a while...years, in fact. I'd forgotten how neck-breaking it is to make the web, and also have forgotten the satisfaction that comes with the completion of it.

I'd bought artificial sinew and leather cords off eBay, which have already arrived weeks before. My partner got me a continuous, uncut length of rattan, which I was too lazy to cut.

But when I saw these twig wreaths at the local Daiso (Japanese chain stores which sell EVERY item for $2), I decided to heck it and bought five of them. And, to get off my procrastinating ass, I decided to web it tonight, as soon as I got back.

Pretty satisfied.

After failing once at growing the sinningia 'tinkerbells' I'd bought (and shared with a friend), I decided to try growing it once more, and spent $10 on another plant from the same seller (grown in a pot of two inch diameter; it's that small. Too bad all these plants have to be imported. But I know how much everything costs, so $10 for a small plant which I can get locally from someone is quite cheap).

I got this tinkerbells in September, and then snipped a few stalks off to propagate it.

The one which is flowering now is the "mother" plant. I'm still waiting for the propagated babies to flower.

I fertilize them weekly with monosodium glucamate, since that seems to help them flower.

(Pic taken with iPhone with the DOF changed)

14 years of living in this estate, and it's the FIRST time I spotted a migratory bird of prey, and so close to me/human population at that!

There is a mated pair of white-bellied sea eagles which live near here; I occasionally spot the random brahminy kite. But...a honey buzzard? WOW.

(Note: even with a 24x zoom, my camera couldn't capture the bird properly because it was simply too far still. Had to go into digital zoom, hence the horrible image quality)

Yay for birds of prey!

A. was so jealous that I got to see it. Lol.

( Honey buzzard )

(Copied from a post from "equestrian" over at Livejournal.

Earth Spirit Horse Rescue is a non-profit organization, trying to open its doors on 130 acres in Sussex, New Brunswick, to be the first horse rescue in the province. ESHR’s goal is to rescue and rehabilitate abused and neglected horses. Not only with they rescue these horses, but they will also take part in Suicide Prevention and Youth Empowerment camps.

How can you help?

It’s easy! Just go to:
http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf10960
register and vote once a day, for the next fifteen days.
VOTING STARTS TODAY, OCTOBER 24TH, AT 12PM EST!

If Earth Spirit Horse Rescue wins this competition, they will win $150,000 which will get the rescue up and running.



Help save these guys.

Okay, so...two months ago, I invested $3,500 in vacuum system with German technology. My dad paid for his own system and mine using his credit card, and I reinburse him every month.

What happened was this: my family was strolling around having after dinner at a mall near our place, when a person from a roadshow there approached my mom and sis, offering a free, good quality stainless steel pot which costs about $100+, in exchange for a free demonstration of their vacuum system at a set date at our house.

So my dad thought: why not?

The person came.

In all respects, the system functions like any other cleaner in the market which cost a few hundred dollars. But there were many other functions which were specific to it, and which impressed us so much we were convinced, even though on-the-spot Googling about it brought up bad reviews of customer service from the company. So far, though, we've been very happy with this purchase/s.

The one which sold us on the product the most was the cleaning head for beds and pillows. It was the first I'd seen anywhere, and the rotating brush actually causes intense vibrations in order to bring to the surface all the bed mites, dead skins and etc. which are hidden deep within the bed itself. We also made the person do a test showing the difference between the amount of junk vacuumed with the vibrations, and without. The result was astounding, and scary.

Gonna let the pictures do the talking.

( Gross pictures of what comes out of my bed during my fortnightly or monthly vacuuming )

I still gag every single time I vacuum my bed and see the scum which comes up. It's absolutely gross.

The first time the lady demonstrated on my mattress, which I've had for 14 years because it cost a few hundred dollars and is still usable, and is from a very good brand (Seahorse), I gagged. You mean I've been sleeping on those things every night for 14 years? Oh man.

So, anyway, the machine allows us to purify the air (sucks air in, passes it through the water, and then purges clean air out from around the machine), clean aircon pipes which are linked from the aircon to the drains, vacuum dirt from soft toys etc., vacuum the floor/carpets etc., vacuum TV screens and all those without causing scratches, and some other functions which I can't remember for now.

You know, just the sight off the scum reminds me of why this is such an expensive, but good investment.

Ugh.

The hoya lacunosa half-rooted cutting which HL gave me in March just sent out an umbel of flowers, and they just bloomed today.

I like them better than the obscura flowers, I think. :)

I was trying to photograph a spider in my garden today, when the/a baby gecko living in my garden (have seen it a few times) caught my eyes instead.


The gecko snuck out of the mouth of my dad's bonsai figure thingy.

I went with Wix since it was a WYSIWYG platform (I'm an idiot at creating web pages), and the flash, although annoying, makes my pictures look more professional.

Would appreciate comments:

Unending Horizons Photography