Camping Stove Repair

So after many years of faithful service our trusty camp stove finally started to fail us. At the end of last season one of the burners knobs had stopped adjusting the volume of gas to the burner. We looked at purchasing a nice shinny new one but instead tried to fix it. Many of you that know me might think. Sean with tools and explosive gas sounds great, which hospital did he go too. But give me some credit a german car could be considered an explosive in the wrong hands. After a quick once over of the stove it seemed as simple as it looks, gas line,valves and a couple burners. Note this was for a burner not adjusting this may or may not work if your burner is completely dead. Stove is a Great Land two burner.

 Disassemble

Turn burner knob out far enough to to gain access to the nut behind to knob (yeah i know, haha).

   

Then unscrew the knob until it comes out of the assembly.

Next flip the stove and unscrew the burner and remove

 

At this point I removed the brass restrictor (piece that goes between the knob and burner pipe). I sprayed a cleaner in the direction of gas flow and found it was not spraying out of the restrictor well.This indicated that there was debris in the restrictor.I then cleaned with an spray solvent in the opposite direction of the gas flow. I then rechecked the spray in the correct direction and found it was now flowing properly. I let the brake cleaner dry and reassembled. Once assembled i ran a small amount of propane through the system to ensure no brake cleaner was left and waiting to go bang.

 All said this was a repair well worth the time invested. The stove was repaired in very little time and saved us from purchasing a new stove. Old stoves have much more camping cred and Coleman doesn't make green stoves anymore. There now shinny black and look more like a yuppie kitchen appliance than a manly camp stove.I hope someone someday finds this and attempts repair on there old stove, to all of the others that could care less about stove repair sorry maybe next time there will be a hospital story to go with it.

Strawberry Ice Cream and Personalities

 Ice Cream

So there many things my kids and wife like, few however top ice cream. Since our house felt closer to Africa than California today we made some homemade ice cream. Homemade ice cream for those unexposed to it is not what you buy like what you buy at the store. It's far closer to soft serve that Baskin Robbins or Blue Bunny. With that said it's still very good and extreamly easy for kids to make. Feel free to add whatever fruit of goodies like cookie dough or chocolate shavings. Today we had a dozen or so strawberries. I cut them up and added them right into the recipe listed below.  Kaelin certainly enjoys the mixing part and its pretty cool to eat ice cream you made if your 4.

Homemade Ice Cream Recipe (makes approx one large scoop)

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup milk or half and half ( i use whole milk since we have it)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 tablespoons rock salt (mortons sells "ice cream salt" its the same stuff)
• 1 pint-size plastic bag
• 1 gallon-size plastic bag
• ice cubes

How to make it

1. fill the large bag half full of ice then add the rock salt and close
2. pour milk, vanilla and sugar into the small bag and seal it(this would be where you could add the fruit or other goodie)
3. open large bag then place the sealed small bag into it and seal it
4. shake the bag until the mixture is firm. usually takes around 5 years
5. wipe or rinse the bag before serving. this will help with remove any salt on the bag that may affect flavor.

Making a larger batch

• avoid more than doubling the batch as kids will have a difficult time lifting and shaking 

Personality

Having grown up with 3 sisters I can attest to siblings having different personalities. I am by far the coolest and most amazing for the record.  Today while on our weekly play date the girls were both right next to each other on the slide when a Harley started. Kaelin covers her ears and looks away while Leah is looking through the bars staring at the bike with a "nice bike" look on her face. I know that they are very differant people but rarely is an example that plain to see. 

 Small Rant

 This has nothing to do with the personality or either of my kids. It is however about ridiculous parents. If you take you child to story time at the library put a damn shirt on them. Today a mom walks in with her 2 children and one is wearing only a drag suit(its a swim suit for any confused bay area readers). For all of you thinking "well it is Placerville" we were at the nice new library in El Dorado Hills. How in the hell does one leave the pool, get in the car, drive to the library, get out and walk into story time and not bother to think "my child has no shirt or shoes on". So yeah we went to the library and there were half naked children running around.

 

Rainy Day Rainbow

With the usually wet weather this week its been a great time to do some indoors crafts. We made a rainbow in a bag. This can be made in under 20 min and kept my 4 year old entertained for 2 days.

Stuff you'll need
-zip lock bag ( sandwich bag or 1 quart work best)
-duct tape or masking tape
-rainbow goo ( whatever colors you desire)

Rainbow Goo Recipe
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 package unflavored gelatin
- 3 small bowls
- 3 red, yellow, blue food coloring ( note all we had was neon so that works just fine.

Mix gelatin in water and let sit for 5 min to soften. Cook over low heat until gelatin dissolves. Divide into the 3 cups and color to desired strength. 5-6 drops should be plenty. Chill for several min the refrigerator.

Assembly 
 Spoon the rainbow goo into the bag in 3 seperate lines. Seal bag the tape the seam to ensure no mess. 

Release the hounds
 At this point you can teach you child that mixes certain colors that you get new ones. In our case that novelty was quickly lost and the squishy feel and just playing with goo in a bag won out.  I will point out one very helpful tip, do not spill the jello when in a complete liquid state.  Our blue goo shot out of our refrigerator at mach 10 and got everything east of Placerville messy. That is why our rainbow ended up with only 2 colors.

  

Breakfast Fun

Who doesn't like a real breakfast on Saturday morning? Communists would be the only ones in could think of. Kids also love to help in the kitchen so we made some special pancakes this morning. Our base was a fantastic recipe (posted below) for homemade pancakes which Kaelin got to make. Once the batter was ready, cook the pancakes in a little smaller size than normal. After the pancakes are cooked, get out the cutting board and cookie cutters and then make your special pancakes in whatever shapes you want. This works really well if you still have a toddler in the house, just feed them the scraps from the cutter and there's nothing wasted. You can also do this for Mothers Day or Valentines day if you use heart shaped cutters for mom.

Forget Bisquick the next time you make pancakes. This recipe is very easy to make with common ingredients and tastes amazing.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Pancakes-2/Detail.aspx

Ingredients:

3/4 cup milk 2 tablespoons white vinegar 1 cup all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons white sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 egg 2 tablespoons butter, melted cooking spray

Directions:

1.	Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
2.	Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
3.	Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2013 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 6/22/2013

Paper Crowns, The Lion King and Huell Howser

One nice aspect of having a creative craft loving daughter is that craft time is always a hit. A pair of scissors and couple of brown bags and some glue is all you need. I like to draw a basic pattern so she can follow then she gets to go to town decorating her crown. Measure the head about to be crowned and glue.

Brown Bag
Scissors
Glue
Decorations (stickers,crayons, markers, glitter)

 

My oldest daughter has really enjoyed playing The Lion King lately which has provided some very good entertainment. She turns on her CD player and skips right to the song  where the king lifts his newborn on pride rock. Last week she attempted to do it while holding her sister and that didn't exactly go over well with her sister. Today I walk into there room and find Kaelin holding her baby doll in the air and Leah is doing the exact same only with a pair of underwear. Life with small children is always entertaining.

While writing tonight I happened to be watching some good old California's Gold. Even in death Huell continues to make my laugh. At the end of the show tonight they showed a Huell music video complete with Huell himself on the vocals. A must watch for any fan of California's Gold, bad music or train wrecks.

Here we go

So, this is going to be the best blog ever. My advice would be get in early so you can say " i remember when".

Well the story goes like this, i'm mid-aged dad of two beautiful daughters with a beautiful and supportive wife. I am a former automotive mechanic that worked for Audi for 11 years. After the birth of my second daughter we decided to make a major life change. After reviewing the financial aspects I won the stay at home sweepstakes.

This blog will reflect its author and as a result of that be very eclectic. On any given day i might be hiking or fishing with the kids or be riding dirt bikes with 5 other guys. We try to be a very self sufficient family, we bake our own breads grown our own vegetables and try to live with what we are given.

Thank you for reading and this should get good.