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	<title>House of Cranks</title>
	<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal</link>
	<description>Pacific Northwest Crank Museum, Research Institute and Experimental Farm</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:21:19 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>roasted potatoes in tomato-cheese sauce</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I can hardly believe got all the way to my late thirties before I found out how to make roasted potatoes the Right Way. I used to just chop &#8216;em up and roast them. Oh, was I wrong.
What you do is this: bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While it&#8217;s heating up, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2010/01/roasted-potatoes-in-tomato-cheese-sauce/</link>
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		<title>Pressure-cooker split pea soup</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Getting a jump on my resolution to use the pressure cooker more often, I tried split pea soup in it today. It was a roaring success. Josh had three and a half bowls and wound up hunched over the nearly-empty pot in the kitchen, scraping out the last little bit with a spatula. I bet [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/12/pressure-cooker-split-pea-soup/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Home improvement fail</title>
		<description><![CDATA[About two years ago, I ordered a Rainbow attic stair, so that we could get some usable storage space in our attic. The existing attic access was a tiny hole in the back of a closet, and I could barely fit through it, let alone get in with a box of stuff. So I ordered [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/12/home-improvement-fail/</link>
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		<title>Pickled carrots</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I made about two gallons of pickled carrots with jalape&#241;os and onions this afternoon, mostly using this recipe. I doubled all the ingredients but the carrots, because I wasn&#8217;t sure how many carrots the recipe called for. I used about 4.75 pounds total (after slicing). I&#8217;m not entirely sure how many jalape&#241;os I used, either. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/08/pickled-carrots/</link>
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		<title>Stupid chickens</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I spent a fair amount of time today fixing the chickens&#8217; roost&#8212;it was in the wrong location, encouraging them to sleep in the draftiest area of their coop, and I think it contributed to them catching colds during the colder/wetter weather. It was also directly outside their nest box area, which meant that the area [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/05/stupid-chickens/</link>
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		<title>First dozen eggs</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The chickens have laid their first dozen eggs over the course of about a week, maybe 9 days:
 
I believe that the lightest in color come from Durf, the medium from Trouble, and the dark from Miss Thing. A few of them are cracked at the tip; I suspect this is because they keep scratching [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/01/first-dozen-eggs/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>First egg!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Apparently the fuss the chickens were making this morning was due to one of them laying her first egg:
 
I&#8217;m very surprised to see that it&#8217;s almost exactly the same size and weight (55g) as a large egg from the store. The last time I had chickens, I remember them starting off with undersized and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/01/first-egg/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>And that&#8217;s why we call her Durf</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Further evidence that if Durf, our Buff Orpington were any dumber, we&#8217;d have to water her twice a week: she isn&#8217;t bright enough to come in out of the rain. I just went out to make sure the chickens were all locked up in their coop for the night, and found Durf on the perch [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2009/01/and-thats-why-we-call-her-durf/</link>
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		<title>Chicken run, mark 2</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The temporary chicken run didn&#8217;t work out so well&#8211;the wire sides folded over and the top netting sagged enough that Miss Thing managed to get herself tangled up in it and nearly strangled herself. So a more permanent solution was called for. Our more permanent (but still constructed in such a way as to allow [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2008/11/chicken-run-mark-2/</link>
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		<title>Good bye, driveway</title>
		<description><![CDATA[We haven&#8217;t had a car (working or otherwise) in over two years, and we have no plans to get another. We do have plans for a lot more vegetable gardening, though, and the driveway was just taking up space we could be using for more raised beds. So last weekend we took out most of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.houseofcranks.com/journal/2008/11/good-bye-driveway/</link>
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