Welcome Pechu!!

About 3 weeks ago we lost one of our degus, Miss Vida. Vida will be sadly missed by all, but in particular by her BFF, Baby Shiloh.

It became clear very quickly that we needed to find Shiloh a new friend. She became withdrawn and nervous in the first week of Vida’s passing. I searched high and low for a new cagemate. The only real requirements were that the new degu must be female and in good health. I checked Petfinder.com, the SPCA, Craigslist, and even phoned around to all the local pet stores that occasionally rehome animals. No luck. So with the help of my friend Chenoa (http://twitter.com/#!/0nedove), I decided to try putting an ad up on Craigslist.

SHILOH (AKA BABY)

Days went by with no responses and I was starting to lose hope. But then yesterday morning I received an email from a family that had 4 degu siblings, 3 boys and 1 girl. The girl, Pechu, was just under a year old and currently living with her 3 brothers. Prior to arriving to their loving family, they had all almost become snake food! But lucky for them (and us!) the snake wasn’t much for degus, and they were adopted into a happy family and even reunited with a long lost brother! Hoorah!

Being the only girl, Pechu, was sometimes the odd man (or shall we say woman) out. And her new family wasn’t too keen on having baby degus taking over the cage. So when her mom saw that Shiloh was in need of a friend she contacted me about her girl, Pechu.

PECHU

Pechu arrived just this morning and seems to be fitting right in! I set up her cage for her so that it was all ready for her arrival :) She explored all the levels, ate some hay and pellets, and seemed interested in smelling through to the cage below her to check out her new friend, Shiloh.

Over the next few weeks the girls will slowly be introduced. Introducing new degus can be a little tricky but we’ve had lots of success in the past. This is the method we use: http://www.degutopia.co.uk/deguintros.htm

I’ll keep you posted on their progress!

Rescue Pet Love

If you’ve ever read my Tweets you’re probably well aware ofmy animal obsession. In particular, I have a special place in my heart for furry critters in need of a home. This lovehas lead me to be the proud owner of 7 rescue furballs. In order of pigiority(in our household animals acquire seniority, AKA pigiority, based on their timein our household).

Ameryth (Aliases:“Big Pig”, “Wompa Stompa”)

Species: Guinea Pig - Peruvian

Age: 4.5 years

Pigiority: 2.5 years

Personality: Large and in charge

Back Story: The shelther where we got Big Pig really had noinfo on her backstory. So here’s our story acquiring the Big:

We arrived at the New Westminster animal shelter to find BigPig had been shaved everywhere but her head. It was awesome so we had to takeher. Usually, they make you fill out a bunch of forms and come back a weeklater once you’re deemed worthy to pay $30 for a fat, 2 year old shaved guineapig. But our skinny jeans must have been giving off a “We don’t have a snakewe’re planning on feeding this to” vibe. The girl turned to us and said, “Soyou got a box?” To which we replied, “Nope.” So they gave us a towel and wedrove home with Big Pig on my lap. She didn’t seem to care at all.

Patience (Aliases:“Peaches”, “Smellbot”, “Patchwork Peaches”, “Smellcat”)

Species: Dog – German Shepard / Lab mix

Age: 3 years

Pigiority: 1.5 years

Personality: Bouncy

Back Story: Patience was brought into the Coquitlam animalshelter as a stay. They soon found she’d been hit by a car at some point, which broke her sacrum and caused a fair dea of nerve damage in her back end andtail. She ended up spending over 6 months in a vets office (where the staff dubbed her Pateince for her good behavior in so many procedures). Once mostly recovered she was returned to the shelter for adoption. Apparently, large big black female dogs are some of the hardest to find home for. So Patience was inthe shelter for another 3 months before we came across her. Due to her continuing medical treatments we brought her on initially as a foster dog. But like anything fuzzy I touch, I’m never able to let it go again.

Miss Vida (Aliases:“Vee Vee”, “Crunch Ball”)

Species: Degu

Age: 5 years

Pigiority: 1.5 years

Personality: Cuddly Explorer – Guinea Pig Hater for Life

Back Story: Vida originally lived in a nice home with twoother degus. Then one day those two degus were all like “Hey bitch! We’s gonna kill you!” And Miss Vida was given up. But fortunately we had a lonely degu inneed of a new degu friend! And so Miss Vida joined the team and has been sinceeating her way to blimp like proportions.

Harley Quinn(Aliases: “Quindalyn”, “Princess”)

Species: Guinea Pig – Abyssinian

Age: 6 years

Pigiority: 1.5 years

Personality: People = Love, Pigs = Face Bite

Back Story: Harley (formerly Coco) was abandoned to theSurrey Animal Shelter by a family whose children had grown bored of her. You know, cause guinea pigs are just like last seasons Barbies right? She’d never lived with any other guinea pigs, and was very unsure of any interaction with people. When we got her home we soon found she was terrified of our other pigs and immediately would go into piggy attack mode. It took about 6 months to getthem to actually live together in relative peace and harmony. It took even longer for Quinn to like being handled by us. Now she’s the biggest sweetie. She loves to come out and fall asleep on your lap :)

Sopie (Alias: “SofaKing”)

Species: Guinea Pig – American, Albino

Age: 6 years

Pigiority: 1 year

Personality: Snuggly

Back Story: Sophie was abandoned along with her bunnycompanion to a pet supply store where we get our timothy hay by another family whose children were all like “Guinea pigs are boring, can I have an xBox?”Sophia was all alone as her bunny companion had already been adopted. She was identical to my first guinea pig, Sunny, so I knew as soon as I saw her that she would be mine (oh yes). Then I didn’t leave the store until Kyle agreed to let me have her. Success!

Shiloh (Alias:“Baby”)

Species: Degu

Age: 1.25 years

Pigiority: 1 year

Personality: Sneaky

Back Story: I found Shiloh on Craigslist and called to findthe owner wasn’t sure if she was a boy or a girl. Hmmmm I said. So I did soresearch on degu junk and setup a time come meet Miss or possibly MisterShiloh. For some reason she was being housed in a rabbit cage without and climbing or hiding spots. I could tell she was only a couple month old, and pretty much terrified. The girl at the house said she often went to a local petstore and felt bad when Shiloh was the only degu left of her litter. Despite alack of any research into degus she took her…. In her defense she soon realized her lack in ability to care for Shiloh and listed her on Craigslist. I checked out her junk and decided she was indeed a she. We got her home and she was like“OMG another degu!” And Vida was like “OMG you’re my baby!” And then livedhappily ever after.

Reginald (Aliases:“Charlie”, “Char Char”, “Chia Man”, “Lady Gentleman”)

Species: Chinchilla

Age: 2.5 years

Pigiority: 8 months

Personality: Bouncy Little Bastard

Back Story: Charlie was the unfortunate unwanted child of adivorce. I have a feeling he was owned by an 8 year old girl as his cage was covered in pink heart stickers. But then again that’s something I might do, soperhaps it was just an immature adult. When we first saw him I was all “Mine! Mine!Mine!” And Kyle was all “we’re leaving.” Now he lives upstairs. He’s the first chinchilla I’ve ever had and is totally awesome. He loves to destroy everything in his cage and really enjoys throwing his food bowl from the top, 4’ high platform.If you rub his cheeks he will be your best friend for life. He believes the degus do not desrve dust baths, ever. And best of all if you give him a treat he deems unworthy, he’ll take it from his mouth and throw it at you. Chinchilla<3

Week 1: Black Dress, Degus and Vegan Donut Making

It’s official, I’ve completed more than one week of my newly acquired shopping free lifestyle! Celebrations all around! Only 51 more weeks to get through!

I decided to hit up a couple thrift stores yesterday morning in search of a larger secondary cage for one of my degus. I have two girls, Ri Ri and Miss Vida.

Up until about a couple months ago they were best buds. They’d always groom and cuddle together. Very cute. Then…. Ri Ri went crazy. Like totally bat shit insane. And all she ever did was attack poor Miss Vida. The funny thing is Miss Vida is easily double Ri Ri’s size. So I had to put my girls in separate cages to protect Miss Vida from the fury of Ri Ri. Unfortunately, my secondary back up cage isn’t very big. I’ve been switching the girls on a daily basis so that each gets a day in the big cage and a day in the small cage. But I’d really like to find a decent larger second cage. Unfortunately, neither the Value Village or Talize I hit had much in the way of appropriate cages. I tried searching Craigslist but again, no luck. However, my failed attempt turned into two positives for me. First, when I got home yesterday I found that Ri Ri wasn’t acting so crazy. When I put her in an open area with Miss Vida there was no fighting at all! Major improvement! So perhaps I don’t need a large secondary cage after all. Hopefully, this means my girls will work it out.

The second plus for me was finding this cute little black dress. It looks barely worn! I’m a huge fan of basic black dresses that I can do up in a variety of ways. So this was an awesome find. It’s Banana Republic which I’m not a huge fan of. But that’s alright! The dress is cute, so screw the label.

When I got home yesterday I decided I needed to congratulate myself on a job well done. And what better to celebrate than home-made vegan donuts? That’s what I spent a good portion of my Saturday doing.

Working at Tim Hortons’ during my first 2 years of university definitely made me undervalue the amount of effort that goes into making a batch of yeast donuts. At Timmy’s you grabber the frozen yeast donut rings from the freezer, through them on this wire rack that held donuts, put them into the oven and then pressed the button with the picture of the yeast donut (I am not kidding, they actually have buttons with pictures on them…). When the ovens built in timer beeps you take the donuts out and place them on the cooling rack. Then from there it just comes down to decorating. And presto! Completed donuts in 15 – 20 minutes.

Making yeast donuts from scratch proved to be a much more demanding. Let me preface the process by explaining I have never made anything with dry active yeast in my life. Sure I bake a fair deal but at most it’s quick breads, cakes or muffins. That’s about it. I began with a fairly intuitive step; finding a recipe. This was actually more difficult than I had anticipated. I sorted through recipe after recipe of baked donuts, pass, whole wheat / multigrain donuts, really? PASS, and other recipes with random ingredients that I didn’t have and wasn’t entirely sure they were being including (i.e. medium firm tofu). TOFU DOES NOT HAVE TO GO INTO ALL VEG FOODS PEOPLE!

Eventually I found this recipe: http://www.chooseveg.com/display_recipe.asp?recipe=51 Which contained normal everyday ingredients and seemed easy enough. But sheesh donuts are quite the process! Make the dough. Let it rise for an hour. Roll it out. Use a donut cutter to cut your donuts. Ummmm… right a donut cutter… How about a glass! So I used a glass, cut out round donuts, then poked a hole through the center. That gave me this:



I then had to let the freshly cut donuts rise for another hour. So I took my puppy, Peaches, out with Kyle and we went for a run. By the time we got back it was time to fry the donuts! Which sounded a little scary so I had Kyle do it…. It’s kind of a two person job though as the donuts cook so quickly you have to have someone setting up the next ones to be fried and glazing and/or sugaring the freshly fried donuts. Or at least that’s the excuse I’m going to be using for needing his help….

I decided to make 4 kinds of donuts. Cinnamon Sugar, Glazed, Chocolate Dip and Sprinkle Chocolate Dip. The Cinnamon Sugar and Glazed needed to be done while the donuts were still hot.



But for the Chocolate Dip and Sprinkles you have to wait until the donuts cool or else the Chocolate kind of just melts and slides off. Thank you, Tim Hortons’, for teaching me that one! So I took the time while the donuts were cooling to look up a recipe for the Chocolate topping. The first one I found was this gem: http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/859271-Chocolate-topping-for-Donuts Let me sum up this one for you. Take chocolate and melt. Dip donuts in. WTF? That’s not a recipe! Who would need to be told that if the just wanted straight chocolate on top of their donuts?!

The issue with putting straight chocolate on top is it’s really thick and dries hard and heavy. I guess some people don’t mind this but I like the softer, shinier topping you find at most donut stores. I looked for a recipe but everything seemed a lot more time consuming then I was willing to do. So I just melted the chocolate in a pseudo double-broiler (I put a metal bowl on to of a pot of boiling water) then added vegan margarine until the mixture was of a good consistency. Not too think, not too runny. And then I dipped my donuts.



And there you have it! It was a fun donut making adventure. Now I have 2 dozen vegan donuts to eat. I should probably share those around… or not! And not to mention the aftermath the donut making left on my kitchen.



But totally worth it!