Test run on the Food Saver

After taking all the shells off of the shrimp and deveining them last night it was almost 10:00 at night.  I just didn’t feel up to figuring out how to use the Food Saver, so I refrigerated the shrimp overnight and tackled the vacuum sealing job tonight after work.  I brought the instruction booklet with me to the Pea Island VC to read during lulls in the crowds, and that helped a lot.

I also took the advice of a comment from last night’s post, and spread the shrimp out in a pan and put them in the freezer for about an hour before attempting to seal them in mostly large one meal servings.  I have to admit that the last two bags were rather bigger servings since after a ten hour work day I was wearing down and anxious to be done.  All in all, it was a very easy process and went off without a hitch.  Assuming this will prolong the usable life of the frozen shrimp and eliminate freezer burn, I’m very happy with the outcome.  It really was easy-peasy once I got the shrimp ready to be frozen.

About the most exciting thing that happened at the VC today was a brown-headed cowbird community bathing session at the bird bath.  One raccoon and 130 visitors stopped by, but other than that it was a pretty calm day.  Oh yes, there was the excitement of the mystery pile of scat next to the entrance ramp to the VC.  I say mystery because this dump was the size a large bear would make, and as far as I know there are no animals that large found on the Outer Banks.  In the interest of your sensibilities, I will not include a picture of it.   However, quite a few people asked me to identify it, which I couldn’t do.  It mystified me also.

On my way back to the rig this evening, I did see one large bear sauntering through a harvested corn field.  By it’s size, I would guess it was a male.  It was quite far off, and never did come any closer.

Much closer to the road, this hatching year female sharp-shinned hawk did pose for me.  I knew it was a female by its size, and knew it was a young bird because of the yellow eye, and vertical striping on its chest.  An adult would have rusty horizontal streaking and a red eye, as well as grey head, wings, and back as opposed to the brown of this bird.  (so much for today’s ornithology lesson)

I’ll be working back out at the Pea Island VC tomorrow, and then have Monday off since it is Columbus Day.  Thank you Christopher!  I leave you tonight with a look at last night’s sunset taken through my front windshield.  The colors were so glorious that no Picasa enhancements were necessary for this shot.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy