Birds, Pumpkins, and Front Loaders, Oh My!
October 13, 2009 at 5:13 pm | In Chickens, Family, Wildlife | 1 CommentWe had a very nice Columbus Day weekend, with lots of highlights. It began when I went out to collect the eggs a few days ago. I opened the rear door to the nesting boxes and there was a hen standing in one. I noticed that her vent was protruding and I realized she was going to lay her egg soon. I figured it would be like having a baby–seems like it’s going to happen any second, but it really takes a while–but I watched her pulse a few time and I saw the egg actually come out!!! In all my years of being around chickens I never actually saw an egg come out of a bird before. It pretty much looked like you might expect. I’m sure most people will be pleased I don’t have a photo to accompany this section 
On Friday morning there was exciting activity across the street from us. We live on a narrow road and directly across from our house there is what we call the “pull out”, because it’s like the road veers off and ends, providing a convenient parking area. Dump trucks started showing up and dumping out giant loads of gravel, big pipes and fire hydrants were placed at the edge, and a front loader was parked. Having a front row seat to this has proven vastly entertaining to both children. And, after they were all done (telling us they’d be back on Monday to start work) we let Clark bring his trucks over and play, climb the mountain of gravel, and sit on the front loader.
Promptly at 7am on Columbus Day they began their work, which is installing city water on our street (due to some fascinating contaminated water years ago from some building settlement. Our well is not affected and we are opting out of the city water.) Apparently we will be getting a fire hydrant in our front yard, too. All day long they dump more gravel and then the front loader brings scoopfuls of it down the road to fill in where they’ve dug up the road for the pipe.
On Sunday we had our annual pumpkin picking out at Norz Hill Farm. We love going there, especially taking the kids’ pictures in front of the “How Tall This Fall?” painted wood sign. We have pictures of Clark for four years in a row in front of it. I’d heard reports of pumpkin crops suffering due to this summer’s weather and it turned out to be quite true. In years past the sight of the fields filled with brilliantly colored pumpkins and gourds was quite breathtaking. This year it felt like there were slim pickings. We did get a couple pumpkins and a few gourds, though, and of course the fun is in the whole outing-the hay ride, the hay maze, the lovely autumn day. It is definitely one of my favorite autumn activities.
Out in the field there arestill pumpkin blossoms for fat bumblebees to stuff themselves into. I was very pleased with this pictures–I basically stuck my camera lens into the blossom.
When we got home we arranged all our pumpkins and things on the front porch with the mums. I noticed my dahlias are still going strong and I think they are such striking flowers. Tabitha beheaded a couple.
While we were sitting on the porch admiring everything we noticed a little sparrow flying in and out of the birdhouse. It’s mate was sitting on the branch next to it and they were very noisy. Could they be building a nest? Or just looking for a nice place to stay? We were just charmed by them. Check out the cute birdie and she peeks out and then launches off.
I Will Never be a Daily Blogger
October 4, 2009 at 1:29 am | In Cookery, Family, Sewing, Wildlife | 1 CommentI’d like to think that I’d cook something or create something and immediately have a photo and a little write up, but that’s never going to happen. I like watching tv after the kids are in bed far too much to write every night (though I do actually think about it every night). This also explains why I am not finishing (or starting) sewing and other projects as much as I might like to. Which brings me to a a few cooking highlights from the past week:
Last week we went apple picking, which was a true autumn delight. (Oh, first we visited Denise and her new baby and she loved the quilt.) We picked many huge apples of the Macintosh and Macoun variety, as well as a whole bunch of delicious peaches (I was suspicious of such late peaches, but they were juicy and sweet.)
What to do with all these apples? Well, the next day I made an apple pie, of course. And if I amy compliment my own baking I will just say that it was fantastic and I made a delicious crust.
For dinner I tried a new butternut squash soup recipe. This was a squash and white bean soup and the seasonings were unusual (not in and of themselves, just for this soup) and spicy: cumin, cloves, cinnamon. Of course I used one of our squashes. Look what a nice color-they were definitely the success of our 2009 garden.
Tomorrow I have plans to can apple slices in a red hot cinnamon syrup. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Here’s a neat spider web pic I forgot to put up last week:
Two nights ago it was 5 o’clock and I didn’t know what I wanted to make for dinner. I feel like 5 is the “time to decide” time because I aim for dinner to be ready at 6/6:15 and if we’re having brown rice or something that needs to bake I figure it needs to go in by 5:20. Anyway, I decided I wanted fish and am pleased to report a pretty fabulous dinner was on the table quite on time. But what was best about it was that I made a dinner that was a childhood favorite. I didn’t have a recipe, but it turned out delicious. In fact, it was better than I remembered. Which either means it was just better than I remembered, or the way I made it was actually better than my mom! Clark called this “Fish Muffins” because the dish gets made in a muffin tin. When I was a kid that was also the appeal to me. So novel! Dinner in a muffin tin! Here’s how I made it:
Sauteed mushrooms and the 2 small shallots I had, as well as a green pepper from the garden. Took two pieces white bread out of the freezer and toasted them and the chopped them up. Took all the frozen shrimp I had (about 5 or 6) out of the freezer, ran them under warm water, chopped them up and added them to the pan. When they were cooked I put the sauteed stuff, the bread crumbs, a drained can of crabmeat, some lemon juice, and Old Bay Seasoning all in a bowl and tossed it around well. Meanwhile, I had been defrosting some frozen tilapia fillets. So, you take a piece of fillet and wrap it in a circle in a muffin tin. I used my giant muffin tin so it didn’t make a solid cup, as it would if you used the smaller muffin tin. Then fill the center with your mixture. Drizzle a little bit of melted butter over the top of each and then bake until done. I think I did 400 degrees for 15 minutes. It came out great!
As for sewing, well the fifth expected baby arrived over a month early this week, so now I have that gift lined up as well as another gift for my cousin’s baby (born the preceding week.) I did not work on those thing today, though, instead I finally got around to making Clark his flannel pants. The fabric is a lovely soft flannel, not of a pattern I would have chosen, but he is in love with it–army green airplanes against a cloudy beige background. It’s a very military looking pattern and he just has not clue at all about camouflage or soldiers or anything like that, he just loves the planes. After the last disastrous pants I made him (I think I sewed them upside down so that the inseam ended up being like 8 inches long) I was kind of worried about these. But they came out great! He put them on immediately and wore them for the rest of the afternoon and to bed. I didn’t get to take a good picture of them close up, but here is playing in them:
So there’s the big catchup. Tomorrow is canning and I know I’ll have great pictures because Eleanor will be our photographer for the event!
Creatures
September 25, 2009 at 3:18 am | In Wildlife | 1 CommentSeems like recently I’ve taken some photos of creatures in and around the house that I’d like to share. The other morning while it was still cool and misty, we had a visitor to our backyard–this lovely six point buck. Now, where we live deer are far from unusual. In fact, our road seems overrun with them. Great families of them brazenly walk around in people’s yards in broad daylight. For some unknown reason (our dog?) they rarely come to our yard. This one seemed to notice us watching him from our kitchen window, but was not bothered. Isn’t he handsome?
Yesterday I heard that a black bear has been spotted in two places within a couple of miles of us. I hope I do not see it.
At the playground the other afternoon one of the climbing structures had this lovely spider climbing around his web.
Last night this big praying mantis was above our door.
A sure sign of fall arrived yesterday–lots and lots of stink bugs (we call them “shield bugs”) all over the house. For some reason the children love to see them, but I am less thrilled!
Fall Begins
September 18, 2009 at 5:22 pm | In Big Green Froggie, Family, Wildlife | 2 CommentsI’m looking forward to yanking everything out of the garden, but there are still loads of green tomatoes all over the plants. Plus one green bell pepper. And lots of white birds egg gourds. And two small watermelons that I doubt will amount to anything (after all, it is mid-September.) While I was in there the other day I was startled to find myself face to face with this lovely:
As Paul said, “You can see why a plague of these would be frightening.”
This week was an exciting one for us as Clark started his second year of nursery school. He’s going three days a week this year and happily he loves school and is never reluctant to go or part with me (but is happy to return home, which is nice.) I admit to enjoying the chance to have a little time alone with Tabitha on those mornings. We putter about and play together and it’s very nice. Here we all are on Clark’s first day:
This morning I was out by the pond checking out the cattails and I was surprised to see this small frog sitting in a plant. he appears two toned.
When I was a kid I recall lighting cattails and calling them “punks.” I’ve been wanting to do that with ours and see if my memory of it making a nice smell is correct or not. I picked one apart and had indeed forgotten just how soft the inside is. When I look at this I think it looks just like the fur of my dear beloved rabbit, Hazelnut.
Paul and I have been watching Mad Men and I am fascinted by Betty Draper and what being a mom meant in that time and place. I love how beautiful and put together Betty looks and sometimes wish I had that glamour in my day. But let’s be honest, I’m happy I can wear jeans every day! Also happy that I don’t need to feed and bathe my kids and put them to bed, all before my husband comes home and I have to serve him his own separate dinner in a beautiful setting.
Hummingbird Update
August 27, 2009 at 10:56 pm | In Wildlife | Leave a CommentHe came back this afternoon and I was able to catch a picture of him hovering!
Finally!!
August 27, 2009 at 5:42 pm | In Gardening, Wildlife | 7 Comments
About three years ago we saw our very first hummingbird at our house. It was very exciting for us and we immediately set up a feeder. We did not see one again until the following summer when once again we saw one for one time only. I know lots of people see hummingbirds all the time, but for us it seems the rarest of all bird sightings and it made us so excited. Yesterday we were eating breakfast when I saw what seemed to be a big cicada flying at our window. I realized, though, that it was a hummingbird. He hovered for quite a while, seeming so curious about us, looking right through our big window at all of us. I went outside and set up the hummingbird feeder with food, assuming that as in years past we wouldn’t see it again. Wrong! This morning he came back and went right to the feeder!!! And stayed long enough for some photos. I wasn’t able to catch a picture of him with his wings beating, but I’m hoping he’ll be back. Oh, and when he wasn’t at the feeder he went to the tall hosta flowers (which I think look a bit unsightly, but I have deliberately not cut them because bees like them and apparently so do hummingbirds), visited a bush that didn’t seem to have any flowers on it, and also flew over to a few late summer roses. This, and a very generous recent gift certificate to White Flower Farm, are all the motivation we needed to get started on the bird/butterfly garden we’ve wanted to create since last year. Hooray for hummingbirds!!!
A few days in the life
May 14, 2009 at 1:12 am | In Chickens, Family, Gardening, Wildlife | 3 Comments
A few things to catch up on. Last week was Paul’s 40th birthday–Happy Birthday to him! We enjoyed the day by taking the kids to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. It’s funny how when you’re a parent it’s fun for you to do something that’s really fun for your kids simply becuase it gives you pleasure to watch them enjoying/experiencing something. That’s the way it was with our day. Then we came home and I whipped up a cake and some salmon for dinner. A couple days later was Mother’s Day and we enjoyed puttering around the garden in great weather, and then in the evening I got on a train and headed to Washington D.C. for a couple days for National Library Legislative Day. We did some weeding and assessing of the yard. The hostas are huge and look much better now that the crazy weeds around them are pulled. The pond area is absurdly lush. It may be the only real life experience I’ve ever had of plants getting as large as their tags say they will.
So, on to some pictures! Clark picking up a hen. They easily escaped a makeshift pen so we left them gobble up weeds and worms for a while while we were out with them. They are really quite tame.
I just loved these striped tulips so much this year:
While I was away Paul took this. Apparently our yard is a lovely place for everyone to hang out in in the middle of the day:
The peonies are getting ready to burst open
I was delighted to come back and find the columbine blooming (and it is noticably spread since last year.)
Our once despised, now beloved “driveway weed flower” is blooming again, prolifically. [By the way,as I took these pictures I realized that if you look at posts last May you'll see pictures of the very same plant. But I can't help myself! I must photograph them each year.]
The pond forget-me-nots are blooming and they are quite dainty and lovely:
And finally, a nice brother and sister moment I was able to sneak up and capture without them knowing:
Tweeting–the old fashioned kind
May 7, 2009 at 1:19 am | In Gardening, Wildlife | 2 Comments
I think I need to create a new category: “wildlife”. Today’s wildlife experience was quite thrilling. I was in the front garden area weeding and when I turned around there on the ground was a little baby bird. This was right under the tree that has a wren house and two bird feeders on it. My first thought was that it fell out of the bird house, but I don’t think anyone is nesting there right now. I got Clark and brought him over and of course I got the camera, too. I didn’t want to scare it by touching it, but I also didn’t want to leave it right in the middle of the walking path and the dog. I gently scooped it up, took some one handed pics, and let Clark touch it. Then we gently deposited it under the tree (where the dog won’t go) and then of course went inside to thoroughly wash our hands!
Other excitement today was a surprise in the garden. Well, not garden so much as weedy area of the yard. As I’ve mentioned before it’s been raining for days, making everything excessively wet and lush. There are very few times in a week where we are available to mow and Wednesday mornings is one of them, so I decided to do it despite the wet. It was very satisfying to see our yard looking nice and having the garden areas look even better against trimmed grass. So what was the surprise? I was zipping along the edge and I saw some tall asparagus!! We had given up on them and so Paul had mowed down the area where they are meant to be last week. Imagine our surprise to see these lovely tall stalks. Didn’t eat them yet-will tomorrow. Oh, and Paul is churning out the raised beds–he whipped up a small one today for watermelons.
So, since I added the “big green froggie” and “wildlife” categories I was just reviewing some older posts to update them. Amusingly it seems that last year we pronounced Big Green Froggie dead because we hadn’t seen him in a while. How wrong we were! I can’t tell you what pleasure it gives us to see our two huge frogs every day. When we first put the pond in (something I laughed at as a folly of Paul’s, but which I love him dearly for doing because it has brought us an unbelievable amount of pleasure) the fish were the main attraction. We started with four, they multiplied like crazy, and as the pond foliage and plants grew in we really didn’t see them so much anymore. They are there, but they have places to hide. I also saw from a post that I apparently meant to transplant a big rudbekia and don’t think I ever did. In other garden news I noticed that a nice oregano plant has come back!
Record Highs!
April 26, 2009 at 12:26 am | In Big Green Froggie, Botanical Photos, Family, Gardening, Wildlife | Leave a CommentIt was in the 80s today, giving us a day that felt like we were smack in the middle of summer. It was quite fun and we spent much time outside playing on the slip n’ slide and such. Of course Clark had to take all his clothes off. It was weird that it was hot, but there was no shade–because the trees don’t even have their leaves yet! And weird to have it be hot and be looking at tulips and daffodils!
I rigged up some stakes and twine to give the peas something to jump onto, and look how clever these little tendrils are. I did this two days ago and they are already reaching and wrapping on:
Along our driveway we have some lovely clumps of daffodils we planted a couple years ago. I like the varieties:
I wish we had tulips en masse as well, but we only have a few groups we’ve planted (which seem to be groups of 2 or 3), as well as a whole bunch of oddly single ones. Several of these I’m sure we never planted ourselves, such as this lone magenta one that has not a single other flower near it:
Here’s a lovely red one that also stands in isolation:
Here are a few beautiful ones that I know I planted. They are so frilly I think they look like peonies or roses:
A couple days ago I noticed a beautiful flower in this sort of messy front area that has been, frankly, an annual struggle for us. I investigated and there was a beautiful teeny little shrub with a few flowers and lots of buds on it. I didn’t remember planting anything there, but further investigation showed that the tag had been left on the plant and then I remembered, ahhh yes, I’d planted a flowering quince there in the fall. I do hope it gets a lot bigger because right now it’s fairly invisible unless you are standing right there.
So, on to the family fun.
Tabitha gets up close with the slip n’ slide:
Tabitha runs off and climbs up on the tractor (I feel like between the grass and the forsythia our backyard just looks like it was created by John Deere. This is only reinforced by the tractor being left out there.)
Clark slips ‘n slides:
It was a lovely unseasonable day, topped off with dinner outdoors.
And finally, some local wildlife. Paul got a great picture the other day of the white deer which lives at the end of our road:
And our Big Green Froggie and friend (who this year is equally as large) have been spending much time out of the pond. They still will only let me take pictures through the kitchen window (rats!). We’ve heard them making their wonderful loud bass froggie sounds (“jiggerum” is what my mom says). Click here and scroll down a little bit to hear what it sounds like!
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