This is only my second spring in my sweet little house. I am still discovering different plants in my yard. I really love this tree; I wish I knew its name.
I also have pear, apple and peach trees. The forcythia was gorgeous this year:
In late March I went to the tractor store to buy chickent food. It happened to be Chick Days. I could not resist, I came home with six new members of the flock. They grew so quickly!
I will update the pictures early this week.
It was a beautiful day here. I woke up with energy and determination to literally sweep away the cobwebs and start Spring cleaning. I used my usual technique of beginning in a corner of a room and sorting and organizing my way around the room. Things are also thrown away. The second trip around the room involves scrubbing every surface in sight. Step three is vacuuming the floor and the ceiling (remember the afore mentioned cobwebs?) and, because it was a desperate post-winter situation, the livingroom rug got a shampoo. I managed to get the entire downstairs cleaned.
To reward myself for a job well done, I took a walk in the sunshine. I was rewarded with this:
What a happy moment! This little crocus really made my day.
I like March. I do wonder how January and February managed to trot past so quickly, but here we are. On another topic; I am a big fan of Pinterest. With my currently addled brain and lack of concentration (it is improving) looking at images with minimal text has been just the thing to spark my creativity lately. But... I am left with a dilemma. If an image is posted and I want to replicate it in some way, is that OK? Case in point: I saw a picture of a cute shamrock pin and I wanted my own version of it. The original was from someone's now-closed etsy shop. Should I feel free to use the idea? Not to sell, just one or two for myself. Here is my version -
I made this last Wednesday during my weekly knitting group. As I merrily applique'd and beaded, the shamrock got got fancier and fancier. As I was debating how to finish embelishingnthe project, my friend Liz very dryly remarked, "You will have to stop soon". I laugh whenever I look at the silly thing and remember that comment.
It has been mighty cold the past week. I, like the Irish cottagers from whom I have descended, brought the livestock into my dwelling. It is a strange thing to listen to the hens' conversations reverberate though the heat ducts. Subterranean living agrees with at least one of the girls; I offer this as proof --
It has been cold on Gothic Hill. Here is a picture of my little house that I took this morning:
The cold snap has also caused me to take drastic measures regarding my chickens. I noticed that they (there are two of them) stopped eating for a day and their combs were looking as though they might be getting frostbitten. I brought them in to live in my cellar until the weather warms up. When I went to check them tonight, they had escaped the area I had tried to limit them to and were perched on the washing machine. I think this makes me officially eccentric.
Last week I went blueberry picking on my way to Lily Dale. The fruit is very good, especially considering how very little rain we have had this summer. I also picked up some blueberry honey that will be wonderful to have on hand.
I was watching the BBC and caught a Jamie Oliver cooking show in which he made butter. It looked so straightforward that I thought I would give it a go. I bought cream and dumped the better part of a pint into the standing mixer bowl. Minutes passed as the paddle sloshed around. The cream whipped up as cream will do. I eagerly awaited the thump-thump-thump my darling Jamie assured viewers that would happen as the buttermilk and butter parted ways. More minutes passed. Many more. The cream was over-whipped, yet it was not butter. It could be described as greasy whipped cream. I was more than a little disappointed. I was not, however, going to throw away the bowl of whatever it was I had created.
So, when I found myself with the aforementioned blueberries, I decided to make blueberry buckle. Buckle, by the way, is in the family of desserts including crumbles and cobbler. I found a recipe in a 30-year-old Better Homes and Garden cookbook. I substituted the odd product I had created for both the shortening and the milk called for in the recipe.
The result was magical. The crumb was velvety and rich. The cream paired beautifully with the tang of the blueberries. Happy accident.
I am the happy owner of three very pretty chickens. The previous owners of my little house were wildlife rehabilitators and had a pen in the yard that is perfect for a chicken coop. My friends Dave and Katie have a flock of forty layers and a good number of younger birds. They were kind enough to give me my hens.I had considered getting chicks, but it takes six months before a chick becomes productive. Besides that, they take a lot of care to bring them to maturity. I wasn't sure I was up to the task, so I opted for full-grown layers. Here they are:
The white one is named Hester Prynne. The red one is Jezabel. The black one is Lucrezia Borgia.
It has been a little bit of a rocky two weeks since I got them. I have had one egg with no shell, just the membrane. I have had a few eggs which were eaten by the chickens before I got to them. I think things in the coop are settling in because I am starting to get some cackleberries I can actually use.
Lucrezia Borgia is my favorite. She is black with beautiful irridescent plumage. I imagine that the original Lucrezia wore irridescent gowns when she got gussied up. I am pretty sure she is the most productive of the trio. She trots right over to me when i approach the coop and lets me pet her.
I wax nostalgic about cake walks from church bazaars when I was a small child in Northern New York. Many people who have achieved my advanced age can remember when cake was a rare treat. You'd have cake every time a member of the family had a birthday. Kids from families of six kids or more had a lot of cakes served to them but the slices were smaller and there were no leftovers, so the net amount of cake was about the same as the rare family of four-or-less children. So... as a six-year-old my unmet desire for cake was sparked by the massive display of cakes on offer for the lucky winner of the cake walk back on the side yard of St. James Church way back when. I spent every penny of my meager budget on tickets to do the cake walk. And I never won. My remedy for that came last night. For Family Fun Night at school, I orchestrated a cake walk. I had a blast.
Step one is to bake the cakes the night before the event. I have a very nice collection of vintage cake pans collected over the years from estate sales. This was the perfect occasion to butter and flour them and put them to good use. I was able to bake four cakes at a time, using two cake mixes at a time. I repeated the procedure three times in all - a total of six cake mixes. Then it was time to frost and decorate the cakes. I used *gasp* store-bought frosting. The reality of it is that this stuff is actually a crowd pleaser. I then decorated the twelve cakes with sprinkles, jellybeans, chocolate eggs and Peeps marshmallow chicks. They were pretty cute, I must say. Each cake was put on a sturdy paper plate and then wrapped in cling wrap, ready for transport.
When I arrived at school, I arranged the cakes on a table and set six chairs in a circle. Every ten minutes or so, I would tap a child on the shoulder and ask that child to assemble a group of six children to do a cake walk. I did a countdown and the children sat in numbered chairs. After everyone was seated, a number was pulled from a bag. The child in the corresponding chair won a cake to take home. Participants that did not win were offered a cookie as a consolation prize. Simple as that. Everyone seemed to have a good time. After two hours, only one cake was left:
It's a lot of fun to watch a child of seven pick a cake from a table laden with a dozen pretty little cakes. I was happy how the inaugural event went. Next time I do it, I will up the ante as far as the quality of cake on offer.
I was lucky enough to be in New York City on Saturday. The Pope must have been stalking me, because he was there, too. I wanted to see him, so I went to the corner of 57th and 5th Avenue (near Tiffany's) and stood behind the barricades. I got there about three hours before the motorcade which was planned for 1:30. I was with a nice group of people. Hour one, I waited. Hour two, the crowd started singing hymns and chanting. Hour three, you can feel the anticipation building. Finally, the purr of the motorcycles is heard. The moment arrived! The Pope mobile was making its way down 5th Avenue. The moment I had been waiting for! I was ready with my camera to commemorate this big event:
(click to enlarge)
Oh, well, better luck next time!
