Choice Morsels

I enjoying watching the songbirds visiting my feeder. It's supposed to be squirrel proof---and it generally is for an adult squirrel, but the very young, born over winter, slip right in.  I was fed up. So, I recently bought this black "squirrel baffle."  Just screw the bracket to the pole, slip the hood on and---voila, problem solved. The Pine Warblers that were here have departed for Canada now. They just winter here. I saw a male Gold Finch in the feeder today just starting to regain his summer yellow color. They turn drab olive in winter. Also winter visitors, they'll soon be leaving as well. I watched with surprise as I observed a tiny Carolina Wren in the feeder just tossing gobs of seed out onto the the ground below, where a pair of Doves and another Wren were cleaning it up. I had to wonder whether some sort of bribery was going on---maybe the Doves were paying the Wren to throw all that seed out? Hubby Napping With Our Cat, Sunni He's up...

I spent my hiatus from Monday "Good Eating" posts last fall trying out Quick Bread recipes from Pinterest. The definition of a "quick bread" is "any bread made without yeast as a leavening agent." This includes muffins, banana breads, pancakes, Irish soda bread, cornbread, brownies and even cookies----any baking recipe that uses baking powder or soda instead of yeast is a "quick bread." The type of quick bread recipes I was trying out were the sweet loaf types, such as banana bread or pumpkin bread, which are well known examples. But there is more to the world of sweet quick breads then just banana or pumpkin. So, for Good Eating today I present one of my new favorites:  Maraschino Cherry Cordial Bread The original recipe was simply cherry bread; I made it better by adding semi-sweet chocolate chips! (The photo is of the bread when I first made with just with cherries---but believe me, it's better with chocolate chips added...

As kids, my sisters and I grew up in Indiana, way out in the country. Our home occupied one cleared corner of 22 acres of heavily  forested property that included a valley with a creek rocky creek at the bottom. If I recall right, the land once belong to a company who lumbered all the Black Walnut trees some time prior to our parents purchasing the land, but left behind a fabulously wide and well established trail through the woods and down the hills to the creek. That creek was our play place and if we had nothing better to do at the house, up would come a chorus of "Let's go down to the creek!" and off we'd go! It was a lovely shaded creek, surround on both sides by tall trees and full of rocks ranging from large boulders to tiny pebbles of granite, mica, quartz, limestone and more---a rock hound heaven! The rocks were pretty, too, ranging in colors: tan, brown, gray and pinkish.    The water itself was full of fascinating life: tadpoles and minnows would ...

I bought some Paperwhite bulbs for that bloomed inside one Christmas, then planted them outside. (They're winter hardy in this zone.) That was years ago. Since, then their greenery has faithfully come up, but they never bloomed again.  Eventually---about 3 years ago, I dug them up and moved them to a sunnier location in a front bed.  There are 6 or 7 little groups of them now, their greenery all poked up, but still no blooms---till this year. Suddenly, a week ago, I see this: One bunch actually bloomed! **** For Garden adventures this year, I also recently ordered a few new things to plant this spring from American Meadows: Purple Shamrocks:  These have dark burgundy leaves, which will contrast nicely with the green ones I already have.  Mango Calla Lily: This is for a "thriller" in my front container garden. The leaves are green with white spots. I guess these prefer sun. I have some in back in heavy shade, they have never bloomed, I really ...

I ran across this fascinating article about "What Cakes Were Popular the Year You Were Born?"   So for today's Good Eating,  I'm going to share the list, but will only include photos of the particular cakes popular when I and my sisters were born. 1948-1956: The Chiffon Cake This was a moist, airy sponge cake made with whole eggs and fruit juice.  A classic cake popular since the 1920's, it really became popular when it's secretive creator, Mr. Harry Baker, sold the his recipe to Betty Crocker in 1948. If you're interested in trying your hand at one, here's a recipe for Lemon Chiffon Cake  at this blog, Jo Cooks. Pineapple Upside Cake was trending in 1950 and  Baked Alaska, in 1955. 1957-1960: German Chocolate Cake Interestingly, this cake gets it's name from the sweet baking chocolate, German's Chocolate, invented by Sam German, that was the key ingredient in a Texas lady's recipe that became all the rage after it was ...

Last night we had basically an ice storm. A light bit of rain and freezing temps overnight left a sparkle of ice over everything this morning. Hubby had to scrape a thin coating of ice off the driver side of the wind shield this morning---he used an expired Chick-Fil-A card, since he didn't have a scrapper handy.  The sun had already melted away frost on the passenger side. It was working quickly on everything else, too, by the time I walked around with my camera later in the morning. I did get some nice photos of my Hen & Chick succulents dotted with frozen ice specks: A coating of ice doesn't bother them. I love these things! A Little Solar Science: If you've been paying attention to solar science, then you may already know we've entered a period of solar activity time called a "Grand Solar Minimum." That means the sunspot and flare activity on our sun has dropped from being very active to very minimal. Our sun  has a ...

Today's Garden Pic is a photo of my Chocolate Elephant Ears from about the end of November.  They're a burgundy color anyway, but as the weather cools, their color deepens and becomes a richer, darker burgundy!  They make a nice visual break from all the green around here until the first hard frost, when they die back to return in spring! I consider them one of my better garden plant investments!