Mr. Sticky Fingers

Maybe he'll eat the spiders......?

Orchard Spider

I wish we didn't have so many spiders around here!  Here's a new one for me:

He was really colorful, and gave me a chance to use the macro lens on my camera. Later when I identified what kind it was (Orchard Spider), I learned they are easily irritated and will give a nasty bite!

Here he is hanging upside down and this picture shows the red "smiley" face on his abdomen.
 

What's in your mouth?

My dog was as interested as I was, in what this squirrel was carrying. I couldn't quite figure it out until I played back the video!

This Year's Thanksgiving "KID's DESSERT"

I get super excited about baking this time of year!  It starts with an invitation from my cousin to bring a “kid dessert” to Thanksgiving dinner at her house.

This has been an annual tradition for the past several years. My cousin takes on the Thanksgiving Dinner for the entire clan (20 or so, plus dates, if applicable).  She and her husband do an amazing job and the family looks forward to it every year.

In the past I have enlisted my now college age children to help with the “kid” dessert.  I find some fun Thanksgiving theme cookies or cupcakes and bake them up, then have the “kids” (plus dates), do the decorating!  So much fun!

College daughter, who is out having her own cooking adventures at college, (http://domesticsundays.wordpress.com ) will be coming home to help and I’m counting down to her arrival! But I will attempt these cookies without her.

This year I’m trying a Kraft Foods recipe called “OREO-Pumpkin Cookie Balls”.  They look like pumpkins and will fit nicely with the Thanksgiving theme. As with pumpkins, the cookies can be various sizes. This is a simple, no bake recipe that is super kid friendly.

-Soften 6oz cream cheese

- Finely crush in a food processor a package Oreo Peanut butter cream cookies (I used regular oreos)

-Mix together until well blended and forms a large, soft ball.

-Pinch off dough and roll into about 40 one inch balls

- Freeze 10 minutes

-Melt 2pkgs Baker’s White Chocolate

-Press a pretzel stick into each cookie

-Dip into white chocolate

- Roll in 1 cup orange colored sugar

-Set on wax paper lined pain

-Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm

Well, those are the directions.  I did not have much success, as usual, with the coating with chocolate. (Too thick a coating, so added hot whipping cream- good news, bad news = I didn't seise the chocolate, but now it's too runny!)

 Even after dipping in sugar- Yucky!

Decided not to put a coating on them. Just rolled in sugar...

Now I will have to call them "FROST ON PUMPKINS".
(College daughter saw them this morning and said to take out the pretzels and call them an early Christmas cookie - "Santa's Coal Balls".....
These may show up next month..........

Camouflage Lizard

Ugly, camouflaged lizard, with blue eyes, hiding in the bird house.

I hate big, fat spiders!

Interesting that they can "walk" on the water's surface, but --   UGGGH!

Take your babies and GET OUT OF MY POOL!



FYI: This is a WOLF Spider walking on the water in my pool.. They carry their babies on their backs while they hunt. I call them "speedy spiders" because you have to be really quick if you want to "eliminate" them- they are frightfully fast at getting away!

Gray Gator

Alligator swimming in the pond behind our house on a windy, fall day in Florida.  (It looks like I used black and white photography, but these are the actual colors!)

Fall flowers of Florida

The weather turned brisk in south west Florida this morning,  and my plants held on tightly to their blooms....

Creamy yellow plumeria

Pink plumeria

Desert Rose

Dinner with an alligator

Lately I've been fortunate to see our fairly elusive alligator. I've been able to sneak some shots of him as he sleeps on the banks of the lake behind our house.  However, I never catch him "doing" anything other than sleeping or swimming away.... until today!

I couldn't believe I caught him on video having his dinner of tilapia!

(So that none of you worry about me, I often film through our screened-in porch.  Because of that, please forgive the quality of this video.  Also, I am fairly afraid of these pre-historic creatures, so I shoot with a 70x zoom- which accounts for some of the shaking.  Also, no audio on this one- speaks for itself!)

Great White Heron Ballet

White Heron walking daintily on a hedge.

 White Heron pre-flight

Gator at the door!

 

At three o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a banging sound coming from the front of our house. I jumped out of bed to look out our glass front doors, thinking maybe someone’s tampering with our car in the driveway. Our dog usually barks when someone is around, but I noticed she’s looking (but not barking) out the dining room window towards the driveway too. It was a full moon and it is fairly bright outside but I didn’t see anyone, and apparently, neither did the dog, when all of a sudden the glass doors- right in front of me- shook hard as if someone WAS standing there and trying to get in!

I ran to the bedroom.

“There’s something trying to get in our house!” I screamed at my husband.

“Something or someone?” he skeptically replied.

“I don’t know! There’s no one there! But something banged on the front door and I was standing right there and there’s no one there!” I stammered.

(Footnote: My husband is painfully aware that I leave room for the possibility that ghosts exist, so I am sure that he was quite amused and was not in any hurry to investigate at this point.)

I ran back to the door and a movement caught my eye.

“Don’t open the door and don’t turn the light on...!” I call out to my husband. “I’m getting the kids!”

In a flash, I was across the house, grabbed my two sleeping teenagers by the scruffs of their necks, and quickly dragged them back to the front door.

“Look!!” I tell them and turn on the porch light.

What my kids did next nearly amazed me as much as what we saw! (now remember, both kids- sound asleep, abruptly awakened and quickly dragged across the house half asleep)

Both kids immediately pulled out their cell phones!! ....... and that’s how we were able to get the picture “gator at the door”!

 

 

 

This photo was taken a few years ago. It is possible that this is the same gator that I have been photographing lately.