Pretty Tricolored Heron

Today, I am grateful for being able to capture beautiful wildlife with my camera.

Box Identification

 I was in a thrift store looking for something to "display" the various teas I had for a tea party I was going to have for my Aunts. This is what I ended up using, because it was lined with felt and the bags stayed up.

However, along with the above item, I had purchased the wooden box below for the same purpose.  I didn't know what it was, nor did any of the employees or customers.
Any guesses as to what this is or what it might have been used for?

(It's a cutting board for bread with a "crumb catcher.")

Struffoli- Italian Christmas Tradition

Old memories came flooding back after recently seeing a picture of  this Italian Christmas Treat.  I decided to try the recipe.  It wasn't as difficult as I imagined! And not as sweet as I expected, but certainly looked exactly like I remembered, many years ago as a child at an old Italian relative's house in Bloomfield, NJ!  I am looking forward to mixing up a big batch to bring to our Christmas Eve dinner at my Uncle's house to see if he remembers this too!

Little Blue Heron

Pretty Little Blue Heron

Ongoing Cookie Adventures...

I do love making cookies! I bake up several kinds at this time of year, usually staying with the old reliable favorites that my family enjoys.  However, this year I wanted to try some new ones.
I cleared a spot on the coffee table and proceeded to collect all of my cookie magazines, cookie cookbooks, and piles of loose recipes torn out of magazines or on packages of baking products.  I sat down and sorted out piles, looked through just a few of the many books and magazines and finally picked out several interesting recipes.  I wanted to get a jump start on the process so I mixed up a few batches of different kinds of dough and halved them, putting half in the fridge (for trying out now), and half in the freezer (for Christmas).
I couldn't wait to get something in the oven to try, so I decided on a small batch of Pecan Florentines.  I had made these many years ago, and remembered how fragile and delicious they were. 
Off we go.....

There are very few ingredients in them and you can only cook five or so at a time because the teaspoon full you place on the tray, bubbles and expands into a lacy, flat circle.  (PS- don't try this recipe without a silpat! Been there, done that!)

After they cool for a few minutes, you carefully curl them over the end of a wooden spoon....

They were great!

The next morning, I went in the fridge to pull out a one of the other kinds of cookie doughs and I was completely mystified.  I looked at the dough, and looked at it, and for the life of me I could not remember what cookie it was supposed to be... was it a shortbread, biscotti, drop cookie, cutout cookie....?  It was as if I made the dough in my sleep!  I had no idea how to cook it, not having labeled the darn thing! I looked around for the recipe and couldn't find it because I had cleaned up all the loose papers and books before I went to bed!

(It took me hours before I was able to figure out what it was- I realized it had mini chips in it and I remembered that I used mini's for a reason.  Looking though the recipes, I finally found one that said to use the mini chips.  As it turned out, it was a chocolate chip shortbread

.........and they were great too!)

Where's the Limpkin?

This limpkin thought he could escape my lens, as he hid away in one of the "floating islands" in the pond in our back yard....

There you are..!

Attack Frogs! Public Service Announcement

These frogs camped out in our entry way, often hitch-hiking in on the dog or waiting to jump on me at night when I walk her. They collected in a watering can by the front door.  It looked like a lot were in there, so I tried to film them one at a time coming out of the watering can.......

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.

Say "CHEESE!"

Show me those pearly whites!!

I love it when they smile for my camera!

This guy certainly is enjoying his afternoon nap in my backyard!