Monday, September 16, 2024
MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - CILANTRO-LIME BLACK BEAN RICE
Sunday, September 15, 2024
HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - HERE IS THE STORY OF MY PET RAT
I wrote this story for our son, and I am very sorry I didn’t buy you a pet rat. We did, however, have Bridgette who was our sweet dog-fur-baby, and Big Al, (I don’t know where son got that name from). Big Al was a turtle rechristened Big Alice by son when she laid an egg. I called her Popsy on the quiet.
And coincidentally a mouse fell into a bucket in the garage found by son. With great pride he announced he had a pet. A few hours later on his return from school, I told him that his mummy missed it too. (I released it into the hills behind our house and asked it nicely not to come back.) Son was around the same age as I was when I had my 24-hour pet rat. He also was not very happy mouse-ling went home, but he understood. That's when we went to the pet store and bought Big Al/Big Alice/Popsy. Bridgette arrived a couple of years later. They were with us for many years and will never be forgotten. They brought us a lot of joy, many smiles, and even more tales I'll tell one day.
And that's the end of the story of my 24-hour pet rat.
Saturday, September 14, 2024
SATURDAY MORNING AT THE BIRD FEEDER - PILATES AND TAKE-OUT
Friday, September 13, 2024
THANK YOU ANN
Happy mail from Ann is a happy day indeed. Thank you so much my friend, I always appreciate seeing them in my mailbox.
I have mentioned this before, but this is my favorite comfy corner where I do all my reading and blogging, sip on a hot or cold drink, and watch the birds outside. The two figurines that are next to Ann's pretty card are gifts from my dear family. It's my happy place of treasures, where I can easily reach up for a book to leaf through, and now I have Ann's card to look at.
Thursday, September 12, 2024
SUNSHINE
"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy..."
I found these flowers at the garden. They always remind me of little orbs of sunshine, and it started me thinking about this beautiful John Denver song. I have been playing it a lot today. His voice sets him apart. I love listening to him and the lyrics are timeless.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
CHIPMUNKS AT GREEN SPRING GARDENS 9-7-24
Gregg took all these photos. It is hard to see but there are two chipmunks in the photo above, a few feet off the ground. One is on the righthand side next to the single pink flower, and the other is more to the left above the group of pinks flowers. The only reason I found them was all the rustling and movement that was going on as we walked by. You can enlarge the photo for a better look.
It turned out that they were very interested in this yellow flower - Wholeleaf Rosinweed - munching away not on the petals but on the bud that was left after the petals had been taken off. They could have eaten those too but all I saw was them munching away at the buds. Very entertaining!
These industrious little things never stopped while we were there. Apparently, chipmunks in captivity have been found to sleep 15 hours a day. I am not sure if they know how much these little ones in the wild would need. Weighing in at 1 to 5 ounces (28 to 142 grams), chipmunks are among the smallest members of the squirrel family. They are also related to woodchucks and prairie dogs.
What always amuses me is how you can see their cheek pouches expand as they stuff as much food into them as they can. Then they will make several trips back to their burrows for storage. One chipmunk makes as many trips as he can to transport more that 165 acorns that he has collected in a single day.
This is just a small portion of what I have read about these very interesting little animals, and I hope you have enjoyed what I have shared today.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
MORE PHOTOS OF THE MOON GATE
Another photo of the old house taken by Gregg, with one part of the Moon Gate off on the side. This house always seems to make an appearance in my posts from Green Spring Gardens. I love this old home with its green shutters and door, and its pretty garden bed always full of flowers in the front.
Monday, September 9, 2024
MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - EASY AIR FRYER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
I was happy to find this recipe for cookies done in the Air Fryer. I am always looking for ways to use it. In the summer I stay away from the oven. This would be very nice to use when you fancy a sweet treat but don’t want the kind of heat the oven puts out when baking. This recipe came from Preppy Kitchen hosted by John Kannell. I found him on YouTube here, but I was happy to find he had a food blog, link on its name. The original recipe on that blog is here. It is always nice to follow along with the video, but I was happy that he also had it all written down on a website. There are more tips on John's website.
Air Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes a dozen cookies - approximately 269 calories per cookie.
Air fryer with 6-quart basket
½ cup unsalted butter softened (113g)
½ cup light brown sugar (110g)
¼ cup granulated sugar (50g)
1 large egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour (180g)
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (180g)
In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Using an electric hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through, until well combined.
Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.
Add the flour, then sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over top. Mix on low speed until no dry bits of flour remain, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (about 2½ tablespoons each) and roll into balls.
Preheat the air fryer to 300°F if your model requires it.
Line the basket of an air fryer with parchment paper (cut to fit the basket if you don’t have an air fryer liner). Working in batches, place 4 pieces of dough in the basket, equally spaced.
Air fry for 14 minutes at 300°F. Remove the basket from the air fryer and let the cookies cool for 4 minutes on the parchment paper, before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Continue cooking the rest of the dough balls.
John's notes:
Chilling and freezing instructions: If you don’t want to bake the whole batch of cookies immediately, you can cover and refrigerate the cookie dough balls for up to 72 hours. Alternatively, freeze them on a cookie sheet until solid, then transfer them to a freezer-safe container, and freeze for up to 3 months. Air fry from frozen.
To enhance the flavor: Sprinkle the cookies with flaky sea salt once they are finished baking.
This was an experiment as I have never cooked cookies in an air fryer before. I was happy they turned out as well as they did.
I preheated the air fryer first, and used a parchment liner.
We thought they were excellent but they are very rich. I made enough for two each but found one each was enough. I froze the rest of the dough in single scoops to use whenever we felt like a cookie.
I divided the dough in half as we both have different tastes in ingredients. I added chopped pecans and mixed them in for both of us. I divided the dough and in one half I added chocolate chips, in the other I added chopped dates to suit each other's taste. Just a handful, you can see by looking how much you would need, probably about half to a cup for each depending on how much you like or will fit the recipe. If I had raisins I would have used those.
These are the chocolate chips I used.
You can copy and paste the full addresses below if you prefer.
Website: https://preppykitchen.com/air-fryer-cookies/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/G36OLNSiOFY?si=RcHc6OLGtioyIca8
Sunday, September 8, 2024
HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - THE MOON GATE AT GREEN SPRING GARDENS
This is half of Gregg’s photo above, taken from the other side of the Moon Gate, a preview of more photos to come on Tuesday. I like how he framed the house. He has such a good eye for these things. We weren’t there for very long but could see that it had been finished and flowers and fauna planted. It looked lovely! I am still hobbling and could only manage 20 minutes, if that. There was seating but we discovered it had rained quite hard and all benches were drenched (we had no rain at all getting there, so it was a surprise to see everything so wet). Still, at least we got there and what a treat it was. The garden staff have done a beautiful job indeed.
You can click here to see my posts on this Moon Gate.
Saturday, September 7, 2024
SATURDAY MORNING AT THE BIRD FEEDER - 9/7/24 - COFFEE TALK
Friday, September 6, 2024
HOW ABOUT MEETING BUFFALO BILL BUNNY AGAIN?
I have not gotten out to take any photos lately so I am thankful I can go to my old blog and find something for you. One of my favorites popped up, a bunny we found while on a road trip in September 2013. Meet Buffalo Bill Bunny. We found him in a quiet area of the garden when visiting the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody, Wyoming, which you can look at here.