Baking Projects

 Q. How do you know when you've watched too much of The Great British Baking Show?

A. You decide, on a lark, to make an 8 stranded loaf.  Also you start saying "on a lark" unironically.

It didn't quite come out like it was supposed to...shall we say.

For one thing, it was much too large!  Even after pulling off the messy ends and shaping them into...an interesting shape, it was much too large.

My dad, whose glasses hadn't come in yet, thought it was a turkey.

And the side loaf was, well...

 

an eyeful.

Klenda Laughing at my Loaves Whilst Making Leaf Cookies

Weird Things I Found on My Phone Explained, Part Two

 

 

 A dinner that we occasionally have is Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Bread.  We use a sheet pan instead of a Bundt pan because we need to make enough for 10 people. And we do other fillings sometimes.

This is close to that, but not quite.  This is Pizza Monkey Puzzle Bread.  It's a puzzle because one of the little rolls contains something that is technically edible, but is definitely NOT pizza.

Theoretically, you can figure out which one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Choclo actually managed to crack the puzzle and found... a lemon!

 

Which leaves the puzzle of "Why am I like this?" 

 

 

 

 This is from Oob.

If you look very closely, the imperiled person in the middle is not from the usual WWII army guy collection.

He's holding a sword.

He's a Jedi!

 

It's everyone else who's in trouble.

 

 

 

 Birds!

 

Mike really likes hanging out with Leena, but Oob clipped on a few cute (fake) birbs of his own, much to Mike's confusion. 

In other bird news, we had another baby crow (Ace) show up.  He paced back and forth on the driveway until we came out and fed him.

He must have been very young.  He stabbed the cheese with his beak and got it stuck on the tip- a noob move for sure!

He hung out with us for a few hours until his parents got him flying again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weird Things I Found on My Phone Explained, Part One

 This is my sister holding the llama pinata I sent her.  You can tell she thinks it's hysterically funny!

Almost as funny as I thought it was!

She doesn't like llamas for some odd reason involving a llama that spat in her face as a child.

But this is a llama she can whack!  And it's her favorite color!!

I think this is her "I secretly love this llama" face.

 

This is a photo of Choclo by Choclo explained by Choclo:

This is a list that Oob and I made over a year ago that we used to play a game we called "Transform-o-matic"

You walk into the Transform-o-matic, known formally as "The Basement," and when you walk out you are something else.  Or you don't walk out and you pretend you've been completely obliterated.

But then you close and open the door again and there you are!

I thought it was crazy and awkward that so many of the transformations were the exact same thing.

 

 

 

 I was explaining sp00ders to Mumpy because her house is full of sp00ders.  And some wasps.

I was explaining to her that I was going out through the sp00der filled basement into the garage filled with baby sp00ders because walking out the front door meant walking through the colony of wasps who had built a nest inside the front porch wall, and "at least sp00ders can't fly."

To which she answered, "But they can jump."

Thanks, Mom.

Also I remembered that sp00ders can indeed fly.

 

 

 

Which also explains this picture of baby sp00ders.

Just in case you too are not a huge fan of sp00ders, I will now refrain from posting the dozens of sp00der pictures I took at her house in an attempt to identify some of the many varieties.

But the best part of the whole experience was definitely TTHBLOX's comment, so thank you for that if you ever read this!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Bad Jokes and Memes

Roland

This is Roland.

He's a very handsome fish crow, one of a pair that is nesting in the tree behind our house.

I had recently read an article that crows, besides being very intelligent, have very long memories that they hand on to other crows.

The researcher discovered this the hard way.  Five years after he had trapped, banded, and released crows for one study, he returned to an area a few miles away.

 All the crows hated him.  Not other humans, him specifically, and none of them were crows that he had personally insulted by banding them.



It occurred to me that this probably worked in reverse, so I decided to try to "tame" Roland.

Now, I don't want to tame him in the sense that he'll come perch on my arm when I call!

  I have Mike for that.


I just thought it would be neat to have a crow that I was friendly with.

This is what I did:  whenever I saw Roland hanging about, I made eye contact, then went in and got a bit of food (usually out of the trash).

I came out, made eye contact again, and then set the treat on the driveway.  Then I went back in the house and stood by the window where he could see me watching him.

After a week, I watched from outside at a respectful distance.

It's only been two weeks, but three delightful things happened.

Roland has started softly calling to me when I'm outside to let me know he's there.

He also followed me on a walk through the nearby woods.


And Roland brought his mate to meet me.  She was totally not interested and flew away as if to say, "Roland!  You and your weird hobbies!  Taming a human is crazy!"

If you try this, crows are omnivores, but remember never to feed a bird chocolate or avocado.

A Creative Outlet

 The joys of being a sixth child!

Oob asked if he could draw beards and mustaches on the outlets and I could not think of a reason to say no.

So I said yes.

I think you unwind a bit with each child, but I think I don't have much wind left.

April Fools

 This year I started out small with Crazy Pancakes for breakfast.  These were regular pancakes, but made with Dr. Pepper instead of water. 

They were really good, but a bit delicate since the extra fizz from the soda made them very light.

Lunch was probably the best, although I actually had two people that didn't like it.

These grilled cheese sandwiches are actually grilled...

But the "bread" is vanilla cake and the "cheese" is orange creamsicle frosting.

The people that liked them really REALLY liked them.

The two people who didn't eat at the exact same time as the rest of us, however, bit in thinking they were real cheese, and didn't like them.

 I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but it was spaghetti pie.


And we had ice cubes for dessert.

You can probably guess that they were gelatin!

Three Reasons Why We Can't Have Nice Things: The Pet Edition

Why we can't have a chicken: I'd name it Johann Sebastian Bock.

SERIOUSLY?!

Why we can't have a dog: I'd name it Anathema.

Why we can't have a parrot: I'd teach it to say, "Help!  I've been turned into a parrot!" And I'd mail it to my sister. As a surprise.

Two Busies and Two Funnies

Before

Well, we've had a crazy few days.  Last weekend we got hit with the edge of that giant storm.  We didn't get snow, but we got an alarming amount of wind- about 24 hours of howling 50 mph, with gusts up to 80 mph!

Leena and Oob were watching out our window when they saw our dear neighbor's tree come down!

After

On the plus side, it fell where it probably did the least damage (not on any houses, and missing her main car), on the down side, it took power lines down across the road, and it did hit her convertible.

After the winds had died down, we went over to help clean up.
Many hands, as my neighbor observed, make light work, and many hands are our specialty!

They came to fix the power lines the same day, but many others, including my parents, were not so lucky.  They live 200 miles north and were out of power for 5 days!  It's a bigger problem when no power means no water in the tap (well with an electric pump) and lots of water in the basement (no sump pump), and when you are also getting snow.  Fortunately they have coal, so they didn't freeze.

They are getting over a foot of fresh snow today...  Prayers are appreciated!


On another note, Leena and I have finalized our plans for the Easter flowers and decorations!

I thought we were really early this year, but then I realized that tomorrow is day 20, so we're already half way through Lent!

So, not early, but at least not late!

We found these great crosses at Hobby Lobby, but you'll have to wait for Easter to see what we are doing with them.

We also found this sign!

Also this week, I was waking up the Zoomlians when I stepped on saw this cute little duck puppet which I had completely forgotten about.

How sweet!  I decided I'd wake them up with it.

Who are you calling cute!

I hadn't realize it wasn't a cute cuddly duck puppet.

It was an angry bad tempered duck puppet.

The kids will probably recover.

Eventually.

Maybe I should have them set their own alarms.

The Hat

 My sister knew she was getting the scarf.  She did not know she was also getting a hat.  An unusual hat.

I felt such an unusual hat deserved an explanation, so I sent an explanatory note:

So.  You might be wondering about the hat.  Two things: I had just finished knitting you a scarf the size of South Dakota, BUT, I had bought enough to cover all the (acrylic) sheep in Wyoming.  AND, after knitting maniacally, compulsively, that much, I couldn't stop cold.

You should also know that it didn't come out exactly as I had imagined.  I was thinking a really long, fun (but cute) stocking cap type hat.  But I kept double knitting so it was too short and too thick.



However, I think this style hat may work quite well for North Dakota.  Note the top area with room for a space heater.  Or possibly several hand warmers.  Also, very handy for a visiting bishop.  Or for impersonating a  frozen garden gnome.  Plus, storage space for snowballs!  It is also stiff enough to make an excellent tea cozy.

I suppose you could even fold over the ribbing and wear it as a normal hat. 

Still, obviously, it's most significant use will be evidence (at long last!) of an act of heroic virtue should you ever be called upon to testify for the Holy See, namely, the astonishing self restraint I showed (modestly enough) by NOT crowning this magnificent hat with a truly enormous pom pom!  Also, I ran out of yarn.  

Enjoy, and feel free to pass it on to anyone on your ecclesial team that laughed about it.

Apple-ying Ourselves

 So, did I mention the kids picked 87 pounds of apples?  Five kinds: Fuji, Aztec Fuji, Sun Crisp, Jonagold, and Cameo.

When most people hear this, they respond in one of two ways. 

If they know me, they roll their eyes.



 If they don't, they ask what I am going to do with all those apples.

 It's a lot of apples.








So far: apple sauce, apple butter, apple dippers,  apple pie, apple fritters (which I totally cheated and used as "German Apple Fritters" for our immigrant food project in Awesome History), and we've just eaten a lot of apples!

We also have enjoyed giving away fresh picked apples to our friends and relations.

 And we'll have more apple sauce and possibly butter in our future, definitely more pies and dippers, probably apple cake and apple quick bread, pork and apples, and maybe apple fruit leather.

And we'll keep eating lots of apples!

Klenda made this beautiful caramel apple pie to welcome us home from NJ.

 And, evidently, art projects.  I was informed that this apple has the intelligence of a two year old child that can not speak.

The pear (also created without my knowledge, but by another child) has a similar intelligence level.

They also informed me that this particular apple and pear were "strange."

So now you know.

Leapin' Lizards

 We went for a walk around the block and found this cute little lizard!

He's a little hard to see in the grass, but he's dark with light stripes.  In fact, he's five lined skink!  When they are young, they have bright blue tails, but this one had hardly any blue, so he must have been a bit older.

Leena and Zorg spotted it and were trying to catch it, when it hopped on Oob's sock, giving us a chance to get a better picture.

It was the coolest thing ever!

Right up until it ran up his shorts!

He asked me to shake him so that the lizard would fall out, but I was laughing too hard to manage more than feebly waving Oob back and forth.

Fortunately, just then the lizard popped out of the collar of his shirt, scurried to the top of his head and jumped off.

Leena wanted to catch it, but Oob said, "I think I've had enough lizard for one day."

NJ Trip

 Klenda and I went up to NJ to see my folks last weekend.  We had a lovely time when we finally got there - I discovered, 2 hours into the 6 hour trip, that I had forgotten my wallet at home.

Unfortunately, I found out when we stopped for gas...and didn't have enough gas to either go on or go back, and only $6 to our name!

That was exciting! Thanks be to God, Klenda had her wallet and was 18! Mxyl was able to wire money to Klenda (I couldn't receive money without an ID), and we got on our way.

Because they are further North, they are just starting Spring.





The geese on the lake had 6 tiny goslings.

And my mom had a garage full of sheep.


 Crazed, maniacal sheep, by the look of them.




Which she wanted to send home with me for some reason.

Which I did not want to bring home for some reason.

So she hid them in my car.

Fortunately, I found most of them before I left and hid them in her garage.

Unfortunately, she hid one with a bunch of cheese in the trunk... Wait, are you still reading this? I feel sheepish.

Uh, anyway, We had a great time, and we celebrated Mother's Day and Mumpy's birthday, and my birthday, and we planted their summer garden.

And we got Pa telling stories of strange things that happened to him in stranger places, and that is always amazing and fun!