Bird Spotting to Start the Year

It snowed last night - maybe over the weekend I'll get a few photos edited. It's brought the birds out in force - I've seen the most lovely male blackbird on the patio several times, and a chaffinch, not to mention plenty of pigeons and magpies too.
The thrush is an occasional visitor - we've sometimes seen it on the lawn foraging for whatever it finds there, but recently it's been around the patio a bit too.

The moorhen was spotted when we went for a walk along the canal. On our way down, we'd seen it walking on the ice the far side of the bridge, but on our way back it was enjoying the sunshine as it preened.


Finally a half-decent picture of the little coal-tit, with a sunflower seed. I am starting to wonder if he is looking towards me, then perhaps the sound of the camera is less alarming to him than if his back is turned and all he hears is the noise.

I'd just filled the peanut side of the feeder up, so the bluetit was happy. I've written to the company that made the feeder about the fact the wire has been pulled out by the birds, and I've tried to mend it - but they just pull it again.

The crow was also seen while we were out walking, just along the roadside. Hope the roads aren't too bad tonight, we are meant to be going out.

Travel Europe

The technique challenge on SCS yesterday was the Van Gogh technique. There were quite a lot of sunflowers out - and they reminded me of this photo from France, 1995 or 96. We took the car over, stayed with friends, camped, and then went back and picked F up to bring her back home with more luggage than she could normally carry when she flew. It was a lovely holiday...this was from the camping part, down in the Loire Valley, somewhere near Angers.

I know it's Christmas, but for lunch today we had Flaounes, which are Easter Cheese Breads from Cyprus. My original recipe called for mozarella, the ones I checked out today called for halloumi, which is much more authentic. But I've tried both, and don't see a significant difference. I can get good mozarella locally, so that's what I go with:
FLAOUNES    makes approximately 12, I halve the amounts.
Ingredients
1 1/2 lb strong white floer
1 sachet yeast (unless you're lucky enough to be able to get fresh easily - I wish!)
1 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 2 tblsp olive oil, lukewarm water to mix.
Make a dough and leave to rise in a warm place till doubled.
Prepare a filling with:
8 oz coarsely grated cheddar cheese
4 oz coarsely grated halloumi or mozarella
1 tblsp plain flour, 1 tblsp or more dried mint, 1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs, lightly beaten.

Mix the cheeses in a bowl, add the eggs and then stir in the flour, baking powder and mint.
Divide the dough into twelve to fourteen pieces, and roll out into 4" circles. Put a generous heaping spoon of the filling into the centre, spread out slightly. You can either gather up the 3 points of the triangle or 4 corners of a square to pinch together at the top, to hold the filling in. I like 4 - it keeps the filling in better for me. Leave to rise again for at least half an hour. Brush with beaten egg, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake in a hot oven (Gas 8, 220C, 425F) for about 12-15 minutes till golden. I like them warm, and I have to admit I like to have butter on the bready bits. But I wouldn't in Greece - their butter isn't so good, and their flour is different and makes lovely bread.

Never been to Cyprus, but here's a little Corfiot house to go with the Greek theme. When we learned Greek, our teacher was from Cyprus; although he'd been in Ireland most of his life, he was still a proud ambassador of all good things Greek.

MMTPT74

This is the teapot I chose to use for the MMTPT74 challenge, which I am privilege to be hosting on SCS today while Cindy takes her well-deserved break - but we all hope she's back soon. I can't remember what I was looking for when I found this image on eBay, but I loved it as soon as I saw it, and nearly bought the teapot. Even with international shipping it would have been cheaper than some of the teapots I looked at here, but I just couldn't decide whether it would dribble when it poured, and I left it too long to decide. I still think it looks as if it would probably dribble, though, and one dribbling teapot is enough.

This is my card based on the pot:


A frosty spider's web, a sparrow (I think, hard to tell at that angle - it's quite a finchy beak, but lets say I'm 98% sure it's a sparrow, and what a surprise - our little robin.

Winter Photos

Sneak Peek for the MMTPT74 challenge:



C says the photo of the heron is my reward for going for a walk in the park with him this morning when I didn't really want to...

The deer picture was taken on Christmas morning.

In a way the park was disappointing then - our local green was much more of a winter wonderland.

But it was fun to see the lake frozen over, and after we heard a bit of clashing of antlers going on, we saw that buck in the photo above give chase to another one - at quite some speed.

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve

and all set for tomorrow to be (another) cold and frosty morning.
All the baking is done, I am just about to make the frosting for my Pumpkin Roll-Up (thanks, Lorraine - it smelled so heavenly baking), the presents are wrapped, C is working on his card for me...so I need to vacate my desk.
Here are some macro photos from the cold and frosty morning today...
The frozen insect in the ice is only about the size of my little fingernail. C saw the photo first, and then I showed him the bowl of ice when he was covering the motorbike - he was surprised to see how small it was.
One plus of the cold weather - no worries about leaving the cinnamon rolls rising overnight in the back porch!



One plus of the cold weather - no worries about leaving the cinnamon rolls rising overnight in the back porch! I'll roll them out tonight after my sister and her husband have left.

Today's birdwatch...

...netted the usual elusive coal tit. I don't know how I am going to get a good picture of him. Even with the tripod, and the camera pre-focused, he just flies onto the feeder and off again so quickly.Also the sparrows, pigeons, a blackbird - I think they are feeling the cold and scavenging more nuts and seed from the ground than they normally would.

This little blue tit was much more cooperative. He's tiny, the fat ball is only about 2 inches diameter.


Temperatures still below freezing - when I went shopping at 9 this morning, I had to get in the passenger side, and even when I got to the shopping centre the lock on the driver side was still frozen. Just so long as it stays dry - black ice is a worry for C on the motorbike.
I know there are so many photos of our little robin - definitely two now - but I loved this one because for a change it also has a more picturesque background.

Two robins!!

The tree is up - my little New Jersey goldfinch is nesting near the top.
I bought the tree on Thursday and left it in the car till C got home - by which time it had rained quite a bit, so I left it in the back overnight to drip dry. Overnight it snowed lightly, so I hung a fat-ball up for the birds. The little robin looks so puffed up, he must be feeling the cold. Today I was delighted to see that I had not one but two robins - it was worth sitting in the cold back porch with the door open for a while just to watch them. One of them is our regular, happy to fly down for mealworms when I whistle. The other is new on the scene - and since I know robins are quite territorial, I wonder are they a pair, or at least a potential pair.I heard my little one singing to the newcomer, who didn't fly down for worms at all, sticking to the feeder and the fat-ball. Along with the great tit - and briefly both the coal and blue.
There was an article in today's Irish Times - in the print version the rather misleading title was "Robins at the top of the pecking order". As far as I can make out, what they really meant was that robins were the most commonly seen bird in Irish gardens this year. Certainly when it came to pecking order on the fat-ball, the great tit won hands down.

Still baking...not that we were quite ready for the mince pies yet, there are still four slices of Baklava left. But after C brought the peanut butter cookies into the print room in work, one of the guys there wondered would they be getting mince pies this year. As it happened, today is my first day of holidays, and as well as buying the tree, I had been contemplating making mince pies. I need to make some fresh mincemeat, but still had enough left from last year to make a couple of batches.
This is the recipe I use:
Mincemeat:
2 cups suet
3 cups coarsely grated cooking apples
1 cup apple jelly
2 pts grape juice or cider
1 pt peach jam
3 cups brown sugar
2 lb raisins
1 lb currants
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg and ½ tsp cloves
Grated rind and juice of 2 oranges & 2 lemons
To be honest, I use any jellies and jams that need using up. When we first got married, C told me he loved apple jelly jam. My parents were still living in the house I grew up in, with plenty of apple trees, so I made jars and jars of apple jelly. Turned out it was actually crabapple jelly that C loved so much, so I had apple jelly in my mincemeat for years. The recipe comes from a Canadian Heritage collection published by Chatelaine Institute. I add brandy, and it will keep for at least a year in an airtight jar.
Disclaimer - my mince pies are not things of beauty, because I think there should be lots of mincemeat in them, but then it overflows. I vary the pastry I use according to mood. Rarely is it flaky, though - because it puffs up too much and you can't use a lot of filling.


This photo is more or less the same view as the one I took last week for the SCS sparkle, shimmer and shine challenge. Same time of day, a week later. Not an ounce of sparkle or shine, just cloud and rain...but lots of great reflections in the river.

Busy in the Kitchen

The print-room in C's work have bound 3 photo-calendars that C made. Well, so far they've bound the one that headed off to Australia - the other two will be going in on Monday. So I wanted to send in some biscuits as a thank-you, and also my Secret Santa likes cookies...this morning I made a big double batch of peanut-butter cookies and some Baklava for our weekend treat. I also made a big pot of lamb curry, a beef and Guinness stew to have when an Italian friend visits on Tuesday, and a beef and vegetable casserole. I don't anticipate having a lot of cooking to do this week!
I was out in the garden - I've been seeing this fading beauty of a poppy out of the corner of my eye, but in the bright sunshine this morning it was worth going over for a second look, and then getting the camera. I was tidying up my memory cards from the camera, copying everything over to the PC - quite startled to see how few pictures I took in November. I suppose we didn't have the weather.



A book to read: Bright Earth:The Invention of Colour by Philip Ball. I read it some years back, and for the last while it's been on my bedside waiting to read again. He starts with the early cave-painters, through the Greeks with their basic colour palette and right up to the modern day. It's seeing all the rich nativity blues and reds at the moment that has reminded me of it; as the most expensive pigments in the Middle Ages, they were used sparingly, and only when painting special characters. He writes about the early age of synthetic colours, when nobody realised how fugitive some colours were, so that artists would be surprised to see what their paintings now look like. Certainly I remember that when I worked in the fine-art supplies field, permanence was still the Holy Grail for some colours. I remember too that artist's quality ultramarine was unavailable for some time, because it used Lapis Lazuli, and it was, back then, in short supply because of the war (with the Russians) in Afghanistan, where most of it came from.