Birds and Bees

Yesterday's Sunrise

 Today out and about: It's the birds and the bees!

1. How many lovebirds?
2. How many birds all together?

Yes, it was non-native species day at the preserve, I guess.

if you live nearby, this is worth seeing. These two have built a nest and may have an egg up there. 

Morning Walk

There's more than one way to squeeze an orange...

Young Adventurer was bored this afternoon. He read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I can only guess how many video games he had already played. I suggested he plan dinner and headed on upstairs. When I came down, he had the cookbook out and a recipe in mind. It required orange juice and zest. He ran out to get a couple oranges off the tree ( I think this was the only mistake--don't use oranges off a dying tree even if they look fine, I guess). He zested them, and peeled one and broke it into slices. The second one needed juicing. A dilemma, since I had told him we wouldn't use the electric juicer for just one orange. His solution can be seen below:

Christmas stuff

Gingerbread 'Houses

This is actually a review of the halloween house kit from Target as an option to replace actual gingerbread house kits, or actually making a gingerbread house from scratch:

cons:
1. The "gingerbread" was actually chocolate cookie
2. the "gingerbread was crunchy like a graham cracker instead of soft like gingerbread cookie, and sometimes broke apart like graham crackers as well
3. Necessary to make white frosting and buy Christmas candy to replace the black and orange frosting and candy bats

pros:
1. replacement frosting and candy went fast and most of the candy didn't end up near the houses
2. the kit only cost $2.50 on clearance after halloween and contained five small houses instead of one big one
3. low fear of failure due to low time and/or money investment

results:
see above