Thursday, May 24, 2012

Baker in the House

Most people that know Patrick know he gets up before the chickens - usually somewhere between 4:30 am and 5:00 am.  He does a lot of "research" on the computer during these wee hours of the morning too.  Lately, it's been new recipes.

This morning he tried out one of those recipes called Crusty Bread.
Of course, we needed to get a new pan for this bread; the regular loaf pan wouldn't work.  Yes, it's cast iron and very heavy.
The bread was baking when I got up this morning - the kitchen smelled great.

My experiment today is crock pot lasagna; the pictures wouldn't be as pretty as the bread.  The bread should go good with it.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Our Watch Dogs

Earlier this spring, we were concerned about the Bluebirds returning to the house they claimed last year.  It looked like the swallows were trying to claim it and there are plenty other houses for them closer to the river. Little did we know how territorial the Bluebirds are; they didn't need our help at all.



The picture that I couldn't get was when the Bluebird was chasing the squirrel across the neighbor's yard.  Also, we discourage the squirrels from coming around the bird feeders.  This morning the squirrel tried climbing the Bluebirds' tree after I chased it way, but didn't stick around very long.  The birds had it running in circles around the tree - pretty funny to watch.

Doesn't take much to entertain us.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Big Bird

It's normal for us to look out our kitchen window and see various birds; e.g., Gold Finches, Blue Birds, Blue Jays, Hummingbirds, Nut Hatches, and Chickadees.

This morning Patrick looked out and saw this walking in the back yard.



It was alone and we have no idea where it came from since we're along the water.  It didn't seem too concerned about the photo shoot either; probably, better than another type of "shoot".

Monday, May 7, 2012

Updating!

A couple weeks ago, during one of our several thunderstorms this spring, we were awakened at 1:30 AM by our security company calling to let us know they received an alarm that our smoke detectors went off.  They wanted to know if we were OK.  Lightening didn't strike our house and we didn't notice any smoke or damage - at least not at 1:30 in the morning.  It was later that we found out the television in our bedroom was hit with a power surge.  It was an old set so we weren't too sad when we had to take it to the recyclers.

We had been talking about getting a new television in the living room, but were waiting for that TV to "die" but it didn't.  We decided to move that TV into the bedroom and get a new one for the living room.

After dropping off the old television, we stopped just to look at some new ones so we could see the difference in screen size and picture quality.  We did a little more than look.  We found what we were looking for and brought it home.

Of course, we had one of those huge entertainment centers that weighed a "ton" as it was solid oak.  After checking Craig's List, I decided to give it away instead of competing with the 92 already listed for sale in our area.  One of my nephews found a home for it.

We ordered a new TV stand which arrived last week.  It had to be assembled and after we unpacked the box, one of the main pieces had a broken corner.  Patrick called right away and they shipped out a replacement part which arrived today.

The first two pictures are the old entertainment center.

Some assembly required!
 The assembly begins!
 Finally, the update is complete and we're enjoying the view.
One TV down, three to go.