Sunday walk.

A couple of random scenes from a new hiking spot. With perfect weather on Sunday, the great blue herons were working on their nests.

And all the rain left the river running really high that day.

I believe this place was a farm prior to becoming a nature preserve. It was a good place for a picnic. And part of the odd weekend - story to follow later.

In the meantime, the frogs. If you turn the volume all the way up, you still won't get close to how overwhelmingly loud the invisible little buggers were.

Antiquing. Sort of.

Scenes from a weekend visit that my younger son and I made to an antique store not long ago. This was a weird little pinball machine that involved shooting a small gun.

My sort of antiques - I'd have happily brought all these home with me.

I showed this bagged, broken-beaked duck to my son and he said, "Well. That's unfortunate."

While I appreciate the multicultural nature of this little family, I still find this odd. The baby owls (?) look frightened and the grandma owl looks a little irritable. And why is she hogging the nest while the grandchildren perch precariously above her?

There's something about old wrenches that make me think of robots. Or maybe storm troopers.

Seriously? Why? I mean, I can understand... No. No, I can't. Just why?

Whew, good thing they have a padlock on this cabinet - someone might steal all that pink shit!

$48.50 for a deranged ceramic horse. Yeah. I'll be putting that one on my wish list.

Siiimmbaaa!  Remember who you arrrre! (You are apparently the offspring of a gilded, snake-eyed lion.)

Got nostalgia for the 70's? Have I got a deal for you!

Oh for the love of... just put some clothes on the poor little thing, will ya?

Not all dreams happen while you sleep.

So the other day (Southern for some time in the indeterminate but not terribly distant past), I was driving home and saw this hawk inexplicably standing in a neighbor's yard.  I got a photo with my phone, but had to go back with my camera to see that the hawk was grounded because it was guarding its kill, a poor bunny.

One form of dream interpretation is to see each character in a dream as some aspect of yourself. But why limit yourself to material in your unconscious life? Meaning-makers that we humans are, we tend to see symbolism in events around us.  I took this photo just prior to my blog hiatus.  In fact, it served as a prodding for me to get some clarity for myself. This is how I'm choosing to interpret this serendipitous sighting: The rabbit is the less certain part of me, fearful of taking risks because of the potential harm and easily taken advantage of. Don't get me wrong - I love rabbits. They are soft and cute and I don't even begrudge them filching squash from my garden. But models of strength, they are not. Hawks, on the other hand, are my personal totem animal. Whenever I need  a reminder of my own strength, I see one.  nd what I needed in my life right now is to let the fearless part of me take over. I'm grateful to this hawk who waited obligingly while I drove home, got my camera, and returned. I needed it brought to my attention that sometimes I need to subdue my own fears and stand my ground.

Feeling stretched a little thin...

And when I get this way, I know it's best for me to back off temporarily, feed myself, and give myself time to sort out my thoughts. I won't be long.

So brazen!

I hang out ears of corn, I throw out torn pieces of bread, and even buy them peanuts in the shell. And how do they repay my generosity?

By raiding the birdfeeders and sneaking onto the deck to steal the last of my Swiss Chard. And I just watch. Damn their Disneyesque cuteness.

I'm not the only one who takes on projects.

My younger son decided to make himself a walking stick. He cut down a limb from a silver maple tree and carved both ends to look like the knobs on the end of a femur. That's right, a thigh bone. Because that's the sort of kid I have.

Sanded, stained and polished it until it was like satin. But the best part is what's hidden under the knob at the bottom of the stick.

He fired up his forge and hammered a metal spike to fit into a hole he carved into the end of each piece, so that when he's outside, he can use the spike end. Carving, blacksmithing, building, mechanical projects - it seems that if he imagines it, he can make it.

A good day for using the oven.

This past week, I read a post on the Molly Bawn Chronicles about making whole wheat raisin walnut bread, and I thought this cold weekend would be the perfect time to try it out. Step-by-step instructions are here on Molly's cooking blog. I rarely can get bread to turn out right, but I so love working with dough. I had this table made with scrap granite and it's the perfect surface for kneading bread.

In spite of the fact that I am a notoriously poor baker, I made a few changes to suit ingredients I had in my house. For instance, I had a bag of whole white wheat flour instead of the regular kind of whole wheat flour. This is made with white wheat instead of red, so it's a little milder in flavor. It's not refined flour, though. Also, I subbed in regular dark raisins, currants and apricots for some of the golden raisins. Because I had them. And some pecans for some of the walnuts. Again, because I had them. And threw in chia seeds for no particular reason except that they are so healthful. My version has this ingredients list:

1 pkg. dry yeast
1 1/4 C warm water
3 T butter, softened
1 T sugar 1 tsp salt
3/4 C walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 C pecans, coarsely chopped
3/4 C golden raisins
1/4 C regular raisins
handful dried currants
4 dried apricots, chopped
1/4 C wheat germ
1 T chia seeds
3 C (approx) whole white wheat flour

And you know, it is not only absurdly good for you, it is also delicious. We had some buttered with our dinner, but I think it would be good with jam or honey, as well. My son felt it had too many raisins, but I don't think that's possible.

And while I had the oven on... the grocery store had peppers on sale for a buck a piece. Well. I know what to do about that. Into the oven they went, at 400 degrees, until the skins began to wrinkle and brown.

After they'd cooled a bit, I de-seeded them, removed as much of the skin as would peel off easily, and sliced them into strips. There you have it, roasted peppers for adding to recipes at a later date (to top pizzas, add to pasta sauces, use on fish, and so on).

I wanted to freeze the colors separately but in small amounts so I could just get what I need to use. I decided to lay out sheets of plastic wrap and roll them up a small batch at a time, then pack the roll into a bag. Then, when I want to use them, I can just un-roll as many as I need. I was pretty pleased with that idea. Also pleased with the fact that even with all that cooking, I managed to get a nice long walk in at the lake. Sunny and high about 50 by yesterday afternoon - it was almost hard to remember we were covered in ice a couple of days ago.