And the snow came down....

Yesterday we were hit with a late winter storm. The snow just came down and down! We all bundled up and went out to play in the snow.



It was so gorgeous out, we could not resist a hike in the woods.



Sage taking it all in.

Sledding down the trail on Kenan's snow board.

Snow ball fight!

Nature in a jar.

This winter has been so long and cold, that we desperately needed to bring some green life inside. i recently came across these nifty moss jars on Etsy and decided we had to have one! We we bundled up and took a hike in the woods in search of pretty green moss. Even with snow on the ground beautiful clumps of green moss could be found on rocks and trees. We brought home a whole variety of different mosses.

i have not figured out how to photograph them yet, but you get the idea. These were incredibly easy to make. We recycled old candle jars, put some rocks in the bottom for drainage, a tiny bit of soil and packed the moss down well. Then we made tiny toadstool out of polymer clay, and decorated each jar with rocks, crystals and toadstools.



We mixed and matched our moss, although the really lush green pillowy stuff is my favorite.





We've also enjoyed watching random things sprout in our jars. The top two were put together a few weeks ago. We've had all kinds of little seeds that were hidden in the soil start growing inside the tiny terrariums. Just a little bit of green to get us through the gray of winter.

Quack quack.

It's a bird! It's Plane! It's Princess Bat-Duck!



Have no fear Bat-Duck is here!

Sponge Bob jammies $4, (second hand) Princess dress $2.97, batman costume (Halloween clearance) $.97, sharing in the adventures of Princess Bat-duck......priceless!

The Great Back Yard Bird Count.

For the last couple of years, we have participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. It is fun, easy, and educational. It also helps the birds, by documenting information for scientists, about the bird populations and where they are being seen. We always end up seeing or identifying a new bird each year.

i snapped a few pictures this year, although all of these photo were taken inside out of a window...so the quality isn't the best.

American goldfinch in winter plumage. i counted about 15 goldfinch on and around my feeders. We have these guys everywhere, year round. In the summer they are always hanging out in the garden eating the insects and in the fall they feast on the sunflower and cosmos seeds in the flower beds. In the winter they are my most common visitor.

This is a Pine Siskin. This is the first time i have identified one of these, although i see them often. i always thought this was a female goldfinch, since they hang out together and have a bit of yellow on the wings. However, after checking my bird book i realized it was something different. i then thought it was a type of sparrow, but it just didn't fit any of the descriptions perfectly. Since it was so similar in size and behavior to the goldfinch, i decided to look up other varieties of finch and that is when i came across the Pine Siskin.

White breasted Nut Hatch. Nutch hatches are really fun birds to watch. They can run up and down the trunks of trees. They are also really noisy. :) We always see a few of these guys around, often running up the oak tree behind the house.

This year, we have had quite a few Purple finch visiting our feeders. i orignally thought these were house finches which look very similar, but was able to identify them by the patterning on the females. The females are not red/purple but brown/white speckled. The females of the purple finch have an obvious white 'eyebrow' stripe, that the house finch lacks.



We have had one Red Bellied woodpecker, visit our feeder daily. Behind him there is a dark-eyed Junco. They are another really common bird here during the winter.

We also saw and counted many other birds this weekend. Many were too shy, or too far away for me to get a picture. We saw /documented
1 pilated wood pecker
1 red bellied wood pecker
1 Blue Jay
2 Cardinals (male and female)
2 Tufted Titmice
3 Mourning Doves
3 Carolina Chickadees
3 Fox sparrows
8 Dark eyed junco
12 Pine Siskin
15 Goldfinch
55 crows (flying over head)

These were all counted just at our feeders, or in the yard. It is always fun to see the variety of birds that visit the feeders each year, to be able to identify them and occasionally see something new.

Snow day!

We finally got a real snow day! Monday night, the snow began to fall and it continued into the morning. The kids were super excited to watch the snow come down that evening. This was by far the most snow we have had all winter.



School was canceled on Tuesday and Wed. and we had a two hour delay on Thurday! Made for a very quick school week!

We got about 2-3 inches total. Enough for snow angels and a bit of sledding. It was too cold to stay out for long.



Sage kept asking where the snowmen were, as if she expected them to come with the snow. The snow was light and fluffy, not good for snowball fights or snowmen.

The kids played until their cheeks were pink and their boots packed full of snow. Then back inside to dry off, warm up with cups of cocoa and recharge...before going back out again.

Sunday excitement.

It doesn't take much to excite us. Yesterday, one of our hens laid an egg without it's shell. What your looking at is just the membrane and yolk. There is no shell what so ever.

This is just one of those things. It occasionally happens when a hen first starts laying, or lays the egg too fast. It shoots through the egg shoot and somehow by passes the whole shell making process. We've only seen this twice in the last 2 1/2 years. It's always a surprise though when you go to collect eggs and one of them is squishy. Ewww. It feels a lot like a water balloon.

Our other big surprise of the day was when i went to water my tomato plant, which i potted and brought inside this past fall. When i bent down to water it, i noticed a tomato on it!! Not just any tomato, it's big, about 2 1/2" across! i don't remember the plant even flowering, and i thought it was a cherry tomato, so this was really a surprise! i like to a keep a tomato plant inside during the winter, but wasn't expecting any tomatoes until i put it outside in the spring. Now i have to make the tough decision on whether to fry it up green, or wait for it to ripen. i love my fried green tomatoes!

It's good to be queen.

...or at least a really cute princess.

Sometime after Halloween, i came across this adorable fairy princess costume at the goodwill. It was really too big for Sage now, but too cute to resist. We love dress up here. So i bought it with the intention of saving it for her birthday or even next Halloween. So about a week ago, Sage found the costume and begged to wear it. "Princess dress mama, princess...please!!!" So i put it on her, expecting it to last a few minutes before she moved on to a new costume.

For over a week now, every morning as soon as she wakes up , the first thing she says is, "princess dress? please?" So every day from the time she wakes, till the time she goes to bed she wears the princess dress. Every day.

She wears it outside, she wears it inside, she wears it when we pick up brother from school.
"Princess mama? Please?"

As soon as she is dressed, she begins dressing the rest of us up. No one is safe. Everyone gets a costume. i spend most morning sipping coffee while wearing a tiara and a pirate eye patch. Other mornings it's a witch hat, and a batman cape. Life is just never boring around here.



It isn't just us that she dresses up. She finds costumes for everyone and everything. These are a few of the members of her royal court.

Yep, even Sid the cat gets dressed up. i actually think he kind of liked it.

It's tough work being a princess.

Pizza pockets.

This weekend we decided we needed some pizza pockets! So i put the kids to work, mixing the ingredients, kneading the dough and rolling them out.






We filled the with just a few of our favorite toppings (what we had on hand) Pizza sauce, mushrooms, black olives, mozzarella and feta cheese.

We have these nifty pocket presses, that make the folding over and pressing really easy. Both the kids were able to make their pizzas by them selves. i just gave each one an extra press, just to make sure.

Yumm...they were a big hit with everyone! i posted the recipe we used below. It's super easy. i used half whole wheat/half white flour and usually throw in a bit of ground flax.

Hot Pockets

Dough:
1 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar. Let it set for a few minutes until foamy (if you're using fast-rise yeast, you can just add the yeast with the flour and go on). Then stir in oil, salt, and flour. Knead 5 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes.

Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll/pat each piece into a 6-8 inch circle. Top half of each circle with filling of choice, keeping back from edges so it will seal well. Fold the other 1/2 of circle over the filling and pinch sides together or seal with a fork.

Prick a couple steam vents in the tops, and bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees F.

That's it! Super easy!

Back blogs.

i'm really behind on my blogging...i am working on playing catch up this week/weekend. So keep an eye out for Dec. and early Jan. blogs! :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!! :)

nature's own pest control.

While digging around my flower beds looking for signs of spring, i came across this interesting mass on the stem of my purple cone flowers.

This is a praying mantis egg case!



If you happened to read my nature journal, you may remember that i found a pair of mating praying mantids in my flowerbed last Sept. The female stuck around a few days, and then disappeared. i looked everywhere for her egg case hoping she had laid it close by, but never found it...until now! In the spring this little case will hatch about 100-200 tiny mantises, all at once. Mantids are beneficial in a garden as they will devour most garden pests. We'll probably bring the egg case inside this spring when the temps begin to warm up. We can keep it in an aquarium so that we'll get to experience them hatching and then release them.