“We are wise to be aware of our mental state as we approach decisions. The acronym “H.A.L.T.” stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired—four states in which we will likely make poor choices. When considering options, it is well worth waiting until a better time.” ~ Dr. Charles Stanley – In Touch Ministries
This is wonderful advice to follow all year through, but in the wintertime, when many of us spend every day in close contact with others, it can save us from countless problems and broken relationships. I sometimes add an S to this acronym, and make it HALTS. It reminds me to also be still and silent, and to make no quick decisions when I am stressed or sick.
I enjoy listening to Dr. Stanley’s daily devotionals while I am working on the computer or creating art and pressed flowercraft. His word from God is heartfelt and biblical, and always turns my eyes toward the Lord and away from myself. In Touch Ministries
I used the color brown for the word Halt. Brown seems to me a color of strength and determination. It often is in the background, highlighting the brilliance of the other colors in the box. Color Your World – 120 Days of Crayola
Today I discovered that Jennifer Nichole Wells is running her Color Your World – 120 Days of Crayola challenge again. I enjoyed taking part in this last year, and hope to create several posts that fit in with many of the Crayola color themes.
The color of the day is Burnt Sienna. This is one of my favorite colors to use when painting in watercolor. Burnt Sienna brings an earthiness to any color it is mixed into.
A good example of burnt sienna in nature is fallen leaves, much like these my backyard squirrels have woven into their winter nest.
Seen from a distance, this nest appears precarious. Perched on the end of a trimmed branch it seems likely to fall.
When I zoom in with my camera though, I see it is a masterful design, the leaves held in place by dozens of small twigs that have sprouted from the cut end. What a great squirrel condo, and also a good example of the many tones of burnt sienna. I would love to take a peek inside at the interior of the nest.
I’m also adding another photo of our friendly neighborhood biscuit-loving dog. He is definitely blessed with a heavy coat of burnt sienna…many tones of brown and orange make up his fur. My blogging friend SusieShy asked me if he was a stray. I was able to say no, with surety, since he is wearing a Christmas kerchief around his neck.
I’ve been wanting to create a ‘bird biscuit’ of some kind to feed the birds this winter. Our snowy weather is the perfect time to try; the ground and many other food sources are covered under six inches of the snow.
I searched through some recipes, and found a few I liked, but didn’t have the exact ingredients on hand. I fiddled around and came up with my own mix of ingredients. The biscuits baked up nicely. Give this recipe a try, adapting it to your own easily available ingredients.
1 1/2 Cups White Cornmeal (Yellow is called for in most bird recipes, but I had white on hand.)
1 Cup bird seed, dried fruits, etc. (I used dried cranberries, hulled sunflower seeds and mixed bird seed.)
1/3 Cup Vegetable Shortening. (Other recipes use bacon fat.)
1 Cup Water
Mix cornmeal, seeds, fruits with shortening.
Add the water and mix well. Dough will be very stiff.
I used an ice cream scoop to place dough on silicon pans. A cookie sheet would work also.
Bake in a 400 degree pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. While the biscuits were still hot I punched a hole in the center with a plastic straw. Most held up fine to this…a few crumbled.
I strung the most intact biscuit with a string. I gathered up a broken biscuit, a piece with good form, and the strung biscuit and took them outside to the bird and suet feeders.
I put the firm biscuit in the suet feeder. Before I even went indoors a woodpecker visited the feeder. I don’t know if he touched the bird biscuit, but I think not.
Within minutes a small flock of grackles found the biscuit, they pecked away, and the crumbles fell to the ground…to the delight of the grackles waiting below. The fallen crumbs were quickly eaten.
I placed the crumbles on the bird swing, and tied the strung biscuit to the rope. An hour later all the crumbles are gone, but the biscuit on a string seems untouched. I predict this treat will disappear in a few hours when evening draws near.
This dove quickly made use of the fresh water I placed outdoors. A reminder to change it daily, maybe even twice, while the freeze continues.
This bear of a dog is one of the reasons I tried to place all the biscuits off the ground. Yesterday I threw some stale English Muffins out for the birds only to see this smart beast hunting and scooping them out with his snout. He’s visited the yard on other occasions when I’ve thrown bread out. I don’t mind, but he is definitely well-fed and the birds need all the sustenance they can get in this weather. I’m hoping the birds eat the biscuits before the hungry dog is tempted to visit our yard again.
I recently blogged about “The Path‘ series of photographs I took a few years ago. The object was to take a photo of the same stretch of woodland path once a week. I was very diligent through the winter, but slacked off when Spring arrived. This year I chose an area that is a five minute walk from my home. I hope to take a photo once a week and post it on the sidebar of this blog.
The seed racks are out in stores. Hooray! I picked out three packets to sow this weekend. Each of these varieties need a lot of grow time to reach a size that will thrive outdoors.
I will soak all of these seeds in water for a few hours before I sow them. The violas/pansy/johnny-jump-ups needs darkness to sprout. I’m going to cut down a outdoor garbage bag to cover the container. I’ll update as the seeds progress. The weekend is coming, take some time to browse through the seed racks and dream of Spring.
I recently read a good post about a daft plane. I’m sorry I can’t explain, but the daft airplane reminded me of this post from 2014. I thought today’s Throwback Thursday was the perfect day to allow it to resurface. If you want to read the post that jogged my memory, you can read more about the daft plane on the Mehrling Muse WordPress Blog.
As a child, my husband saw an episode of the Twilight Zone in which William Shatner, before his Star Trek fame, is horrified by a scary (at least at the time of limited media special effects) monster on the wing of an airplane. My husband says this scared him for years as a child. Guess What? Whenever we fly I always find a moment to whisper in a frightened tone in my husband’s ear, “Shatner.” We always laugh, and he knows exactly what I mean. Seriously, he still tends to look out the airplane window at the wing when I say Shatner’s name. Funny…and true!
“Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
John 8:12
The late-day sunshine of December set these trees ablaze outside my windows. When I lowered the top pane to take a photograph unobstructed by the glass, birdsong filled the air. A group of grackles, on barren limbs, were singing an evening-song to put the day to rest.
I enjoy the many bird cams Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers on its website and Youtube Channel. Even now, as I write this post, I have another window open on my computer and I’m listening to the live chirping of the birds feeding at the Ithaca New York bird feeders.
“This FeederWatch cam is located in the Treman Bird Feeding Garden at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Perched on the edge of both Sapsucker Woods and its 10-acre pond, these feeders attract both forest species like chickadees and woodpeckers as well as some species that prefer open environments near water like Red-winged Blackbirds.”
Watching birds outside your window, or on one of these cams, is guaranteed to brighten the dreariest winter day.
A favorite Christmas gift was this jar of buttons and note from my mother:
“These buttons were from Granny Broadwell’s button tin. Many of them were from the clothes she wore early in her marriage. I can remember some of them. The value of these buttons are not very much, but the person whose clothes they adorned is valuable and precious to all of us. I wanted you to have them. I know you will treasure them. Love, Mom”
I placed the note in an old frame. I want to find a piece of burnt sienna overlay to place over it, for protection, and to give it a look of age. If I can’t find what I want, I’ll try to create a piece out of things I have lying around the house.
“I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.” ~ Philippians 4:13
We often visit our favorite seashore towns the week after Christmas. Winter and summer ocean-scapes couldn’t be more different. You can almost feel the cold and hear the wind blowing when you study this photograph of the beach at Strathmere, New Jersey. In this view we are looking across the water to Corson’s Inlet and Ocean City. It takes a hearty and resilient attitude to walk along the ocean water on a cold, windy December day. It takes even more gumption to attempt kitesurfing in cold weather. I doubt I will ever kitesurf, but I’ve walked on a wintry beach many a time. Here’s to maintaining a resilient attitude toward every worthwhile goal, dream and task in 2017.
I felt immediate happiness when the Slinky song started in this YouTube video. I had a Slinky, each of my sisters had a Slinky at some point in time. Slinky did live up to the commercial hype and could walk down the stairs. The spring was fun to hold and set into the ‘up and down’ motion. The down side, Slinky inevitably became a snarled ball of ‘precompressed helical spring.’ It’s fun to read the history behind the popular toy. The History of Slinky.
When I recently came upon a package of Andes Creme De Menthe Baking Chips, I knew I had to come up with a cookie recipe to use them in. The back of the bag had a basic recipe for a drop cookie, but I wanted to jazz the chips up a bit.
I have a recipe for a Neapolitan cookie that is popular in my family, so I adapted the recipe to incorporate the Andes Chips and green food coloring. If you can’t find Andes Baking Chips, a few Andes Mints, chopped up, will work fine too.
This recipe requires four hours chill time in the fridge. Take that into consideration before you begin. I often mix it up and leave it in the fridge overnight for the layers to meld together, then slice and bake with ease the next day. This recipe doubles up easily.
CREME DE MENTHE NEAPOLITANS
Sift together and set aside:
2 1/2 C Flour
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
Cream together:
1 C butter
1 1/2 C sugar
Mix in:
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Add dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Divide the dough into three equal portions. Mix 1 square melted & cooled unsweetened chocolate (substitution = 3 tbs unsweetened cocoa and 1 tbs soft butter or oil) into one portion, a few drops of green food coloring into one portion, and 1/8 to 1/4 cup of Andes Baking Chips into the last portion. (I use the lesser amount because I don’t like the flavor of mint to be overpowering.)
Cover a rectangular loaf pan with enough wax paper to cover the bottom and hang over all the edges.
Line the loaf pan with the layers of dough in any order that you choose. Use the back of a large spoon or spatula, and the sides of the wax paper to help smooth and flatten the dough into shape. Cover the pan with foil and chill at least four hours.
Turn the dough out on to a cutting board. Gently pull away the waxed paper. I have cut these cookies two ways. Down the middle, dividing the dough in two long rectangles, or I cut it into three long rectangles. Either way works, and they cook at the same temperature and amount of time. Two rectangles make large cookies, three rectangles make a smaller size.
Cut each rectangle into slices, about a 1/4 inch thick. They don’t spread out very far, and stay neat and orderly, so I crowd them onto the sheets.
The cookies after baking
Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 9-10 minutes. Take out and let them sit on the cookie sheet an extra minute to firm up. Remove to cooling tray. Enjoy! Large cookies 5-6 dozen cookies Smaller cookies 7-8 dozen cookies
Quick Tip: I slice all the cookies at one time, but any sliced cookie dough not going directly into the oven should go back into the fridge to stay cool. The unbaked bars are easy to handle when they are cool, they become soft and sticky when they begin to warm up.
These cookies freeze well and are also great for cookie sales or exchanges.
A sample of unbaked Crème De Menthe cookies alongside a batch of the original recipe. Make the basic dough the same using red food coloring in the place of green and leaving one layer plain. I’ve also made these cookies in the colors of Autumn for social gatherings.
The backyard birds need water as well as food at this time of year. You can see from my photos how barren the landscape is in the Mid-Atlantic states by December. I put out a bit of food every day, and keep this stand-in birdbath refilled at least once per day.
A flexible plastic bowl from the dollar store works very well in place of my summer birdbaths. I’ve seen birds drinking and bathing in the water during this frigid weather.
Even though the water freezes solid overnight, the plastic has some give, and so far has not cracked. A concrete birdbath would likely crack and be ruined by the melt and thaw of wintertime water.
I accidentally created a birdbath by leaving a plastic bucket of gravel outdoors. This collects rainwater, giving small birds another place to drink.
When I was young we played several games in the car to occupy the time. One of these was ‘Padiddle.’ The rules of Padiddle are easy: If you spot a car with only one headlight, be the first to say, “Padiddle,” and earn a point. This game could only be played at night.
Another game my sons played, that sometimes caused spats in the backseat due to too much ‘ooomph’ given to the punch, was ‘Punch-buggy.’ A Punch-Buggy was a nickname for a Volkswagen Beetle. The first person to spot one would yell, “Punch-Buggy,” accompanying the shout with a punch in the arm for his/her seatmates.
A few other backseat games:
The Alphabet Game – finding the letters of the alphabet in order on roadside signs.
The License Plate Game – Trying to find all continental state license plates on long trips.
Do children/teenagers still play these games or are their eyes always focused on a phone or tablet?
Can you think of any other games such as these that you played in a car?
This week, tell us about a place that has helped shape who you are.
Pitman Methodist Campground, also known as Pitman Grove, is a favorite place for me to walk throughout the year. I walk down and around the twelve paths leading to the center meeting place, the tabernacle, in every season. During the summer, local churches each take a turn conducting Sunday night services in the tabernacle. I usually attend a few each year.
The town of Pitman grew up around the camp. Residents still hold dear the true meaning of Christmas. A few years ago there was quite an uproar in regards to a sign in the center of town. ‘Keep Christ in Christmas,’ was deemed controversial. The townspeople responded by placing miniature replicas of the sign on their lawns…yours truly included.
I still use this sign every year!
Yesterday I walked along the campground paths, taking a few photographs for what I intended to be a ‘Wordless Wednesday’ post. Hmmm….a lot of words written here for what was intended to be wordless. Smile.
The Hagerty Family, residents who live in one of the original houses, set up a sensational Christmas display of lights every year to celebrate the season. The display attracts people from all over the area. I appreciate the banner they have across their property. Frank Hagerty knows best what spreads holiday cheer.
“It’s about sending his personal message of Christian faith to parents who walk through rows of displays including mangers depicting baby Jesus and the first Christmas.” Frank Hagerty quoted in the South Jersey Times
