ankle biter blighter

 Green at last!

Right on schedule, signs of life.

Claudia has been so tired of her hard toil on the porch...

...and is happy to resume her warm-weather duties.

Our muskrats are swimming, goz are visiting the front pond...

Once again, the spring peepers are calling, so loudly that they drown out all other sounds at night.  The red-winged blackbirds are back, too, but it's a strange situation.  Because of a combination of mysterious flooding and muskrat-chomping, the five-foot deep band of cattails around the pond's edge is basically a bare fringe now.

The blackbirds, who've been nesting here for years, are confused.  They perch on solitary cattails, but have been unable to find even a small pocket of protection for their nests.  I hope that they can find another place nearby, because I love their calls and jaunty attitudes.

We've had a bit of a tumultuous week here!  We "borrowed" a cocker spaniel for a week-long trial run,  to see how she fit into our household.  She:  howled nonstop; managed to nearly rip my arm out of its socket the very first day with a leash tug, a tug that resulted in a strain that left me unable to use my left arm or turn my head for a week; growled and lunged at the cats; busted through our screen door (twice); jumped on our coffee table and couch and seemed impervious to treats or instruction; sailed over an embankment behind the house and landed in the pond; COULD NOT hold still for brushing of any kind...in the end (mainly because of the cat aggression), we decided that she was a little too rambunctious for us.  But Borga had fun while it lasted!

Well, Borga is still pretty happy with her OTHER playmate.  :)

Calliope...sigh.  What is it with our animal struggles this past year?

She's always nipped, and that's been manageable.  But she's graduated to out-and-out biting, and HARD.  I have a big bruise on my right arm from her last attack.  She comes out of nowhere, bites hard enough to draw blood, and dashes off.  She's an ankle-biter too, and it's a mystery.  She has tons of play time with and affection from me, but has turned on me. I'm afraid of her, so we keep her locked in a separate room at night and watch her warily during the day.  I still fuss over her and pet her, but from a safe distance.  Meanwhile, although she's still chasing Tabitha and they're constantly hissing at each other, we had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday.  

Calliope commandeers Tabitha's perch.  Tabitha is outraged.

Calliope warns her off with a single cold, withering stare.

Accepting defeat, Tabitha naps in a nearby bed.

A NEARBY bed!  Oh, this gives me hope that even if Calliope can't be a snuggly, loving cat to us, at the very least, maybe someday soon the fighting will stop and we can have an uneasy peace!  For someone like me, whose anxiety issues MANDATE a calm and harmonious home environment, this gives me great hope.  

Have a great week!

to all the cats I've loved before

First it was Clarence in Indianapolis...

...then Clotilde in South Carolina...

...and now we have a new face peeking through our front door...Claudia (pronounced Clow-dia)!

I've been a little worried about the resident barn cat. I rarely saw her, just sometimes a glimpse of her tail end - literally! -vanishing into the weeds.

But for some reason, she appeared on our porch yesterday and allowed herself to be stroked.  She's a darling, friendly cat, who deigns to eat a little cat food, but only after she's had some cuddles. 

This morning, she came strolling from the barn with the present of a dead mole in her mouth!  Quite a handy girl to have around the farm, although her purrs and cuddles while I'm working in the garden is payment enough.  I'm absolutely delighted to have a new outdoor cat! 

More good news...our barn swallow babies have fully fledged.

They took a halting flight this weekend when our electrician was laying cables for shop lights in the barn, but came back to the nest.  They weren't there today, though.  I counted 10 barn swallows flitting around in the late afternoon light yesterday...I wonder if our babies were among them?

More babies around...first it was the crowd of young red-wing blackbirds around the feeders, but now, 'tis the season for house finches.  Here are two wild-haired babies with dad.

Struggling for balance!

I love the finch mob we see every day.

And always a delight to see the "big boy" - a pileated woodpecker.

Our blackbirds are still around, ready to give me a good scolding when I dare to stray into their territory!

More frequent guests...our little rabbits appear around 7:30 p.m. each evening like clockwork.  They frisk...

...bathe...

...or sprint!  I guess even rabbits get the zoomies!

They have thoughtfully left both my flowers and pitiful little tomato patch alone.  I love looking out for them every day!

I'm keeping a sharp eye out for something else, too - black raspberries.  Our bushes are maturing and I've been able to pick enough fresh berries...

...for pancakes!

I can't wait until we have our fruit and vegetable beds laid out next year.  It's so satisfying to bring in food from the yard...even these puny tomatoes from this year's mini-patch!

It's such a peaceful experience to go out in the early morning, sun streaming through the stand of trees on the hill...

...checking the tomatoes, fussing over the flowers, and giving Claudia a nice head rub before breakfast.  Next year will be even better, when we add our livestock and geese! 💗 It's so hard to wait!

At least I have a little company while I wait...with our bath-hating dog...

...lazy cats...

...and a beautiful view from our soon-to-be-rehabbed front porch!

Have a great week! 

There's Snow Better Time for Cinnamon Roll Scones

We got a beautiful, if short-lived, snowfall recently.

Borga had a nice time keeping track of everything that was happening...the softly falling flakes, the seed-seeking birds, the playful squirrels.

What...it's time to go in already?

It may be freezing outside, but we've got a lot of beautiful green inside. I've started two new trailing houseplants, and although my paperwhite flowers have died, the green stems are still tall and strong. The bougainvillea tree is blooming, too.

It's so beautiful, brightening up the corner where it sits.

The amaryllis plants are growing nice, healthy stalks, although they won't actually bloom for many weeks.

I love winter green!

Besides tending for the indoor plants and taking silly glamour shots of our cats...


...I've been working on some knitting projects. This past weekend, I was finally able to give away this baby blanket that I knitted late last year. It's a classic design known as Old Shale, with cables in between the fans of lace. I really enjoyed knitting it.

I rarely buy yarn...the yarn I bought in Portland was the first yarn I'd bought in a year...but I had to go to my local yarn store to buy some gift yarn for a friend, and I was seduced by some bulky-weight Misti Alpaca. So soft, and beautiful saturated colors.

It's amazingly soft and snuggly, and it begged to be made into something special. Unfortunately, it's quite expensive, and I only bought 1 skein...not enough for the scarf I'd hoped for.

Before deciding on a project, I knitted up several swatches to see how the colors played out. This swatch of garter stitch was too dense for my tastes.

I tried a drop stitch swatch, which I really liked, at first. Drop stitching is really easy. It's knitting stockinette, but you loop the yarn around your needle twice to knit, instead of once. It makes great use of a small bit of yarn and displays the colors nicely.

Drop stitch patterns move amazingly fast and I finished a scarf in an hour. I just didn't like the finished product, though, so I frogged it (to Todd's horror - he doesn't yet understand that sometimes yarn and your chosen project don't agree) and started again.

I originally shied away from knitting a stockinette swatch, because stockinette edges curl, and the fabric is quite dense. However, I fell in love with the swatch I knitted.

Armed with the stitch I wanted and the yarn information, I was then able to make an informed decision when searching the Ravelry database for a pattern. I settled on a pretty cowl...which I will make sometime soon!

I've been cooking a lot lately, as usual. As much as I'm trying to stay away from sweets, I saw a recipe on Annie's Eats for cinnamon roll scones. The sugar content didn't look too high, and they are made with both white and whole wheat flour. I decided to throw caution into the wind and make a somewhat modified version.

Cinnamon Roll Scones
Modified from Annie's Eats
Makes 14 scones

Ingredients
1 stick butter, cold
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup greek yogurt (or sour cream)
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling
Milk, for brushing
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup toasted pecans (optional)
1/4 cup cinnamon chips (optional)

Glaze
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 - 3/4 cup powdered sugar, to taste
a dash of vanilla
enough milk to bring the glaze to the desired consistency

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and whisk to combine. Cut in your cold butter, using a fork or a pastry cutter, until the butter is reduced to pea-sized bits. In a separate bowl, mix milk and yogurt and fold into dry ingredient mixture. Be sure not to over mix!

When your dough is mostly mixed, flour your work space well and roll out dough into a 10 inch square. Brush the surface well with milk. Whisk together filling ingredients and sprinkle over dough, covering the surface evenly. Roll your dough into a roll. It will be messy...that's all right.

Use a sharp knife to cut your roll into one-inch slices. I got 14 slices out of mine. Place them on a pizza stone or greased cookie sheet.

Mmmmm...don't they look good?

Bake for 14 - 16 minutes, until golden brown.

Whisk up your glaze and ice the tops.

These are soft and tender like a scone and sweet like a cinnamon roll...but much healthier!

I hope you give them a try soon.

Have a great week!