Making Cheese With Flowers

Nasturtium flower
My Red / Orange (& edible) Nasturtium

I will tell you right away that I have never done this, but I visited one of my favorite bloggers (and she is so much more) only to find an amazing post that included fresh picked flowers and yogurt.

Sharon Lovejoy is an author of many books and writes the most interesting posts on her blog along with some excellent photos of her quaint and lovely home in California – and the one in Maine when she is there.  I honestly don’t get around to reading the blogs I have linked to as much as I’d like because my work takes up most of my day, but I truly love to visit a great blog.  As busy and popular as Sharon is, she still takes time to read my piddly little blog and leave a comment here and there.  Does that tell you the kind of sweet person she is?

Actually, she reminds me very much of my grandmother (and I don’t mean to say that she is old).  My Nana always had a good thing to say.  She was positive and open-minded and encouraging and sharing.  I don’t know Sharon personally, but I imagine that she is just as she comes across in her blog posts – and that is how she comes across.

Please view her amazing post –Stir Gently and Add Friends -about making cheese from yogurt and flowers.  I learned something new today and I have to buy a strainer.

Will You Count The Birds For Science?

Chickadees
Image by Oregon State University Archives via Flickr

This is the weekend to help scientists keep track of wild birds as you participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count.  From February 17th through the 21st, many people throughout the U.S. and Canada will be counting birds at the park, on a hike or in their own yards to help inform the folks at the Cornell Lab of Orinthology and the Audubon Society of what birds are up to.  The information is then logged in online (or you can get a paper tally to mail in if you don’t have a computer).
Why should we help?  As you can imagine, no one group could possibly keep track of what all the birds are doing, so they enlist the help of bird watchers – expert and not – to help get the information from the various areas of the country.  The counts can help with migration answers and tell scientists how the winter has affected the bird population and other useful info.

The count is simple to take part in and will take 15 minutes only, or you can count for longer.  All information and answers to questions can be found at their website (link below), but basically what you will do is count the largest number of each type of bird you see at any one time and then report it for that date.  An online questionnaire will ask where you are located and what the location is like.   Were you at a public garden or in a desert?  That type of thing.  I used to be part of Project FeederWatch where I counted birds all winter and sent in my counts each week.  That is another worthwhile endeavor and I enjoyed it.

On the GBBC site there is a page just for kids and getting young ones interested in birds is a wonderful thing.  There is a poster to down load, and a page of photo contest winners.

Don’t worry if you are not an expert at distinguishing which bird is which, they answer that question too, and don’t worry if your birds seem boringly ordinary, they still want to know what you see.

Visit the Great Backyard Bird Count page and get started doing your part for the birds.

At Least We Have a Roof Rake!

Trees bending under weight of ice.
The ice pulled my tree over

I got up early this morning like I always do, and flipped on the outside light to see this little birch tree in the back yard all bent down. Its the tree where I hang a couple of my bird feeders and I had to go out (later) and move them to a new place.
I was up at 3am and about 15 minutes later (thankfully I had made my coffee!) the power went out. Actually, I was surprised it was on at all the way the wind was blowing and after seeing the coating of ice outside.
Surprisingly the lights were back on about an hour later. When it got light enough to get some pictures I went out to see how icy it was. The trees are glistening in the sun so it looks very pretty and once the ice melts off the little birch I am hoping it will straighten back up.

Deep snow
It's piling up.

My landlady bought a roof rake a few days ago and we have all been busy getting as much snow off the roof as we can. It turned out that the storm yesterday became more rain and freezing rain than snow, but we still needed to be ready.
She told me that people were coming up to New Hampshire to buy roof rakes from as far away as Connecticut and that the store only had a few left. So she was lucky to get hers.
Getting the snow off the roof is not too bad, but then where do I put it? As you can see (above), shoveling my deck is not easy now that the snow is so high and more WILL be coming off the roof – where will I put it?

Raking snow off the house roof
Getting the snow off before the next storm. 1/4/11

Richie (my cat) is very bad. You can see him in his favorite spot for hunting birds (in my first picture above). Yesterday while I was cleaning off the deck and shoveling out my woodpile, he caught a little chickadee. I hate that! I have set up three areas where the birds can eat so when Richie is outside the birds don’t have to eat near him, but they sometimes still get too close and he is very fast.

When I was uncovering the wood to lug some inside, Richie was climbing on it and fell head first into a deep pile of snow. It was hilarious. I should have had my camera – but I was working – because he was a sight with his butt sticking up out of the snow and his head buried. He managed to turn his head to the side and look up at me and I grabbed him and pulled him out. Pretty funny.

One day this overhang of thick ice will come crashing down off the roof. Yikes.

Ice on roof
Thick layer of ice
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Two Days of Snow On The Way

snow in walkway
And 2 Feet Coming!
Well, I have kept the path cleared to my front door this winter and it hasn’t been easy. The plow guy pushes all the driveway stuff right up into the front of the house which means I have to shovel through that. Then the roof emptied it’s load onto the front steps and that was a heavy bunch of stuff to shovel. Now up to 2 feet of snow is expected over the next 2 days and I’m wondering how high I can pile the stuff and what will happen when the next batch falls off the roof?
Winter has come all at once to New Hampshire.