Friday, January 16, 2009

Christmas cookie baking

In my attempt to post more often and keep my blog more updated, I figured I'd share these silly cookie making pictures. Leave it to my children to create appendages and digits rather than traditional gingerbread men. We did make lots of people, hand-cut birds (inspired by Tasha Tudor, may she rest in peace), trains, airplanes, stars, trees, etc. If I feel like it later, I'll post some of those pics, along with some Christmas shots.


Saturday, January 10, 2009

At the feeder




Some of the less frequent visitors to the suet feeder: Downy Woodpecker, Western Scrub-Jay, and Northern Flicker. Birds we see daily or quite often are: the Red-breasted Nuthatch, European Starling, Oregon Junco, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and some of the finches (American Golden and Cassin's). Frequent visitors to the seed feeders are some of the above plus Spotted "Rufous" Towhees, sparrows (house, song, etc.), Steller's Jay, and once in a great while; the Varied Thrush and Mourning Dove. We also have a Pileated Woodpecker that visits the Holly tree in the yard once in a while, a few Hummingbirds that come by in the summer, and Turkey Vultures that hang out in the pine trees across the street during the summer.
I'm sure there are others, and spring brings the Evening Grosbeaks in large numbers, but these are what we've identified so far. Of course, down by the cove and the river is a WHOLE other story I'll have to post about later. :-)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Artist


I decided to make our artist study more formal, so I created an "Artist Corner" with the featured artist and his/her art. This term is Botticelli, and I feel that after one picture chat and having our display next to our study area, we are already starting to "know" "Fortitude". It seems like having a nice display like this shows us all the importance of the artist and their works. Since our study area is also the dining room table, we are visiting with our artist constantly and it's involving dad more. Like all these types of things, I only wish I'd done this sooner! Next up, "Primavera". :-)