For the birds?

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We can tell it’s spring by the variety of birds that stop by at our feeders during their migration north. Every day has brought new species the past week or so. This flock of red breasted grosbeaks stayed for a few days. Red seems to be the color du jour. We’ve seen cardinals, purple finches, northern flickers, hairy woodpeckers, all with a splash of red in their coloring. I hope the turkeys keep a low profile until noon every day though. It’s our local hunting season, which for some reason ends at noon daily. I have seen one turkey around, we’ll see if it’s still here at the end of May.

We are new birding enthusiasts. Most of the time, my identifications are confirmed if the bird is thought to be common in our area. Not always though. This may be a white crowned sparrow, which is considered uncommon in my Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. The coloring in the photo isn’t great but we never saw yellow above the eyes, which would differentiate it from the more common white throated sparrow.

We saw the food chain in action the other day. We had just returned home and saw a hawk swoop down and snatch a bird from the lawn and fly off. It was a good meal because the bird had been fattening itself at our feeder. Are we feeding them for them, for us, or their predators?

Chips and beer

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Beet and potato chips

It all began with a review I read in Cook’s Illustrated for a way to make potato chips. It doesn’t require any oil, because they are microwaved. I’ve tried roasting chips and even fried them once but I hate deep frying – too many calories and too much mess. The trick is in the slicing. The Mastrad set includes a mandolin, which cuts the slices 1/32 of an inch. Once sliced, they are placed on a perforated silicone tray and zapped in the microwave for 3 minutes. It works. Especially for potato chips. I also tried beet, celeriac and plan to try carrots. Add salt, or cumin or coriander and you’re ready for a beer.

Nice grain

So now I had chips and I needed beer to go with them. I finally broke out the brew kit I brought home from Australia. It’s different from the ones in the states because the beer isn’t decanted into a second container but we’ll see how it goes. The most involved process in homebrew is sterilizing all the equipment and then all the bottles. The cooking process isn’t too complicated.

It’s clean up time

I bought a Munton Nut Brown Ale brew kit from my favorite store on Long Island, Karps. I bought all the ingredients and bottles last year and somehow never got around to making a batch of beer.

The ingredients

This beer is made with barley, chocolate and 3 types of malt and hops. I added a little extra malt extract to potentially boost the alcohol content a tad.

Wort bubbling away

After everything is mixed and yeast is added, it’s tucked away for about a week to ferment and convert the sugars to alcohol. I think that process ended, you confirm by measuring a stable specific gravity for a couple of days, and yesterday set myself to bottling. Always a bit of a mess and it was nice enough to do it outdoors. To my horror, when I went to open the bottles, I thought I had the wrong tops. I used the flip top grolsch style caps and at first only found long neck bottles. I called the store to explain my dilemma and the beer master remembered me and while we spoke I realized I bought two styles of bottles, the right ones for the caps and long necks. Phew. But I didn’t have enough. The long necks have a capper and I think I had planned to borrow my son’s but never got around to it. Luckily friends had given me some grolsch bottles when they heard I was into brewing. In the end I had 4 long necks I was unable to cap. I tried a hammer, clamps and vise grip but couldn’t get the right seal. I saved two and dumped two. We’ll see how they go. I think the last stage (the next 3 weeks) is mostly for carbonation and maybe aging. For now it’s chips.

Bottling

Hill walking

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Not hiking nor mountain climbing, just Just hill walking. We drove 15 minutes to the trailhead and headed out from there. It was perfect hiking weather, cool and the clouds had lifted.

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There was only one small mishap. Luckily I didn’t break my new iPhone (it’s a long story), a hip or my newly repaired ankle. I only injured my pride and got my pants muddy.
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There was a terrific 360° view from the top of the fire tower.
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I was able to identify at least a few of the wildflowers as we climbed around what seemed to be a lot of new blowdown.
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Grey day at Storm King

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We drove south today to look at a couple of boats for sale. It iS so disheartening. They look good online and at first glance. Closer inspection reveals problems — big problems! Like the bolts that help keep the mast (that tall thing for the sails) upright are screwed into a thin plate of rust with absolutely no strength. It’s hard to overlook a problem like that.

The day wasn’t a complete loss other than eight hours is driving. I started knitting a new pair of socks for myself and we visited Storm King Art Center. I visited here years ago and remember this amazing stone wall.

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I used to work downtown manhattan and the building was known as the Red Cube because of a sculpture by Noguchi. Right when I mentioned his name, we found a sculpture by him! Go figure. Tim tried lounging on it.

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We capped off the day by eating dinner at one of the student restaurants at the Culinary Institute of America. The food and service were outstanding. Next time we look at a disaster boat, dinner here can make it all seem fine.

A walk in the park

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Actually two walks, very different, but both were lovely. On Tuesday, we bushwhacked to Clements Pond and enjoyed beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, fields and trees along the way.

I think this is looking west. The only hiking obstacle was dry, slippery leaves on steep slopes.

This tree can be seen from the road, perched on a cliff.

Yesterday we walked through low forest and fields. We found early wildflowers, ferns and animal carcasses.

Spring at home. Trees in bloom and frost on the ground.

I flew to spring and returned to summer

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Crazy weather and travel makes it even more interesting. I met up with the women’s hiking group last week in the Adirondacks and we walked through rain, snow and hail. Typical spring weather. Then I flew south to visit my daughter in Washington, DC.

I was already too late for spring and cherry blossoms. Spring was in full bloom and since Washington is such a green city, with lots of grass, trees and flowers, it was a colorful time to visit.

I took my first longish run, for about an hour, and sort of limped the rest of the trip. This is looking back at one of the bridges I crossed. I’m all better now though. I think ice packs may become my friend.

We explored some local parks and ate oysters, sushi and salmon. Foods I don’t eat too often in the Adirondacks.
I returned home and the temperature skyrocketed to 88 degrees fahrenheit yesterday. Tonight, the temperature will drop a mere 60 degrees to a more seasonal 20 degrees. I need both my winter and summer clothes out at the same time.

The bluebirds are coming, the bluebirds are coming

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The moving vans are close behind. Word started to spread about it a couple of weeks ago. I waited and waited. Last week I saw the first male check out all our birdhouses, which Tim had cleaned in anticipation of their arrival. They need a house that has already undergone a spring cleaning and don’t like to live too close to other bluebirds. Interesting. They would rather leave near other species than themselves. We should learn a lesson from that. But I digress.

They perched on the various houses and the nearby trees and fences, checking out the neighborhood. One female looked so plump we didn’t think she could get into the house.

I decided to go a little abstract here. Vivid colors and poor resolution. But I like it.

We thought the absence of wires might have been a deterrent but the budding trees sufficed.

I’m betting on this one for the first pair. They spent a lot of time in and on it, which just happens to be right outside Tim’s office window.

Before they left, they were seen discussing all the possibilities.

Back to homework

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Our farm share now includes cream cheese and we decided to make cheese blintzes for breakfast. I found a low(er) calorie recipe online at MyRecipes.com. They were a smashing success. I’m pretty proud of the presentation as well.

I finished this lovely Na Craga sweater after we got home from sailing. I knit both sleeves while on the boat. It’s been assembled, blocked and the collar was modified a little bit. Instead of a rolled funnel collar, I made a crew neck. I fear it may be too big. So I will hand deliver it and figure out what alterations need to be made. My gauge was correct but my son wanted it longer and now I could wear it as a dress (and I don’t like showing my knees). It’s also the first time I made a drop shoulder sweater and didn’t really account for the part of the sweater that was part of the sleeve, so the sleeves double as hand warmers for me. We’ll see. At least I know I have the means to alter it and make it smaller if I have to. Much better than having to make it bigger. It took 21(!) skeins of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes.

I’m working on a pair of socks for a Friend’s birthday. I am using the embossed leaves pattern from Favorite socks. I made a pair for myself in the summer of 2008, while at Seguin Lighthouse, and I still wear them at least weekly. They are one of my nicest pairs and I thought the pattern goes really well with this yarn, Melody by Jojoland.

Since the sweater is complete I am ready to tackle a quilt for my daughter. I’m using beautiful batik blues and greens from Hoffman fabrics. It seems one of the good things about batiks are you can’t tell the front from the back. I think this will piece together pretty quickly and may even try to bring the top to her next week so we can pick out a border and backing. I may be too ambitious but it’s supposed to rain and/or snow all next week.

Going Wild in Puerto Rico

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This looked like some sort of fruit pod we noticed while we were taking a leisurely walk to the lighthouse on Culberita except it was moving. On close inspection, it turned out to be a hermit crab in a bright green shell. There were hermit crabs of all sizes around us. They actually made noise, rustling on the forest floor. Tim picked up a large one and let out quite a scream when it nipped him. I think that one was the size of a lobster.

Crazy cacti

A side trip on our way back from the lighthouse revealed these cacti. They were big, beautiful and dangerous.

From our room in the rainforest, we saw this bird and a few friends cavorting outside our window. There was a lot of hubbub and one bird was stripping the strands of palm leaves for building material. Amazingly there were very few insects and we were able to sleep with the door open.

Tree lizard

Slow progress

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In the El Yunque rain forest, everywhere I looked I saw snails. They reminded me of tree leeches in Tasmania but at least they didn’t drop off trees and land on people. They were large snails in flat shells and were on the trees, buildings and in the flowers.

I was lucky enough to catch a hummingbird while I was following the slow progress of a snail in a flower.