Great Eggspectations

   For a little learning activity for my daughter and a little recreational painting time for me, I began this quick project of painting some wooden eggs from A.C. Moore to look like native wild bird eggs from New England. I was inspired by some images in a book that was illustrated by a local artist named Helen Stevens (go to her website here ). The book, titled Moose Eggs: Or Why Moose Have Flat Antlers is written by accomplished fabulist Susan Willams Beckhorn. 

To paint the eggs, I studied some of the images of eggs they had on the inside of the cover, and then I spent many hours trying to find some clear images of specific ova on the web. By the time I was done, I had almost convinced myself to start a blog on the identification of wild bird eggs. That said, here is as close as I will get (taking into account some slightly shoddy painting by a distracted Stay at Home Mom) :

1.  Osprey
2.  Robin
3.  Northern Cardinal
4.  Rose Breasted Grosbeak
5.  Blue Jay
6.  Cormorant
   
7.  Song Thrush (not from New England, more like England....but I loved the colors)\
8.  Great Horned Owl
9.  Puffin
10.  House Sparrow
11.  Cedar Waxwing
12.  Grouse
13.  Bluebird

Hope this is of interest (or provides a good laugh) to any budding Oologists !! My daughter has gotten the biggest kick of out these....eggs she can handle without any worry of a goopy mess if she gets a little rowdy.  Our kittens also find them to be very appealing, less for my painting I am sure, and more for the irregular rolling they do on our hardwood floors when batted around by kitty paws.

Holiday Heritage

     
I was invited to go to my Grandmothers house for a little French-Canadian Christmas celebration of a sort. It's been a yearly tradition for my family since way before I was born. We make fried dough with maple syrup and powdered sugar for toppings. We call them "pitouins", but I have never met anyone else who made them or called them that. So, I did a little research and this culinary link seems to connect the tradition of frying bread dough with all the fixin's to Newfoundland and something called "toutons" or "toutins". Sounds awfully close to my grandmothers pronunciation of pitouins (when asked today how to spell the dish she told me, ("It's a lot easier to make it then to spell it"). So, I'm going with that theory, and considering our French-Canadian heritage I have no doubt that it is the origin of our fried dessert. Here is a very easy recipe for pitouins. I am going to warn you now: this is ANYTHING BUT heart healthy.

• frozen bread dough
• crisco oil
• REAL maple syrup (no imitations, please!!!!)
• Powdered Sugar

~Let the dough thaw and rise on your counter overnight. In the morning, prepare the oil....heat it in a large pot but keep a very close eye on it, you don't want it to overheat and catch on fire which it quite possible. You know the oil is hot enough when you can put a ball of dough in and it browns nicely (light brown not dark). Tear off the dough into ball shapes and place them carefully in the oil. With tongs, turn them over once to brown the opposite side, then take them out and let them dry on some layers of brown paper bag. Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar (if desired) and a good helping of maple syrup for dipping. Think happy thoughts for your gall bladder and arteries for the rest of the week. 

When going to this party I also made a really quick little present for my Grammy and I was totally thrilled with the result. All I did was some needle-felting and I made a woven basket out of birch branches. 

 

I didn't really want to let this one go....and neither did my daughter. What a sweet little bird. Can you tell from my inpiration that I am ready for *spring*??

New Year Notions

I received the loveliest bouquet of flowers for my birthday today. My daughter helped to pick and arrange them and she even managed to keep it a secret for the two days before they were delivered. I love the contrast in colors between the snow storm outdoors and the bright palette of flowers inside.

Last night I was inspired to finish a sweater that I have been working on since September. It never actually became a sweater, because I could never seem to get the sleeves just right....so, I left it as a vest and embellished it with my favorite medium, wool roving, and my favorite gadget the Clover Needle Felting Tool.   I chose to make up my own pattern and I went with a bluebird/barnswallow type bird on a branch and some spirals because they are my favorite design to draw (and my daughters as well).

 

 

 

I also got a chance to try the blanket stitch and I even added a whip stich to it as well. I stayed up until 2:30am, but it was all worth it....because my little gal insisted on wearing it all morning and has been showing it off proudly to whomever might come to visit us during this lovely winter storm.