Yard Farmer Wildlife, Some Baking, And A Few Carvings.

Having spent most of my time lately either ****** contents deleted by me, the First Amendment needs more teeth ****, the yard has gotten a little out of hand so this last week I have spent some time outside, trying to get it back into order.

So far, the tomatoes and peppers I planted earlier have set no fruit at all and done very little other than attract some rather large visitors.

I am sorry for the out of focus snap but my camera phone sometimes will NOT get what I want and instead LOVES the background, much to my frustration.

So far 5 of these beauties have wandered in to strip the plants back to bare twigs but, as they are not only a BEAUTIFUL adult moth but, like all life on our planet, they are under unceasing attack by human activity so instead of feeding them to the chickens, I just moved them back out of the yard.

While working outside I have so far encountered - painfully - three stinging caterpillars.  I only managed to get pictures of two of them, the third went into orbit when I whacked the branch it was on.  To say I was fed up with another sting is an understatement, live and let live went out the window with that one!

This little jewel, only two inches long, is the bringer of hours of intense pain.   Twice in two days, first across my palm and inside of my wrist and the second time, across the top of my arm as I brushed past some branches.

And this one not only hurts like hell but at 4 inches long, it will hit a much larger area when run into.  I rolled the entire top of my foot across one of these this summer as I crawled along, planting tomato seedlings.

Moving into the house for wildlife, I have been finding spiders that look so much like the very venomous Brown Recluse spider that I had to get some very close up photos to be sure what I was dealing with.

And to be honest, I am still not sure what we have other than it is not a Recluse.  How do I know?

The eyes have it!  Recluse only have six eyes arranged in a U shape, with three sets of two eyes so the shape of the face is different to my spiders.  They are still large and alarming looking but, as they stay close to their funnel-shaped webs, I am not going to worry about them anymore.

Any monoculture is bad and my house is no different, so as long as they won't kill us, they are welcome to house room.  So far there are two in the kitchen window, one in the bathroom window and one very large - and shy so no picture of her - one living in the wood paneling of the dining room.

The spot of light you can see at the front is actually eye shine from the flash.  You have GOT to love a spider big enough to show eye shine! 

Grasshoppers large enough to try to open the window on their own are also part of the joys of Florida.  We lost two chickens to these big Lubbers, they are extremely poisonous so look but don't eat.  For such a large bug they do very little damage to the garden so other than moving them away from the chickens, that is all I do with them.

This little pile of bird droppings is actually a baby Swallow Tail Butterfly, munching away at my lime tree.

Tree frogs are getting everywhere, here in the track of the sliding glass door but almost everywhere I move things, out jump tree frogs.  Of course, the fact that I have done everything in my power to help them along might be part of it, I have buckets and buckets of tadpoles carefully placed for maximum frog production.  The Tree Frog God loves me!

Still working with Simon's allergies we have continued to make new recipes and to adapt old ones.

The old family favorite - basic white bread recipe in my last blog - has now been turned into pizza crust, breadsticks, mozzarella sticks and a sticky sweet cinnamon bread.

I was very surprised that when my sticky cinnamon bread rose before baking that it had turned into two sleeping Doctor Who monster grubs.  Imagine the screams as these two slug pups womble towards their victims.

The pizzas were amazing and have been done twice now, despite it taking over 5 hours to get to this stage.  

No matter what shape, dipped into a homemade marinara sauce? Fantastic!

Aw bless, baby pizza sleeping in their nest.

As it was eaten WAY too fast to take a picture I will only give you our newest recipe we have invented.  Living with an ever-tightening budget and with egg and dairy allergies, inventiveness is the order of the day now in our kitchen!

Gooey Chocolate Surprise

 Pour off the clear liquid from an organic can of coconut milk.

Mix it with 2 cups of sugar in a pan and heat very gently until the sugar has dissolved and remove from heat.

Add to that one-half cup of good cocoa powder.

Then add the rest of the can of coconut milk, the solid white cream and gently mix it in.

 One cup at a time, add 3 cups of flour into which has been added one teaspoon baking soda.

Then add one-half cup of chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased oven dish and bake at 350 until the edges are firming up, drop to 300 for about 20 min or so until the middle is still gooey but the edges are firm.

When you dish this up it is like a hot chocolate mousse and very nice indeed.

I am sure you could add vanilla and eggs if you like to boost the food value but as it is, it is company good.

A note on the time it takes to cook this, while I did take notes as I made it, I forgot to time it so the times are not as exact as they could be.  Just watch it as it bakes and you will be fine.

"And now for something completely different!"  Dude guarding the worlds most pathetic meat chickens.

A few weeks ago I found my old Celtic Knot book and got the idea to carve a few and see if they would sell any better than anything else I have carved.  So far, not so much.  But I have traded a few for some pigs and, after all, the more I carve the better set I will be for St. Patricks Day.

****** contents deleted by me, the First Amendment needs more teeth **** I will be going up to Savannah for the big holiday and getting a table at the art fair.  Celtic carvings + drunken Irish wannabees = $$$.  I hope!

I won't bother to label the rest of the pictures, they are all the carvings I have done over the last 6 weeks so I will finish up this blog with them.  I****** contents deleted by me, the First Amendment needs more teeth ****

Working with scavenged wood, sometimes there are imperfections, like the hole in this Green Man's head.

This one did not photograph well, for some reason.  If you can't tell, it is a floating pelican.