My Sunday Picture....

Look what the Have-a-heart trap yielded today !  We trapped the Mama yesterday and she was lugged to another location on this earth. Babies are looking for her, and they also will be transported courtesy of Mr. Downeastdoingstuff, in due time.

Be healthy...

We all try so dangnabbit hard to be healthy, but sometimes there is nothing you can do. My 'little' boy is still so very, very sick. That Mono stuff. Went to the doctors again today, and there is nothing, really nothing you can do. No magic bullet for this one unfortunately. He's been sick for 6 days so far. sigh.

But here is one way we do TRY and stay healthy. (Although, now that I think about it, my son wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.)

BROWN RICE WITH ROASTED VEGGIES AND BLACK BEANS

Cut up a bunch of veggies...any kind you would like. This time I used zucchini, yellow summer squash, red onion and asparagus. Then toss them in some Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some Mrs. Dash Table Blend (or salt and pepper, but I am cutting out salt...)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Put the veggies on a cookie sheet. Spread them out.

Put into the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes. Stir it up every once in a while. I like to have some of the veggies sort of crispy, so I leave it in longer. Eyeball it.

Meanwhile, make up a batch of brown rice and open up a low sodium can of black beans. Drain the beans.

When the veggies and the rice are done, toss them together. Add the black beans and sprinkle with a generous amount of Parmesan Cheese, to taste. Adding shredded chicken to this is very delish. You can buy a rotisserie chicken at the supermarket. 

I forgot to take a photo of it when it was all done. This is what was leftover....

Quite yummy.

My Sunday Picture....on Monday....

The first Rhododendron flower to open up......I'm loving this.

My poor 'baby' (22 year old) has severe Mono! I've never seen anyone so sick.

Hopefully the 254 new pills he got and the IV saline solutions that were administered will get him on the mend. I hear it's going to be a long haul. At least he's not puking anymore....

Hence, the late Sunday Picture.

It's so hard to watch your child be sick.......

The Birds.....

Birds are winged, bipedal, warm-blooded, vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species.

   9,999 of them live at my house.

   And why not? It’s home sweet home around here for our fair feathered friends, thanks to Mr. Downeastdoingstuff.

   Take a glimpse of the structures he provides for them...yes....all out in my yard. sigh. 

   (just scroll quickly to get a  sense of how many there are...)

And, yes, birds do actually nest in most of them

We have happy cats.

“Fish got to swim, birds got to fly, I got to love one man till i die. Can’t help lovin’ dat man of mine.”

Oscar Hammerstein II from ‘Showboat’.

(Wonder why he’s got a blog where he’s called Birdman?) 

PORTCITYDAILYPHOTO

NOW,  you have to watch this sweet, sweet animated Pixar short....

(If the video doesn't work, go here: Bird Clip )

Happy Memorial Day Weekend...

People have different ways to display the flag. Here is a painted version on a wall of a structure in the Biddeford Pool area. Not quite sure exactly what the building is, sort of a garage and a couple of wings. Nevertheless, the owner chooses to show his/her patriotic side. Appropriate, this weekend, to remember all the men and women who have given their lives for our country.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Update: This morning, Mr. Downeastdoingstuff put this photo on HIS blog as well. Ahem. (We were driving around together taking photos one fine day...)

Anyway, you can see the entire building on his blog....interesting architecture.  Symmetrical anyway.

http://pasttimeamainebackyardandbeyond.blogspot.com

Blacksmithing....

A Blacksmith....what exactly is it??

BLACK: The color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum

huh??    Translation: the bottom of my son's socks.

SMITH: A worker in metal. Or an alias assumed by someone on the lam. No translation necessary.

So a blacksmith would be someone working on my son's socks....that would be me.

There are coppersmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths and probably other smiths, too.

Pretty cool, no?

Years ago, I took a couple of courses in blacksmithing. The real thing. Not Junior's socks.

(I'm still working on those...)

I LOVED IT !! It was right up my alley. One thing, I'm always cold, so standing by a fire was so perfect for me.  Secondly, holy smokes, you could actually change the shape of a big honking piece of metal!

And you could do this without backing into anything in the parking lot !!!!!

Of course, I was just about the only female in both of these classes. I don't really know why, but I didn't care. I was happy warming my fingers and thinking about how I should have brought marshmallows . Maybe some chocolate bars and graham crackers. A little glass of Merlot to sip by a crackling fire........

First we watched the demo....looked as easy as working with Playdo. 

Make the metal soft by sticking it into a 4 million degree fire until it turns red hot, and then smash it to smithereens with a hammer on an ANVIL until you get the shape you want. 

On an  A N V I L !!!!!!!

An Anvil: The thing that the Roadrunner continually dropped onto Wile E. Coyote's head from a 100 foot cliff.

The weird shape of the anvil is actually that way on purpose. It allows you to bend the metal into different shapes. For some reason, putting something that is red hot 1,000 degrees on it's surface and then pounding on it has no effect on that darn anvil. It seems to be impervious to all that abuse.

But the iron stick you work with, well, THAT can be twisted, curved, flattened and bent like a pipe cleaner. No prob.

So I made things. I made a poker for our woodstove, some hooks and a swivel plant hanger, that I designed.

It was like magic......

Here is the poker.....

We've been using it for over 15 years and it hasn't changed shape or bent at all.

Here's a close up of the end of the handle part. I flattened it and made it into a leaf shape, then twisted and bent it.

Close up of a few of the twists...

The working end of the poker...

I couldn't find any of the hooks I made, but here is the plant hanger. 

The hook can turn in it's holder so that I could turn the plant to face the sun.

Hmmm, that sure looks like a sharp tip, doesn't it ?

In May, just when spring bulbs and wildflowers are at their peak, this Creeping Phlox spreads out a carpet of deep, bluish purple.
'Sherwood Purple' creeps on my wet, stone wall this 17th of the month, bringing an excitement to my soul that nothing in winter has been able to do.
(Except for maybe Mr. Downeastdoingstuff....)

I love spring.

Happy Mother's Day aka My Sunday picture...

THIS is the reason I can celebrate Mother's Day. Twenty two years ago this sweet angel came into the world. On the first full day of his life, his dad took this photo. He sure looked happy to be here... I know we were !

Periodically I would do a watercolor of him to hang over the mantle in his bedroom. Sometimes he would know I was painting it, but most often I would just change the picture in the frame and when he would go up to his room, a new painting would be there. I wish I had done more of them....here are the ones I did.
"Now can I eat this blue donut??"

"yummy...these things are messy and they leak, but, boy, are they good!!"

"I want to be an artist,too, mom! Jackson Pollock, eat your heart out!"

(FYI... he has turned out to be a fabulous, creative artist. He just amazes me.!)

"Here, dad, FETCH!"

"Mom always tells me to stop and smell the roses."

(Ok, ok, we know it's a tulip.)

"My first kitty, the Wiz."

Like us, he just loves his pussy cats.

"Don't bother me...."

This painting is still on the wall in his room and the lighting isn't good and there are reflections in the glass, but you get the idea.  Sunning on a beach in Haiti...part of a cruise.

Here are most of them together.....That's my boy, it's been a wonderful  22 years !!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you all have a wonderful day.