Gold Finch

Watching the Birds

I love to watch the birds eating out of the birdfeeder in the backyard. We have a lot of Cardinals when the weather is cold. Aparantly, I'm not the only one watching.

The light wasn't very good, but that is one of our resident Red Tailed Hawks, keeping an eye on things. It started sitting in the field behind the house.

Then it moved right into the backyard on the pool fence.

The birds didnt seem to mind very much and kept munching away.

The blackbirds are called Brewers Blackbirds. I had never seen them before we moved here. They have intense bottle green feathers on their head and look amazing in the sunlight. I have to watch out for my cardinals though. Huge flocks of the blackbirds roost in our trees sometimes and drive the smaller birds away from the feeder.

Art in Nature

My wonderful hubby edited this photo I took of the bright green leaves starting to form on a tree in the front yard. The black and white really makes the green pop!

The Original Bacon, Egg, and Cheese

"Quiche Lorraine"

I love this quiche, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Its one of those things that we usually have all the ingredients for. Bacon, onions, cream, cheese, eggs, nutmeg, parsley, flour and butter. I like the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook recipe, but I also like Julia Child's recipe. She said that it traditionally didn't include cheese, but used cream. BHaGC's calls for milk, not cream, and cheese. I prefer cheese and cream, so mine is a nice combination of the two.

I prefer to make the crust from scratch using butter, not shortening. The vegetable oil used to make shortening is made from corn, soybean, or cottonseed oil, or a mix of the three. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure in 1890 they didn't eat oil from any of those three and that's a good enough reason for me not to use it. I don't eat cotton, therefore I don't want to eat the oil from it either. And Julia Child used butter.

Gladiolas?

I think the entire flower bed in front of the pool is full of gladiolas! There are green leaves poking through everywhere. I was starting to wonder if there were going to be any flowers here this spring. The landscaping around here seems limited to trees and grass.

One of the trees is a magnolia tree though, and I can't wait until it starts blooming.
I cant wait to cover up all that grass under it with mulch. And lots of hostas. I have room to plant every shrub I've ever wanted in this yard. Personally, I think one little patch of grass is enough and the rest should be landscaping. Grass is overrated unless you are a cow or a soccer player, lol!

More evidence of the deer that I haven't been able to photograph yet. I think they're teasing me.

Have a great day!

Around the Ranch

Its still cold here at Roubidoux Ranch, but we have hopeful signs of Spring coming out.

The dogs are getting so big. They have gained almost twenty pounds each since we got them at the end of January. They are Labrador and Border Collie mixes.

This is the female, Raven.

And this is the male, Bear, playing with his sister.

We've had some nice walks around the property, getting to know it. In the hay pasture, there is a corner where the woods are close on both sides. This "superhighway" runs between the two bunches of woods. I can only imagine how many rabbits must use it to get between the two patches of trees without a hawk spotting them.

We have seen at least 10 deer on the property, but I haven't been able to talk them into posing for a picture yet. The bucks have already dropped their antlers for the year but have left memories of last year scattered around the ranch.

Life on a Southern Farm: Chicken Nesting Box Giveaway

Life on a Southern Farm: Chicken Nesting Box Giveaway: "FarmMan is still busy making chicken nesting boxes right here on the farm for our HenPals Chicken Nest Box store site. Sales have been st..."