There was a nice little surprise out our living room window this morning. We had a group of 5 deer out there – and one distinctive lady is a return visitor from last winter!
It’s entirely possible other deer that have been visiting us are returns from last winter, but few are distinctive enough to recognize, a year later. This one, with its piebald markings, is one of those few. She was part of a group of 3 deer. The other deer in the photo is part of a group of 2 that are regular visitors.
I hoped the piebald would come back! :-)
Still on the lookout for a deer missing its tail. :-D
Another deer photo from our bitterly cold February.
This was taken on a day when it was warm enough to snow, covering the feed I had put out in the morning. A bit of snow isn’t about to stop a hungry deer!
This next batch of critter photos are still from February. We had quite a few deer visits, including some new ones.
This was taken on a day when we had 7 deer show up at once. There seemed to be two groups of three, and one loner. A couple were quite aggressive about chasing the others away from the feed. As you can see by this tough guy (actually… it’s probably a gal), and the patch of skin dangling from its chin!
While tending the fire for the cookout, we were visited by many cats. They didn’t want to come close to the fire pit, but they did circle around us. Several went to and from the collapsing log building nearby.
Including this beautiful lady!
Beep Beep was unimpressed that I was taking pictures, instead of letting her climb on me. :-D
It’s called the primordial pouch, and all cats have it, to some extent. Our mama cat doesn’t really have it, because she’s all big belly on stick legs, so if she has one, it’s either full, or hidden by that belly or hers. Anything Fenrir has is hidden by long, long fur.
What a big boy he is. Fenrir is so small, she can actually sit on the window ledge, walk around and even turn around on it. DahBoy has to prop himself on the plant pot.
In case you are wondering about the yellow flags in the plant pot, I had put them around our avocado tree, with yarn going from one to the other. For some reason, the cats were absolutely insistent on getting into the pot. When one of the branches got broken off, I rigged this up. It sort of worked.
Unfortunately, the avocado did not survive the winter. This was the longest I’ve ever managed to keep one alive; it was about 3-4 years old. *sigh*
I’ve got two more pits in water to start new ones. Hopefully, we’ll manage to grow a tree!
I am really looking forward to our cookout this afternoon, and have been doing some preparations for things beyond hot dogs and corn dogs. :-)
I’ve got 4 foil packets now sitting, ready and waiting, allowing several hours for the seasonings to work their magic. Here is the first one I made up.
The base of this one is a packet of mixed baby potatoes. I stabbed them all over with a fork to allow the flavours in. The rest is mix and match of what I had available. A couple of carrots, a leek, and some asparagus (there was a good sale on those recently. ;-) ). They were tossed with Rosemary Lemon Salt, pepper, garlic powder and olive oil.
This amount ended up being split between two foil packets. I used a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil to wrap them in.
This is something I’ve done before, using whatever vegetables and seasonings I had, and cooking it in an oven. Today will be the first time I’m doing this over a fire. I can hardly wait!
I am also trying out two versions of cabbage.
I’d found a recipe and instructions online, modified slightly for what I had on hand. This is one cabbage, outer leaves removed and cut into 8 wedges. The cut sides are spread with softened butter. In with is is half a medium onion, Scarborough Fair Garlic Salt, pepper, and extra garlic powder.
Because you can’t have enough garlic.
These were also wrapped with a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil.
With this version, the only thing I changed was to toss everything in olive oil, instead of buttering the wedges.
As you can see, some of the leaves of cabbage came loose. Before wrapping it up, I took one out to give it a taste.
Wow.
I am totally still craving it right now. I think this is going to be a future salad; raw cabbage chunks tossed, with the same seasonings, tossed in olive oil. It was so, so good!
You know. When I was a kid, I hated cabbage. We used to grow lots of it, and my mother used it to make sauerkraut, or to wrap cabbage rolls. I don’t recall us ever eating it raw. My mother’s sauerkraut was incredibly strong – at least to me – and I didn’t like it. As for cabbage rolls, I loved the filling. Hated the cabbage. I still am not a fan of cabbage rolls (for a Polish person, that’s heresy! :-D ), and it’s because of the cabbage leaves. I’ve since eaten and enjoyed sauerkraut, cooked in bigos – something my mother never made – but that’s about the only time I’ll eat it.
Anyhow…
These cabbage wedges were also wrapped in double thickness, heavy duty aluminum foil.
Along with these, I have cut a pineapple into slices (with the core still in; otherwise it falls apart) to cook up on the grill for desert.
It should warm up to -4C by the time we’re going to start cooking over the fire. It’s going to be a beautiful day! I am so looking forward to it!
