Birthday, Sewing and Eagles

I can't believe it has been so long long since I wrote on my Blog. It has been crazy busy at work. We are just finishing the Showbook for the show in Knoxville, July 13 - 16; and the registration guide is finished for the Des Moines show, September 28 - October 1. And, I just returned from three days of planning meetings for the 2012 summer show in Grand Rapids, MI.

And, then I had a birthday yesterday - had a nice leisurely day - stopped at Farmer's Market to pick up some home grown tomatoes, watermelon, green beans, and cabbage. Then did a little shopping, had lunch with Wayne at Tribeca, and home for a quiet evening.

Heavy rain and lots of wind woke me up about 5 a.m. so I got up. Decided I needed to make some new pillows that I use when I travel. They are shaped like dogbones and fit perfectly into a carryon.  I just finished making three new ones so I'll be set for a while.

Have you joined the new website, MyQuiltPlace.com ?  It's free and you can make your own page, add photos of your quilts, join or start interest groups. Check it out by clicking here.

Have you checked out the Decorah eagles lately. They are expected to fly away sometime this week. Right now they are sitting on the branches of the tree where their nest is. See how big the eagles are now. Click here to check them out.

That's all for now... hope you are having a great day!

Happy Memorial Day!

Memorial Day has always been a special day for us - to remember and celebrate my sister Marcia's birthday on May 30, and to visit the cemeteries where our families are buried. We also made an afternoon of taking fresh peonies to the cemeteries and visiting grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles grave sites.

And we always then enjoyed some traditional Memorial Day food - grilled chicken and ribs, home-made potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, and yummy desserts. I have a dessert to share with you today.

Whoopie Pies


From Food Network Kitchens

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking sheet.



Ingredients
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup natural cocoa powder, such as Hershey's
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons fine salt
18 large marshmallows (not minis)

Put the unsweetened and semisweet chocolates and butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl; heat at 75 percent power until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir, and continue to microwave until completely melted, about 2 minutes more. (Alternatively, put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl. Bring a saucepan filled with an inch or so of water to a very slow simmer; set the bowl over, but not touching the water, and stir occasionally until melted and smooth.)

Whisk the sugar, eggs and vanilla into the chocolate mixture until smooth.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into another bowl. Gradually whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until moistened. Switch to a rubber spatula and finish folding the batter together; take care not to over-mix.

Use a small cookie scoop or spoon to drop a heaping tablespoon of batter onto the prepared pan. Repeat to make 36 cookies, spacing them about 1-inch apart. Bake until the cookies spring back when lightly touched, about 6 minutes.

Cool the cookies slightly. Transfer half of the cookies to a rack. Turn the remaining cookies on the pan over, so they lay flat side up. Place a marshmallow on top of each flipped cookie and return pan to the oven. Cook just until the marshmallow begins to soften and puff, about 3 minutes. Cool marshmallow topped cookies slightly, about 2 minutes. Top with the remaining cookies, pressing lightly to make sandwiches. Cool whoopee pies completely on wire racks. Serve. Store in tightly sealed container for up to 1 week.

Enjoy your Memorial Day, and remember our troops!

Blue Jays vs Hawk

Tonight Wayne and I were sitting on the back porch eating our supper when I spotted a hawk in a tree at the edge of our yard. All of the other birds disappeared - most went into hiding in the wisteria bushes. And all was quiet... until a pair of blue jays let the hawk know that this was their backyard. They dive bombed the hawk, until the hawk flew to the opposite side of the yard, and they dive bombed it again and chased it on down the street. Blue jays are noisy anyway, and you should have heard the racket they created as they chased this hawk out of the yard.

Soon the birds were back on the feeder. Here are some special guests at the feeders tonight, and one bluebird who chose to land on the cable line.

This red-breasted woodpecker is a frequent visitor to the feeder. He usually gets the feeder to himself.  The white bucket behind the feeder is a baffle to keep the squirrels out of the feeders. It works most of the time.

This is the first time we have spotted the female rose-breasted grosbeak eating the corn. She very meticulously plucked off a kernel, ate it, and helped herself to another kernel.

This bluebird landed on the cable line and waited for me to snap his picture. We have a bluebird box on a tree out in the yard. They loved it earlier this week when I mowed the yard - they swooped down to get the bugs I had stirred up.



Jenny wren has built nests in both wren houses now - guess they can't decide which one to set up house in.

All of our backyard birds certainly do give us a sideshow, especially in the evening when they come in to feed. We like our feathered friends.

Enjoy our Backyard Birds...and Tuffy too!

While cleaning our back porch this morning, I sat and watched the birds that come to our feeders every day. Soon I grabbed my camera so I could share them with you - we feed the birds year-round so have many that stay here all year long. In addition to the cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, indigo buntings, hummingbirds, and American goldfinches that I photographed, I also saw some hairy woodpeckers, titmouses, mourning doves, sparrows, and wrens. What fun to listen to all of them singing their songs. Needless to say, we buy sunflower seed in 50 pound bags. :-)

Here is my Smilebox album of photos of the birds in our backyard today...

Digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

Cosmati Pavement at the Royal Wedding

The Cosmati Pavement at the Royal Wedding in Westminster Abbey - looks like a quilt, doesn't it?

E-1's Big Adventure

On Sunday I was sitting at the computer doing some paperwork, and decided to use a split screen so I could watch the eagles for a while too. Well, I had a really big show when Eaglet #1 (2 days old) was exercising his independence by trying to wiggle out from under Dad.

Here you can see both E-1 and E-2 as Dad tries to corral them both under him. Not an easy task.

Dad works on the nest all of the time - he is the nest builder, and he rearranges it every time he returns to the nest. He works on the inside rim of the nest to make room for the growing eaglets. He was doing that and either E-1 grabbed his beak or Dad caught some feathers of E-1, and the next thing you know, here is little E-1 on the outside of the nest bowl.

Here we have E-2 and the third egg in the nest, E-1 outside the bowl of the nest, and Dad pacing to try to figure out what to do next. He finally decides that he needs to sit back on the egg (which should hatch in the next day or two).

"Hey, Dad, here I am"... little E-1 keeps popping up behind Dad. Dad was very restless and kept moving around the nest.

"Hey, hey, I'm over here"... good thing the weather was warm that day so there was no harm to little E-1.

Bob Anderson from the Raptor Resource Group that provides this camera shows us the horses in the field next to the tree where the eagle nest is located.

This is Mom, who just arrived back at the nest. She looked at Dad as if to say, "what have you been doing up here?"

Mom takes over the duties of sitting on the nest. She, too, moved around quite a bit. Finally she turned to where E-1 was trying to climb back into the nest. She loosens the edge of the nest some, and uses her beak to scoop E-1 back into the nest under her. E-1 isn't so naughty when Mom is around.

And that concludes E-1's Big Adventure on Sunday afternoon!

This is enjoying nature at its finest! If you haven't logged on to check out the eagles for yourself, here is the link.

In Honor of President's Day

Since we have been in an eagle-watching mode lately, I chose this Redwork Eagle as my tribute to honor President's Day.

Some of you may remember me showing this on Simply Quilts a few years ago when Michael Buckingham was there with his book, Presidential Redwork. I demonstrated how to do the redwork for him.

Do you like redwork? I find it very relaxing. The key is to take small even stitches and you do get into a rhythm making those stitches.

Wishing for our President to take actions as keen as the eyesight of an eagle.

It's nearly time for the Decorah, Iowa, eagles to lay their eggs and start sitting on their nest. This morning they were both sitting on the branch next to the nest. The new camera lets them move the camera and also to zoom it so we are getting great pictures of the eagles this year. Thank you to the Raptor Resource group for providing us all an up-close look at the Decorah eagles. We have a front-row seat to watching nature in action.

Here is the link so you can go view the eagles:

http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/ .

Eagle Cruise - What a Great Day!

Wayne and I enjoyed our annual Eagle Cruise on Kentucky Lake yesterday. While the temperatures were in the 30's, it didn't feel as cold on the deck taking photos as I though it would be - I tried to stay in some protected spots so I wasn't standing in the wind. With clothing four layers deep and a nice scarf to wrap over my head and neck, I spent quite a bit of time on the front and back decks taking photos of the 27 eagles we saw this year. Many others aboard, including Wayne, enjoyed watching from inside with their binoculars.

Previously we had seen most of the eagles sitting in trees. This year most of the eagles were flying. There were some immature ones sitting in trees in the coves - like they were trying to stay out of sight - I did get some photos of them though with my dandy 300 mm lens. There were lots of gulls flying along the boat, and we saw lots of coots - a favorite meal of the eagles (more on that later).

After the cruise we had dinner at the Ken Lake Lodge, which was followed by a great program by the Louisville Raptor Rehab group. They brought several raptors which have been injured and can't be returned to the wild, plus one beautiful barn owl they have raised and use for the educational program.

Before we even left the dock, we spotted an adult eagle sitting in the trees across the lake from the landing. Can you spot the adult eagle sitting in the trees? Hint: Look for the while head on a black body. The white birds you see flying are some gulls that seemed to follow us throughout the cruise.






Just after leaving the dock we spotted a peregrine falcon that has taken up residence in this big osprey nest on top of the bridge over Kentucky Lake. It's head is peaking out above the nest.







Here's the bridge... so that nest is way up there. The falcon has a bird's eye view.









After a while, you can spot the eagles pretty easy. This adult eagle was tucked into the trees.

It's fun to see them flying with their full-wing span. The wing span can reach seven feet.










There are two immature eagles sitting on the branch of this tree. They are a little fuzzy because this tree was back in a cove and it was quite a distance from the boat. Just look for two brown lumps sitting on the same branch.

We saw quite a few eagles flying along the tree line like this one.

This one looks like a missile flying into the trees.

They were soaring in groups - often they would fly away from us and then fly right back over the boat. They could have been performing their own symphony up there with the ease and grace that they were soaring.

Some of the coots who were swimming along the way became meals for the eagles. We saw this eagle swoop down alongside the boat to catch a coot - the coot was fast and went underwater. The eagle went up and swooped down to make another pass for the coot - again the coot went underwater. This time the eagle hovered like in this photo to wait for the coot to come up - when the coot came up, the eagle snatched it from the water and few off to a tree for a meal. The hovering was like watching someone tread water; it was amazing to watch.

Here is an American Coot - it's a water-dwelling bird that resembles a duck.

After watching the demise of the coot, we enjoyed the cruise back to dock, checking to see if some of the eagles were still sitting in the same spots... and some were.


After docking it was off to dinner at the Lodge. Then we saw some raptors in a program presented by the Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, Inc. from Louisville. I'll share some of the photos I took of the raptors.

First we saw one of the smallest owls - the Saw-whet Owl that only weighed 3.3 oz.

Eileen Wicker talks about the Common Barn Owl.



The Turkey Vulture wanted to flap its wings - can't fly though because one wing was damaged at the joint.



After his performance, the Turkey Vulture sat down for a rest



This Golden Eagle had been caged for 18 years; they are nursing it back to health.
This was its first time to be taken out for their educational program.

The Golden Eagle gets its name from the gold feathers around its neck.

Check out the talons on the Golden Eagle.

Debbie handles the American Bald Eagle - it has a damaged wing.

Look at the beautiful coloring in the Bald Eagle's feathers.



What a beautiful day to go eagle watching. The other raptors were a bonus!
Thank you to the staff at Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky for
sharing their knowledge about the raptors with us.

 This morning (Feb. 6) was the final eagle cruise for this year. If you are interested in going on one of these cruises in 2012, contact http://www.kentuckylake.com/lbl/eagletours.htm or call 270-924-2020.

And here is another place for you to watch eagles online. It is the Nest Cam at Decorah, Iowa, near the fish hatchery. What smart birds to build their nest by a fish hatchery!

Here is the link: http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/index.html

They have a live camera that runs 24/7. Then you can also look at the hourly shots posted. Right now the Decorah eagles are getting their nest ready - shredding corncobs for nesting material. Last year we watched from the time their eggs were laid in February until the three young eagles left the nest in August. It's a great educational tool for your children and grandchildren to watch. 

This photo is from the daily stills at Decorah.

Happy Eagle Watching!

Scissors & Pincushions & Tools, Oh My

When we had our new windows put in, I had to do some serious cleaning in my sewing room. I went through tote bags of stuff, and sewing kits of stuff, and found that I have a lot of pincushions and scissors too. So today I shot some photos of them in groups so you could see them. Most of these pincushions were given to me by guilds and conferences, and a few I bought at some guild bazaars - I don't have patterns for any of them.

So here goes... A Quilter and Her Tools

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Winter, Cold, Brrr



click on photo to enlarge


It is only about 25 degrees here in Paducah today and I thought this photo that I took in Iowa during our Christmas holiday portrayed that same degree of coldness. We don't have any snow in Paducah though - it's just COLD!






So it's a good day to stay inside and sew and do some computer work.

Hope you are staying warm where you are...

Merry Snowy Christmas!

Bonnie & Wayne Browning wish you all a Verry Happy New Year. Here are some photos from our Christmas with our families in Iowa.

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Merry Christmas from Bonnie and Wayne

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