Thankful Sunday--May 5, 2013

I am thankful for the sweet smell of cherry laurel.

A Visit with a Naturalist--Part Two

For most of the winter during my Second Looks, I found bones in the "wild" part of our yard. I became quite fascinated with them and wondered what they were and how they ended up where they were. Ward and I visited with a naturalist and found answers to some of our questions. I reported about the mammal part of that discussion in A Visit with a Naturalist--Part One.

I've been meaning to do the followup post of our visit for a couple of months now, and it looks like today is the day. This time I will focus on birds. More specifically, on parts of a crow that were found over several weeks. However, the problem with waiting for a couple of months after our visit, is that I forgot almost everything the naturalist told us. I do remember the bones were pretty easy to identify as coming from a bird because they were so lightweight. Also, the feathers found near some of the bones suggested that we had found parts of a crow. After that, it's all fuzzy in my head.

So today, I got out the bird bones we had collected and tried to figure them out. After a lot of Googling and help from Ward, I thought I had deduced what were the different parts of the crow. However, after more study, I realized that I had the front and back of the bird mixed up. Back to the drawing board. After more work, I think I have a pretty good idea of what we have. (And we only had two parts leftover.) Below you will see "our crow".

This drawing from the Enchanted Learning Company is what we ultimately used to identify the skeletal parts.

Here are the bones in their approximate positions.

Here is one of the wing feathers. The naturalist said that you could tell that by its shape. One side is much wider that the other making it look like an airplane wing. I found that really interesting.

Here are our leftover parts. They were a little darker than the others, so we thought that maybe they came from another bird/critter.

But Wait, There's More:

I think this is the crow's skull. However, at that time I wasn't collecting bones. I couldn't find it when I looked for it later.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--May 3, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

 Yes, I have no food waste. I have no food waste today.

(Does anyone recognize the modified banana song?)

This Week's True Food Confessions

We managed to eat out less than I thought we were going to this week. We were away for a long weekend and also had a lot of extra things going on. On our trip we had breakfast at our hotel and nice dinners at our relatives' house including grilled steak, pizza, and ice cream. It doesn't get any better than that according to the Carnivores. The rest of the week we managed to have dinners at home by making them simple. This included tuna mac, spaghetti, and baked chicken. By making them very simple and doing some prep work before I went to work, I was able to prepare meals even when I really wanted to call out for pizza. (However, I feel that call coming tonight.)

Speaking of simple, I tried a new baked chicken recipe. It was inspired by a recipe posted by Shara on Mama's Mission II. Apparently, various versions of this recipe have been around for a while and Shara put her own spin on it as did I. The point being, it is a very adaptable recipe. I have made it twice with different spices and each time it was a hit. Besides being very tasty, the recipe is VERY easy. Basically, it is Greek Yogurt, Parmesan cheese, and spices baked on chicken. It's almost as easy as when I spread BBQ sauce on chicken and zap it. This dish will definitely be done again. Below is the recipe I made this week.

Until next time...

Greek Yogurt Baked Chicken

Ingredients:

8 chicken tenders

1 cup Greek yogurt

¾ cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon garlic powder

-Preheat oven to 350° F

-Place chicken in a baking dish.

-Mix yogurt, cheese, and spices.

-Cover chicken with yogurt mixture.

-Bake for 30 minutes or until done.

This recipe is very easy to customize with types and amount of spices. Also, mayonnaise can be used in place of the yogurt.

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"The Language of Flowers"--a book review

Last month our book club read The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. The book revolves around Victoria, who grew up in the foster care system, and what happens to her when she is emancipated at age eighteen. It is not so much about the foster care system but how Victoria's time in foster care affects her life choices. The story switches back and forth from present day to when she was 10 years old and living with Elizabeth, who wanted to adopt her. Elizabeth teaches her the language of flowers—the Victorian idea that each flower and plant represents an emotion or idea. This connection to flowers helps Victoria find her way in the real world.

The story is simple in some ways. There are a limited number of characters and a lot of foreshadowing. But in other ways, it is complicated. Because of Victoria's background, she doesn't react and behave as most people would expect. This creates suspense and anticipation in the novel.

What did my book club think about the novel? Everyone liked it. In fact one person said that it was the best book she had read in a long time. She considered it a page turner. But to be quite frank, I don't remember a lot of the discussion because 

I hadn't finished the book. Actually, I hadn't even started it. Therefore, I couldn't relate to most of what was said.

However now that I've read The Language Flowers, I will have to agree with the others. I liked the book. Not only did I like Victoria's story, I liked the backdrop of the plants that were discussed. And my club and I are not alone in our like for the book. It was on the New York Times best seller list and every major newspaper in the country gave it a favorable review.

My recommendation: Read it--especially if you like character driven books. However, if you only like non-stop action, robots, and blood and guts, don't look here.

But wait, there's more,

Diffenbaugh has actually had several foster kids and based much of what she wrote on things she learned during those experiences.

But wait, there's even more.
 I don't like book reviews that give away too much of the story, so I try not to do that. If you want to know more about this story, you can read about it here.

A Second Look--May 1, 2013

Here are a few of the things I found this week during a Second Look.

Dogwood

All of our dogwoods are white except this one.

Most of the daffodils have faded, but these white ones are still blooming.

The azaleas started to bloom this week.

This deer was munching on some day lilies.

It was raining while I did most of my walk this week as you can see by the raindrops on this violet.

It's hard to get a picture, but we have bluebird eggs in one of our boxes.