Rufus-sided (or Spotted) Towhee 

It's that time of the year when birds are getting antsy and are starting to get ready to find mates, build nests, lay eggs and raise babies!
The Towhee in the picture above was singing his little heart out on one of the beautiful sunny mornings this week.

It was warm enough to enjoy a cup of coffee sitting outside ..

                       

                                                                  

Where I watched a Red Robin gathering huge mouthfuls of dead grass from the meadow in front of the RV:

He was very serious about picking up as much as he could carry and eventually flew away with a huge wad of hay in his beak, barely able to see around it .. I hope he didn't crash-land somewhere!

The various cherries at the start of our road are all flowering in full now, some pink and some white:

The two large willows at the bottom of the property are leafing out rapidly!

And the furry catkins of the pussy willows at the village pond are opening up as well:

In the neighbor's meadow this enormously pregnant cow tried to look around her huge belly when she heard me walking behind her on the road ..

                                       

I thought there might even be two in there, although I haven't seen any twins yet.
Most of them have only one, but these are big cows (Angus) and I guess that means big babies!
Two days later she was the proud mama of only one calf after all!

It's the first brown calf of the herd! So far I've only seen black ones, even if there mother's were brown.

                             

Other than all things 'Spring' moving forward rapidly, I don't have much else to report I think, besides the usual goings-on ..
I did some baking. As I said before I think I've finally sort of mastered sourdough bread!
This (partially wheaten) sandwich bread really came out just perfect (knock-on-wood!).

I suspect that the main reason for succeeding lately is the maturity of my starter. It's happy as can be, lively, bubbly and strong!
Tradition compels me to name your starter, and I've seen some funny ones, but I haven't come up with something fitting yet.
It will come to me ..

After a phone call with my mom in which she mentioned having had 'boterkoek' when having coffee with my niece, I had a sudden craving for this typical old-dutch pastry so I made one myself:

                                    

It takes a whole package of real butter and the same amount of sugar but since this a Sunday-only treat we're not going to think about such trivial things now, won't we?
(Boterkoek, or Dutch butter cake, is a toothsome snacking cake and classic of Dutch cuisine. With almost as much butter as flour, Dutch butter cake is rich and dense. It's closer to a large cookie than a cake, but then the Dutch word for cookie, koekje, also means little cake.)

Besides having coffee out on the patio we also had our first dinner outside this week .. can you believe it, dinner outside in March? It was still 70F (21C) at 6 pm. Wow!
I just really hope this doesn't forebode a terrible hot summer ..

                               

Most of this week looked like in the picture above, grey and wet. There were a couple of days it literary rained .. all .. day .. long!
At the top of the pond is where the runoff water from the parcel next-door, which sits slightly above us, comes down and when it's raining like this it creates a small waterfall!

                                    

                                                                                                                 

As I mentioned before, fortunately our pond drains into the pond below us through a big culvert and even further down to a third pond, so we'll never flood!
Which is great, since we don't want to repeat the flooding (like this one) we went through, on several occasions, while living in Louisiana!

         

Whenever there was a little lull in the weather I ran out to squeeze in a little walk, although there wasn't much 'running' in all the mud.
You had to be careful not to slip-slide and end up on your but!

The last two days have been better though, James even went golfing yesterday, and I took some time putzing around in the yard and trying to find more signs of Spring.
Like this Vinca:

                                                                  

And this weeping willow at the third, and lowest, pond. Like all willows, it likes to have it's feet wet!

In Serena's garden the Forsythia is flowering:

Even the grass is starting to grow and our landlord Bret already did a first mowing, after cleaning up a grown-over area from some blackberries and old fencing.
Which is where he encountered this Gopher snake:

                                                         

It's a harmless snake, with a beautiful pattern, and actually very helpful for gopher and field mice control, but they're still a little creepy to me.
(Especially when you come up on him when walking to the garbage can and don't see or hear him until you're very close .. too close!)

Talking about snakes .. they remind me of St Patrick's Day which we 'celebrated' last Monday.
There's the old myth that St Patrick cleared Ireland from snakes and since we never had a saint wandering around these areas we do have them!
Of course we're not Catholic or even remotely Irish but hey, there's food involved, and that is always a reason to party!

We didn't have any Guinness or whiskey or even Irish coffee, but for most Irish this saying is right on the money for this day!

I did bake Soda-bread though:

This is probably the easiest bread to bake, just flour, water, salt and baking soda and I added raisins to half of the dough ... which we secretly like the best.

                 

                

Like always, I made Corned beef (in the Instant Pot) for dinner with all the usuals (as in potatoes, cabbage and carrots).
Also as always, I couldn't find the point-cut I wanted so I had to make do with the flat cut, which is considerably leaner and doesn't come out as tender as the point, but it tasted fine and that's what matters!
(Note to self: search for a point cut early and/or try the slow cooker next time. Rumor has it the meat stays juicier that way?)

Besides all that there wasn't much a-do this week, compliments of the weather.
I stayed inside, did some spinning and embroidering, read a lot and worked on this horrible puzzle, which I'd vowed never to make again:

It's hands down my most difficult one, but so interesting and tempting (cats and books!) so here I am .. falling for it's siren-song again!
Having said that I have the slightest itsy-bitsy feeling, that it's going just a teensy-weensy little bit easier than last time?

As Sherlock Holmes said: "Have courage, Watson"

     

Spring is definitely in the air!

As usual, pretty much overnight, the wild Cherry Plums (Prunus Cerasifera) have popped their flower buds and they are a beautiful sight against the bright blue sky!
They're the first to flower every year and of course I couldn't resist stealing a few branches for the house!

Together with the daffodils and the sun peaking through the back window the house looks rather cheerful.
I'm spending many hours in my comfy chair there, just reading the day away!

                                          

Now the weather is starting to look like we're heading into Spring, I've worked on trying to protect my raised beds against future squirrel attacks, which I'm sure are going to happen as soon as I'll start to grow something.
Since these beds are temporarily, until we'll have a place of our own where I can set up some proper beds, I went with another repurposing 'hack'.
I picked up a large three tier rabbit-cage from Marketplace and cut and dismantled it in 3 roughly shaped cages:



I have just enough left over to make covers for all of them as well!
No squirrels, or deer or birds, will have access to a free vegetable 'smôrɡəsˌbôrd' anymore!
Famous last words right?

But these beds are not the only one's that need protection. Look what's poking up through the soil already, and apparently survived the winter!

                                        

                             Rhubarb! 

I think I have to bite the bullet and buy (Gasp!) a roll of hardware cloth and wrap several other plant-boxes as well if I want to either eat or enjoy them.
Last year the deer kept snatching the new leaves of my roses and lupines every time they put some new ones out!

In anticipation for Spring we've also re-hung the bat-box.
It turned out that last year's position, in a tree with low hanging branches, was not the best one.
Apparently the bats, despite their excellent echolocation abilities, don't like branches in their flight-approach. Point in case .. we didn't have any takers for the box!
But, after much deliberation, we found them the perfect spot!

    

This is a dead tree-trunk at the far end of the pond, so close to water, with trees behind the box but not in front, facing south-east which is perfect, and away from too much 'traffic'.

                                  

Fingers crossed this year we will see some.
Since a single bat can eat up to 3000 mosquitos a day, they'll be a welcome addition to our outdoor space!

With the warmer weather, the mice and voles in the meadows are stirring and the hawks are on high alert patrolling over the fields.
This Northern Harrier got lucky and caught himself some dinner!

                                                                

Talking about food .. my sourdough starter is turning more reliable every week, a sure sign of 'maturing':



... which makes my breads looking better and better:

                                                                                           

                                                   

I'm baking a (small) loaf almost every week, alternating sandwich bread with the more rustic 'boules'. After slicing I freeze them and with this routine I pretty much always have bread available. Cool beans, as Judy would say.                                                                  

Oh, I almost forgot, we're already on daylight savings time!
It always makes for a confusing couple of weeks when I call my family in Europe since they don't 'change' until the 30th!
So instead of the 9 hours difference we're now only 8 hours 'behind'!
Every year I hope they'll stop this practice, it really doesn't serve any purpose any more and most people seem in favor to abolish it, but here we go again.

                                  

  

Spring is only 11 days away, the weather is improving, and the Daffodils are flowering!
This beautiful 'double' variety showed up growing in the ditch next to the road we're on, so I decided to steal a few, dug them up and transplanted them into my garden.
I hope they're going to establish themself here.

Inside the house my Amaryllis also finally 'got the message' and is showing off it's gorgeous dark-red flowers:

                                         

Last Tuesday of course marked the date of another Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday.

               

Despite the devastating Jan. 1 truck attack, that killed 14 people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, the parades there did go through (under heavy security measures) and thank the heavens nothing happened!

The Krewe of Rex in the iconic Mardi Gras colors, purple, green, and gold, drew huge crowds as usual.
(The three colors have symbolic meanings: purple represents justice, green stands for faith, and gold symbolizes power. The colors are used on everything from the floats to costumes!)

                                        

Since we've spend some time in Louisiana, where we attended several parades, we're still celebrating this day every year with the baking of some King Cake.
I tried yet another recipe this year, basically since I almost forgot to make it and didn't have much time or ingredients, but managed to put together a 'cake' made from (store-bought) cinnamon-rolls!
I basically un-rolled them, sprinkled them with some more cinnamon, butter and pecans and sort of breaded them back together.
Added some sprinkles in those royal colors and voila!
                                                    

Not the prettiest cake, although it did look better in reality, but it tasted just fine!

The pond is attracting lots of (different) ducks at the moment, I think they're out scouting for possible nesting grounds/waters.
This male Ring-neck Duck and his two ladies are here almost every day:

Getting some quick zzz's in ..

And this Lesser Scaup seems interested in our pond as well, although he hasn't brought his wife by yet:

 

 
The Newts have been stirring for a while already. There must be hundreds in the pond!
  

                                               

                                                

And look who are back? The #@$(*^! noisy Bullfrogs! I've only seen a few so far but I bet there are a huge number of them as well!
I only recently realized that Bullfrogs are the frogs who's legs are the southern delicacy we've actually eaten while we were in Louisiana! I just don't know if I could kill and eat them ... I'm  going to be tempted though ... that horrible noise!
                

And last but not least, the main story of this week was probably this:

                                     

Yup! Going back for an other visit to the motherland!
The last time we went is already 2.5 years ago .. wow .. how did that happen?

James is staying home this time so I have to fly by myself, which I swore I wasn't going to do anymore, but there you have it.
Finances are a big part of it, or better said the cost of a ticket. I mean, we have it, but $1300!! Holy smokes!
Fortunately my mom is picking up the tab for this one so I'm very happy about that!

About 7 weeks to go, but who's counting?