Thanksgiving Treats

After a mighty-fine Thanksgiving dinner in true Southern fashion (stuffing cooked out of the bird and called "dressing" and a fancy dessert called Charlotte Russe, made of cream and lady fingers soaked in bourbon), we all enjoyed a trip to the High Museum of Art in downtown Atlanta, to see the Chinese Terracotta Warriors, which was really really cool. Upwards of 7000 of these statues were created and buried to honor China's first emperor. They were only discovered 35 years ago and are finding more and more curiosities every year.

Currently, I'm blogging from Lake Burton, where Ben's family has a lake house. Its a gorgeous place in the North Georgia mountains with lots of windows overlooking the lake (Ben was birding from the breakfast table!) We've been enjoying the scenery, and since its raining... we went shopping today! And I hit the jackpot- Ben's mom took us to Nora Mill Granary in the little village of Helen, Georgia. Fully-operational since 1876, this granary had the best stuff for a new bread maker like me :) I bought over $50 worth of flours, grains, seeds, grits, and even wheat berries! These are ingredients required by some neat recipes in my bread cookbook that I have not been able to find anywhere. The building itself was just as snazy, because they make all the good stuff right on the premise. The free porridge samples tasted even better when we saw the corn being ground right before our eyes using a water-powered turbine from the river outside. And to my delight there was a winery right next door where I had my fair share of tastings and picked out a few bottles to take home.

How to Make Pretzels

By popular demand, I've listed the recipe for the homemade pretzels below. They really are worth the effort, if you have a bread machine. If not, you should get one. Just to make these delicious delights :)

Dough

• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cups bread flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp SAF yeast (or 2 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast)

Pretzel bath

• 2 quarts water
• 2 tbsp baking soda

Topping

• 1 egg white beaten with 1 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp sea salt

1. Place dough ingredients in bread pan according to manufacturer's instructions (mine is wet, dry, yeast). Program for dough cycle, press start. Doesn't matter if its 1 1/2 or 2 lb loaf because you're not baking it in the machine.
2. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. When machine beeps (20 min or so), turn the dough out onto the work surface and divide into 12 equal portions. Using the palms of your hands, shape each portion into a 20" rope and form pretzel shape on parchment-papered pan. Let sit uncovered at room temperature for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 400 and bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large, deep pot. Add baking soda to water.
4. After 30 minutes, dip pretzel into boiling water with slotted spatula (they will be very gooey). Boil 45-60 seconds and use spatula to move pretzel to pan, 2" apart (it will be firm this time). You can boil two at a time.
5. Brush pretzels with egg glaze and sprinkle with salt. Bake 16-20 minutes, one pan at a time. They will turn a deep golden brown when done. Enjoy all 12 yourself, they are THAT GOOD :)

Its really snowing!

We thought it was silly to see a few snowflakes earlier this week, but check out our weather this morning! Maverick seems to be enjoying himself- I think he just feels like a million bucks in his Fido Fleece. We're thinking of all of you in the cold north, dealing with inches and even feet of this white stuff, and can't wait to be knee-deep at Christmastime :)

SNOW!

It has been so darned frigid here, ranging between 20-40, plus the wind is downright wretched, and we actually saw SNOW FLAKES yesterday! We feel like these two polar bears when walking over to work! Why Maverick still gets IN the water on his morning walk, we'll never understand, but we've been bundling up like Eskimos. Getting ready for Pennsylvania at Christmas :)

Homemade Pretzels

We put the bread machine to the test with this homemade pretzel recipe (from my new bread cookbook- thanks Mom!) They turned out so yummy and delicious! And we had fun making them into pretzel shapes... as you can see we need some more practice, but they taste good anyhow. Ben had mad skills since he got to make pizza dough at his summer delivery job. Notice his deep focus as he meticulously rolls out 20" of dough for each one!

In other news, Maverick has eaten both breakfast and dinner 9 days in a row now! I guess after 7 months, he's given up on his fasting and decided to live the good life?

We get excited about the little things around here :)

A Visit from Friends

We had a really fun weekend with Dave and Jodi visiting! We did all kinds of touristy things! We saw the Currituck, Bodie Island, and Hatteras lighthouses. We did some beach walking and climbed Jockey's Ridge. We even went birding with Ben at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge!
And of course, we took them around the Whalehead Club, as well as the Wright Brother's Memorial, and even a ride to see the wild horses on the 4WD beach! It was neat to stand at the Virginia/North Carolina border, even though Dave and Jodi had to drive all the way around to get here.

Dave brought his new fancy camera so he was the resident photographer for most of our adventures. The majority of the weekend was rainy, but we got outside every chance we could get. As you can tell from our Hatteras picture (right)- it was WINDY! But thankfully it was unseasonably warm, in the low 70s! See how pretty the sky was just before sunset atop Jockey's Ridge (above). Thanks for coming guys! We had a really good time with you both :)

Saving Another Endangered Species

One more tick mark for Ben and I for saving another sea turtle! The juvenile green was reported in the 4-wheel-drive area and when we picked it up, he was in really good shape, no injuries, just really cold! We took him to the vet where he will be examined, warmed up, and released into the Gulf Stream where he will be much warmer and can reunite with his friends in the Sargasso Sea.

Maverick's Jack-o-lantern

He is very proud of himself for "carving" out this pumpkin. For some reason, whenever he walks past it, he takes a few chunks out with his teeth, and spits them on the porch. Good thing we have a shelled-pet that eats all those little pumpkin pieces.

Sadly, Ben and I still haven't carved our pumpkins. And we even had a day off from work today. Maybe tomorrow. It gets dark so darned early (is dark when we're walking home from work now at 5 o'clock!) Roasting pumkin seeds sounds like an excellent stay-inside-where-its-dark-and-cozy activity for tomorrow eve.

Pelicans AND Hummingbirds for my Birthday, too!

Not only did I get to see the red wolves... but Ben also sent me on a safari to Pelican Island AND... banding hummingbirds!

Pelican Island is a man-made island of dredge spoil from one of the inlets to the ocean. This big pile of sand has turned into the perfect habitat for pelicans, thus the name. North Carolina has approximately 4000 pelicans all together, and this island alone houses over 1800 of them! I think I saw all 1800 of them on my trip- it was incredible!

We went to the island to band monarch butterflies on their migration to Mexico, but we didn't see any, so we enjoyed the pelicans instead. And the pretty view of the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

That was the morning. Then in the afternoon, I met up with Ben and we went on a hummingbird banding expedition- don't we lead adventurous lives?

The trip leader had set up a trap at a private residence in Manteo and put the feeder inside. When we arrived she told us about her work as only one of three hummingbird banders in NC, while we waited for a birdie to fly into the trap. Out of nowhere, and very fast, a ruby throated hummingbird arrived, took a drink, and snap, the little bugger was trapped inside the wire box.

She removed him from the box and put him inside of a toe from some stockings, to keep him stationary, while she did a series of tests. She measured the length of its wings and bill and then took a straw to blow air onto its chest to check its level of fat. This was the cutest thing ever- they do not have feathers on their breastplate, so that they can keep themselves from overheating, so when she blew with the straw, all you could see was a pink chest! She said he had lots of fat on him, which meant that he was going to migrate further south for the winter. We could tell he was a boy hummer because of the red feathers on his chin- look closely, there are only a few. That's because he's a baby- probably born in August! The males get lots of red feathers on their chin, hence their name, but the females just keep the white feathers there.

She attached a band, the size of a sprinkle (it weighed .0017 grams!), and off he went, at the speed of light. What a cool job, to band hummingbirds! After our program, she was on her way toward Raleigh to confirm a rare sighting of a broad-billed hummingbird, which would otherwise reside on the West Coast of the US. Her advice for backyard hummingbird feeders was to make your own sugar water (1 part sugar to 4 parts water ratio) without food coloring. She said anything else can be harmful to these cute little birds.

What a way to end the weekend. Thanks, Ben, for such a thoughtful, and enjoyable, birthday!

Red Wolves for my Birthday!

I've been stretching out my birthday as long as possible (like I do every year!) and this past weekend I got to enjoy the last of it! Ben somehow finagled me a seat on the Exclusive Red Wolf Trip in the Wings Over Water Nature Festival. I was one of only four people that got the rare chance to see the red wolves of NC! Just like in Yellowstone, the reintroduction of wolves to the area has its opposition but the story is really neat: Way back in my Charleston-days, I took a field trip to a red wolf sanctuary where the government was working on a project to increase the population of red wolves. It was so cool to see these beautiful, Maverick-like creatures, and know that someday they were be released into the wild again. As it turns out, they are now located in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, just an hour's drive away from where I live now! And that is the ONLY place where red wolves are wild in the entire world!

Back in the late-1980s, there were only a handful of red wolves left in the wild. They used to roam from Texas, through the mid-west, and up the Atlantic coast. But due to over hunting, only 7 individuals remained. They were all captured, taken to a facility in South Carolina, fed and bred, and now there are 220 in the wild and over 100 in captivity. Biologists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service want that number increased by 100 more in both the wild and captivity. To do this, they take captive-born wolves, mate them, and then deliver those babies, when they are only a few days old, to a wild wolf mother, and sneak them into the den with her other babies, and she will take care of all of them as her own. I asked how they get them in the den with her in there and they said that she is afraid of them and runs out, they put the babies in with the others, take off, and she returns to nurse them all. Really amazing!

Our trip started with a tour of the housing facility where these endangered creatures may visit, if their radio collars need changed or if genetics are needed to determine if they are pure wolf or a coyote hybrid. Here, there were 8 or more captive-raised red wolves, that are either part of the breeding program, or are being housed temporarily until another facility needs them (a zoo, for example). The red wolf is smaller than the grey wolf and very shy. In fact when we went in their pens to feed them, they either hid in their dog houses or paced along the back of the fence. Maybe it is the nursery rhymes that I grew up with that scared me, but I was surprised at this docile behavior when I was putting raw meat in their feeding area- but also delighted that they were not going to eat me!

After the tour there, we went out with the biologist a used radio transmitter to locate a pack that was close by. He heard the pups howling before we got out of the car, so he howled back to see if he could keep it going. Unfortunately we didn't hear them, but he said that they were really near where we were, hiding in the woods. He said that the pups are very curious and they probably had poked their heads out of the vegetation to see what we were but then ran and hid while we waited for them to howl. Check out this video of him howling- it is pretty neat.

Birding with Ben: the Blog

Believe it or not, Ben has begun his very own blog: Birding with Ben, isn't that cute? He's quite a fanatic this time of year (its migration season) so he has lots to share. Check it out at birdingwithben.blogspot.com!

Aerogarden Update

Look at my little plants, isn't it exciting? Looks like they will be ready for harvest in no time!

DAY 15

DAY 18

DAY 20

For Halloween, we dressed up as...

Banquet Servers! Who gets married on Halloween? Seriously! Both Ben and I had to work yesterday, but it really was a beautiful wedding. The food was excellent, as always, and we brought home two bottles of wine, sangria made by the chefs, and some fruit salad for Otis. The wedding coordinator used apples and pears on the tables as decorations so we brought those home too! This was a partying group, so the bar was extra stocked and if you look closely in the picture, you can see a canoe in the background. We tip in up on a rack and load it up with beer and ice and people love it, and its much easier on the bartender. People seem to drink more of it that way, too, and we make more money in our paychecks! It got really REALLY cold last night under that tent, so they brought in heaters, thankfully! We were running around clearing dishes and freezing, I can't imagine what those girls felt like in strapless dresses!

On our day off today, we're enjoying the sunshine and (semi-) warm temperatures. When we took Mav out this morning, the thermometer read 38 (its in the shade), but by the time we got to the beach, we had all taken off our jackets (I had to help Maverick, as he lacks thumbs to open the velcro on his own, haha). The beach was absolutely gorgeous, possible mid-60s, no wind at all, and tons of shells! There were no people around anywhere, either, it was truly a delight! You'd think that the water would be too cold for our maniac dog, but he doesn't seem to mind. He's a nut for seashells no matter what the weather!