Meet the wrens

One of my father's hobbies was woodworking.  When I moved into this house about 10 years ago, he gave me an assortment of items that he made--in the photo above, you can see the butterfly house he built.

Among the pieces he gave me--bat house, garden bench--he also gave me a wren house.  This is a little nest box built specifically for wrens; it has a small entry hole and no perch so that other birds can't use it.  I hung it on the fence in the back yard, mostly for decoration. 

After all these years, a pair of wrens surprised me by moving in this spring, and I have fallen in love with these spunky little brown birds.  They sing and sing so sweetly, and although they may seem a drab brown from a distance, they have a beautiful striated pattern of feathers when you see them up close.

My pair has successfully hatched at least three little birdies in that nest box.  Those parents work so hard, flying in and out all day long, bringing in food and taking out the trash.  They are very protective too, scolding me fiercely every time I set foot in the backyard.  One of the parents (I don't know if it's the male or the female) is giving me a piece of its mind in the photo.

I love having this little family share my yard.  In a way, it's like one last little gift from my father.

Rhubarb mania

Looking for ways to use up all that wild and crazy rhubarb growing in your yard?  Here's another fun recipe to try.

This had a really lovely sweet, but not bland, flavor to it.  The addition of the club soda made it nice and sparkly.  Of course, I'm a fan of carbonation, so how could I not enjoy it?

Mother's little helper

I made my bed before I went to work this morning.  Honestly, I did.

Peonies

Because some days, a person just needs peonies.

New recipe

Looking for new recipes is always a challenge for me.  It seems like all too often, I fall into the same old rut of making the same 10-12 recipes in rotation.  And as my tastes have matured (ahem), my standards for new recipes have risen.  They have to be easy to prepare, no weird ingredients, and they have to taste like something.  I find that I now prefer strongly seasoned dishes--not spicy like hot, but spicy like spiced.

So I was very pleased to find that I really, really liked this recipe.  I substituted ground turkey for the pork, cashews for the almonds, and since I didn't have coriander, I added extra cilantro.  The combination of flavors was different but tasty.  I would think it could easily be made vegetarian by substituting soy crumbles for the ground meat.

Definitely a keeper.

Garden bliss

I'm so pleased with how my garden is doing this spring.  I'm especially happy that the foxgloves are doing so well.  Even though this was a long, hard winter, I think all the extra snow was good for my perennials--I don't think I lost any plants this year.  

The problem with Alice is...

that she finds it so hard to relax.