Oops. It has been so wet that I have not ventured down to the valley to check the trail cam in two months. There were over 900 pictures on the camera and the batteries were almost dead! There was also a round yellow spider egg sac situated right over the camera lens.
Luckily, the occlusion was deposited only about a week ago, so there were plenty of pictures without a giant fuzzy spot, mostly of raccoons, cats, opossums, and armadillos, with the occasional leg of fox or coyote.
(I figured I would spell it out in the title so those disinclined toward serpents could skip this post.) My eagle-eyed eldest spotted something in the backyard and informed me that there was a snake out there eating something. I grabbed the snake grabber and went to investigate, but it was just a plain bellied water snake eating a toad, no venomous beastie (I did get the ID from the experts on “What Snake is This? North Texas Educational Group on FB). I’m a little sad for the toad, as we seem to be down to one backyard toad and one garage toad, but it was really cool to watch the snake. We kept the dogs inside as the snake lay by our patio table waiting for the toad to deflate so it could finish the process of swallowing it. We would check on it at intervals (and take pictures), and finally the poor pups couldn’t cross their legs anymore so we put them on leashes to go do their business. The snake, full and sluggish, eventually slid out of the yard. It took two hours, but the serpent was eventually able to finish its very large meal!
I bought Paul Hollywood’s “100 Great Breads” book. (I think I’ve mentioned before that I am a huge fan of The Great British Baking Show.) I wanted to use Heritage Wheat (both the bread mix and the whole wheat flour) to make rolls for burgers (calling them hamburger buns doesn’t seem appropriate), so selected a simple wholemeal recipe, then divided it into eighths instead of forming a long loaf. They turned out quite well, and were well appreciated by the whole family! Although I could have made them smaller. They rather dwarfed the burgers.
Apparently I dropped a cucumber seed when I was planting in my container. Huh. I guess we’ll see how it does!
I love baking with parchment paper. I use it for cookies, bread, biscuits, chicken nuggets, and meat loaf, to name a few. Lifting a whole meat loaf out of the pan cleanly is probably the most satisfying! I cut a piece larger than my pan and press it in (I tried fancy folding, but it is just as effective to press it into the corners; the wrinkles don’t make much difference).
Critters and Craft 