Snow Shoeing and a Giant Tree

I've been doing a lot of snowshoeing this winter. Maine has had a ton of snow lately, although I am afraid most of it will be gone after it rains tomorrow. Maybe we will be able to ice skate then.

Last weekend, a couple friends and I climbed up Bald Mountain. Here are a couple pictures of us. From the left we have my roommate Nate, our friends Sara and Mike, and me!
And a jumping one!

Also, last weekend a group of us went down to Yarmoth (a town about an hour south of where I live) to look at the tallest and oldest Elm tree in New England. It took all 6 of us to hold hands around its trunk! The tree, named Herbie, has been protected since the 50's when the tree warden decided if he couldn't save all the trees from Dutch Elm Disease, he would at least save one. Sadly, it was cut down a couple days after we visited because of Dutch Elm Disease. You can read the article about the tree here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34765157/ns/us_news-life/

Here is a picture of me by its trunk.

Croissants!

On our honeymoon, we became morning regulars at a cafe across the street from the Vltava. Our first visit was mere chance: it was the first café we passed on our morning walk. Chance had nothing to do with our second visit. We we after one thing: freshly-made croissants. Flaky, buttery, delicious croissants.

In a fit of nostalgia (and my typical hobbyist curiosity), I decided I just had to take a shot at making my own croissants. After having to abandon plans last weekend, when I realized that time constraints meant we wouldn't be eating croissants until Wednesday, I got on the ball this weekend. Fresh out of the oven:



A second attempt will be required to apply the lessons I've learned (proper shaping, attention to temperatures and egg wash, air-tight sealing…), but they are tasty, even if not beautiful. I've been given assurance that they'll pass for this week's breakfast. ;)

(By the way, they pair wonderfully with the peach-ginger jam Rachel gave us for Christmas. Thanks!)

Beads!

When we went to the fair trade store in Fond du Lac after Christmas, I bought a bag of really cool paper beads. Yesterday, I bought some findings, and today I made five pairs of earrings and a bracelet.


We've had an incredibly productive Sunday. We went to the gym for the beginner yoga class - not what I would consider beginner level, but it was a good workout. We ran a few errands and ended up at a new Asian grocery called H-Mart. Lovely meat/fish, an entire wall of rice cookers, a food court, a diamond merchant, and a toy store - completely packed with people! We'll have go again when it's not so busy, but we got some fun things to try.

Breakfast on the Wing

Yesterday morning Jeff was standing at the sink looking at the birdfeeder. The birds, mostly sparrows, fly back and forth from the evergreens by our house to the birdfeeder all day long. All of a sudden "swoosh" our resident red-tailed hawk flew between the house and the bird feeder picking up a sparrow in mid-air. Wow. Guess trimming the trees really helped the hawk-a larger airspace now around the feeder.

I wonder if the hawk knows what happened to my bunny. I had been feeding him hay in hopes he would leave my shrubs alone and suddenly the bunny has disappeared. Hum?

Color

I felt the need for the colors of winter. Anyone have any winter pictures from Christmas I can use behind the blog's title?

I know, the "Fresh Bait" is hard to read over the photo of the trees.  But, it is a nice photo.

Quilts

So nice to see you posted a picture Jackie. I am perplexed as blogger seems to have improved (changed) the menu bar. Lots of fancy options now, but I can't seem to find the spell check - which it what I use the most......

Thought those who quilt might appreciate a look at my neighbor Judy's quilt. Her first needle-turned hand appliqued quilt. It won first prize at the Oshkosh Guilds EAA show last summer (forgot the category). Most of Judy's quilts have houses on them.

A Learning Experience!

Amanda is teaching me how to post pictures on the blog, and I really liked this one! Such beautiful nieces we have!

It's Snowing!

Good morning, everyone!

It's snowing here - very pretty, and falling determinedly. We were going to go to a new yoga class this morning...but I think we'll just stay home. It's cozy here, and the driveway isn't plowed yet.

We had an incredibly productive Saturday. Laundry, grocery store, made and canned applesauce, baked a giant squash for soup, dried apples, and Christmas movie. Today, we have to finish wrapping some gifts and write those darned Christmas cards.

Have a nice day, everyone! See you on Friday!

One Little Event After Another

OK, so it is the most amazing thing...the guys are here putting in the new furnace and before the main event of installation, they are now cleaning out 60+ years of dirt and dust from my hot air ducts. My house already smells better! And to think I was skeptical of having this done! I had read somewhere that it really didn't do anything. Well it certainly seems to make a difference in my house. The poor workers keep sneezing!

So, Emily flew into Madison last Friday and we enjoyed a nice time shopping on State Street. At Thanksgiving, Emily brought along her outfit for the December 12th wedding she was attending. It was a nice dress but the FDL family all felt she needed something just a little more glitzy. After all, this was her old boyfriend Tom who was getting married and she is also friends with the bride, Rachael and she was attending it with Shaun, so we wanted her to look extra nice.

We found this great dress at a little shop on State Street. Rachel and I knew it was perfect before Emily even tried it on. In real life it as not as shiny as it looks in the photos.

Emily with her friends Emily and Tracy

Back of dress

Shaun looked nice also!

And, I forgot to tell you what else we did in Madison on Friday. We had a really nice dinner at a Spanish Tapas restaurant. Our first time for Tapas (well not for Emily, when she visited her Barcelona friends, she went to real Spanish tapas bars-DUH) Anyway, the waitress told us most people order 2 or 3 plates. We started with 2 each, so we had 8 things to share. YUM!

My creamy mushroom soup contained 4 kinds of mushrooms and was so delicious---Wish I had some for lunch today. I also had tilapia encrusted with noodles - good but a little spicy for me. It was interesting- looked like a fillet in prison ( noodles being the bars) Somewhere in that noodle confinement were jalapeno peppers. Emily ordered baked goat cheese floating in a tomato sauce with garlic toast points, not only delicious but pretty. I think my favorite thing was what Rachel ordered... chicken croquettes with horseradish sauce or maybe it was the manchego cheese, red wine, onion flatbread... or maybe the almond pear tart with citrus sorbet I had for dessert. Jeff enjoyed fried bananas with peanut butter ice cream. Rachel loved her flan and Emily had some kind of chocolate mousse. Eating new things I don't have to prepare myself is certainly appreciated.

And, the reason for our trip, we saw the musical Grease. I love live music. The orchestra was so good not to mention all that singing and dancing. What ruined the whole night was Taylor Hicks. He plays Teen Angel. I guess he was ok as that role but looked kind of stiff against all those bouncy, dancing, young kids from Rydell High. What ruined it was after the short encore, which was a medley of the shows famous tunes, we were all humming and tapping our toes to "Born to Hand Jive" and "We Go Together" and then Taylor Hicks comes out and sings and plays his guitar to some County/Rock song on his new album. It was so loud I couldn't understand the words (yes, I am old) and then he whipped out and played that harmonica too. The feeling in the theater just stopped. Everyone was all peppy and happy and the mood changed like we had all been yelled at by the principal. Anyway the musical was nice.

Well, I guess fun was had by all last weekend until Monday morning when Emily missed her flight back to Maine. We had snow and Appleton's airline website said the flight was delayed over an hour. So Emily took her time getting to the airport, arriving a little over an hour before the flight said it was going to leave (usually an hour is plenty of time in Appleton's little airport to check in, get through security and find your gate. I think there only are 6 gates!). When she checked in, the board still said the flight was delayed one more hour, but in fact the plane had just left --- without her. Whoops.

No Tudor Dinner for Us

Usually I am the one that worries about driving on slippery and snow covered roads but today Jeff and Bob decided snowstorm "Allison" was too much for us to drive to Madison for the Tudor Dinner. We had tickets last year and were snowed out. The Union was kind enough to allow us to use the tickets this year. I doubt if they will do that again. I bought a new Christmas pin and planned to wear my fancy sweater set and everything for the event.

This is what I would have been eating and doing tonight if it wasn't going to snow 12-15":

5:45 pm, Main Lounge
Wassail bowl and hors d’oeuvres

6:45 pm, Great Hall
Presentation of the Boar’s Head
The Grand Processional and caroling

Tudor Feast

Chopped romaine with Kalamata olives, Feta and balsamic vinaigrette
Jeff was having Cornish game hen with raspberry puree
Darleen was having Curried vegetable paella with asparagus
Roasted baby red potatoes
Herb garden vegetables
Flaming Figgy Pudding with hard sauce Ceremonial

Banquet Ceremonials
Strolling minstrels
The Figgy Pudding Ceremonial
A Yuletide Toast
A Celebration of Song from the
Philharmonic Chorus of Madison
Carols for singing by all

There are rooms at the Union available, we could stay overnight but it is expected to snow all the way through midnight on Wednesday. So instead of a night of old English Pageantry in the Grand Ballroom I guess I will make tuna noodle casserole with potato chips on top and do some knitting while I watch the flakes fall. I hope the "King and Queen" don't get angry that we are not there.

Jeff is trying to get the snow blower ready right now. Good thing I always have a backlog of projects to finish, I don't think we will be going anywhere for awhile.