Some Really Fun Guys

Last weekend (or was it two weekends ago already?) the family and I had the opportunity to catch one of the last shining golden days of autumn, and we went out to the local nature reserve / park / artificial lake / walking trail. Thingy. It was well worth the effort, and along the way, I saw many fun guys having a great time in the damp moss beneath the pines. First, let me set the mood:

Gold everywhere.
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And then the party started…

This fun guy was having fuzzy feelings all over.
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This fun guy was just trying to blend in.
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This fun guy was lolling about in the needles.
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This fun guy was taking a break.
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This fun guy was moving up the social ladder.
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This fun guy was kind of alien, and I’m pretty sure – no fun guy at all!
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And a final lot of fun guys:

Jack’s Walk

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It’s raining again. It started yesterday afternoon just in time to spoil Halloween. Most of the little ones had parents with umbrellas and the older ones out in groups were scarce. Really, there weren’t many kids at my door. How was your Halloween? What was the best costume you saw?

Grasshopper

This came in from Avalus several weeks ago and I suspect that this little critter may have succumbed to cooler temperatures by now. I did the google thing before I posted this and it seems that grasshoppers don’t survive winter. The adults mate in the fall, lay their eggs and then die off once this biological imperative is finished. It’s the eggs that survive winter in little curved pods that are buried underground.  The pods are created by rolling spittle with dirt until it becomes a hard case and each pod contains about 20- 26 eggs. I wonder if that’s what this little grasshopper was doing? Avalus says,

This time it is a grasshopper that I found on a gravel road. I think she tried to lay eggs.

I did gently remove her from the path, when a tractor was approaching. (In fact, she climbed on my hand when I put it next to her).

It seems like an odd place to lay eggs, but I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. Thanks Avalus, for the interesting and wonderfully detailed photos.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

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Macedonia 6 – This Place Rocks

Let me start off by saying that I miss rocks. I grew up on the Canadian shield, and granite outcroppings were a regular fixture of my childhood, along with mica-and-quartz hunting, breaking beaver dams and catching leeches in the pond.

And while I miss all of those things to greater or lesser degree, I wasn’t prepared for my own rather overly emotional response to seeing large pieces of rock (as in, cliffs and boulders you can stand on and not individual erratics but part of a mountain!). I went up the mountain in Macedonia expecting a nice view, but got a shoe full of quartz fragments (pocket, but nevertheless) and tears in my eyes. It was beautiful. Well, kind of dull and brown and grey, but beautiful.

And then! Coming down the mountain (I have a story about this but I will place it with some pleasant picture of flowers in a later post) I saw many more incredible rocky things that warmed the cockles of my heart. Behold.

This is actually the view that made me cry. Glorious, innit? ©rq, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

More after the break, but first, here’s your song.

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Tummy Thursday: Under the Sea

Last weekend was the kid’s birthday party. I asked her what kind of party she wanted and she said “surprise me!”.

I went with “Under the Sea” and basically started the preparations a month ago with googling ideas, ordering moulds and fossilised shark teeth, trying out recipes and watching videos for inspiration.

The results were:

Ocean macarons

macarons

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Sadly the colours didn’t bake too well. The purple ones are filled with lavender buttercream, the blue ones with white chocolate buttercream.

Macarons, close up

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The seashells are white chocolate with a bit of cocoa powder. I must say the silicone moulds worked perfectly.

Next are the sea foam cupcakes, on a pumpkin muffin basis:

cupcakes with mermaid tails and shark fins

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The topping is marshmallow fluff: Lightly caramelised sugar poured into beaten egg whites, like for an Italian meringue. I then added some gelatine for stability. Tails and fins are fondant.

Cupcakes on a plate

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The sand is grounded almonds

And last but nor least, the cake:

Cake with fillings

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This is what it looked liked before being frosted. I baked the cake on Thursday and needed to get it layered and frosted on Friday, and that day, everything went wrong. The fillings are on a cream cheese, whipped cream and fruit basis with gelatine, but despite stirring in the gelatine as you should, it became lumpy. In the end, the lower filling was still lumpy, but you didn’t notice when you ate it. The lower filling is with fresh pomegranate seeds and I can only recommend that. They are delightfully sweet and sour and add texture. The top filling is blueberries, which are a safe bet for taste.

Also my muffin batter separated and when frosting more shit happened, but in the end it went well. I frosted it with Italian meringue buttercream and let it cool over night. In the morning I popped it into the freezer for a few hours to prepare it for the mirror glaze.

cake with blue glaze

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This time the sand is brown sugar. I had already made the mermaid tails the night before, though I should have made them earlier to let them dry out more. Then I made corals by pouring caramelised and coloured sugar over ice cubes. This worked hmpf but ok. My cups were too small, my ice cubes not the right shape and the sugar started to crystallize again, but I got a few suitable pieces. I added those and more chocolate sea shells and this is the result:

decorated cake

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decorated cake

©Giliell, all rights reserved

decorated cake

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Youtube Video: Medieval ASSASSIN’S CROSSBOW (Balestrino) ASSEMBLED & TESTED!

I could not decide between multiple videos, as usual, and last-minute decision fell on this one. It is a nice piece of engineering and the video is reasonably short and packed with interesting information.

It might also be Halloween appropriate? I have no clue, since I originate from and live in a country with no Halloween tradition whatsoever and honestly I do not understand what Halloween is supposed to be about at all. But I read something about murderers and monsters the other day, so maybe an (alleged) assasin’s weapon might fit in.

I have a day off and I planned to do some knife-work, but I have to pass on that since I am still not well.

Jack’s Walk

They’re watching me, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Happy Halloween.

We had a trick today instead of a treat. Jack didn’t have his surgery because they found enlarged lymph nodes in his rear legs which they biopsied instead. Once we have the results back in a few days we’ll see what to do next. He had blood work done less than a month ago and everything was normal so that’s good. He’s also been happy and playful so I’ll try not to worry… too much. In the meantime these are photos from Jack’s evening walk last night. This is the best dressed house in the neighborhood. Click through to see where the eyeballs lead you.

 

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The Sun Rode Into the Sky

Saule Brauca Debesīs (see title for translation) is a neat little Latvian animation film coming out soon (November 15). It’s part of the ‘100 Films for 100 Years’ cycle going on this year, what with the centenary and all. I think it quite lovelily demonstrates the oddity that is Latvian animation and art – it’s got its own style that is distinctively, traditionally Latvian, and the story is taken from folklore: folk songs and folk story motifs are a heavy influence. I think it’s adorable. Here’s the trailer:

I don’t think you need too much of the language to get an idea of the plot.

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Life, Death and Love

In a weird sort of mood, I think it’s the mountains – there’s so much space, but simultaneously a sense of enclosement, because there’s a lot less sky than I’m used to. And I have a distinct feeling that they’re not real; I can’t reach out and touch them. Even taking a walk did no good. It’s surreal and beautiful, and yes, I took lots of pictures. Of mushrooms and faraway horses.

Anyway, this picture struck a chord:

I’m not sure who to credit, if anyone knows, please let me know!

So you get that picture and a song by Leonard Cohen.

One of his best, I think.

Jack’s Walk

It’s a beautiful sunny day here at last and what better thing to do with Jack than take the boy swimming. He won’t be able to swim for a few weeks because he’s having a big fatty lump removed from his right armpit tomorrow. The water level at the lake is quite low now. This is a lake created when a dam was built in the 60’s and the water level varies depending on the season. In late spring and summer the lake is full, but come autumn they let a lot of water out which creates this sandy beach. It’s lovely to walk on, but Jack doesn’t care about the beach. He just wants to swim. I’ve included a few photos of Happyjack© loving life (sometimes the bad photos are the best ones) and just for good measure I’ve added some pretty leaves in the sun. After all, it’s Tuesday and that’s the day we celebrate trees around here.

Happyjack, ©voyager, all rights reserved

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Tree Tuesday

Our tree this week is a pear tree in full fall flame from kestrel who says,

We have no idea how old this pear tree is but it’s pretty old. It does still bear fruit, but this is not a great climate for it, as there are often late frosts that kill the blossoms. Even when it does bear fruit the pears frequently drop off before they can ripen. I suppose we ought to cut it down but it’s quite lovely in the fall when the leaves change color; just recently it fired up and looks wonderful for such a very old tree. 

Old trees have a stateliness and grace and this old pear tree is putting on quite the show this year. All of the photos are bright and beautiful, but the last one of just the leaves in sunlight is gorgeous. Thanks so much for sharing, kestrel.

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Yes, I’ve been having fun

This resin stuff is great for messing around. What follows are a few things that went well, some that didn’t go that wll and some that are still work in progress.

First of all, the globes

 

Resin globes

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On the left you have a light globe with a small string of embedded fairy lights. Although the blue resin all rose to the top, I quite like it. This one’s so big that it released a lot of heat while curing. On the right there is the next attempt at a snowglobe. I like the results a lot. Glueing the ornaments to the wood and then inserting them was a good idea. I still hate the moulds. They are way too thin and easily separate. More on that later.

That was the rest of the resin Marcus sent, btw.

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