Thank you, Rats

File this one under: FFS. My apologies to PZ, for pestering him unnecessarily. I’ve had to change things in my studio lately, to accommodate all the ratlets, and didn’t realize the rats could get up on the computer station. Even more stupidly, I left an admin page open, and left my keyboard on. In their usual mysterious way, they hit a perfect storm of keys, and borked everything here. It’s all fixed up now, so all you wonderful people who commented today, you’ll have to do it again, I can’t figure out how to move comments (if it’s even possible – the rats could probably do it.) For your trouble, here’s Ville, one of Violette’s boys, named after Ville Valo, because of the wicked cute.

Ville

Ville1

Dreaming of Dandelions

Bee3

It’s too early here yet, but every year, I eagerly await the first appearance of the dandelions. I love dandelions, and I loathe this odd mania so many people have for golf course lawns, bland, boring, non-nutritious, and toxic. Dandelions are not only a boon to all pollen gatherers, they are beautiful flowers, attractive, the clocks are fun for everyone (make a wish!), and they are a great food source for us human types. The flower heads can be dipped in batter, fried, done up sweet or savory. Then there are fritters. The dandelion bud omelet, of course, which has been a favoured Spring food for ages. Getting outside to go gathering dandelion bits is a nice way to spend part of a day, too. You can get your exercise without even noticing.  The young Spring leaves are best, the older leaves become bitter, but there are ways around that if it’s all you have. The roasted roots make a good substitute for coffee, and there’s an adventurous recipe out there for roasted dandelion root ice cream. (I don’t make ice cream, but I’d like to taste that). There have been many additions to the store of dandelion recipes over the years, and I’m looking forward to trying out many of them.

I’m definitely going to give the Dandelion Flower Burgers a try, they sound fun in a messy sort of way:

Dandelion Burgers from Forage Ahead

1 cup packed dandelion petals (no greens)

1 cup flour

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped onions

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp each basil and oregano

1/8 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients together. The batter will be goopy. Form into patties and pan fry in oil or butter, turning until crisp on both sides. Makes 4-5 very nutritious vegetable burgers. No, they don’t taste like hamburger, but they ain’t bad.

The old bud omelet will be first, though:

Gather one cup dandelion buds before flower color shows. Fry buds in dab of butter until they ‘pop’.
Add 4 eggs, salt and pepper.
Top with raw (young) dandelion leaves, finely cut before serving.

Dandelion recipes are all over the ‘net, and easy to find. Here are two sources to get you started: http://naturesnurtureblog.com/dandelions-friend-or-foe-with-recipes/ and http://www.eattheweeds.com/dandelions-hear-them-roar/

Rapid Fire WTF

I swear, the birds who visit the deck need an air traffic controller. The large Scream of Blue Jays who have adopted us don’t have the slightest care of who they might be flying into, and in this case, upset the Hairy Woodpecker I was trying to shoot. I saw a Grackle this morning! Excitement – I’m very fond of grackles, but this one didn’t stick long enough for photos. A Robin was out and about today, too, on a day that snapped brittle and cold.

RapWtf

Superstition

superstition

I imagine most people would say they aren’t superstitious. I’m not much myself, but I still catch myself doing the knock on wood thing, and I don’t have the slightest idea why. I don’t even know the origins of that particular action. Someone must have done that a lot when I was a sprog. I’ve been thinking about this because we recently had our 37th anniversary, and we never celebrate our anniversary beyond “oh, happy anniversary”, and we generally forget all about it, remembering sometime after March 11th. We are superstitious about our anniversary, because we don’t like blown engines on our vehicles. Night we got married – engine blew half way home, late at night, in a deserted industrial section of town. Oh, yay. First anniversary, drove to Venice (SoCal) for supper. Different car, engine blew half way home. Second anniversary, drove to Santa Monica for supper. Different car, engine blew half way home. So, we don’t do that sort of thing anymore, stopped after the 2nd anniversary, and for all these years, haven’t been able to shake the notion that if we go out to celebrate, we’ll kill another vehicle.

Going Postal

Every now and then, I need to have my meds mailed to me, and generally they arrive just fine. This last month, I’ve thought that I either managed to throw a scrip out by accident, or was actually seriously slipping in the mental department, but no, it was the post office. My meds were mailed on 2/3/16, and I got them today, 3/15/16. Well, at least I’m not losing my mind. I think.

Postal

Hey, everybody!

Welcome to Affinity. The emphasis here is on the social. We’re social critters, and it’s important to connect with one another, to share our lives, experiences, and perspectives. This will be a heavily visual blog, featuring much photography and other arts. This is not a place for me to simply showcase my stuff. I want the readership, fellow bloggers, and commentariats to join in the fun, too. Have a photograph you’d like to share? Or artwork, craft, or similar? There’s an email link on the sidebar for submissions, and I’d ask you keep photos to a maximum of 12oo px at the longest side (if you prefer I resize, that’s fine too). If you’d also like to say something to go with your photo or other work, add that too.

There will be some regular features. For my fellow dinosaur watchers, Wednesday Wings, and I’d be thrilled to have bird photos submitted, because as much as I love watching them and photographing them, there isn’t a great deal of diversity, and I love seeing birds from all over the world. There might be Raturdays. There will be an ongoing, open thread, The Never-ending Thread (starting on the 22nd), so there will be continuity, and people can socialize and talk about anything at all.

Rules will evolve as needed. The primary rule: don’t be an asshole. Who defines asshole? I do. And the moderators* will also have that ability. If you decide to push things on the asshole front, or think it would be cute to argue the definition of asshole, you’ll most likely find yourself summarily wished into the cornfield. I would ask that you use people’s nyms, as they have them for a reason.

Now that’s out of the way, how about the most conventional start ever? Tell me, how’s your weather?

weather,boots in the snow