Weekend bits

I love my birdfeeders. They are right outside my dining room window. Earlier this week when it was still cold and snowy out and there was a hawk right outside our window! We live in a housing addition so this is a very unusual sight. He was paying no attention to the birdseed but kept walking under the deck looking for some unsuspecting rodent I believe. I couldn't get my camera focused quick enough to get a picture. It was magnificent when he took off with that wonderful wing span. He flew up on top of our swingset with an empty belly. Then he flew off into wherever he was going.

Then we also have a resident male cardinal who sits at the top of our trees and sings his heart out. This morning I heard him in our short, squatty crabapple tree, singing away. I opened a blind to get a peek and he was chasing two other birds in the tree. They would hop, he would hop all over that tree. I believe they were Cedar Waxwings trying to eat the dried up apples. He finally got them to fly over to the neighbors tree, did the hopping thing all over it and then they flew off with Mr. Cardinal chasing them. He did not like it that they were in his area.

Simple pleasure #6.....Potato soup. My Mom always made this. It is a great cold weather soup and also good during lent for the Catholics in the crowd. I made an Mmmmm good pot this last week. Here is my recipe.

8 qt. pot

12 to 13 potatoes-one great big one and a couple little ones-peeled and chunked.

water to cover with two inches over.

6 chicken boullion cubes

salt

Let boil then simmer till soft, approx. 1 hour.

White Sauce

Use larger sauce pan

1 stick margarine

1/4 cup flour

Salt and Pepper

2 cups milk

melt the margarine and add the flour and salt and pepper. Mix till a smooth paste forms. Add the milk slowly stirring and then cook on low until the sauce thickens. Add it to the potatoes and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes. Some people add ham, cheese, drivels-flour and egg mixed together and dropped by bits into the soup to make little dumplings. I eat mine plain with whole wheat saltine crackers and margarine. Just Simply a simple pleasure.

The last picture of the series is shown. I was happy with the way the ballarina turned out. The building is a nearby funeral home, I loved the arch.

The other picture I made was after I bought Kelly Rae Roberts book. It is a fantastic book and it is called Taking Flight. It was very inspirational with techniques and products to learn. I drew the tree after driving through the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky last April. The leaves were just beginning to sprout and I loved it because I was going back to Indiana and at that point it was still cool and the trees were bare.