Chicken Soup Friday

So, last week was Chicken Broth...Now for the soup. (Doesn't it look delicious?) After you've made the broth, refrigerated it overnight and skimmed off the fat, making the soup is easy. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Add any or all of the following: a chopped onion, chopped celery, diced carrots. One ingredient my family loves is a can of diced tomates (including the juice). Cook until the raw veggies are done, then add diced chicken, any frozen or canned veggies you like (green beans, peas, corn?) and bring back to a boil - you may need to turn up the heat. Now add your pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat, serve, eat, enjoy.

One of the neatest things about making your own soup is that the amounts of ingredients are not that important...I usually use one onion, 3 or 4 stalks of celery, a couple cups of diced carrots, 2 to 3 cups cooked chicken, a cup or so of frozen veggies, a can of canned veggies... You get the idea. Same thing with the pasta - depending on what kind I use and how much broth I started with, I might add more or less. Sometimes I use a 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, sometimes I use a 28 oz. can. Every batch of soup ends up being a little bit different, but they're all delicious.

Knitting? Yes knitting has been done (un-knitting, too). I finished the right "Twisted" sock. What can I say? I feel like I just completed a marathon. I'm a fairly experienced knitter, and have knit probably over twenty pairs of socks - employing quite a few different techniques. But these socks...not for the faint of heart! I think this is the first time I've used one of Cookie A.'s patterns. I wonder if they're all this involved/challenging. I learned some new stuff/techniques, and I really like the finished product. If I could change all the un-knitting I did to knitting there would probably be enough stitches for a third sock. And guess what? I'm already thinking about making another pair!!! But not right away.

Here's a pic showing the way the right and left sock "twist" in different directions. I had to pin them to the bed because they were pretty curly. (No, I don't generally block my socks.) One odd thing about working these socks...the right sock ended up being about 3/4 inch longer than the left sock. (Unfortunate, because my left foot is bigger than my right foot.) Don't know where or how I screwed up, but I'm not ripping these babies, no sirree!

And finally, the backyard bird feeders have been busy, busy. A California Quail showed up the other day (but didn't stay long), and Lazuli Buntings have been regular visitors for about a week now. They usually stop by our Treasure Valley for a couple weeks in the spring and then migrate to higher elevations (as weather permits) for nesting. Lots of black birds - Red Winged, Yellow Headed, Brewer's, Brown Headed Cow Birds. And a few Gold Finches, plus the House Finches and the House Sparrows.

(I uploaded an image of a Lazuli Bunting, but could not (COULD NOT!!!!) move it down here to this end of the post.) If anyone reads this and knows how to manage images in blogger, let me know. I've searched in blogger help, etc. and have yet to find any answers. FRUSTRATION.

Backyard Birds

I always go out back when Clem goes out for his periodic potty breaks, and one day last week while I was sitting in the cold waiting for Clem, I heard a "new" (to me) bird somewhere in the area. I listened and listened and tried to whistle back to the bird, and looked and looked and never did spot him/her. Then a few days lataer, DD came outside with me and she spotted a Big Blue Bird on the fence. My eyesight is so poor right now that I could not distinguish any features - except that it was, indeed a big bird and it was blue. (Cataract surgery tomorrow on my right eye! Yay!)

Could this be the bird I had heard? I came inside to the computer and went here. I was pretty sure that the bird must be a Jay bird, but didn't know which kind of Jay bird. I typed "jay" into the search box and then checked out all the different Jay birds. Each bird "page" has a map showing the bird's range, along with other facts - one of the best features is - there are recordings of the bird-calls with each bird. Using this wonderful feature I found out that our Big Blue Bird was a Steller's Jay. He/she stayed around off and on all day, flitting from the fence to the ground, peckng for goodies, then back up to the fence. I have only seen one Jay bird around here once before and that was probably five years ago or more.

I really am excited about getting my cataracts removed. I opted for the "enhanced" surgery - so if all goes well, after both eyes are fixed I should have very good distance vision and only need to wear glasses for reading. I am very near-sighted and have worn glasses since I was about 11 years old. (I clearly remember my fascination, after getting my first pair of glasses, with being able to see individual leaves on trees! I knew of course that those big green blobs (trees) had leaves, but had never thought about being able to distinguish them, one by one.)

On the knitting front, I am still working on the ribbing for the "Anne" socks. Another inch or so and I'll change to #3 needles to finish the leg.

A New Sock and A New Friend

So, there's the new sock - with the heel just completed. Some ankle rows and then a ribbed (2 x 2) leg and the first one will be done. The yarn is Schaefer Yarn "Anne", 60 % Merino Wool Superwash, 25% Mohair and 15% Nylon - I bought it here. I think I bought way too much yarn: each skein has 560 yards in it and I bought two skeins. (I have BIG feet, so I'm always paranoid about not having enough yarn...) I'm more than half way through this first sock and the first yarn-cake (one skein) still seems pretty hefty.

I'm knitting these socks on size 2 (the larger size 2) Harmony Wood dpns. Did I say how much I love Harmony Wood needles from Knit Picks?

On a completely non-knitting subject, above is a picture of Clem, my new Puppy Dog. (We just got him the weekend before Thanksgiving.) I used to have a half-scottie dog named Annabelle. When she died a few years ago, I knew that someday I wanted a lap dog... In the meantime, we baby-sat several big dogs for various friends of our kids, and when the latest one went back to her family, I began looking in earnest for "my" lap-dog. I haunted the local Humane Society and read the classified ads religiously. No small dogs at the Humane Society (over a period of several months) and all the dogs/puppies in the paper were way expensive. Then, there was an ad for a seven-month old Chihuahua for $100...I hadn't thought that I wanted a Chihuahua, but I thought "Why not? I'll just go look." Well, when the lady brought Clem out to meet me, I just fell plumb in love!

It turned out that she had a kennel and raised long-haired Chihuahuas, and then her geographical area got annexed into a nearby community and that community doesn't allow kennel licenses. She had to either move (in a ridiculously short time) or get rid of all her dogs but three... The seven-month-old in the newspaper ad was already gone, but she still had Clem left and, like I said, I loved him at first sight.

He is a character - the heart of a lion and the bladder of a Great Dane. When I take him outside first thing every morning, his first pee lasts a very long time! He is fiercely protective of me - to the point that he doesn't like it when DH gives me a kiss! And, DH wants to play and cuddle with Clem, but Clem won't have anything to do with him. I'm hoping Clem will mellow out in time.

Yesterday I gritched about the weather - all that melting and dripping. Well, today our back yard is nearly free of snow and I swear there's new green grass out there! The birds have been numerous and noisy all day! Our neighbor's back-yard Oak trees and our Ash tree have been full of robins all day and our Juniper "Bird Tree" has been so noisy that you can hardly hear yourself think when you go out back.

I hate to say it, but I'm thinking Spring - and I know better! January is, after all, a six-month-long purgatory, where Spring is too distant to even dream about.