February Birthday Week

It has been quite a while since an  update! Quite a bit has happened since Dec. 23. Baby rabbits were born on the 26th-they aren't quite as cute now, since the littles are a bit over 17 pounds as a group. The litter of 7 is growing like crazy. Jon's been making new cages to move everyone into, so the ones he was given can be turned into something else. Daffodils and tulips are coming up, the rose bush by the house is getting buds, and the butterfly bush has new leaves. February started with two birthdays. I'm as old as Steve now and Jon is a bit past a quarter of a century. 

Dear Rose found the above card, months before, she said, and Steve brought me this lovely pot of primroses. 

The babies hopping around the cages on the first, as seen from the living room window. 

Monday was a bit busy, so made an angel food cake for Ground Hog Day and my birthday. It is really a cake, even if it looks like a lamp. Steve made me a wooden holder for the pan last year and it works beautifully. 

Jon's birthday was a lot of fun. We had the angel cake, made a box cheese cake, and brownies frosted with perfectly chocolate chocolate frosting for dessert. Plus ice cream. Dinner was something I'd never made before and much of it was scratch. They were surf and turf  Po'Boys. The buns were not made properly, but tasted ok. Following online directions, I put mayo on both slices of the bun. On one side there is shredded beef, gravy, breaded shrimp, and Jon said it needed cheese. The other has lettuce, tomato, and pickles. Jon's and Dot's also had onions. (Dot didn't have shrimp) They were VERY yummy!!! We also gave Jon a  fancy digital indoor and outdoor thermometer so he can see what temp is out by the rabbits instead of guessing from the temps on the porch. The rabbits are in a much more shaded location. He likes it because he can also tell whether or not he needs to get up earlier to defrost his rig before work!!  

The weekend after the birthday's, Steve trimmed up the pear trees. We gave the rabbits some branch sections and those were devoured with glee!! Rabbits seem to be kin to beaver. 

Sun on the trees Feb 6-it appears the tree photos are out of sync!!! 

This CRAZY puzzle was worked on fairly steadily from the end of Jan until it was finally completed on Feb 7. It is a Hallmark design that was on a popcorn tin. It was brought back from mom's because it was wintery and cute. We have not taken it apart yet, it was much much much too fuzzy!!! Jon called the penguins 'baby Apteryx' because they are little flightless birds with hairy feathers. 

These are sky shots from Feb 5. What a stunning world it is up there! 

Almost skunked by skinks

This has been a lovely Easter weekend. Aunt Kathy's daffodils (the white and orange inside ones) are rushing to bloom, hyacinth stems are getting taller, and there is a breeze knocking petals off the fruit trees. The breezes also tip over the heavy flowers, resulting in my picking them for the house.

A while ago, I had decided to create a 'new' sort of burger treat my sister had suggested. Bacon lizards. When I googled to see if they had been made before, I discovered something rather surprising. There are real life bacon skinks out there! They are actually called sulawesi water skink. I'm not impressed with the link I added, it does have a great deal of information on the critters, though. 

So, I decided to make some myself. Turtles are fun, lizards couldn't be that difficult. As Tony reminded me, the creations tend to get better over time. I should have paid more attention to the blog post I wrote when Steve visited AK one May. We made bacon dogs and those were easy and yummy. I anticipated the lizards would be similar. Nope!! 

 The first thing I did was to play with burger. I was going to make one of my favorite meat loaf recipe mixtures and forgot a few things. The most important is that my meatloaf uses a LOT of burger and this was just a little over a pound, so my eye ball ratios were off by a lot. My meat was sloppy. I added flour (it is an approved method of making hamburg more sturdy), but next time, I will leave it be after removing it from the wrapper!

 After mixing the meat, I made appendages. This takes quite a while. These, also, will be done a different way. I think next time I'll get a bun length dog as the core and trim one end for a tail and the other cut for the head. Jon suggested not cutting the legs in half and using a long piece as a 'cross piece'.  I did cut bits out of the inside of the 'leg' to simulate an elbow. Eons back, for fun meals, I would slice a hot dog all along the length almost through. As it cooked, it would curl up and they could be served on burger bungs. So, I knew heated dogs would bend! When I cut the toes on any amphibian, I press down on the meat bit and make triangles  using a sharp knife. The leftover bits can be put inside the turtles, but it is harder to add to the lizard.

 The below lizard was almost the last one, and it was much easier to make than the others. I used a tupperware patty maker to portion out the meat. A bit more than half went into the base and the rest was put on top. They kind of resembled a hamburger twinkie before wrapping it in bacon. The cheese was a sliced piece cut into sections. I had hoped to use quarters of a cheese stick, but it was too much inside with this meat mixture. Messy, messy, messy.

 The lizards were not that difficult to wrap, except when the sections broke apart. In the longer lizards, the tails and heads wrapped in burger broke away as I wrapped the bacon around the meat. Smaller ones were less fiddly.

 I didn't add eyes while they baked. Cloves are a strong spice in one small section of meat! I baked them for almost 30 minutes at 375 degrees F. The bacon wasn't as crispy as I'd like, but the legs were!!! I think I'd cover those with foil to keep them from burning, similar to what you can do with pie crust edges.

I wanted the mouths to open, because the turtles look incredibly cute after baking. However, as mentioned above, they were a bit fiddly. Actually, another difficult part was keeping the heads and tails facing the right way after wrapping. Often, I'd look and discover the tails were upside down or the mouths were vertical! Toothpicks soaked in water and snipped off close were necessary for keeping the legs in place. 

They definitely looked unusual when placed on a hoagie bun!!! Long pickle slices, spinach leaves, and condiments made the little beasts taste stellar! 

Because Janet asked this about the turtles, Jon took some photos, I took the rest. I did not take the photo of the real lizard in this blog post. As a general rule, if I make it all photos are from in the family! My next foray into lizard making should be less work, but it will remain delicious! I'll never get completely skunked by these skinks!