About Me

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BC, Canada
Hello Everyone and thank you for visiting! My name is MO and I live on Vancouver Island, BC Canada. This blog is to share with others my love of nature and homemade life like crochet, gardening, decorating, flowers, art, crafts, photos and perhaps the occasional recipe as well. Please drop by frequently and feel free to share. If you would like to send me an email, my address is murmursdfa@gmail.com

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Nature, Food & Crochet

Hello
Well, this week has been busy with guests at the motel. We've had guests from Spain, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Boise, Idaho USA, and the UK, as well as from Alberta, Ontario and Quebec...all in one week! People are so interesting and being in the tourism industry gives us an opportunity to meet folks from all over the world.  That's the plus in this job.  Today we have a variety of First Nations Chiefs staying with us...they have quite the sense of humour and they had me laughing today.  A good laugh is worth a lot!

Well, I'm still into blueberries and so made some blueberry muffins.

 The berries...
 

The batter...

 The baked muffin........Juicy and so yummy that just one is not enough!  With a cup of tea...PERFECT!

Recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Mix this together and add 1/2 cup milk.
Add dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt.  Mix all together and you should have a creamy batter.
Fold in 2 1/2 cup of berries.
I got 18 muffins out of this recipe. 
Topping: 1 T sugar and 1/4 tsp  I did half my muffins with this topping.
 
Bake @ 375 for 20 minutes or until golden brown and a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
 
Or you can add a Crumble topping:  1/2 c sugar, 1/3 c flour, 1/4 cup butter, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon.
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Managed to get a walkabout yesterday...mountains, sky and sea.  It never ceases to amaze me where I live.  It is so beautiful!




 
 
As I watered my baskets of fleurs last evening, I marveled at the colors and how well they are growing.
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The baskets have filled out beautifully. 
 
And the baskets are hanging high and safe from the likes of this little critter who doesn't understand why I'm shoeing him away all the time.  Aren't the ears huge! He/she will grow into themCute or what tho'.
 
 
 

Oh, and I had some time to do a bit of crochet here and there.  Did another little owl and two little birds. Both patterns come from Jacquie.  These little projects are great in between doing blankets.
 
 
 

 
 
So this last week has been filled with a little this and a little that.  Busy work days, quiet summer nights, and some quality hooky time thrown in here and there.  Enjoying my little feathered friends (Morpheus and Delilah).  They entertain and make me smile with their little birdie antics and are so cute when they cuddle together for their sleepy time.   Speaking of sleepy time, it's time to put my head under my wing as well and call it a day.
Until next time, MO

Monday, August 12, 2013

Birdies

Hey, I bought birdies last week...2 Society Finches.  Hard to take a decent picture of them through the cage and because they are so active.  The dark one is Morpheus and the white one is Delilah.  Delilah might turn out to be Ralph...the pet store wasn't sure of the sex of the white & brown ones as they are too young, and I've can't tell as I've never seen finches with these particular colors. Morpheus is calm and sedate for a finch.  Delilah is all over the place.  I went out and got some new things for the cage today...some nesting material, a cuttle bone, a better water container, etc.  Morpheus just stayed in one place, cocking his head from side to side and just looked at all the new objects.  Delilah pecked the cuttle bone, pulled some string from the little container, then she checked out the new seed and the new water container and then sat in the empty little basket that needs to be filled with nesting material.  She did all this in less than 10 minutes.

 
 
 
 
 
Anyways, their antics are interesting and fun to watch. They have quite the vocabulary.  All kinds of chirps, warbles, beeps, tweets, whistles and cricket-type sounds.  Like I say,I've never seen these brown colored finches before. Quite a number of years ago I bred Society finches, but they were totally white with orange beaks.  I've also raised Zebra finches, canaries (the ones with weird tuffs on their heads like Beatle hair cuts), cockatiels (grey/yellow with orange cheeks) and ring-necked doves.  When we lived on an acreage I had an fair-sized aviary for all my little feathered friends.  I sold the grown up babies to local pet stores. I don't plan on doing that again, just wanted a couple of little feathered buddies in my life.   Until next time, MO