Spiders, Bugs and Snakes .... oh my!

SNAKES

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Since my last few blogs have been about critters like spiders and bugs, I thought I'd keep along the same track and throw in some snakes for all those of you who enjoy them so much. Right Jesse! :-)

John is definitely not a big fan of snakes but he did really well standing and listening to the keeper of the snakes tell us all about the various types that had been brought to the display at the fair.

 An albino snake.

 John standing a good distance from the snake out of the cage.

 I'm not bothered by snakes and maybe I should be.  This snake kept getting around the back of this guy and I moved towards it to bring it back around to the front and he said it wasn't a good idea for me to be so near to it's head. Hmmm...... I need to be a bit more afraid of these snakes obviously for my own good. lol

Nice Snakes huh Jesse?

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Funky Bug

 Have you ever seen a Stick Bug before? Well, this is our second time having the pleasure of photographing this type of bug. It's really quite a unique bug!

 This one is on the screen at the back of the house. This screen is on John's office window. He spotted the stick bug and got the camera to make sure we got a few photos of it.

The first time we photographed a stick bug is when we were moving into this house. John and Alex, a friend's son who was helping us move in, found it on the refridgerator as the fridge was outside before getting moved inside.

Kinda cool huh?
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One BIG Spider!

 This huge spider was outside the front door downstairs hanging on the red wagon wheel we have propped up against our house in the little garden there. Sarah, John and I were going to town and I just had to grab the camera and get his photo. Big enough???

 I photographed him with John's hand in the background so you can see he's a mighty big spider.

Icky Spider! Not my favorite kind of critter, but we left him to his work in the garden. As long as he doesn't think he needs a warm place to get into he can stay outside and protect my garden from whatever it is he's eating. It looks like small rodents by his size.

Critters, critters, everywhere.

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Bella And Bell Peppers

~*~ Saturday Morning Farmer's Market Adventures ~*~

 John and I met some really nice people at our local Farmer's Market.

 Chrissy & Frank are vendors at the Farmer's Market. Chrissy makes and sells her beautiful genuine gemstone jewelry. Here is a photo of her craft stand with herself, Frank and John.

 When we met Chrissy and Frank, they had a beautiful companion that attended each of the market days with them. Their very best friend and family member, thier dog Daniel. Daniel was quite an elderly fellow and one day we went to see Chrissy and Frank and Danny wasn't with them. I cried when I found out that Danny had passed away. However, I also knew immediately that Chrissy and Frank wouldn't be very long getting themselves a new companion.

~*~*~  It was such a pleasure to meet Bella! What a sweetheart! ~*~*~

 Everyone instantly wants to see Bella upclose and give love to this little cutie!

 Chrissy and Frank have thier hands full with little Bella, but their hearts are once again full of love for thier new companion and they are sure that Danny is looking down from doggie heaven with approval. :-)

 Bella is always busy! Toys, food, water, walk, poop, play, bark, and repeat!

While we were at the market the last time, we jointly purchased a huge basket of peppers with Chrissy and Frank.

 Here is John busy at the task of getting the peppers washed, cut up and ready for the chopper machine to dice them up for the freezer.

 Notice the cocktail already poured beside him to make the task easier. lol

 Beautiful Peppers!

 High concentration level necessary to get these peppers ready.

 Cheers!

 Awesome colors!

 All diced up and onto the cookie sheets to quick freeze them all.

 More and more into the chopper. Lots of peppers!

 Looks like John is napping cause there is so much to do. lol

 Trays and trays full of diced peppers!

Quite a few bags ready for the freezer. This was a really nice way to have peppers ready whenever we want them for cooking.

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My HomeMade Version of Tim Horton's Pumpkin Spice Muffins

My homemade version of Tim Horton's Pumpkin Spice Muffins.

John loves the pumpkin seeds on top of the Timmy's muffins that they only make during the month of October and sell them with their wonderful Pumpkin Tea.

John also likes the icing filling, though I myself don't really like icing with my muffins.

I made muffins a couple of weeks ago and tried a new Ginger Spice recipe.

They were very nicely spiced, but I felt they really needed something with them as they are quite a densely textured muffin. So I thought of modifying them a bit with the same idea as Timmy's Pumpkin Spice muffins.

I added the pumpkin seeds which I bought at the Bulk Barn, and I pumped into the middle of each muffin a small amount of icing.

They turned out so well that I've made 2 more batches since the first one!

Here is the Recipe for the Ginger Spice Muffins...

1/4 cup Butter or Margarine

1/4 cup Granulated Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 cup Molasses

1/4 cup Hot Water

1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour 

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Ginger

1/4 tsp. Gloves

1/4 cup Hot Water

Combine butter, sugar, egg, molasses and first amount of hot water in mixing bowl. Beat together well.

Measure next six dry ingredients into same bowl. Stir together.

Gradually stir hot water into batter. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake in 400 degree F. oven for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

Enjoy!

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Tshirt Creativity is AWESOME!

Jesse came up to see John and I for an overnight visit and it is always super to see him when he has a chance to drop by.

He helps us with tasks that need some muscle and we appreciate that, like lifting things that are heavy and helping John with maintanence projects that involve tools n such. :-)

It's also nice when he can take us out for a drive. Jess and I managed a country roadside drive yesterday that was made even better by sunshine and warm temps. But we forgot to take a camera this time. Nothing exciting to photograph really other than a nuthatch that wouldn't get off the road on one quiet street we went down.

Jesse didn't hit nor squish the lil critter, thankfully.

One really awesome thing Jesse got to do yesterday that I don't think he's done in ages, is get creative and make something.

He took an image of Usher, and drew it onto a tshirt for himself with fabric paints.

It really turned out awesome!

Excellent detail. Right down to the tiny little words, "DJ's got us falling in Love again"

Sarah has done some really awesome SilkScreened Tshirts. Like this "Helping Haiti" Tshirt.

Sarah makes the screen herself and works the design into it.

Then she adds it onto tshirts like this one.

It is available in her online store OddThreads.etsy.com , but her store is in Vacation Mode right now while she is busy with College studies.

This is one of the tshirts I designed. I tried quite a few different designs with Tshirt transfers. This one is made up from Sarah's handmade wish stars she makes out of origami paper. I used them as a photograph for this Wish Tshirt.

My very first design I tried to fabric paint onto a tshirt. I made this one and a blue "MEH" lettered grey tshirt. I wanted to create a tshirt for Jesse with this saying he uses often to describe how things are going. "MEH"

Jesse liked the blue letters on grey and I am now keeping this green one. I made these tshirts a few months ago.

Creativity Rocks!

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