Mr. Squirrel

Today I saw Mr. Squirrel taking a quiet repose on the table in the park.You’d think if the squirrel had any brains it would be more afraid of the table, since that is where we eat other animals. Unfortunately for the squirrel it is sadly lacking in intellect.

Peter Piper

So, I was thinking about the tongue twister Peter Piper. The first line is, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Now if you think about it, pickling is a process that you do after you have picked the plant. So what plant does Peter Piper have that it can grow already pickled peppers. Think about that for awhile.

Expiration Dates

So today while we were eating lunch, Veronica was reading the expiration dates on the backs of the condiments. And in a sudden moment of thoughtfulness Veronica looked up and said, “I think if they have the day that it expires they should have the time it expires too”. So Mom and Dad explained to Veronica that the people who write the expiration dates don’t know the exact time that it expires. Besides if the expiration date were that specific I would be worried that if I ate the food a minute before it expired, that it would expire in my stomach. That being said I think this post belongs in the philosophy category.

Easter Eggs

This year we had a fairly easy time finding our Easter eggs. Because we ate them for dinner on Good Friday! Luckily I took some pictures of them before my siblings and I devoured them. We also had some eggs that had special designs on them. Like this polka dot egg. And this egg.We managed to make the designs on the eggs because Anne had the wonderful idea of dipping a Q-tip in the dye and then spreading it on the egg.

Dragon-Fly Lapel

Today while Mom and Nicholas were at the grocery store Nicholas get me a new bug. Most people buy food at a grocery store, but Nicholas got me a bug. Isn’t that nice! What happened was, as they were going through the checkout, the dragon-fly flew into one of the balloons filled with helium. It must have gotten dazed or something because it fell onto Nicholas’ lapel and just sat there as if it was his lapel pin. Knowing I would appreciate a new bug Nicholas grabbed it and brought it home.

A Cautionary Tale

A Cautionary Tale About Trying to Hard to be Fair

 (In the style of Aesop’s Fables)

Once there were three distinguished gentlemen eating five evenly sized pastries. After each man had had one there were still two left. Not wishing to be rude, nor really wanting to exclude themselves from the treat, they decided to cut them all in half. After having once again eaten their fair share there still one half left. This they split in four equal pieces. Then the eighth that was left was divided in fourths, and so on, and so on, until there was only a molecule left. This they divided so that there was only an atom left. Which they split. Unfortunately the resulting atomic explosion killed them all.

Silverware

So today Veronica served Robert, Stephen, and I in her pretend restaurant. Since we were just in a pretend restaurant in Veronica’s room we obviously were not using normal dishes. We all had a shoe for our plate, and around them were bobby pins, and I foolishly mistook them for french fries. Apparently they were are silverware. The rest of the meal was quite delicious (or as good as an invisible meal can be) but I had to eat it without silverware.

My Herb Garden!

So, a while ago (and I do mean a while ago) I wrote a blog post about the small beginning of my herb garden. Now all my work has finally paid off. My garden is now producing Parsley, Basil, and it’s slowing growing Pineapples. Turns out you can twist the tops off store bought pineapples and grow new ones from the top. The pineapples are not actually producing fruit yet, (it takes them something like 2 years to flower) but they are still growing and have established roots. And this is the newest plant in my garden. I’m not sure how it got there, but it’s in the garden so I must have planted it. Now if only I could figure out how to get the roots started growing… Then we could eat golf ball fruit!

A Holiday of Light

Happy Santa Lucia day! The 13th of December is widely celebrated in Sweden as the feast of the early Christian martyr, St. Lucy.  It is celebrated with such vigor there probably because Sweden is so dang dark and the feast of St. Lucy celebrates the triumph of light over darkness.  It is celebrated in remembrance of St. Lucy visiting the starving Christians in the catacombs wearing a wreath of candles on her head to illuminate her path so as to leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible.

Traditionally the oldest girl in Swedish families brings everyone breakfast in bed wearing a flaming wreath of candles (cool huh?).  There are also special processions and prayers to go along with the celebration.  We, however, are not Swedish so Anne does not have to wear a flaming headdress (not this year anyways).  Instead we are celebrating the day as Germans celebrate everything…with food.

For breakfast this morning Mom made us a Santa Lucia Crown.   A sweet bread with maraschino cherries and a powdered sugar glaze.img_3672

Mom found this recipe in a cookbook called “Cooking with the Saints” several years ago and it has been part of our family’s tradition ever since.