Birding at Sweetwater Wetlands

Yellow-headed Blackbirds

Red-winged Blackbird

Solitary Sandpiper

My husband and I went on a bird outing with a group to the Sweetwater Wetlands in Northwest Tuscon. We had 2 birding experts with the group.This is the first time I have been here. As soon as we stepped out of our car we could hear birds everywhere! I saw 19 new birds. My daughter and I went again today and I added a Harris Hawk and European Starling to my list. These bird photos were taken by my husband.

The Joy of Birding

I've taken up the wonderful new hobby of birding. My daughter, Christina, got me interested after she watched a fun movie called The Big Year. My husband loves to come along to take some of the photos of the birds we see. I live in the desert city of Tucson, Arizona. We love to hike and birding makes hiking even more enjoyable. We are always on the lookout for these little treasures hiding in bushes, trees, on cactus and flying through the air. The photo below is the road to Sabino Canyon used by walkers and  bicyclists. 

There are many trails to take along the way that go up into the mountains or down to the Sabino Creek. And of course there are many birds to see along the way. 

The Gila Woodpecker  (pronounced hela with a long e)  

The Cactus Wren is our state bird.

Making Pasties with the Grandchildren

One of the things I found out about my husband's family when I started going out with him many years ago was that they loved pasties. It was always a special meal for them. I had never heard of pasties, but I loved them the first time I ate them. As time went on my mother-in-law taught me how to make pasties and I have taught my children to make them.

These photos show me teaching my grandson how to make pasties along with the help of my daughter and granddaughter.

One time I asked my mother-in-law how she made such great crust. She said she had a secret...then she took out a box of Betty Crocker pie crust mix. I had to laugh and thought great!! I hated making my own crust.

Pasties are basically a meat, potato, and onion pie that the early miners took down to the mines for their lunches. You can read about the history of the pastie here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasty.

In our family pasties are a special meal. To make them you cut into cubes your choice of meat. We have used veal, pork, various cuts of beef or chicken. Save any fat to make a broth. Dice up potatoes, and onion and add to the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Make a pie crust dough. Take a small ball of dough and roll it out into a circle about 6-7 or so inches in diameter. Put a cup full of the meat mixture onto half of the dough and fold the other half over and pinch the edges closed. Some people put a pat of butter on top of the mixture before closing. Place on a cookie tray.  Bake at 350 for about an hour. I'm not giving amounts. Just put in what you like. While the pasties bake, add water, salt and pepper to the fat to make your broth. Throw the fat away when done. When we eat our pasties, we chop the top with our fork, pour a little broth on top and follow with ketchup. I'm getting hungry just telling you about them. The aroma is wonderful and your house will still smell great the next day.

There are many variations to what you put inside a pastie. My husband and I taught school in Australia for a couple of years right after we were married. Pasties were served at school for lunch. I can remember that they had carrots and other types of vegetables in theirs. They may think it is funny that pasties are such a special meal for us.

The Gifts of a Christmas Just Past

Before Christmas, I shared photos of the wordless book I was making for my granddaughter.
Here she is telling her own stories. She is 3 years old. She began each page with, "One daaaay, Cattie Caterpillar ..." She loves the book just like I hoped she would. I added a few more pages after my last post on the book, and also went back and put a different hat or swimming goggles, for the ocean scene, on the large storyteller caterpillar at the bottom of each page.

The other gift I made was the matching aprons for my daughter, granddaughter and doll.

The chair was given to my husband when he was
2 years old. My sister-in-law wove a new seat and
repainted it for our oldest daughter for Christmas
when she was little. Now it has been repainted and
given to our granddaughter. The chair is about 64 years old!

Our kitchen is being renovated, but we still managed to cook a great dinner together. I will tell you about it in my next post.

Friendship!

I was browsing through some of our Etsygreetings shops and came across this wonderful card. This is such a great card to give to a friend! You can find it in the shop of

adorebynat.    http://www.etsy.com/listing/78594044/bakers-friendship-card-c710

Lots of cute details on this card to send to a friend. My sister, who is my best friend, would love it!

   http://www.etsy.com/listing/46199927/birds-of-a-feather-handmade-friend-bff at LolasCraftShop

Or maybe she would love to receive this card. One of our favorite pastimes is meeting for coffee.    http://www.etsy.com/listing/71662833/perk-up-coffee-with-friends-morning
by PapermoonsDesigns.

This handmade greeting card features a beautiful display of sewing items that any sewing friend would treasure. 
Visit the shop of treasuresfromthe80s to see this adorable card.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/77271265/handmade-greeting-card-friendship-sewing

Who wouldn't cherish this cute card! A friend is truly someone special. Find this card
http://www.etsy.com/listing/80035259/friendship-greeting-card-with-hedgehog in AnnDesigned.

Christmas Comes to My Granddaughter's Wordless Book

The caterpillar's are out enjoying the snow! 

I've had fun bringing Christmas to my granddaughter's wordless book. I added a Santa hat for the larger storyteller caterpillar. I will have to go back and have a look at some of the earlier pages to see if any other storyteller caterpillar needs a hat or some other prop, such as an engineer's hat on the train page! After making the outdoor scene, I thought it would be fun to create an indoor Christmas page.

                               How about antlers for this storyteller caterpillar!

Now it's time for me to put all the completed pages together as a book  I will adhere the blue decorated pages to the larger color backgrounds. I'm putting the pages in a scrapbook album. The plastic page holders in the album will protect the story sheets and allow Sierra to take the pages out and change their order.

This has been such a fun project. If I have time I may add another page or two. I have an idea for a new page - a beach scene to go with an underwater scene that I have already finished. I've enjoyed sharing this project on my blog. Have a Merry Christmas!

If you would like to see some of my other story pages just scroll down and visit my earlier posts.

Let's visit more pages of Sierra's wordless book!

There are so many places in the community that I can use as inspiration for my wordless book. Of course I have limited myself to the cartridges I have with my Cricut and maybe a few cutouts which I can design using my Pazzel. As I said in an earlier post, one of my purposes is to make use of my Cricut which I have rarely used. 

My husband loves trains, so I knew I wanted to include a train scene. My granddaughter can even see a train go by in the distance from her upstairs family room window. She should have a lot to say about this page.

The following are a few more pages that I have completed. They include an airport, complete with cactus since we live in Arizona.  There is also a seaport and the front of a house.