Monday, March 28, 2016

Overlooked Eggs

March 27, 2016
Based on the title and the timing, a reader might be fooled into thinking that this is a post about the eggs my sons didn't find as they hunted in the bright chilly morning yesterday.
But they found them all.
It was just as they were hunting for eggs (in one case for the fifth time this season) and I was looking at all of the chocolate eggs we created, it occurred to me that I had entirely overlooked eggs as a part of bird year planning.
Coconut, peanut butter, maple walnut,
vanilla, and orange ginger
I'm not going to entirely remedy that here, but will include some poor quality photos of chocolate eggs, hunting eggs, a hummingbird nest and a cactus wren nest to illustrate that birds and eggs have been on my mind.  I'll add a cross of poppy flower blooming in the desert, because it seems symbolically appropriate.

Happy Spring!  May you appreciate the new life hatching out all around.
Cactus wren nest in cholla


Hummingbird nest


March 13, near White Sands Missile Test Site.
Most were gold.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Bird Songs (the mix tape), Bird Bands, and other Bird Year Activities

Within a few days after I gave The Mister Duck Duck Goose, the cookbook, for Christmas, promising him duck parts to make charcuterie with, we found geese on sale at a supermarket in Kansas, confirmed trips to the desert in March and the Atlantic coast in June, had a great time at the Aviary at the Denver Zoo when we had intended to visit the Museum of Science and Nature, were given a spotting scope and fois gras, and saw giant flocks behaving wondrously along the roadside.  It seemed BIRD YEAR was meant to be.

Yet there is still that voice (in my head and of a few more outspoken friends) asking, okay, what, exactly, are you going to do during bird year?  And I remember the annual articles telling us every January that we need to have tangible, assessible goals, made publicly to those that support us, for any resolution to have a chance of sticking.  Which means, I can't just say, "This is BIRD YEAR" and have a reasonable expectation of it turning out nearly as cool as I envision.

I must say, "During Bird Year I Will:"

1. Observe Birds
2. Eat and Cook Birds
3. Read "Bird" Things
4. Learn about Birds
5. Watch and Listen to "Bird" Media
6. Write about Birds, Figuratively and Literally

According to my reading of the annual resolution articles, I should have sub-goals for each of these, with something like this, preferably tied to time lines:
2. Eat and Cook Birds
Rocky Mountain National Park, June 1 2015
I apparently don't have enough bird photos and need to re-use them
A. I will eat:
    i. chicken
   ii. turkey
   iii. quail
    iv. duck
    v. goose
    vi. pheasant
    vii. guinea fowl
    viii. capon
    ix. something else (ostrich, emu, partridge, squab . . . )
    x. turducken
B. I will learn to:
    i. pluck a bird
    ii. bone a bird
    iii. fry chicken so it is delicious
   iv. handle poultry so it doesn't creep me out
    v. make great stock
C. I will also try
    i. curing bird meat
    ii. cooking with many different parts of birds
       a. giblets
       b. fat
       c. skin . . . . AND SO ON

But I'm not quite up to the full list now, and none of you is up for reading it,  so I am starting with calls for what goes on the "GREAT BIRD MIX TAPE"  (which, if actually created, would be the "Great Bird Compilations CD" but I'm old school and I am envisioning this on a cassette).

GREAT BIRD MIX TAPE: Beginnings

When Doves Cry- Prince
Chicken Man- Indigo Girls
Fly Like an Eagle- Steve Miller Band
Blackbird- Beatles
Anne Murray- Snowbird
Lobo- The Albatross

What else?

The Bird Band Mix will be separate, and apparently not all caps, and will include: The Eagles, Counting Crows, Black Crows, Dixie Chicks and, of course, the Byrds.

Who else?