Just Playing With Pictures

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The Worst Luck With Cameras

I have the worst luck with cameras. The new camera I received as an early Christmas gift from DH, began working badly before we ever got back from our holiday trip.

This arch of black at the top of the picture is what it's been doing to all my pictures.



I've just been cropping all the pictures, so they look better before I post them here.

The camera was purchased through Amazon and it turns out they have a very easy return system, so we are sending the camera back for a replacement.

Back to the old Fuji with no LCD screen for a little while. Every time I think I'm going to retire the Fuji, it ends up being the only working camera in the house.

A History Lesson That Started 3 Million Years Ago

At the school, in the class referred to as thematics (history/science), the older elementary children are learning about the development of early man. The younger children are learning about prehistoric animals. Blaze goes with the younger kids to thematics about three times a week, while I help out with the older kids. I don't get to go into his class to see what he is doing during that time, but Blaze told me that yesterday they colored a picture of a Woolly Mammoth, except that he called it a "mountain-that-walks", because that's what the boy in our bedtime reading had called them.

It's much easier for our lessons at home to parallel the ones at school, so our bedtime reading this week has been Boy of the Painted Cave, by Justin Denzel.



Blaze has really been enjoying the story. It is about a boy, who has a strong desire to draw, even though his clan has strict rules about who may draw and he does not qualify. Blaze has pointed out to me, during our reading, that he also likes to draw. The boy is also treated badly because he has a crippled right foot, another reason why I think Blaze relates to him ( we have just been told this week that Blaze may, again, need to wear a brace [AFO] on this right foot).

The older elementary students at school have been gradually watching the 4-part BBC series Walking With Cavemen. I wanted to see it ahead of their lessons, so I would know what to expect, so Blaze and I watched that over the weekend. YouTube has the full episodes. They cannot be embedded onto a blog,because there is an advisory for brief nudity (Australopithecus did not wear clothes), but they can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/show/walkingwithcavemen



This site has a timeline of early human development for children, as well as links to other activities:

http://earlyhumans.mrdonn.org/

We did do some reading about prehistoric man before the Christmas break, so I don't want to spend too much time on this now. I would really like to get on to early civilizations.

Books from Austin

DH returned from the archeology conference in Austin, Texas, with presents for Blaze and I, from what he described as "a really cool bookstore".

For me:



If you would like to know more about Boilerplate, everything you could ever want to know, can be found here:

http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/


For Blaze:



It's really a beautiful vintage copy of Tanglewood Tales.


DH also came home with a book for himself, but he didn't have to buy his book, he won it. By coming in second in the student writing competition, he won a signed copy of a book he had been wanting, but couldn't afford ( it's normally around $90).



The book about Moundville is special to DH for another reason, other than being his prize. He worked on the Moundville site back in the 1990's.

Although it is hard to tell, the guy in the white T-shirt, in this picture from the book, is DH.

Tea for Children

Come along inside... We'll see if tea and
buns can make the world a better place.
~The Wind in the Willow~



I have had tea on my mind for the past few days (you might have noticed), so I introduced Blaze to a tea drink developed especially for children, cambric tea. Cambric tea is mentioned several times in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is tea which has been sweetened with sugar and very diluted with milk. The name cambric comes from a thin, white, cotton cloth, the name implying that the tea is thin and white.



Cambric Tea

2 Cup water

2 tea bags of black tea (we used "Constant Comment" from Bigelow)

2 cups milk

2 Tablespoons sugar


Bring water to a boil and pour into a tea pot. Place tea bags in pot for 3-4 minutes. Remove tea bags and stir in sugar until it is dissolved. Add milk. The milk may be heated first, so that it doesn't cool off the tea, but do not boil it.
Serve.





From Mother Goose:



This next song is not child related, but it is for my child. Blaze just discovered Frank Sinatra and decided he really likes his music, because it makes him feel like tap dancing.

More Recipes from Yesterday's Little Tea Party

Cream Puffs

1/4 Cup butter

1/2 Cup water

1/2 Cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat butter and water in a small sauce pan, until it comes to a full boil. Stir in flour. Stir rapidly until the flour forms a ball. Remove from heat. Break both eggs into the pan and quickly stir into the flour mixture until it forms a smooth dough. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop 9, evenly divided blobs of dough onto the paper. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes. Cool.

Cut the tops off of the cream puffs and pull out any soft bits of dough. Fill the bottom half of each puff with whipped cream and sliced fresh strawberries. Replace tops and enjoy.

This same dough can be used for making eclairs.




Rumaki was a party food that my mother made when I was a child. I believe it was a very stylish thing to have at your cocktail party in the late 60's and early 70's.



Rumaki

1 pound of bacon with the strips cut in half

1 pound of chicken livers, also cut in half

1 can of whole water chestnuts, drained and cut in half

1/3 soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger


Wrap a water chestnut half with chicken liver. wrap that tightly with bacon and secure with a toothpick. It will stay together better if you are careful to make sure the toothpick goes through the water chestnut. Repeat until all the bacon is gone. Mix soy sauce and ginger together and marinate the rumaki in the soy sauce mixture in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees F.


This recipe will make 2 batches, since the rumaki should be spaced out on a baking tray so it doesn't touch. Bake each batch about 25 minutes.







A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
~Eleanor Roosevelt~

Happy National Hot Tea Month

Just yesterday, I discovered that January is National Hot Tea Month in the United States. Any excuse for a celebration will do (DH is away in Austin at an archeology conference, and I decided that Blaze and I should have some fun, too ).



Last night, Blaze used some of the wax left over from the ice candles we made last month to make a candle out of a thrift store teacup.





We are already thinking ahead to Valentine's Day, because the teacup candle is going to be his Valentine gift for Nika, but today the candle was the centerpiece for our tea party.



Our Tea Party Menu

Regular deviled eggs

Deviled eggs with smoked salmon

Watercress sandwiches

Rumaki

Baby carrots

Cream puffs with sliced strawberries

Sweetened green tea with lemon




I have read in a couple different places recently, that deviled eggs are back in style, so here is my very easy recipe:



Deviled Eggs

7 hard boiled eggs

3 Tablespoons mayonnaise

1 1/2 teaspoons of prepared yellow mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

a dash of freshly ground black pepper

paprika for dusting


Remove the shell from hard boiled eggs and slice the eggs in-half lengthwise. Remove the yolks into a small mixing bowl. Add mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper to the yolks. Mash and stir the york mixture with a fork until smooth ( I found the immersion blender attachment for our hand-mixer does this really well, too). One pair of egg halve is really there just so there is a generous amount of yolk filling. At this point you may eat those two yourself, feed them to a child or pet who is whining about being hungry, or save them for another recipe. There is enough filling for 12 egg halves, which can be filled using a pastry bag or a teaspoon. For classic deviled eggs, sprinkle each egg with paprika after it is filled.

Variation:
I filled half of the eggs in the classic style and then for the other half I added some chopped chives to the filling, placed a small amount of filling in each half egg, added a small piece of smoked salmon, and more filling on top. Then I garnish them with chives.

Serving the deviled eggs on a bed of lettuce not only makes a pretty presentation, it keeps them from slipping around on the plate.



A little tea time reading from an 1881 copy of St. Nicholas Magazine:













I'm not sure, but tea may be the beverage with the most songs written about it: