Birthday

Today is my husband's birthday!

He is officially ancient.

This morning I had success at waking him by blowing raspberry farts all over his neck, chest, belly and face.

He finally got up at 10:45AM.

The dog and I were so excited he got out of bed!

 

So that is how his birth day officially started!

 

A long time ago, I came across the cutest birthday card for my sister's birthday! It goes like this:

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe

Hippo Birdie Deer Ewe

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe

 

So if you want to sing about hippos, birds, deers and ewes for your birthday, sing it. It goes to the tune of the happy birthday song.

 

My husband still needs to pick out a meal he wants me to make for his birthday or a restaurant and then pick out what he wants to do.

 

We're officially celebrating his birthday next Sunday with my brother in law! Me and my sister both married men who were older, in the military, and have birthdays in January. How ironic is that?

 

Happy Birthday!

Kids

Yesterday some neighbor kids had all kinds of questions. I had just returned from walking the dog to the park.

• Is my dog a boy or a girl?
• How do I know if my dog is a boy or a girl?
• Does he like to go to the park?
• Is he bleeding in his mouth?
• Does he like sticks?
• Does he live in my house with me?
• Did he like his leash when he went to the park?

 They informed me a dog poops out puppies.

But the poop turned into a puppy when they washed it off.

And that she had 3 puppies but only 1 lived.

And they fed the puppy and it grew bigger and bigger.

But the momma dog's dead now.

???????????????

I didn't ask any questions.

You can find out and learn much more than you needed to by just talking with neighbor kids!

Look what survived!

Yay! Look at the weather today!

This is open window weather!

Who would have thought January would have so many nice days?

 

Guess who's going to be enjoying the great outdoors today?

There's a chance for rain tomorrow.

Hmmmmmm. What to do today?

 

 

Lost Puppy

I found a puppy Monday morning and I realized it was too small to find it's way back home. I picked it up and lugged it around looking for it's owners but no one was out looking for a puppy or knew whose he was. So I brought him back home and made signs and posted them all over.

I received 2 calls. 1 lady thought I might have picked up her older dog but just called it a puppy, and another thought I had picked up her tiny brown itty bitty puppy. I checked Craigslist and another website for reported lost animals. No luck anywhere! I even brought him to a veterinarian who tried to see if he was micro chipped! He's not! I walked everywhere and knocked on people's doors asking if they had seen him or knew anyone missing a dog. No one had ever seen him!

This puppy I think is a Black lab/Pit bull mix and it's aggressive to other dogs already. It pulls it's lips up in a snarl and growls and barks at any other dog. But it's absolutely adorable and so sweet to people and follows me everywhere without a leash!

This puppy is a busy chewer and I think the best part about having him here is when he sleeps. Which is always right by my feet. Or between me and my husband's feet like right here Monday evening. Peace reigns when a puppy sleeps! I never dared get up while he slept because as soon as I would he'd pop up and follow me and get into mischief again! You can see how tiny he was compared to the size of my husband's shoe. Look at that belly!

He likes to try climb up your leg when he wants to be held which I think is cute except it won't be cute to whoever owns him when he grows up!

I am tired and weary because I have to constantly watch him and my other dog when they're together and keep watching for signs of him needing to go potty. He slept through the night with only me waking up to wake him to bring him potty!

 

But no more! The Animal Care and Control came and picked him up yesterday morning. Oh the relief! As soon as I received the call they were here, I fed him real quick, tried to get him to drink water- he wouldn't, and ran him out the door. I told the guy he's probably thirsty. Hopefully they will give his family good time to claim him and then put him up for adoption if no one comes for him. The guy who came to get him said the puppy was only 3 months old! Just a bitty baby! I had no idea that by looking at their teeth you could tell their age! I guess whatever age the sharp baby teeth fall out which he still has!

 

I felt comfortable letting them take him because he's adorably sweet and will adopt easily, and I can't keep him. I made sure to tell him about how he's aggressive towards other dogs.

 

Whew!

Plants And Flowers At The Zoo

Not only does the Phoenix Zoo have some pretty amazing animals, it also has some very beautiful and exotic looking plants and flowers in it's gardens and along the paths!

Some very interesting trees. Anyone know what kind they are?

This plant caught my eye. It looks like a lily flower but it's not. It appears to be a cactus with a very delicate flower! This one's by the orynxs:

Is this a cactus? Such vibrant colors!

By the entrance to the orangutan enclosures was this pretty tree:

Beautiful colors between the orangutan enclosures!

another angle:

And when you leave the orangutan enclosures, you see this bush with very exotic blooms!

I found I was looking at the plants the same as I was looking at the animals!

It seemed everything was blooming even all the cactuses!

 

The zoo is a wonderful place!

 

Welcome To The Zoo, Zoo, Zoo...

Welcome to the Zoo:

From the game: Putt Putt Saves The Zoo

Just push play and look at the rest:

Click on any picture to make it bigger.

I think these are black tailed prairie dogs:

I thought it was so cool how this snake coiled up so tight!

Mexican wolf:

Peccary:

Rhino:

And his humongous poo:

Mandrill:

Baboons:

I can't remember what kind of monkeys these next 3 pictures are, but you can walk right into their enclosure! They are tiny:

Orangutan swinging:

and swinging:

Big orangutan using stick tools to dig and eat bugs out from the edging of it's enclosure!

Pelicans are huge! This one was probably 3-4 feet tall! And It's wing span when it stretched it's wings out was at least 6 feet!

And my favorite cow:

This picture barely captures the size of her huge belly! It would fit 2-3 of me in there! She's due in 2-3 months! She's so sweet and loves being scratched!

And someone was feeding the ducks and fish as we were leaving:

I just love going to the zoo!

 

 

Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen

Last night we went here:

Let me tell you what we experienced:

The music was so loud you had to almost yell to be heard which everyone else seemed to be doing.

Their meals vary in price from $19-$50. Most of their appetizers are less. Because we were there for the first time, the waiter brought out their fried alligator for us to try. It was surprisingly good! If you've never had fried alligator, it's the texture of soft moist chicken with a flavor somewhat like chicken with a fishy under taste. Unfortunately, their fryer oil must not have been hot though because they dripped with grease from the soggy oily breading... They season the meat very well. A spicy delicious Creole seasoning and their house dressing on the side. They garnished it with flavorless (I mean no flavor can't even taste potato) fried potato shoestrings. Their sauce was so good!

Here is a picture of inside the restaurant. Bluuuurrrr!

And I tilted my head backwards and took a picture of an unfortunate fish and 2 deer or something with very hairy fuzzy ears directly above our heads. I thought this quite random because they specialize in seafood. They had tons of fish on the walls too.

I didn't take a picture of our food, but I ordered tilapia and my husband ordered the mahi mahi. We ordered 1 Caesar salad to share. My husband claimed it too anchovy tasting, and I was disappointed that instead of romaine they used ice burg lettuce. His mahi mahi's seasoning only was good! My green beans were delicious. My tilapia was so soggy and badly seasoned, and had a confusing sauce over the top! Everything else was soggy, oily, weird and confusing. Even my husband's dirty rice was so strongly seasoned it tasted weird but not bad and it shocked the taste buds! I'll just leave it at that. We decided we'll never go there again!

 

We ordered the brownie for dessert. This was fantastic! I have never had a better tasting brownie before! It was the best part of the meal with my green beans coming in a close second and the alligator coming in a very distant third. The rest might as well not be mentioned! We were inhaling it before I thought to take a picture!

I have decided I must be a carnivore. I had eaten a Chicken pot pie meal earlier at home, and then at the restaurant ate:

Alligator

crab

shrimp

scallop

crawdad

tilapia

mahi mahi

anchovies

 

Now I just nibbled a bit of everything except the tilapia which was mine (I ate more of that). Mine had the unfortunate topping of a sauce with chunks of tomato and crab and 3 large shrimp. I really don't like all seafood so I scraped it off onto my husbands plate after sampling. It was chewy and soggy and dripping with a very oily sauce and badly seasoned. He had me sample a little of all the seafood on his plate. He loves seafood but told me it all was the worst seafood he's ever had. I will admit it was mostly all disgusting except for his mahi mahi's seasoning. But he didn't like it... And everything was sitting in and was dripping with grease and soggy or chewy. Everything. Except my green beans which were delicious! We both agreed they were the best part of the meal!

 

Go there for dessert only. I can only figure people must go there for their cocktails, beers, wine and spirits, desserts and the atmosphere because it was so packed it was shocking! The landscaping was so beautiful as well as their courtyard right outside the restaurant. It's a fun place to go but not to eat a meal. And we don't drink. So why go back?

 

Well, I guess we survived eating there and both had a stomach ache from the greasy food on the way home and even before we went to bed.

 

Have you been there before and did you like it?

I'm hoping everyone else has better experiences than we did!

 

Have a happy Sunday!

 

 

My Garden

Here is an update on my patio garden. This is all I have left:

I re potted some and pulled other plants out for the garbage, and trimmed.

Notice my sad rosemary Christmas tree plant? (It's the middle pot pictured below) I noticed it was dying indoors during Christmas. I put it out doors and kept it watered and happy in the sun where they like to be, and it kept dying. I got so sad. I finally looked real close at it and realized it was made of 2 plants. 1 of the plants completely died as well as 1/2 the other surviving one and so I cut out all the dead and re potted it into my rosemary pot where my last rosemary was so happy until I killed it. We'll see how it does. So far, so good.

1 of my cactus's rotted so I re potted my 2 baby cactus's into that pot. They somehow miraculously survived my bad watering skills that killed my beloved rosemary plant last summer (which was non existent because I was trying to survive myself while over-working), while I somehow over watered the other cactus? I can't figure out cactus's. All I know is I despise planting cactus's! Owch! 

I am still very impressed at my 3 date palms happily surviving somehow with a tiny bit of dirt left in each pot. I really need to put more dirt into the bottom of each pot. (I have a whole pot of dirt with worms in it in the top picture.)

You might have also noticed the yellow sticks in the pot below the table on the right side? That's my pot of 4 asparagus plants. I decided they don't each need their own pot. I didn't care what they thought. I was sick of their ugly looks too so I cut the tops off. I felt so brutal but I didn't care. They are one of the most ugliest but tastiest plants out there. They finally turn yellow and die off in the winter. Just the last couple weeks they finally went from green to turning yellow. After their rude transplanting and disturbing of their roots, we'll see if they even come back in a month or 2 when it warms up.

 

It has been so warm here this "winter" that I have kept my windows and doors open most of the time. We'll see if it even turns into real winter this "winter".

Afghani Bread

After my mom posted a blog about foot bread, I decided to do the same recipe. I also not having the nigella seeds, no onion seeds and no coriander seeds, used caraway seeds.
Here is Jasna Varcakovic's recipe: She states she doesn't want anyone to post a picture or a recipe from her blog onto theirs without permission, so I will only give you the link to the recipe on her blog to give her credit. http://jasnaskitchencreations.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/afghani-bread.html She has so many fantastic recipes on there!

I kneaded mine about 10 times. I let it rise 1 hour. I used olive oil and had tons of fun poking it. I baked it immediately after I poked it.

My raw dough:

Fresh from the oven:

The temperature converted into Fahrenheit is 428, but I cooked it at 350 like the lady's video below. I found it wouldn't brown. I also figured if the true Afghans cook theirs in a fire oven, why not turn up the heat? So after I noticed it wasn't browning after 8 minutes at 350, I turned it up to 500. After 5 minutes of no browning, I turned it up to 550 (the hottest my oven goes!). It started browning! I let it be for about 5 minutes, and pulled it out fearing if I left it too long it would dry out. It probably cooked about 25-30 minutes total. I learned you need hot hot heat to cook this bread to not only brown it but to cook it quickly so it won't dry out. 

Fluffy soft bread:

 

Me and my husband thought it a little bland, but after adding butter to mine it was better. I also noticed as I ate a piece after it cooled it has much more character in the flavor as it sits. Maybe I needed to add more seeds for flavor? Maybe that's why you need nigella seeds?

 

This lady Nooria Ali calls it Afghan naan even though she uses the same ingredients as in the Afghani bread recipe. It has no oil or dairy like most naan recipes have, so I think she tried to translate it and got the wrong name. I used her techniques with the dough without adding the extra water, but didn't turn my bread over 1/2 way during cooking. She cooks hers at 350. Hers also looks more dry (probably with the longer cooking time?). I'm curious on the flavor the onion seeds give it. I've never heard of eating onion seeds!

This man Haji Niayz Mohammad credits maintaining the right temperature in his oven to keep the bread soft. He also names and describes the different types of bread around the time 1:40 in the video. Saada is the name of the bread I think I just made.

Well, chain reaction, millions of Afghans make it, Jasna made it, my mom made it, I made it, are you?

Eggs not at the zoo

Here is the egg I cooked yesterday: DOUBLE YOLK!!!!!

The lions I saw at the Phoenix Zoo Sunday: They would look away every time I took a picture. The male lion ROARED! I was videoing it and everyone came running! I got home to realize I only took pictures and videos of the lions! I really like lions though...

If only I could figure out how to get the video of the lion roaring on here! It's on my phone. 

 

I also petted a pregnant brown cow. She was sweaty and hot and full of dirt and straw. She kept leaning into the fence to get closer to me to scratch her. Afterwards, my hand matched her coat color and I had to scratch my skin for a while under water with soap to loosen the grime! The zoo worker there told me she likes to roll around in the dirt and be dirty! She told me she's due in March or April so I'd love to go back at that time to see her calf! 

 

They aren't hiring at the zoo. I asked. Maybe some day huh? I'd probably have to move closer though cause it's a long drive there. 15 minutes on the freeway. Not ma thang!

 

Well, hope your day brings you sunshine and butterflies. But because of the time of year, hopefully at least a happy bird or 2 with the sun!

Trisha.