My favoriite piece! Dana wouldn't let me bring it home...

I love to go to art and craft shows.  A couple of weeks ago there was a big one, Peddlers in the Park at Lake Farmpark here in Lake County, Ohio.  The tents and awnings covered the entire festival grounds and then some.  It was a beautiful early fall day, perfect temps, lovely blue sky.  These people are so talented and it looked like there were a lot of purchasers.   

My favorite, and you will see I took lots of photos, was the metal artists.  These two talented welders take pieces/parts of farm equipment and implements and turn them into the most amazing things.  

I also fell in love with the Tole Painted bird feeders/houses  -this is the one I chose hanging in my garden.

Busy Bee Bird Feeder/House

The Christmas season is coming and I encourage you to seek out and support your local artists.  If you want more info on any of these artists/crafters just contact me and I will try to find their contact info.    Pause any time in the slide show to get a longer look.

If you’ve been following the Columbus falcons, you will remember that Durand laid 5 eggs this season but all were found to be infertile.  While disappointing, Donna Daniels, with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, reports that this is not unusual for a young falcon.  

Donna just posted an interesting update on two 1995 Columbus fledges, Roosevelt and Leopold.   These two falcons fledged a total of 62 young in their years in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and Monroe, Michigan.  Quite impressive stats, proving just how valuable the falcon program in Ohio has been to rescuing this beautiful species from the brink of extinction.

Visit the ODNR site  to view the ledge and nest box and link to views of other nesting sites in Ohio and around the world.

On a glorious early fall afternoon last weekend we had the chance to enjoy a great game of baseball between the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins.  This  was a replay of a game previously cancelled by rain.  The crowd was sparse.  The action was exciting!  Dana and Andy were seated in a field level box behind home plate with tickets Dana won in a drawing at work.  This was their view:

I was seated in an upper level seat, almost above the clouds.  This was my view:

Don’t feel sorry for me.  I loved the view.  I even took some photos of the city from that lofty height.

The thing I found most interesting was that as people came into the upper level, no matter that there were slightly better seats below them and no one was checking tickets in the upper levels, by and large they went to the seats they purchased.    I of course sat in a better seat, figuring I would move when the rightful owners showed up, which they never did.  About the 5^th inning I made my way down to the field level, also about ½ empty, and took a seat with Dana and Andy in their completely empty row. 

Shortly the game heated up and the Indians ran away with it, 8 – 2.   Fireworks and an interview with Shelley Duncan, the Star of the Game, completed our baseball day.  We went home with some great memories and a Jim Thome poster.

Baseball is the game I grew up with.  One of my first summer memories is of laying in the grass at my grandparent’s house listening to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio.  My great-grandfather would sit in one of those old-fashioned metal lawn chairs with the radio in his pocket and an ear phone in his ear so he could hear the game better.   This was in the early ’60s.  Games were telecast but in those pre-cable, pre-air conditioner days, it was better to sit outside on  pleasant summer evening listening to the game on the radio, seeing it in your mind’s eye, rather than trying to watch it on a black and white TV with the sometimes fuzzy reception gained by merely an antennae. 

One of the sweetest events in spring is that of Opening Day.  After a long, dreary winter, hope is renewed that summer will come again.  One of the saddest is when the season ends, signaling an end to summer.  In your town summer, may be extended with play-offs and the World Series, but not in Cleveland, not this year.  We will be bracing for snow and dreaming about next spring’s call to “play ball!”

Broad Winged Hawk - photo from AllAboutBirds.org

Saturday,  September 17, this report came over the Ohio Birds Listserv.  I had to read it twice to make sure I was reading it right.  Posted by Richard Banish.

not ohio, but close

i hit Hawkfest this morning @ Lake Erie
Metro Park (20 min south of Detroit).

from 9:00 until I left at 3:30 there were around 30,000 raptors counted. many passing overhead easily seen
without optics. mostly broadies – but mix in baldies,
harriers, sharpies, ospreys and 3+ swainson’s.
a resident osprey thrilled the crowd twice
by catching a fish 50 yards upriver and
carrying the meal directly overhead. 

I can’t even imagine what this must have been like!  And then, Sunday, this report, from the same observer:

remember this is south of Detroit! numbers yesterday ended up at over 190,000!

there were 100,000-ish when i was there from
9:00 – 4:00. huge push after 4:00 with
big lines and kettles some totalling in the few thousands. FUN!

Detroit River Hawk Watch also reports:

After unstable weather between the 5^th and part of September 9th, migration very slowly increased in volume due to passages occurring south of the count site, especially on the 15^th and 16th. The peak of broad-winged hawk migration occurred on September 17th. The estimated sample of 190,121 broad-winged hawks represented the highest one-day total recorded at the Lake Erie Metropark boat launch since monitoring began in the 1980s with a previous high count there of 71,334 on September 17, 2002.

I went to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources web site for Lake Erie MetroPark to see just what is going on up there and found that this is a birding hotspot, especially in the fall when raptors are migrating.  The web site confirms that thousands are seen there every year with Hawkfest held in mid-September to celebrate the event (it was last weekend).  This is definitely going on my list as a trip I want to make next year!

In case you want to go too, visit the web site at Lake Erie Metropark  or go to www.metroparks.com and select Lake Erie Metropark.

This morning … I was able to locate and see an American White Pelican at Meander Reservoir, in the Trumbull county section of the reservoir, just north of the Mahoning County line. Meander Reservoir is part of The Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, and unfortunately there is no access to the public except bisecting roads. Earlier I met with the Resident Engineer at his office, the photos were taken by him, and he amazingly, had recorded in his daily reports first seeing the celebrity visitor on June 29th. The Pelican has been present ever since. He says it occasionally takes flight, but mostly stays in one area, normally not visible from any road. Cormorants tend to congregate around the Pelican. The Records Committee Checklist shows late June, and the months of July and August sightings to be very unusual. The Resident Engineer will keep me posted on when the Pelican departs. With Meander Reservoir having virtually no human activity on the water; Bald Eagles, Ospreys, and numerous successful nesting Double-crested Cormorants are present. The unusual inland Cormorant nestings located in the Mahoning County section, can be seen looking north from the long westbound Interstate 80 Bridge. The nests are on top of the old concrete bridge pier foundations running parallel with I-80. Bob Lane / Mahoning County    

This sighting is just two counties away from mine, near the Pennsylvania border. 

Map of Ohio, highlighting the location of Mahoning County

I’ve learned a lot about birds and where they live from other birders in my state.  If you are in Ohio, check out the The Ohio Ornithological Society’s web site, sign up for the email list and get news about what other birders are seeing, suggestions on places to watch birds and rare bird alerts.  Not in Ohio?  Click here for a list of other state/provinces birding web sites.

Double Crested Cormorant - photo from AllAboutBirds.org

American White Pelican - photo from AllAboutBirds.org.

I  did not see this myself, but today a report from Kenn Kaufman on the Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society, was as follows:

This afternoon (Wednesday Sept. 14) I spotted an American White Pelican circling high above the parking lot of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, just north of Rt. 2 at the entrance to Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Ottawa County, northwest Ohio. Kimberly Kaufman, Mark Shieldcastle, and I watched as the bird circled and drifted off to the east, paralleling the lake shore. This was at about 1:30. Birders coming in for the Midwest Birding Symposium (Sept. 15-18, headquartered at Lakeside, about 25 miles east of BSBO) should keep this species in mind, and take a second look at any high-soaring, white-and-black bird: i.e., don’t assume that they’re all gulls. American White Pelican is now regular in very small numbers in northwest Ohio during the warmer months, but it’s still exciting to see one.

Kenn KaufmanEditor, Kaufman Field Guides series

The only place I have ever seen a pelican outside of a zoo was on a lake in Yellowstone Park many years ago.  How thrilling it would be to see this bird in my own neighborhood.  I’ll be looking up for sure.  Even though they are only seen now in Northwestern Ohio it is only a matter of time before they move east.  Or maybe I’ll get lucky on a trip to Northwestern Ohio! 

Kenn Kaufman is the author of the Kaufman Field Guides to North American Birds, Butterflies, Mammals, and Insects.  My favorite Kenn Kaufman book is Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder.  In 1973, at age 19,  he set out across the USA to try and set a record for most species seen in one year, hitchhiking and working odd jobs as he went.  It is a very entertaining book, both for the birds he saw and the characters he encountered.    Find Kenn Kaufman at KaufmanFieldGuides.com

You can read more about American White Pelicans at AllAboutBirds.org. 

Keep looking up! 

American White Penguin in flight - photo from AllAboutBirds.org

My new toy:

Cuisinart ICE-21R Ice Cream Maker. Yeah, I got the red one, why not?

 A couple of weeks ago I faced the sad fact that summer is quickly coming to an end.  Hopefully we will have a long, warm fall but I thought it was time for a purchase I had been putting off for some time – an ice cream maker.  I think it was a case of “review indecision” but once I talked to everyone I knew and did a couple of days of research on the internet I concluded that this baby would be reliable and the 1-1/2 quart bowl would be the right size for our family, especially considering that my son did not inherit the ice cream gene.  Rarely will he eat ice cream of any flavor and if he does decide to it must be vanilla.   Can’t bribe him with most sweets in fact but give him a bag of pretzels or Funions and he’s in heaven.  

OK, back to the ice cream dilemma.   Hubby and I are both trying to cut back on calories and our stops to the local ice cream stand are not helping.  With our own ice cream maker we can control the contents.  It’s got to be better than multiple trips to one of our many gourmet ice cream stops and even FroYo.  Since we are in the midst of one of the best growing seasons ever up here I wanted to add fresh fruit.  The peaches in Northeastern Ohio have been amazingly juicy and sweet and I had just purchased 2 bags of perfectly ripe ones from my local farm stand.  You know the ones I’m talking about, you bite into them and the juice runs down your chin, mmmmm.    The yellow jackets were swarming around the stand, they were that good and ripe.

Time to make the ice cream!

 One of my go to sites for information on canning and preserving is Pick Your Own.Org.  When I searched for fat free and sugar free ice cream I was surprised to see a link and when I went there I wasn’t disappointed.  There was a simple base recipe for my type of ice cream maker with the frozen bowl.    I prepared the custard base and put it in the fridge overnight so it would be good and cold the next day.  My mixing bowl was already in the freezer ready to go.

 We made our ice cream the next day in the afternoon.  Andy had a picnic at noon and even though he would never eat the ice cream he wanted to see it made.  I toasted some pecans in the oven until fragrant, cooled them in the freezer then chopped them into largish pieces.  I peeled and chopped the peaches.   Everything being ready, we plugged in the machine and set it working.

Add the peaches before putting in the freezer bowl

 Yay!  It’s working. 

Peaches mixing

 Now if this is a purchase you have also been putting off, don’t delay.  If your ice cream maker is sitting in a closet or your garage gathering dust, get it out.  Summer’s almost over people, what are you waiting for??!!!  If you have an ice cream maker and you use it a lot, you know why I am a convert.  When it was done we put most of it into a container for the freezer and the rest went into bowls for immediate consumption, outside, under the trees!  Yum Yum! (Andy still would not try it, even though he thought making it was cool.)  This machine was easy to use, pretty quiet and easy to clean up.

Add the pecans near the end of the mixing time

 You may be a purist when it comes to making and eating ice cream.  You may love the full fat, full sugar variety.  You may think ice cream doesn’t taste the same unless you have to buy rock salt, break up ice and add your own sweat.  No matter, there’s a place for everyone at the ice cream table.  Just do it.  We were eating it while it was mixing, we just couldn’t wait.

 I highly recommend this recipe, however, if you want to lighten it up.  It is more along the ice milk path, but the addition of fresh peaches and pecans made it a real treat.  And aren’t fruits and nuts a healthy treat?  Of course they are!  No matter that they are enclosed in a frozen milk/cream bath.  This recipe is not strictly sugar free as I made it but low sugar.  Modify as needed to suit your dietary requirements.

 Click over to PickYourOwn.Org for complete instructions:    How to Make Homemade Fat-Free, Sugar-Free Gourmet Ice Cream, Any Flavor, Using a Gel-container Ice Cream Maker.

 I followed the recipe and instructions as is, using liquid egg whites and fat-free Half and Half – it worked perfectly.  I added 2 cups of peaches and ¾ cup of pecans, again toasting the pecans then chilling them before adding.  The quantity of custard was almost too much for my machine so next time I plan to split the custard mix and make two different flavors.  The custard will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days so I could refreeze my bowl and make the second batch the next day.  Or get another bowl.

Yeah, get another bowl...

 Next time I will add chopped cocoa covered almonds and coconut flakes.  And the next time, peaches and ginger snap cookies, then dark chocolate chips and cherries, then pumpkin pie spiced for fall …..the possibilities are endless!  Frozen yogurt, sorbet, gelato ….  

Note re: day 2 – heed the instructions in the recipe and let it sit for 15 minutes before serving.  Otherwise 1)  you will break your scoop IF you can even get it in 2) the resulting brain freeze from eating the too cold product is painful!

I would love to hear your favorite ice cream flavor – please comment!  And if you have a tried and true recipe feel free to share.

This week's CSA box. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!

This week I had just a small handfull of green beans in my CSA box and LOTS of tomatoes.  I’ve been making the standard country dish of green beans/new potatoes/onions/ham all summer and was ready for something different.  I ran on to this recipe from Weight Watchers, having over 400 reviews and a 4-1/2 star rating I thought it would be worth a try.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Along with my CSA tomatos it made a fantastic, easy and quick side dish.   Bonus:  Basil was $1 per big bunch at my local farmstand! 

This recipe makes a large quantity but can easily be adjusted for any amount you have.  Read on after the menu for my modifications.

Roasted Green Beans and Tomatoes

Ingredients

• Olive Oil
• 4 cups green snap beans, trimmed
• 2 cups grape or cherry tomatos, cut in half or quartered if large.
• 1/4 cup basil
• 2 tsp minced garlic, or to taste
• 1/2 tsp table salt, or more to taste
• 1/4 tsp black pepper, or more to taste

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 450ºF. Coat a large roasting pan with olive oil. 
• Place green beans in a single layer in prepared pan and brush with olive oil. Roast until desired doneness, stirring once or twice, about 10 to 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of basil, garlic, salt and pepper; set aside.
• When green beans are finished, remove from oven and spoon tomato mixture into pan; toss thoroughly. Serve hot, room temperature or chilled, topped with remaining 2 tablespoons of basil. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

Things I changed:

• Added a sprinkle of salt to the green beans before roasting.
• I used a mix of whole peppercorns in a grinder instead of straight black pepper
• Use any tomatoes you have on hand.  I used yellow grape and small red.  If you have regular large tomatoes, just cut them into chunks
• Added the tomato mix to the green beans in the oven for the last two minutes.  This warms the tomatoes, garlic and basil and releases some yummy juices.
• Pour it all in a bowl, toss and serve.  Sprinkle with remaining  basil.

One other thing you will need – a great loaf of bread to sop up all that yummy juice!  Enjoy!

It was a beautiful summer Saturday, perfect for the road trip I had been craving all summer.  Dana (aka “Hubby”) has a new car and it was time to break it in.  Hubby and I headed east along the Lake Erie shoreline with our final destination being Conneaut Harbor, last stop before crossing the border into Pennsylvania.   We’ve visited this harbor several times but it seems we are usually there in the fall and winter.  This glorious summer day the harbor was a busy place, with people enjoying all forms of water sports - swimming, boating, skiing.  We found a section of the beach we could drive onto (to break in the new SUV, you know) and behind it was a small pool.  I saw a guy with a camera focusing a looooong lens on something in the pool.  I have learned from experience that this and people peering through spotting scopes means something special is around.  He left before I could ask him what he was looking at but the targets were not hard to find.  Two American Avocets were enjoying the abundance of  Northeastern Ohio on their way south for the winter.  One was busy picking out tasty treats from the bottom of the pool, the other appeared to be napping with its head tucked behind it’s wing, posing on one leg.

American Avocets at Conneaut Harbor, Ohio August 13, 2011

Over all it was a good day for wildlife.  We saw barn swallows flitting around the harbor boats and many gulls on the shore, in the air and water.  Mallard ducks and Canadian geese shared the pool with the Avocets.  We crossed the border into PA and at the Elk Creek Access area of Erie Bluffs State Park we saw a fox and a small buck deer.  I also heard but did not see a Great Blue Heron beyond the creek.   I can’t wait to return to this area and see what else might turn up.

Following are more photos of our fun day along the lakeshore.  I hope you will share your most special bird or wildlife sighting in the comments.