Sunday, May 11, 2008

I received a very nice Mother's Day surprise :)

...actually more than one.

First a beautiful bouquet from my oldest son. He came home yesterday, which in itself was a gift because he has been away for about 6 weeks. We all went out for lovely lunch yesterday at Longhorn Steak House, because he had to go back early today to work on a project and start studying for finals. Soon it will be all over and he'll be graduating May 25th. Tomorrow we are going to his college for an Honors Convocation as he is receiving an academic excellence award for outstanding academic achievement in Computer Engineering. He will be receiving B.S. degrees in both electrical and computer engineering, magna cum laude. He is in the 5 year masters program and hopefully will receive his Master's degree a year from now.We are VERY proud of him!!

The other surprise was discovering one Robin's egg in the nest outside my kitchen window. Since April 26th we have had a very industrious mother robin (I named her Mrs. Robinson) building a nest in the rhododendron bush. Here and there she stopped showing up to work on the nest and we feared the worst.This is a picture of the rhododendron with the nest:
My camera leaves a lot to be desired. The zoom is awful, but I did manage in Adobe photoshop to zoom in and crop a close-up picture of my new friend:
Today she acted differently, staying longer in the nest resting and not doing her usual nest grooming. Tried standing up on a chair to try and see inside the nest, but no luck. Then I had the brainstorm and went upstairs to my bedroom window. Low and behold there was one beautiful turquoise, robin's egg blue egg in the nest!! I was so "egg"cited :) I opened the window and stuck out my arm with the camera and tried to get a picture. This is what I ended up with:
Not good! Once again I used photoshop and ended up with a close up:
Can you see the blue egg? From what I have read robins lay one egg a day. I'll have to keep a close eye on the nest. How appropriate to find the egg on Mother's Day! I am very happy :) If you want to see a perfect picture of a robin's nest, check out Melody's blog under "I" for incubating .
The next thing was not a surprise, but I am very happy with it. Most of you know I've been crazily baking artisan bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. I did have a dilemma though. My bread slices were a bit to be desired. Ok, for eating with butter, but too uneven for sandwiches. I tried an electric knife as suggested by some of my blogging friends and that went well, very well....but the next time I tried the knife, it was dead as a door nail!! I must have burnt the motor out using it to cut through the crispy, crunchy crust. The knife was over twenty years old (...so back to the drawing board.) I splurged and ordered a Rival Folding Food Slicer:
Now this works great! We now have beautiful even slices and the best part - it fold up nicely to fit in my cabinet. I'm baking bread so often now that I really think it will pay for itself :)

No knitting to show you as I am still working on the top secret birthday present.
Hope everyone is enjoy the day....happy knitting :)

31 comments:

  1. Happy Mother's Day!!
    The flowers are beautiful!! Congratulations to your son; He's done very, very well!

    I love the bird pictures! One beautiful egg...the fun is just starting! :)

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  2. Happy M Day! Love the robin egg photo :) Such a fun thing to watch throughout the spring, you feel like they're YOUR feathered kids growing up !!!!

    So jealous about the breadbaking and the rival food slicer. What a great set-up for yummy awesome bread!

    Have a good week :)

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  3. what a fantastic day!
    Happy Mothers Day!

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  4. What beautiful flowers! It's got to be fun having a robin's nest. Sometimes we'll have birds nesting on our porch, but not this year.

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  5. Beautiful flowers! Congrats to your son - that's a great accomplishment. The bread looks so good, and the slicer is a great idea. Happy Mother's Day!

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  6. Thanks to your post about Artisan Bread baking - I have also been crazily baking bread all week!
    I love this bread :)

    Happy Mother's Day!

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  7. Happy Mother's Day! It sounds like you had a wonderful time!

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  8. Hi, I'm Jeff Hertzberg, one of the co-authors of "Artisan Bread In Five." Thanks for all the kind words! Come visit us at www.artisanbreadinfive.com and you can post questions into any "Comments" field.

    Jeff

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  9. Wow, now THAT is a cool gadget to have on hand! You do make the most delish looking bread, so I think you'll definitely get your money out of it!

    What a wonderful son you have, too! What a sweet thing for him to do for his Mum!

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  10. Happy Mother's Day and congrats on all your goodies. That is a beautiful bouquet..love the colors!

    WOW...you sure should be proud of your son. That's quite an accomplishment.

    I wish we had some birdie babies here ...I'm sure we do but I just haven't seen them.

    Fresh homemade bread...how lucky for your family.

    Hugs!

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  11. What pretty flowers! Sounds like your son has given you good reason to be proud! He sounds like a smart one. I like the looks of that slicer! I always have trouble slicing the very end of the loaf.

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  12. Happy Mother's Day! You have every reason to be proud of your son. And that is very egg-citing about the Robin's egg. :-)

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  13. Cool slicer! Happy Mother's Day, Deb!
    Ang

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  14. What nice surprises you had for Mother's Day. Especially your visit from your son. My daughter is 500 miles away, so I relate. Saw her last a wkend in Feb. Though she did call.

    Lady next door has a robin who nested right close to the house too, so she can watch everything from her kitchen. Funny birds, with all the trees, and flowers etc. wonder why they're nesting close to the house where's there's noise and distractions etc. from humans...seems odd.

    Congrats to your son! You should be proud. Mine daughter grad from Wash. U in St. Louis for her undergrad (double major), and is now teaching full time and going to grad school. She should be getting her Masters this time next year. We mothers love to hear about kids doing well. Sadly, the news is filled with those that don't seem to do so.

    Stop in for a visit,
    Sandy

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  15. I'm looking forward to the top secret pictures!

    A few years ago we had a robin nest in a yew tree outside our Florida room. My son was too young to care at the time, but my daughter loved watching the babies as they grew. I think it is something that will never get old for me either.

    Thanks for the reminder about the bread book, I'll have to check that out. When I make sourdough (about once a week) we enjoy it with butter for breakfast.

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  16. Those pictures turned out great. I haven't seen my little finches again. :( Your making me hungry for bread. I've got some going again. ha ha Happy Belated Mother's Day!!

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  17. What a beautiful bouquet! I like the color of the Robin's eggs. We have Cardinals, Crackles, and Robins nesting in our Garden. I saw Crackles and Robins fighting, boy they made a lot of noise! Your bread looks devine, I thought I could smell it. I really shoul bake bread again. When I see yours, I think it's worth it.

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  18. What a nice Mother's Day! I've been baking up a storm here, too - went out and bought the book saturday - and that food slicer looks like the answer - I have a big metal one - but I really like the idea of a fold away!

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  19. happy (belated) mother's day! the flowers are beautiful and i hope you get to see a little baby robin soon! : )

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  20. Wow - your bread looks amazing. I'm going to have to try some more. That bread slicer looks like a serious piece of equipment. Yummmmm. I think I want some bread now.

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  21. Pretty flowers, pretty bread. Happy very belated Mother's Day! I hope you had a wonderful day with your family. :)

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  22. That bread looks great. My mom was on a bread making spree too. It seems to have slowed down a bit :( Maybe I can get her a slicer for her birthday. Totally selfish, I know, but homemade bread is the best!

    Congrats to your son, too! That's a lot of work to do in such little time!

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  23. Glad you had a nice Mothers Day - and I love Mrs Robinson!! You are so lucky!

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  24. Congrats to you and your son!

    Thank you for the egg picture. I love my outdoor birds and so far only a pair of doves have nested where I can see. Unfortunately, they are so dumb those doves that EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING can see that nest so they had to abandon it for higher digs.

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  25. Thanks for the robin photos... I used to work as a wildlife rehabber and got to raise orphaned baby robins to release...

    The babies are so dang cute!

    Be sure you watch for cats and jays that might get at that nest.

    I'm looking forward to more photos!

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  26. Oh ! Much congratulations to your son. My son started out as a computer science major and has now declared engineering (don't know which one) as his major. There is talk of a double major also. He is amazing technically and mathimatically. My daughter and I are so A-math oriented. -- Also, congrats on your new friendship w/ Mrs. Robinson. The bread looks delish !!!

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  27. It occurred to me I never commented on this post! Your breads are killing me, they are so beautiful and look so yummy.

    That is cool you have a birds eye view of a robin nest. I don't have any trees outside my little house, I'm sure my cats would have heart attacks to have that much visual stimulation!

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  28. what a great mother's day! :) has the egg hatched yet?? the bread looks scrumptious! and congratulations to your oldest on graduating tomorrow. :) I know you're all very proud of him. And to think a year from now he'll be graduating with his Master's. :) They grow up so quickly!!

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  29. UPDATE: I found where the doves relocated their nest. IN A BASKET HANGING ON MY BACK DOOR!! How dumb is that? But, it is precious. Obviously the doves know I love the birds and so we all enter the house through the garage so we don't disturb them.

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  30. Check out my blog - I tagged you!

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  31. Congrats on your son's accomplishments! You must be so proud :) How exciting to have robins in your gardern; not much here in NYC except the usual pigeon...

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Thank you all for your comments! I really appreciate them. I usually don't follow up with an email, but if you do have a question please make sure you include a way to reach you within your comment so I may answer your question. Thanks and happy knitting :)

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