A Few of My Favorite Things IV

I am a tea drinker. I never have had a cup of coffee, just a sip once or twice. And it’s not that I think coffee is bad… I’ve just really never had a desire to try it. The smell to me is overwhelming more often than not. Plus, if you think about it, people talk an awful lot about how bad the coffee is/was at such-and-such a place, and “where can you get a good cup of coffee these days” and yadda yadda yadda. No thanks, I’ll just have some tea!

I like my tea strong and sweet (just like I like my men HA HA HA HA HA). I am not from the south, but my Mom definitely made something like “southern style” sweet iced tea when I was growing up. She had a yellowish colored glass tea pitcher - kind of funny shaped with wavy sides - and she would boil water in a tea kettle and then pour the hot water over the tea bags and let it all steep in that pitcher.

Which brings me to an important point: a good cup of tea is not made in the microwave! Heating water in a mug and throwing a tea bag in it does not make good tea. Hard to explain why. In a pinch, if you have to make a cup of tea using a microwave, you can boil the water in a large pyrex-type measuring cup, then pour that water into your teacup with the tea bag. But the way to get the best results when making tea is to boil your water in a tea kettle on the stove.

And if you are lucky, you might get to use a really, really cool tea kettle like this one, which resides at our cottage in Conneaut Lake, PA…

Mom bought this chicken tea kettle - I don’t know where, but I’m sure she could tell me - probably because it fits very well into the unique decor of the cottage. But we had no way of knowing how special the kettle is until the first time we boiled some water in it.

There are lots of tea kettles out there in the world. And while they serve a very important function, which is to help me make tea, the vast majority of them have one thing in common: they are annoyingly noisy! The whistle sounds that most of them make range from startling to downright intolerable. There’s nothing like setting a pot on the stove to boil, then taking a few minutes to do a crossword or read the paper, when suddenly you are jolted from your seat as the escaping steam causes the kettle to scream HEY! YOU NEED TO COME AND POUR YOUR TEA RIGHT NOW! NOW NOW NOW! HURRY HURRY HURRY OR I SHALL SCREEEEEEEAAAAAMMMMM SOME MORE!!!

But my favorite chicken tea kettle would never scream at me like that. No, this delightful bird gently coos you back into the kitchen, as if to say “the water is ready now, please feel free to come and pour your tea at your convenience. And have a delightful day.” Yes, the tea itself can help me relax, but when the process of heating the water is soothing all by itself? That is a bonus!

I think about stealing the chicken pot and taking it back to Kentucky with me one of these days… but I’m sure I’ll never actually do it. I like the idea that it will always be there for me when I visit the lake. Things get crazy up there sometimes, what with 11 people sharing three bedrooms and one bath! So it’s good to know that if things go berserk, I can at least sit back and listen to the water boil.

Fledglings.

For several years we have had birds - usually robins - that choose to nest in the corners of our house, up under the eaves, right where the downspouts attach to the gutters. This year we had two active nests, one on each front corner of the house.

Yesterday we had some painters come over to paint our wood siding — a long overdue project that complements our Summer Of Spending Money On The House very well. In the afternoon as one of the guys was getting closer and closer to the front corner of our roof, it became apparent that we would need to relocate one nest that still had two fledgling robins inside. These little guys had been in the nest for a few weeks already, and frankly I had thought they had already flown off. But there they were, hunkered down and wondering what was going on. I have seen the mother hanging around a little bit, but she hasn’t been feeding them constantly or anything.

So we got a little box and put the nest in it with the babies inside. I decided to just put the whole box in the branches of some juniper bushes we have that are directly below the spot where the nest was. That way the mother could easily still find her babies, but our house painting project could continue.

I wondered if I had done the right thing, and this morning I stepped out to check on them. As I turned the corner where the box sat in the nest, there were the two birds perched next to each other right on the edge, looking out as if to say “OK, we’re ready to go!” These pics are worth clicking for the larger view.

Fishy Tales

A few snapshots of some fishing activity that took place up at Conneaut Lake over the week of July 4th:

First… the 2008 award for the Smallest Fish To Be Caught Using A Line goes to none other than my nephew Sam! I think Sam’s hair weighs more than the fish.

Next, the Most Disproportionate Amount Of Pride Applied To One Small Fish Award goes to my son, Aaron. The cheesy grin is what clinched it…

And finally, the Book Learnin’ Will Get You Far In Life, Even In Fishing Award goes to my older son, Brent. On July 4th he caught 4 catfish like the one shown here:

I was not really sure how Brent became such an expert on fishing… I mean, he has only fished a handful of times in his life, and yet he was reeling in all sorts of big fish all that week. (Before I even arrived at the lake I heard that he had caught a few “bowfins” which all the kids promptly killed and buried in marked graves with full memorial services on the beach.) Anyway, I was kind of wondering what his secret was. And then I realized that I had caught this photo of him earlier in the afternoon on the day he caught all those catfish… he had come across someone’s tackle box that had a pamphlet about fishing, and while other kids were playing and swimming, Brent was getting a crash course in fishing knowledge. That’s my boy!

If I Lived There, I’d Try to Escape, Too.

Taken last week at the Pymatuning Spillway, which I have written about before. Click for a closer view of the would-be escapee.

News flash for all you fish lovers: starting January 1 of 2009, throwing bread to the fish will be strictly prohibited at the Spillway! It’s only a tradition that’s been around for 70-ish years, but apparently some people [who shall be nameless, but whose collective name sounds similar to "an iron mental list"] have been wringing their hands over what the bread is doing to the poor fishies and the water they live in. So get your moldy Wonderbread and get to the Spillway while you can still have some fun… the bread police will be on duty soon enough to steal your joy.

I predict a definite drop in business at the Spillway once everyone is forced to purchase fish food pellets.