Chirped by Cass and Tina

October flew by, with not a peep from us since our last list of chirpable highlights. Stuff happens, and we’re pretty sure no one has been holding their breath waiting for us to post something. If you were, you can breathe again! And if you’re following us, hope you enjoyed having a few less messages in your inbox… (-; Now on to the good stuff we’ve been up to!

Favorite Book of the Month

Our winning selection for October was The Vengeance of Mothers, by Jim Fergus. If you were a fan of One Thousand White Women, you’ll enjoy this continuation of the story about the fate of the women who volunteered for the government’s “Brides for Indians” program to escape from less desirable conditions (mental institutions, prison, etc.) back home. Apparently a Cheyenne chief actually did suggest such a trade to Ulysses S. Grant in the mid 1800s, to help integrate the tribe with the white settlers, so this is the “what if” alternate reality scenario where they actually accepted, clandestinely. Definitely leaves some loose ends for the next book – hope Mr. Fergus doesn’t take too long to write it!

Halloween Baking (Cass)

In the spirit of October and Halloween, Tina and I spent an afternoon baking Halloween sugar cookies for care packages for our boys away.  Of course, we should have taken a few more pictures of our works in progress, but we are still new to this blogging and documenting everything along the way thing…

Still Little Boys at Heart

It’s also funny to see that our college boys are still dressing up in costumes for parties or events.  And that they can pull together a costume on their own!

Recipe of the month (Cass)

Spanish baked salmon was a new recipe we tried this month. It was very easy to assemble and who doesn’t love doing it all on one sheet pan? The end result was a colorful mix of ingredients, very light on the palate, and we loved the crunch of the sourdough croutons. My husband thought is was a little bland (but he dumps hot sauce on just about everything), so we did add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to enhance some of the flavors. Try it without the balsamic first and see if you need a little extra something.

Flowers from the Neighbors (Tina)

I looked after my neighbor’s porch planters while she was away for a few weeks, so she brought me some cut flowers from her gardens and encouraged me to refresh them with new blooms as needed. She’s also got a great herb garden that I raided for recipes. The bouquet added such a lovely spot of color to my kitchen and the herbs were sourced about as locally as you get! We might try the herb planters ourselves next summer…

Nature’s Little Treasures… (Tina)

While watering one of my neighbor’s herb pots, I discovered these little guys munching on the parsley! A quick Google search revealed that they are most certainly parsley worms, which will morph into Black Swallowtail butterflies – apparently the state butterfly of neighboring New Jersey and also Oklahoma. Some new nature facts for the day!

Nature’s Big Treasures… (Cass)

The fall foliage has been beautiful and vibrant this year, but there have not been many days when we’ve been able to get outside and enjoy it.  It has been raining in our area about every other day.  These pictures were taken at sunset right after a day of rain.  The sky completely lit up in a wash of orange that highlighted the colors in the trees and produced a rainbow that stretched across the sky.

Comedy Night (Tina)

Our favorite local theater hosted a comedy night last month. We were very excited that one of the two headliners, Vince Valentine, had toured nationally as the star of the one-man Broadway hit “Defending the Caveman”  – a show we’d seen years and years ago in Chicago with the original cast of one. This guy’s set was not nearly as hilarious as the comedian we remembered from Caveman, but the second comedian, Norm Klar, “that comedian who does magic”, was great! And the theater got around their lack of a liquor license (always helpful at a comedy show) by offering “free” beer – with small donations gratefully accepted…

Places to Go: A Teaser… (Tina)

I spent an amazing week in California hiking around in Yosemite National Park, wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and sight-seeing in San Francisco with my hubbie and another couple. I’ll chirp about it in much more detail in an upcoming post, but here are a few photos to whet your appetite…

Dogs with their Toys

Of course we can’t let a month of cheep trills go by without posting some cute pictures of our pooches.  This month’s selections highlight some interesting toys that have kept them busy and that they have not torn apart in 60 seconds. My pup’s new toy is the Woggle Wag Giggle Ball… it giggles and squeaks as he rolls it and he growls and moans back at it.  He has had it for two weeks now and it hasn’t been destroyed.

Tina’s new toy for the blog dog is Frog Bottle Buddy.  It lasted more than 60 seconds….but he managed to tear out the elastic and extract the water bottle within a couple of days. He still totes the empty carcass around quite happily though!

That’s a wrap for October! Posts about the California trip and some arts and craft DIYs coming soon!