maryland – Page 6 – ToadMama.com

September 14, 2010September 15, 2010

The Furkids

It’s been awhile since I did a post all about the dogs. And since I know some of my readers could care less about photography and other miscellaneous stuff that appears here, I figured it was time. So here goes…

Click here for larger view. — Morning Stroll

All of the dogs enjoy our morning stroll. Actually, it’s because of the dogs that I do the whole early morning stroll thing. Do I take walks when the dogs aren’t around? Yep! Do I do it at the crack of dawn? Nope!

This is not technically a great picture since there’s grass obscuring her face a bit, but I love the expression on Belle’s face here. You can see how happy she is to be running around freely.

Every single dog that we’ve ever had come live with us either as fosters or full-time family members has had some sort of unique trait. One of K’s is how she likes to sit on stuff. He favorite spot at the MD house is on our back steps watching the birds. She prefer steps, I think, because her legs are so long that sitting in a regular position makes her back very straight. So this is sort of like K’s equivalent to slouching in a chair.

These next three shots require some explanation. First, there’s Meg waiting for us to return.

She often follows her own lead when walking through the woods and sometimes beats me back to the house.

meg_belle_k_11Sep2010 — Belle's Crazy Streak

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Belle just found some crack in the woods. But I do know better. This is just one of Belle’s personality traits. Every now and then she likes to run around in a frenzy just for the sheer joy of it. She especially loves running and splashing through shallow streams of water. And tall grass. She also gets a huge kick, apparently, out of doing circles around the other dogs. At full speed. And full speed for Belle is quite fast. (Click on the above image for a larger view and you’ll see her feet are not even touching the ground.) There were clouds of dirt and gravel flying as she barreled around the other two dogs in the driveway. All they could do was watch in confusion.

This shot was taken just after one of their wrestling matches. They were taking a breather…

I’ll close with this image of Meg and K “helping” Hubby fix dinner.

For the record… Meg cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted alone with food on a grill. Belle is perfectly content to sit next to the grill as stuff cooks. I don’t think she’d steal anything, but one never knows. K might take food if the mood strikes her. But I still trust her more than Meg. Because Meg is sneaky. She knows how to time her misdeeds when Hubby and I are not watching.

Can you trust your dogs to be left alone with a grill full of food?

September 9, 2010September 9, 2010

You Capture – Signs

One of the cool things about participating in Beth’s You Capture meme is seeing how differently everyone interprets the week’s assignment.

I mean, people DO think differently you know. (Trust me. I am married to an engineer.)

The assignment for this week was SIGNS.

I wonder how many folks will go with the literal interpretation?

u_must_stop — Stopping is not an option.

Imagine the town council discussions around this one. I mean, when does STOP not mean one has to stop. Is that clarification really necessary? And why not use “YOU” on the sign instead of “U”? (This is an actual sign at an intersection in Romney, West Virginia.)

low_water — Would anyone really consider crossing this "bridge" during a flood?

I like the odd road signs approach, but I like my “signs that Fall is coming” take on it, too. Better, actually. Because that’s one thing I like to do each year, watch as the trees slowly start to turn.

fall_is_coming_4 — Signs of Fall (look closely to see the very early signs here)

What about the other signs in nature? You know, signs that there are critters afoot?

snake_signs — Snakeskin = sign that a large snake is living in our woodpile.

fox_signs — Poop on stump = sign that a fox is living in or very close to our yard.

That scat (aka animal crap) is not an isolated incident. Foxes leave droppings to mark their territory. This particular fox (maybe there are more than one?) has left lots of this kind of sign on and around our property.

And we can’t forget signs from a higher power. They come in many forms. The sign I am referring to occurred on Tuesday night. The very first night in my new office (more on the office thing later).

Tree frog on the window of my new office.

This room used to be Hubby’s office. All the years Hubby was using this room (since 1998), I never saw one of these. Like three seconds after I noticed the little guy, who was only an inch long if that, I saw him eat a bug. How cool is that?

When your name is ToadMama, it’s very cool.

A sign that this office move was a good one? Perhaps. I guess time will tell on that one.

To find out how other people interpreted the You Capture SIGNS assignment, head over to Beth’s blog and follow some of the links.

August 16, 2010August 16, 2010

Naan Pizza

Naan is an Indian flatbread we first discovered when it was served to us at the local kabob restaurant.

It is pronounced two different ways. The way we have always said it rhymes with Ann. One day last week, Shannon heard Mike say it that way and snickered, saying it really is pronounced like “non.” Since she did recently spend like a month in India AND she’s a foodie, we believed her.

But Hubby and I did enjoy a nice chuckle on Friday when he told Shannon we were having Naan Pizza (pronounced NON Pizza) for dinner and she said, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

You can’t blame her really. Hubby can sometimes be a smart ass and who knew what he might’ve meant by non-pizza.

As soon as he said it our way (naan rhyming with Ann) she knew what we meant.

The plan was that we would each assemble our own pizza. That meant we could have whatever we liked on it. I ended up assembling Hubby’s for him, though, because he was busy working to finish the basement. They all started with pizza sauce. Hubby’s had pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and tomato chunks. Oh yeah, and a little bit of canned Parmesan cheese since foodie Shannon said that’s what makes the pizza top brown up a bit.

In addition to both cheeses, mine (shown on upper left in the above picture) had mushrooms, onions, black olives and pepperoni. It was DELICIOUS.

We only have one pizza stone so we had to use a baking sheet to cook my second pizza and the two Shannon assembled. They got crispier than the ones cooked on the pizza stone, but were still very tasty. Shannon’s pizza had the cheeses plus pepperoni, tomato chunks, mushrooms and salad greens. (I’m probably forgetting something.) She and I had salads with ours, too.

Speaking of salads, I wish I’d been taking pictures of all the different salads I have made recently. I like assembling salads. It’s fun throwing a bunch of different stuff together to see what works best. Lately, I’ve been making some awesome salads, if I do say so myself.

My favorite is the one using spring mix (baby red and green romaine and oak leaf lettuces, red and green chard, arugula, friseé, and radicchio, among others) topped with pears, sliced strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, pecans, feta cheese and a raspberry-walnut vinaigrette dressing.

Although last night’s more traditional salad of spring mix topped with mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, freshly-grated parmesan cheese, mesquite-marinated and grilled NY Strip steak and peppercorn ranch dressing was fabulous, too.

Hungry yet?

Sorry.

I won’t be talking about food or much of anything else over the next few days. I have to travel to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (where my employer is headquartered) for a work thing. I’m looking forward to seeing my co-workers. Unfortunately, it’s only the US crew. But we hope to see our international comrades early next year.

I may or may not be blogging from KoP. If you don’t see any activity here over the next few days, that’s why.

August 11, 2010August 11, 2010

Kitchen Aide Pretzel Maker

One of my favorite bloggers — HouseholdDiva6 — has this soft pretzel recipe on her blog that looks really yummy. I’ve always wanted to try it, but even more so since our trip to Europe. That’s where we discovered that, just like Ann Marie said, most little German bakeries sell them. At least that was the case in Austria and Italy. We found some pretzels at a bakery in Luxembourg City, too. The Swiss love their soft pretzels so much, that we saw quite a few Brezelkönig (Pretzel King) stands in the train stations. They sell them in grocery stores, too.

So, I’ve been wanting to try this recipe, but I’m not a baker. I mean, I could make the darn things if I wanted, but I just hadn’t been sufficiently motivated. But then the Kitchen Aide arrived.

AND, while at the grocery store on Sunday, I noticed they had blue crab meat on sale. (The meat is not blue, that’s what the crabs are called. CLICK HERE for a picture of some live blue crabs.) My first thought was to make crab cakes, and then I remembered Ann Marie’s pretzels . I knew that would be the perfect thing to use the Kitchen Aide for.

Shannon loves cooking AND baking. Heck, the girl has made her own bagels before. Can you imagine doing that? (She takes after her Dad who also likes to bake.) She also likes crab pretzels. So I knew she’d probably be thrilled to make soft pretzels for me. Of course I had to photograph the process.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'. Keep those pretzels rollin'. Rollin', rollin', rollin', RAWHIDE... (Earworm alert!)

“Rawhide” has nothing to do with these pretzels by the way, except for the “rolling” thing. That tune just popped into my head.

The finished product. Don't they look delicious? They smelled divine.

I didn’t photograph the entire process, just the highlights. I was working after all. The pretzels REALLY smelled yummy as they were baking.

Since it is summer and Papa John’s corn-on-the-cob — the best in the WORLD — is in season, it was only fitting that we serve that with our crab pretzel dinner, too.

Our crab pretzel and corn-on-the-cob dinner.

Now, doesn’t THAT look delicious? It was. Shannon’s homemade pretzels absolutely made the crab pretzel. The crab mixture on top was good, but the homemade pretzels are what really added the special touch.

I’m glad it all turned out in the end. I was a bit worried. Why? Because as I started to pick through the “fresh” crab meat to remove the shells, I realized it wasn’t so fresh after all. It smelled a bit off. Not horrible, but not great either. So I had to stop what I was doing and take it back to the store where I bought it then go to Costco for some of that pasteurized crab meat. Blue crab meat would’ve been better, but that’s not easy to find at reasonable ($12.99/pound) prices. It’s usually closer to $20 or even $25/pound.

It was still good though. I didn’t follow a recipe. I just mixed the crab with about 4 ounces of softened cream cheese, a few tablespoons of mayonnaise, a splash or two of Worcestershire sauce and a teaspoon or so of Old Bay seasoning. It could’ve used a teeny bit more of that, but I didn’t want the crab to be overly salty (like the shrimp salad I’d made a couple days prior). We cut little troughs in the tops of the pretzels, filled them with the crab mixture, sprinkled on a little four-cheese mixture plus an extra dusting of Old Bay and baked them at 400 degrees for about 5 minutes. Then I switched the oven to broil for a minute or two so the tops would get that nice, brown color.

July 25, 2010July 25, 2010

Backtracking

I’ve actually had an exciting week for a change. “Exciting” in my case does not mean oh-my-God-did-you-hear-what-happened sort of stuff. It means I finally did something different.

It’s about time, too. Different does not necessarily mean exciting, but at least it was fun.

Amy’s kids were with their other grandparents for the weekend. Amy, who was really in need of some girls-night-out sort of fun, adult time or both, invited me to join her and her girlfriend, Jess, for dinner and drinks in Annapolis.

The plan was to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas at El Toro Bravo on West Street. Margaritas would have been REALLY good after yet another 100-degree day.

Jess arrived very early (3:30-ish) with her friend Kaitlyn. They each had an 8 dollar margarita, which they nursed because they are both tiny and they knew Amy and I would be awhile. Amy arrived next and ordered her own 8 dollar margarita. A short time later, they all ordered another round because I still wasn’t there (I had to work a full day on Friday).

AFTER their second round of expensive margaritas arrived, the fools at the restaurant told them there was a time limit on how long they could stay there if they were just going to have drinks.

So, you have three women seated at a table in an uncrowded restaurant who told the staff they were waiting for someone else (me!) AND already spent $48 on drinks, and you tell them there’s a time limit? Seriously? Idiots.

When I finally arrived, the girls told me what happened. We all agreed that was a very rude and stupid thing to do. And, after that, the restaurant didn’t deserve our hard-earned money.

Because I’m an idiot and know nothing about Annapolis, I parked like 10 blocks away (I did mention the 100-degree day thing, right?). That meant by the time I got to the place, I was dripping with sweat and quite thirsty. So I was drinking Amy’s water and Jess’s margarita. The waiter asked if I would like to order something and I said, “No. I’m just going to share these drinks and we’re going elsewhere.” They never did apologize, but instead tried to joke their way out of the screw-up by acting cute and asking if we were mad. Duh.

Anyway… we did not go to a sushi restaurant as the picture would imply (I just thought that sign and the artwork behind it were cool). We went to an Irish pub on Main Street. I won’t mention that restaurant’s name because the chef was on vacation and the food SUCKED. The beer was very cold, however, and we had a great waitress. Had the owner not apologized several times and removed the food from the bill, I would definitely reveal the pub’s name. But I’ll give them another chance. Even if they did serve our butthead, let’s-make-everyone-pay-even-more-taxes governor. And despite the fact that the well-intentioned owner touched Steve (Jess’s boyfriend had joined us) REPEATEDLY when he visited our table.

We did manage to capture a few pictures, though.

girls_minus-1 — Here I am (in back) with Jess and Amy (Kaitlyn was gone by then).

After plenty of beer and a mediocre and far-too-small meal, we left and looked around a bit. Downtown Annapolis on a Friday is always interesting even in the sweltering, still-90-degrees-at-9:00-PM heat.

Amy knows how much I like being photographed with weird, inanimate stuff, so she made us pose for that fun shot with the wooden Indian. I was trying to look solemn like the Chief. Steve was feigning surprise. And I think Jess was either trying to square dance or strike an Irish-dancer pose. (We should have communicated on the appropriate mood before Amy snapped the picture.)

The store windows we saw were quite entertaining. Annapolis is the home of the US Naval Academy.

history — Fun, touristy bumper stickers.

half_full — Taking a positive spin on things.

jess_on_the_move — Proof that Jess rarely stands still.

It was a very fun evening full of laughs. I had dual cheek cramps at least twice during the night. It’s too bad Kaitlyn had to go home to feed her dog before I remembered the camera was in my purse. I promised the girls a real margarita night at my house in the near future. So maybe we can get some pics of Kaitlyn, too. And I can find out if her name is spelled with a “C” or a “K.” If I spelled it wrong, I’m sorry. That’s one question I forgot to ask…

July 14, 2010July 16, 2010

The Cushwa Basin

Saturday, I rode my motorcycle home from West Virginia. I had sort of high hopes of getting some riding time in this week. That has yet to happen. The weather hasn’t been cooperating. Sunday afternoon was nice, but I had to stay home for the World Cup final. Monday and Tuesday afternoons were either wet or rainy. It’s looking like Wednesday is going to be rainy, too.

So, I’ll just tell you a bit more about my ride home on Saturday. Hubby told me about this cool route he’d ridden recently that took him through Shanghai, West Virginia and across the mountains into Martinsburg. The road across the mountain is Boyd’s Gap Road and he said there’d be a nice place to stop for pictures. I’m all about pictures and nice roads, so off I went. Unfortunately, I missed the Boyd’s Gap Road turn-off.

I couldn’t figure out how I did it until I came home and saw the Google map, where that road has FOUR different names… Hampshire Grade / Boyd’s Gap / CR-18 / Tub Run Hollow Road. No telling what the sign actually said, but I’m thinking it wasn’t Boyd’s Gap.

Once I hit WV-9, I knew I’d missed the turn. So I just headed east on WV-9. There’s was an accident on WV-9 just past I-81, so I detoured up I-81 north to the next exit, which took me to US-11. I then headed north once again.

By then I’d been riding for awhile, and it was kind of hot. My head was hot and itchy, so after crossing the Potomac River into Williamsport, Maryland, I turned into the C & O Canal visitor center parking lot for a break. I’m glad I did, too, because I finally got to see the C & O Canal’s Cushwa Basin. I’d probably seen it as a kid, but don’t remember.

It was actually a picturesque but crowded spot. I managed to rest a bit AND get a few cool pictures.

c-and-o_cushwa1_10Jul2010 — C & O Canal Visitor Center at the Cushwa Basin

The Cushwa Basin is one of the few places on the canal wide enough for the 90-foot canal boats to turn around. That was important as not all cargo was meant to travel the entire length of the canal.

c-and-o_cushwa2_10Jul2010 — C & O Canal Visitor Center at the Cushwa Basin

These images were all captured with my little Nikon point-and-shoot camera.

c-and-o_cushwa4_10Jul2010 — An old railroad lift near the C & O Canal's Cushwa Basin

As I said before, it was a nice place to stop, but there were people everywhere. And it was still hot. But once my head cooled off a bit, I hopped back on the bike and headed home. I already told you about my “excitement” during the last leg of my journey.

I am still kind of hopeful that Friday will be a good riding day. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.