Mint Julep Tutorial for the Derby

I'm trying to duplicate this recipe.

My Goal

To write a winning cartoon caption.
No.
To think up a caption. Any caption.

My Samara Are Falling (Twirling)

“Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. ...In the 1950s, researchers first tried to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic a maple seed’s spiraling fall. Ever since, their attempts have been foiled by instability, resulting in a lack of control over the tiny (less than one meter) vehicles, which were easily knocked off course by wind. ...The students studied maple seeds and developed a new design incorporating the natural flight of the tiny flyers. The insight gleaned from this study enabled the creation of the world’s smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft. The maple seed-inspired design is valuable because when dropped, unpowered, from a plane and then controlled remotely, it can perform surveillance maneuvers for defense, fire monitoring and search-and-rescue purposes.
...Part of the solution to controlling flight was to physically separate the problem of propulsion and stability. The wing of the vehicle is designed to function in the same way as natural samara and performs a stable autorotation during descent. The propulsive section of the vehicle functions like the tail rotor on a helicopter, though instead of preventing rotation, (as in the case of a helicopter), it maintains rotation (to allow it to hover)....The insight gleaned from this study enabled the creation of the world’s smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft.”
(Adapted from the X-Journals)

My Six Word Memoir

Too many recipes, too few meals.

Still Cute

I Killed An Ant On Earth Day

Accidentally.

I Better Read the Book

Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi.
W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943

What I Learned Today

Have you heard of a rhinestone zipper?

The Greenbrier Indoor Pool

I wonder if it's filled with spring water.

Tulips

Yes, the tulips were in bloom.

Romance and Rhododendrons

"Romance and Rhododendrons" was Dorothy Draper's theme for The Greenbrier and boy, did she accomplish that. BTW, the rhododendron is the official flower of West Virginia. Here's Jim in one of the "Rhododendron Hallways".



The flower shop leaves nothing to the imagination.

The Greenbrier

I hope the tulips are blooming.

SFG Stage 2

Beginning Our SFG

Our first plants have been planted.

Can you smell the lilacs?

I Love Wombats

We saw lots of wombats at the zoo near Adelaide, Australia where I took this picture.

WOMBAT FACTS
Herbivorous marsupial or pouched mammal
About 1 metre (40 in) in length
Tends to graze at night
Produces cube-shaped dung
Closest relative is koala

From the BBC News:


Wombat bites Australian bush fire survivor

Wombats are normally not aggressive creatures. Bruce Kringle, 60, was pulled to the ground by the animal and bitten on the legs and arms after apparently stepping on it by mistake.
He escaped after killing the wombat with an axe.
Animal experts said it appeared the wombat had been suffering from mange, which had made it irritable.
Paramedic Robert Gill said it appeared Mr Kringle had trodden on the animal when he left his caravan in Flowerdale, north-east of Melbourne.
He was living in the caravan while he rebuilt his home after the "Black Saturday" fires.
"The wombat proceeded to get rather nasty and attacked him and inflicted some wounds to his lower legs and also to his arms as well," ABC News quoted Mr Gill as saying.
"It took about 20 minutes. He did try to exit the area and get away from the wombat but my belief is that it kept coming at him."
Kelly Smith, a friend of Mr Kringle, said that once he was on the ground, the wombat had climbed on his chest.

"Bruce managed to find an axe and killed it," Ms Smith told the AAP news agency. "It's bizarre what happened."
There were reports that local people had complained about a rogue wombat in the area in recent days.
Wombats, furry marsupials unique to Australia, are one of the country's most endearing native creatures.
They can grow up to 1m (40 inches) in length and weigh up to 35kg.
Geoff McClure of the Department of Sustainability and Environment said wombat attacks were extremely rare, but that the animal in question could have been made aggressive by mange, caused by mites on the skin.
"In the advanced stages wombats become very irritable and anyone who approaches them, they usually view as a threat and may run towards them," he said.
He told AAP Mr Kringle's action in killing the wombat was probably merciful, as it would have been suffering.

Sa Dingding

Forget Lady Gaga - Sa Dingding is much classier.

Building a Square Foot Garden

Step 1 was getting the place to put it cleared and leveled.

Fish and Chips

I still like this one by Kate Spencer.

Do You Like Daffodils? Who Doesn't?

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

My Favorite Didn't Win

Easter Lunch

Pink deviled eggs and cranberry bunnies...and perfect weather for a deck lunch.

Peep

I have never eaten a Peep.

Oops...

I read this the other day.
BALI, Indonesia — A Swedish tourist fell to his death into the crater of an active volcano Wednesday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

The 25-year-old man and two friends were on a pre-dawn hike along the rim of the crater of 5,633-foot (1,717-meter) Mount Batur when he fell in, local police chief Capt. Made Oka said.

Rescuers spotted the man's body inside the dry crater at a depth of about 500 feet (150 meters), Oka said. Officials believe the man did not survive the initial impact of the fall.

"Rescuers are now in the process of evacuating the body," Oka said, adding that poor weather around the crater may slow the efforts.

Mount Batur, which has erupted 26 times since 1840, is about 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of the provincial capital, Denpasar. It last erupted in 2000 and is considered an active volcano. It regularly lets off steam.

Today

This is the day upon which we are reminded what we are the other 364. -Mark Twain



At first I thought this was an April Fool's Day joke.
"What do you get when you cross a strawberry and a pineapple? A pineberry, of course.
This designer fruit -- a hybrid that looks like a white strawberry with red seeds, but which allegedly smells and tastes like a pineapple -- will be sold in 45 Waitrose supermarkets across the U.K. for the next five weeks while they're in season."
But it seems like it's for real.