Wolves at the Burke

The UW's Burke Museum of Natural History has an exhibition going on right now about wolves. It features several taxidermy wolf specimens in various wolfy poses.

Howling wolf


Hungry wolf


Running wolf


Colin and Lucy pretending the wolf is chasing them


If wolves aren't your thing, the Burke has lots of other stuff, too.

Dead birds



Animal skulls


Allosaurus



Colin pretending to run from a mastodon


The wolves exhibit ends on 9/5, so you'd better hurry if you want to see it.

Too Cool for School?

I did some back to school shopping for Colin at Threadless (website here). This website is full of hip and cool t-shirts for men, women and kids.

I bought several shirts that made me and Colin laugh, but now I'm thinking that schools are so touchy-feely/anti violence that he won't be allowed to wear them.

Shirt 1: Garden gnomes hunting lawn flamingo


Shirt 2: Kittens batting hand grenade



Shirt 3: Clown barfing rainbow



Shirt 4: Ninja math



I even got a shirt for Lucy.

Know your dinosaurs:



Are these shirts too dark and violent for the 4th grade?

Photography by Lucy

I was looking for a photo in my phone's gallery, and discovered that someone had been using my phone's camera. I had about 30 new photos and there's only one little culprit that could have taken them. Most were blurry messes, but a few aren't too bad. Here's the world through Lucy's eyes:

Old Pictures, New Frames

While browsing through an antique shop last month with Calina, I found four little 1972 vintage Seattle drawings on a clearance shelf.

The poor things were trapped inside horrible gold metal frames and sadly matted with puke colored grey mats. Since the set of four was such a bargain, I decided to purchase them and see what re-framing them would look like.


Ugly!



If you want a nice wooden frame with a mat, you can't beat the two-packs sold at Costco. Two 8X10 frames with double mats is only $15.99. Re-framing all four pictures was only $32.


Pretty!


I don't love this hanging arrangement for them, but moving the rest of the pictures around the house opens up a whole new can of worms because my walls really need painting. The projects never end!

Pandora's Box

There's a brand of jewelry popping up all over the place called Pandora.

They make a variety of jewelry items, but their stand out products are the charm bracelets with hundreds of charms to choose from.

You start with a base bracelet (In either sterling silver, 14K gold, or both).


Then you start adding charms. For silver charms the prices range from about $30-85. Some have enameling, gemstones, or Murano glass. A pretty silver bracelet with a couple of charms isn't too great an expense, which is what I ended up receiving for Mother's Day this year.



But it's sad to have a bracelet with only two charms. A few birthday presents got me up to this:


A gambling windfall got me up to here (I have to rearrange all my charms once a new one comes on board):


Now I only have half the space left to fill. It has been pointed out to me that if you are spending an average of $50 per charm and fill up your bracelet with 18 of them, you've spent $900. And for $900 you could buy a gold bracelet.

Sure, there's some logic there, but it totally ignores the fun and obsession of charm collecting. Look at all the combinations you can make!

Blueberry Jam

I just posted my raspberry jam recipe, and now here's another one for blueberry jam.

I went up to Bryant Blueberry Farm in Arlington this past weekend and picked about eight pounds of blueberries. So many that I had to make two separate batches.



12 cups blueberries
6 cups sugar
juice from one lemon
1 packet pectin

Cooking method is same as the raspberry jam.

I ended up with enough jars of blueberry jam to make this pyramid!

How to make Raspberry Jam

Making raspberry jam is easy and fun. But first you have to get some fresh raspberries. I went berry picking at a farm, but after two hours of blueberry picking, I decided to just buy the raspberries that were pre-picked. A half flat of raspberries totaled about 10 cups worth.



I always begin with washing the jars and lids with soap and hot water. Then I toss the jars into the canner and let them boil a while. Waiting for a big pot of water to boil is the thing that takes the longest amount of time, so I always start the water in the canner on to boil first thing.



Lids go into small pot on the stove. Once they boil I turn them down to a simmer.



Most jam recipes call for a LOT of sugar. Like one cup sugar to one cup berries. I don't care for that much sugar, and I'd rather taste more of the fruit so I halve it.

10 cups raspberries
5 cups sugar
Juice from one lemon
1 packet pectin

Smash up your raspberries (I use a huge potato masher):






Add the sugar and lemon juice and bring mixture to a boil on medium high heat. I put my berries on the heat as soon as the canner water comes to a boil. That way the jars get about ten minutes of sterilization while the jam is heating up.



Once your jam starts boiling add the pectin and stir. You want to let it boil for a few minutes while you stir continuously. Now the tricky part is to stir your jam with one hand, while removing your hot jars using tongs with the other hand. It takes some practice to get your moves down and if you aren't careful you can easily burn yourself. Once you get your jars out of the water, ladle the jam in, screw on your lids and put them in your boiling water canning pot. Process in boiling water for 15 minutes.

Let jars cool for a good 24 hours. Your jam will be ready to eat or store for up to a year.