one eyed Egyptians

Since we now have a daily surplus of eggs, I thought I should learn how to make more than just scrambled eggs. I've now learned to fry eggs "sunny side up" and "over easy" pretty well (surprise Mom - I love fried eggs!). Today, I decided to try something that Kendre's grandfather called "one eyed Egyptians". I've found that they are also called "toad in a hole", "hobo eggs", "eggs in a basket", "bird's nest", and more...

Basically you cut a hole in a piece of buttered bread and fry it with an egg placed in the hole. Naturally I decided to experiment, so I scrambled the eggs first so they would be a more kid-friendly uniform consistency. Also, for most of them, I flipped them over and put cheese on top to melt. Don't forget salt and pepper!



They turned out to be quite good! For the most part, they were a hit. I think for just me I will not scramble the eggs in the future - I like the runny "over easy" effect, but this was better for getting kids to try.

Also, I found that if you put the circle that you cut out on top of the egg (after toasting it) it's called "one eyed Jack". I have a theory that a dish with many different names (especially odd ones) is probably a good one!

ophiological update

Last week I posted about finding a rattlesnake. Now I think I need to update and correct that posting based on new information.

Today, Kendre found a large Black Rat Snake eating an egg in the chicken coop. She wasn't very happy about that so she called on me to deal with it.


(this is not my picture)

It was in the corner of the coop and close to the chicken door so I was concerned that if I opened the outer door and came in with a shovel, it would just make an exit through the chicken pen. So I got the .22 (in an effort to minimize collateral damage) and shot it through the window opening. After that I extracted it with the shovel and finished it off with many a "oooh!" and "yuck!" and "cool!" from the home school class that gathered to watch.

I was doing some reading about it and came across some information related to juveniles. Their coloring is akin to that of the massasauga rattlesnake and they will also "rattle" their tails when threatened (see the OKSnakes link). SO... I think that must be what I found last week and erroneously identified as a rattler. Perhaps today's snake was the mom I had wondered about...

Anyway, I hope this is the last snake related post for a while.

bookshelves

Since we moved to this house almost 6.5 yrs ago, most of my books have lived in boxes while they patiently awaited the arrival of bookshelves in my office. It was one of those projects where I had grand plans but no bookshelves were being built.

Finally, while off work recently, I broke down and decided I should just forget building them and buy some instead. I spent much a day wandering around town from store to store trying to find some that I liked and that would fit. You'd be surprised at the lack of imagination there is in the bookshelf industry!

I found some cool Asian looking ones that I liked but they would have taken a week to arrive and were expensive enough that I would have had to spread out the purchases over more time than I wanted.

But it was Kendre that came up with the winning idea. There were some ok shelves at Target that were almost the right size but they were 3" too tall to fit along the short walls of my office. She suggested cutting the legs off so they would fit. So that's what I did. They were cheaper so I was able to get four shelves all at once - maybe enough to hold all my books...

Now I've been going through my book boxes and sorting the books. It's a slow process since they all need a good vacuuming to be spider-free and also because it's been a long time since I've seen many of them!



Obviously, the process continues... I have more boxes in the garage to go through as well. I had forgotten how much I liked having my books around - I'm really going to enjoy having them back! I'll post better pics once I get them done.

another snake

[see an update to this post here]

Today, I found Drinian outside the front door barking sincerely at something on the ground by the house. I went for a shovel and out to see what he'd found.

It was a small (about 9") snake sporting a pattern like a rattler of some sort. It didn't have rattles yet, but when it shook its tail at me, I was convinced it wasn't something I was going to just relocate. Looking it up in my trusty "Field Guide to Reptiles of Oklahoma" it turned out to be a Western Massasauga Rattlesnake. This is the first time I've seen a rattlesnake here around the house. Now I'm wondering where its mom is....


(this is an adult massasauga - the one I found had similar markings, but was less photogenic once I was through with it...)

random Blackberry photos

Mathias and I finally went to Chuck-E-Cheese for his birthday lunch-with-a-parent:


I like the way sunlight looks in rain:


I was making scrambled eggs for lunch one day this week and just as I was about to drop in the 5th egg, I noticed a smiley face:


Today, the girls all went to Tulsa for a baby shower, so we men went to see "Wall-E" the movie. When we came out of the theater, we found this cool Thomas Saf-T-Liner: