Raising Babies and Having Tea

It's a great time of transition in our backyard bird world.  The fledglings are learning to feed themselves.  It did not go too well in the grackle family.  Much screaming and yelling and wide open mouths, but no one seemed to catch on to instructions and Adult Grackle flew off in disgust, babies right behind, crying still.  It all went much better with the hairy woodpeckers and although there was still screaming from the rather frowsty looking baby, he did catch on to poking the suet and then swallowing.  The baby grosbeaks seem to be the best at learning quickly.  None of them are too good at accurate landings quite yet.

The blue jays are just disgusted that so many others are at the feeders and are quite short-tempered about it, especially when the smaller birds stick up for themselves. Too bad, they are great bullies and I don't feel sorry for them.

I am waiting for coconut pineapple scones to come out of the oven.  I used fresh pineapple, so I am eager to see how it works.  I used dried pineapple before and it wasn't even really noticeable.  They smell divine and I am afraid I will drool on the computer keys.

The wait has been worth it.  Really, really tasty.  I made them with coconut milk as well as the two fruits.  They were a bit too crumbly, but I'll work on that.  To add to the tropical theme, I had some of Upton's Mango Flavored Tea.  This actually tastes like both mango and black tea and went very nicely with the scones.  It was iced, as it has continued to be hot.  However, we have finally had some rain.  I may go dance it, I am so glad to see it.

It's so hot today, I thought a "cool" picture would help.  Shade and rocks are cool, right?  This is Ravenna, Italy, home of beautiful,ancient buildings and mosaics.

The November Tropics

I thought I would never say this, but I have found a tea that is better with sugar.  It is Boston Tea Company's Tropical Mango.  It is another sample from this very generous company.  The tea has chunks of mango, which is almost my favorite dried fruit, and lots of safflower petals, making a pretty tea.  It smelled more like banana/mango to me than straight mango.  I brewed it for about 3.5 minutes with boiling water.

The heat seemed to bring out the mango aroma.  Definitely mango, no banana.  At first I wasn't real taken with it.  It just seemed like an ordinary black tea.  Then my husband started raving about it, so I thought I would try a little sugar.  Lo and behold, there's the mango.  Yum.  However, I did notice that as the tea cooled, Mr. Banana was back again and I had fruit salad tea.

This might make a really nice base for a smoothy, to play up the favors of mango and banana.  If you boiled it down and were careful about the sugar, it would make a nice dressing for a fruit salad.  I guess I am thinking more of summer.  It's so gray and grim, summer seems good. 

We are having some cold days, but it hasn't been below freezing yet.  I hope it's enough for the plants to pull all their juices back into their roots before it does freeze.

Downtown Amalfi, Italy from the cathedral steps.  I don't think there is a level place in the whole town.  My husband's family emigrated from here to Ischia about 1,000AD.

Mango Tea and Pear Tea

The picture -Still in Ravenna, same church, side aisle.
We canned peaches today. I love the smell and the wonderful
satisfaction of opening them in the depths of winter. I feel conn
-ected to all those women before me who provided for their families. I put some candied ginger in with them and they are
sublime.
Decided I needed a tea to go with the smell in the house, but lacking a peach tea, I looked through my samples that I am trying to try,[ so I can go on to the new ones - so disciplined!] and found a mango Ceylon.
This particular sample is from Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse in Colorado. www.boulderteahouse.com I don't know when or where I got it, but it's been a while. Upon opening it, there was a very clear smell of a very fresh Ceylon with a nice breath of good dried mango. The leaves were small and very very black. I brewed it the standard, for me 212 degrees for 3 minutes. It was really good, with a very nice mango flavor on top of a surprisingly good Ceylon.
When I went to their website, they no longer had this particular tea, but they had another mango that sounded just like it - I may have to buy some.
I bought some new storage tins and one of the new teas I got was going in one - Simpson and Vail's Pear. The smell is wonderful - really like pears, not pear candy or fake pear flavor, but good dried pears. Can't wait to try it but I am going to make myself wait until I make the Swiss dried pear bread I bought the tea to go with. Isn't that an awful sentence?