The Cats in Today's Cradles

Most folks remember Harry Chapin's old song, "The Cat's in the Cradle"; a song that reminds us that time marches on with or without us. It is also a song that reminds us that our kids watch and learn from our example, more than from our words.

I was thinking about that song this morning and it called to mind a lot of things, but especially how we can all get caught up in different things like politics, whether they be left or right, conspiracies, worrying about the state of the country and the world, chasing after the almighty dollar, climbing the corporate ladder, being in the right social circles and the many things that people can let themselves get obsessed with as time quietly marches on and as our children and grandchildren continue to draw impressions from us and grow up and go their own way.

There are certainly some serious issues going on in the world right now, but anyone who takes the time to look at history will see that greed, corruption and world problems such as disease of one sort or another and poverty have always existed.

I am not advocating that we ignore these things, but I am saying that those of us who worry, those of us who want to make the world better, those who advocate freedom must also think about what price we are willing to pay in terms of the lives of our families, our children and our own lives.

The same cost account needs to be considered for those who are caught up in many of the other things I have mentioned; things like putting business, social climbing and THINGS first. It's all exciting, It's all good but where do we draw the line? The Cat really IS in the Cradle.

 

Cream Puffs Like Mom Used to Make

This past weekend hubby and I were talking about different things as we were making the drive back home from grandson's 5th birthday party, and in the process, we got on the subject of recipes.

I mentioned that one of the things my mom used to make were cream puffs but instead of cream or whipped cream filling she would always put chocolate pudding in them.

I have never actually made the cream puffs myself but I used to be a pretty good hand at taking the filament out of the cream puffs and helping fill them with chocolate pudding. Oh yeah and helping to eat them too!

Here is the recipe!

Cream Puffs

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup flour
4 eggs

(prepared chocolate pudding- set aside)

Heat oven to 400*F. Heat water and butter to a rolling boil. Stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball.

Remove from heat. Beat in eggs, all at one time; continue beating until smooth.

Drop dough by scant 1/4  cupfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool away from draft. Cut off tops. Pull out any filaments of soft dough.

Carefully fill puffs with pudding. Replace tops and dust with powdered sugar. Refrigerate until serving time.

 

 

 

Mammology Class and a New Sense of Wonder

This week's class on mammals in Master Naturalist class was very interesting! Gene and I have really been enjoying all the classes! The instructor handed out animal skins to all of us at the beginning of class to identify. Some of them were very easy (skunk - duh) and some not so much.

Classmates had a lot of fun putting the fur skins around their necks or a few even decided the skins made good puppets! Luckily the skins were prepared for heavy handling by students!

 

The entire lecture was very informative.I was surprised to learn of some of the animals that are in our county that I would never have guessed were here; the mink for example. 

Towards the end of the class we were given different sized skulls and a descriptive key to use, and between observing the animal skulls and comparing to the key, we were to figure out what kind of animal skull we had. We had the skull of a ringtail cat (which though called that is actually in the raccoon family).

One thing I can say over all about the Texas Master Naturalist class is that when I go outdoors now I have a keener sense of observation and also a greater sense of wonder and appreciation for everything I see!

Ring-tailed cat

 

Clovis Culture at Gault Archaeological Site

Saturday we went on a field trip to the Gault Archaeological site which is located about 20 miles from here. The site has been known by archaeologists since 1929 and the more dedicated excavating began to take place around 1999.

Since that time well over a million artifacts have been found, most of which are of the Clovis (Paleo Indian) culture. The link takes you to their website with tons more information.

Gault Archaeological Site


One of the side notes that fascinated me on the field trip was to learn about a weapon system called the Atlatl and Dart, which is what the Paleo Indians used when hunting and not the spears so often depicted in the textbooks we read when growing up.

The link takes you to a page with a video that does an excellent job of describing how the weapon worked and what it looks like. There are even groups today that use the Atlatl for distance competitions.

Atlatl Video

The Bats at McNeil Bridge

As part of our volunteer service as trainees with Texas Master Naturalists, hubby and I spend some of our Friday evenings out helping to man the information table for the bats at McNeil Bridge in Round Rock.

The McNeil Bridge has over a 1,800,000 Mexican Free Tailed bats that come out every evening from Spring till October which is when they migrate back to Mexico.

It is an awesome sight to watch them fly out from under the bridge in their particularly methodical order.

While we are there we hand out information flyers on the bats and we are learning from other, more seasoned members of our group, to answer questions about the bats when curious onlookers show up to watch the bats in the evening.

There is another more well known "bat bridge" farther south of us and that is the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin but it really has no more bats than the McNeil bridge, it is just better known.

The link below tells more about the Mexican Free Tailed Bat. It also mentions Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin.

Mexican Free Tailed Bat

Sybil Ludington's Ride

It was this day in 1777,  (April 26, 1777) that a rider had come to the Ludington household to warn them and ask for the local revolutionary regiment’s help.

The Colonel’s regiment had been disbanded for planting season, and all of the men had gone to their respective farms.

The rider, too tired to continue, and Colonel Ludington needing to prepare for battle, the Colonel looked to his sixteen-year-old daughter Sybil, to take on the task of riding through the night, to alert his men of the danger and urge them to gather together to fight back.

Sybil Ludington rode all night through the dark woods, covering forty miles (which was a much longer distance than Revere rode), and because of her bravery, almost the whole regiment was gathered by daybreak to fight the British.

Sybil Ludington biography