February Goodbye

It's time to say goodbye to another month and to share this month's Kevin Dodds calendar page. I've enjoyed February's picture but after two months of horses, I'm ready for the unique homes Mr. Dodds does so beautifully. 

I'm more of a house lover instead of a horse lover. Our granddaughter Nora, on the other hand, is madly in love with horses. But then, aren't most little girls?

Speaking of granddaughters, here was my kitchen shelves decorated with our granddaughters' Valentines, and an old snapshot of my sweet mother in her kitchen.

The girls' Valentine to their PawPaw was a Star Wars, May the force be with you one! I should have put it here for a pic too.

Now the shelves are featuring an invitation to a very special birthday for one son and a beautiful picture another son took of Spaceship Earth at Epcot. 

I love changing around the kitchen shelves constantly.

RH just brought about an amazing change in our kitchen by taking care of a little project outside. He pruned back two huge hollies, one of which had totally blocked the smaller of the two kitchen windows.

We hated doing it because the birds love to nest in it and the bees love the flowers but it was driving me batty having a black hole at the end of my kitchen.

Here's a picture from Christmas showing the dark hole.

See what I mean? Sunshine at the large window and a few feet away a black hole. 

It has made such a difference! I know some people would have cut down the whole bush but I love having the cardinals nest in it and peek in the window at me. One red male pecks on the screen when it's past his dinnertime.

I'm mesmerized by having the sun shine on things in that end of the kitchen. I know this is a lot of kitchen pics but I took a ton of them and will try to do a kitchen post at the other blog soon so couldn't resist using some here.

Remember my beautiful pink amaryllis that was in the silver champagne bucket at my kitchen sink all through the holidays? I moved it and the beautiful grasses that grew up through the moss into our living room.

It will get moved outside when the night temperatures get up to at least 50 in spring. And now I'm searching for something else to put in the bucket by my sink.

Come the first week of March that pine cone pitcher and other winter things will be put away and tender spring green colors will come out. Winter lover that I am, I admit to being ready for that!

First we have another blast of winter heading our way--I should be ashamed of even calling it that when my blog friends from the north have really been having winter.

And I understand we have more rain heading our way after four days of glorious sunshine. 

More rain? Here's how high the pond got after our last week:

Very full and I was thankful we lived uphill not downhill from it.  And I was happy to stay inside and cocoon, which always includes cooking.

I had been craving real honest-to-goodness homemade rice pudding studded with raisins and made Ruth Reichl's rice pudding, recipe here.

But I used all the leftover egg whites to make a meringue for it after seeing this picture in an old rice pamphlet I've had a long time.

No cherries on top but it was delicious and I'm sure Ruth wouldn't mind I added the meringue. I'm sure she also wouldn't mind that I used a couple of tablespoons of Calvados brandy to macerate the raisins in overnight.

See that smile? That's the smile of a girl who would appreciate a little Calvados in the pudding, don't you think?

We turn the calendar page tomorrow and I'm almost giddy with the thought of it! 

Are you?