The Bird Cop

Here is a typical Fall day at our feeders. As you can see (sorry for the bad photo), it's pretty busy...

Happy Halloween 2011

The following is an short excerpt from my first book, "The Farm House." I hope you enjoy it.

Happy Halloween...

Artwork courtesy of a very talented Katie Hicks

Pam came up behind him and asked, “What’re you looking at?”

“You remember that Scott and I boarded-up that door outside? Well, the reason we did it was because whatever it was that followed us to the cemetery, followed us from here. While you and Jen were up here, we went outside and followed the prints and they led to the door. Well, after we boarded it up, I felt a little guilty that whatever it was would be left out in the cold, so I went and got some hamburger and made a little trail to the storage room. I then made a little nest for it and gave it some water. Anyway, making a long story short, I just looked outside and the meat is gone and the storage room door is closed.”
“So, I guess we have a visitor for the night, right?”

“I guess so.”
“You know, that was really nice of you to do that.”

Finger Stakes

Before I get started blowing sprinkler lines and assisting in biology and chemistry labs, I needed to make something special for my wife's Halloween party at work. So, I decided that the easiest (Yep, I'm lazy) thing to do, would be to make my Cheesy Bread and try and make them look like fingers.

 What you need:

• Cheesy bread recipe
• A batch of my Garlic Sauce
• Olives and cut them into fourths (These will become the finger nails)
• Red food dye

Putting it together:

• Make a batch of the garlic sauce
• When that is made, reserve about 1/4 of the sauce and add 2 Tbsp of red food coloring to it (This will make the sauce appear to look like blood)
• Make the cheesy bread recipe
• Once the bread sticks have risen and are ready to have the garlic sauce applied,  cut a slit in the end of each bread stick  and placed one of the olive slices
• Slather each one with the regular garlic sauce
• Cover with cheese
• Using the garlic sauce with the red food dye, paint the end of the bread stick (the one without the olive)
• Bake at 425° for 12-15 minutes

Here they are before being covered with cheese... 

Ready for the oven... 

Once baked and cooled, I placed a stick (stake) up the middle of each one, which is why I can call them: Finger Stakes :-)

Boxed-up and ready to go...