thisendoftheswamp

We had a funeral at church this afternoon, and I volunteered to make a carrot cake for the reception. I’ve made this cake a zillion times (Mary Anne’s Carrot Cake at allreceipes.com) without a hitch, so no problem, right?

Well, this time that blasted cake stuck to everything. It came out of the pan easily enough, but stuck to the rack when I turned it out, stuck to the second rack when I turned it over, and this morning when I cut it into squares, it stuck to the knife with every stroke.

I managed to salvage enough cake to lay out on a platter, sprinkled it liberally with powered sugar, and left the rest on the cutting board. We’ll eat it with a spoon.

Our organist is on vacation, so there was no music, but at the end of the service, the rector annouced that the family had particularly wanted the hymn Amazing Grace, “so I’ll ask Dani to start us off.” I heard the Squire snort, and several people told me later the look on my face must was simply priceless.

I hate when that happens!

Like everybody else who puts out seed, we have a terrible time with the squirrels getting into our bird feeders.  They even used to consider our original baffle as a sort of al fresco dining area.

Well, today I spied a conical baffle that is simply impossible to outwit. (Ha! We’ll see how that goes.)

OK, so now the little buggers can’t get into the feeder, the seed should last a lot longer, right?  I went inside to answer the phone, and when I came out, they had already chewed a hole in the bag. I hadn’t even had a chance to pour the seed into the can! Said can, by the way, is topped with a foot long piece of rail road track, ‘coz if I’m not fighting off squirrels, I’m doing battle with the raccoons.

The worst of it is, the squirrels have their very own feeder, with corn and peanuts, and put where they can reach it. Apparently, they feel it isn’t worth having if you don’t work for it.