Mom's Birthday Party ... There WILL Be Chicken

A portion of the party chicken, at the first lid lifting progress check.

Mom turns a year older this week and since we can't zip to St. Augustine during the work week, we celebrated her yesterday.
Saturday, I barbecued beaucoup chicken so that she and Dad would have some extra to eat after my crew descended on her dining room table to feast in her honor.
We had a great feast, ... BBQ chicken, our heirloom salad, green beans, garlic bread, corn on the cob, and a carrot cake that was amazingly amazing.

For a cake with no chocolate, I have to admit it was delicious. I've always thought of carrot cake as kind of a girly, tea partyish, bridal showery, frilly cake, but I had to eat my words and two pieces of cake yesterday.
It was so good.


Mom specifically requested the presence of her grandog, so Bear got to go to the oldest city too!
He was very good, did not destroy anything, and turned on the charm to totally shmoooze his grandmother. Here he is testing the seabreeze for new smells.


Mom and Dad have wonderful mature pines towering over their suburban lot. They are straight and massive. They are the kind of huge straight pines that would have wound up as ship masts in another time.
When I arrived at 2:00am Sunday morning, a full moon was illuminating the yard and a huge owl swooped in and landed at the top of a pine as I unloaded the JEEP.
I never would have seen it on a normally dark night.
Sweet!
Why the late (or was I early?) arrival?
'Cause I felt like driving Saturday night, but I didn't get that feeling until late in the evening.
So, Bear and I went early.


The last time I saw Mom's goldfish pond leopard frog, I swear it was about half this size. That was a few months ago.
It popped out of the pond while I was tweaking her waterfall pump yesterday.





And here is the reason I did not post Saturday or Sunday.

The birthday girl needed chicken cooked long and slow ... that would be Saturday's excuse.
Plus, she needed us.
That was Sunday's excuse.

Later this month, it will be Dad's turn, so I may miss another post in late September, but for now I'm back.

I've got purple finches, datils, butterflies, exotics, and whatever happens today to post this week, so stay tuned.