Cold, so I made frozen dessert and other unlikely things

Not a day for going out. I woke at three am, ready to get up but a bit early. So I made coffee and got a banana and a breakfast bar for breakfast in bed with a podcast and a video game. Eventually slept again and got up about seven to start the day again.

I'm working on this glove,

I can only do a couple of rounds before I have to rest my hands. Other stuff's happening though.

I'm thinking about that little basket idea, and here's the rather knobbly cotton yarn, now dry and ready to go. It has good strength -- I can't snap it, always a good sign.

I thought at first I'd use strips of this nicely colored postcard from W, found my shredder which makes serrated strips, has apparently broken down. Then I got right out of character and actually measured, to cut even strips.

But I changed my mind and I will probably weave the strips for another purpose, meanwhile I thought about ivy for the basket ribs, but it's all buried under snow.

Then I thought ah, wire, great contrast,  factory made wire and hand processed natural plant fiber.

So here's the materials. Stay tuned for more progress. I'm a bit hampered, hands really not working too well because of the cold weather and you can't do this kind of work with gloves. But the ideas are there 

Meanwhile, I fancied a frozen dessert given the weather's cold anyway.

Three mashed bananas, handful of blackberries, vanilla, whole powdered milk, blend, freeze several hours in glass dish, test.

This has a nice kind of ice cream bar texture, and doesn't need any stirring at intervals, because the bananas keep it from becoming solid ice. It's really good. I expect you could add sweetening or nuts or other berries, but this is what I had.

I haven't made it in years owing to a lack of bananas.

Lovely moon tonight with a fuzzy halo. 

Happy day.  Keep pushing. Sez Ted and Big Ursy 

Flicker sighting and other signs of life

Since this was the forecast for the afternoon

which did come to pass, I walked in the morning.  I followed the hammering noise of  a woodpecker in the dead tree at the end of the houses, and found a  northern flicker busy working on a nest site, too busy to worry about me as I watched. 

That tiny white dot high up there on the left is his rump as he digs down into the cavity.. Flickers often feed near the ground around old tree stumps with insect life, and you can spot them in flight from the flash of white rump feathers. But they nest safely high, in nests they excavate in dead trees.

This is how they look close up, not my picture

So I'll be keeping a lookout as I walk that way in the next couple of weeks to see if they're feeding young.

And the trees are blossoming out

Closer to home, there's the current display of daffodils 

And waiting in the wings, the last group ready to burst out

The henbit which the landscapers totally tore out last year is

back, undaunted, happy sight.

Then, after the storms arrived, changing my plan about going for ice cream at the handmade shop, I tried my hand at a home version of soft serve tutti fruti, using that heavy cream powder, beaten up with water, nuts and fruit added

Put it in the freezer for an hour

And ended up with a sort of very nice frozen dessert thing, pretty good sub for the ice cream shop version.

The not so good news yesterday is that neighbor Jackie, who's been living next door since  hurricane Maria forced her to leave Puerto Rico, is moving to Florida. Today. I didn't realize it was this soon. 

She can't wait to have her own place again, in a climate that suits her much better. So she and kitties Maui and Finny are driving down starting today. Sigh. I'll miss her. But she's so happy she finally got set up after a previous plan didn't work out, I can't help but be glad for her. A bit sorry for myself, too.

Today's paper weaving if the glue's dry, knitting, second sock well under way, and Misfits box all being well.

I see Ukraine did indeed sink the huge Russian battleship, even the Russian military have announced it. It's cluttering up the bottom of the sea. A definite dent in the invasion 

Happy day everyone.

Frozen dessert reward

• I have no idea why bullet points and text centering suddenly started. Bear with me, I'm already doing one finger typing because my thumbs don't work that way. Ignore the dots!
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• An exciting episode with the clothes dryer wherein it didn't heat. It pretended to, went the full cycle, clothes wet and cold at the end.
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•  So I tried again, and this time it worked. But I'm afraid it's mene, mene, aka writing on the wall, for the dryer. Not a time for getting it fixed.  Or replaced, if it comes to that. I may come to figuring out alternatives.
• 
  
•  Maybe I'll end up doing an Abigail Adams, who dried the laundry in a fancy White House ballroom. Except mine will be the loft, former studio.

Then I realized that since I furloughed my cleaning family, the floors weren't going to vac themselves. So I did upstairs. Amazing how much fluff one person can generate.

Then I was wandering about the kitchen, soup finished, mejadra finished, what to eat.  Then I remembered the remaining turkey meatballs in the freezer. Macaroni with. Blurt of tomato paste on meatballs. Done. And very good, too. Enough for tomorrow.

So after all this chop wood, carry water, activity, I thought I'd try a treat food, recipe I saw yesterday, local cooking librarian put it on Twitter. 

I happened to have everything in house. Frozen mashed bananas, because I hate mashing bananas but do three bananas and freeze them when I'm in the mood, so when I come to make banana bread, one task is done. Where was I?  Oh, ingredients: bunch of frozen cherries and berries ( I expect any fruit would work), vanilla essence, frozen coconut milk leftover from a chicken curry. I added in a drop of water to help with blending. I doubt if the actual quantities are vital. 

The library lady had a big fancy food processor, and sort of pulled a face when she said you COULD use a blender. Sounded a bit oh you poor thing, but nevermind.

So I shoved all this into my blender, so there, and she did have a point, because the motor labored and an ominous burning smell started.

 That's when I added a drop of water, which fixed the situation. I think there's a bit of mene, mene, writing on the wall for my blender, too.

However I ended up with a really good frozen type dessert. Very nice texture, probably because of the bananas. Sweet enough with no added sweetener.

And, since I always use the last bit of what's in the blender by blending a cup of water in it, which also helps clean it, I got a nice glass of fruit something. I don't drink spirits, but I bet if you do you could build a nice spot of cheer with this drink.

A few minutes after the previous picture.  Good review, thank you library lady.

I'm definitely doing this in summer.