Curiosity Garden

My Cat Blue

This is our cat, Blue. He can be very funny. Sometimes if he's in a playful mood he will roll over and over.

He likes to sit by the front door on the rug (when the dog's not there) and look outside. He tries to escape, too, and get outside any time the door gets opened. When Mom goes outside to get firewood, we have to guard the door so he won't get out. I guarded it once.

Isn't he cute?

This is when he was younger. He liked to go inside of his house and bat at the blue hanging ball.

An Afternoon With New Friends

A few days ago some new friends came over and we played and crafted with them. We made really glittery snowflakes, winter magnets, and crazy designs:

Glitter got all over the room!

It snowed that day. We had hot chocolate and played outside, too.

Conowingo Dam Hike

A few days ago we took a hike with our friends at Conowingo Dam. It was a windy fall day. Here is a picture of us:

 

 

 

On the way back my sister found a huge dragonfly:

 

At the end of our hike we played on the rocks near the dam:

 

Some Of My Favorite Books

I've been reading some really interesting books lately and I want to tell you about some of them.

Calico Captive is about a young girl in 1754 who taken by Indians and sold as a slave. It was really suspenseful and I loved it!

In Island of the Blue Dolphins a 12-year-old Indian girl gets left behind on her tribe's island and she has to survive by herself. It's an adventure story.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a really fascinating fantasy story about a mouse family and a group of rats who help them out of trouble.

You can take a closer look at these books on the left sidebar list of recent books I've read, and see the others that I've really enjoyed lately!

River Swimming

A while ago we went swimming in the Susquehanna River with our friends at As We Walk.

After we dried off and had snacks, we went to Broom's Bloom to eat ice cream and play.

In the Car Wash

Corn Husk Doll ~ My Own Version

I was husking corn for dinner one night and I decided to make a doll with one of the husks:

I used a piece of husk that was curved for the body, corn silk for hair, and a light colored piece of corn husk for clothes.

Private Walk With Mom

A while ago Mom and I took a walk with Zeb, our puppy. Here he is:

Here are some of the things we saw:

This is me running on a hill:

Greek Butter Cookies ~ My First Cookie Recipe All By Myself

I've been reading lots of library books about cooking in other countries. I decided I wanted to try making one of the recipes I had read about. This recipe is for Greek Butter Cookies. It comes from the book Cooking the Greek Way by Lynne W. Villios. It's under "Books I've Read" on my left sidebar if you want to take a look.

Greek Butter Cookies

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 c. (2 sticks butter, softened)
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
powdered sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and mix until well blended. Add vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
4. With your hands, form dough into balls, crescents, or S-shapes, using about 1/2 teaspoon at a time.
5. Place cookies 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet on middle oven rack and bake 15 minutes, or until barely brown around the edges.
6. Remove cookies from cookie sheet with spatula and cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.
7. With flour sifter, sprinkle powdered sugar over cookies.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

These are the cookies after they were done:

At The Creek After It Rained

A couple of days ago I went down to our creek. It was much higher than normal because it had just rained. It was rushing and loud.

My dad has a ladder stand attached to a tree and I went up and sat for awhile and I took pictures.

First, my mom took a picture of me so you could see what it looks like:

This is the creek below, looking down from where I'm sitting:

These are the tree tops with rain on them:

 

While I was sitting in the ladder stand, my dad made a place to cross the creek with rocks. It will be easier now to step across the creek on the rocks.

These are some other pictures I took: