Miscellaneous Food and Fauna

Continuing with my (our) latest theme…not too much going on.  We did continue doing some spring cleaning but it was actually ‘cleaning’ and not reorganization, trashing or donating so it’s not worth writing about.

We’ll start with a couple of recent meals, take out, dining out and prepared foods cooked at home…

We were tired after reorganizing and cleaning the closets this past week so one night we ordered our usual Pepperoni and Italian Sausage Pizza from ‘Little Italy’ Restaurant in Loudon Tennessee.  I drove over and picked it up.

Note: we even have a flat insulated carry bag to keep the pizza warm for the drive home.

Unfortunately, although we usually really appreciate our pizzas from Little Italy, we felt that this one was a bit bland.  Was it the sausage, the pepperoni or the sauce?  We concluded that it must have been the sauce.  We had 2 slices left over, one of which I ate cold for breakfast and the other cold for lunch.  I actually felt that the cold version had more flavor…

A day or two later, we were out early (for us) and we stopped at ‘Mama’s Grits’ for breakfast. (Mama’s Grits is the name that ‘Little Italy’ uses for their breakfast business)

Laurie kept it simple, ordering bacon, 2 eggs over-easy, a biscuit and a little cup of fruit.  She gave the biscuit high praise but we both thought that the bacon had been pre-cooked and had been sitting for a while.

I went for a safe breakfast in the sense that I know that the biscuits at Mama’s Grit are quite good and the owner’s recipe for sausage gravy can’t be beaten by any other restaurant that we’ve found in the last several years.  Top it with 2 easy-over eggs and it is just about perfect.  The hash brown potatoes came with everything else and they were nicely done…although I should have gone with that fruit cup.

We’d just been to Costco and we had decided to try a box of Realgood Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chicken.  The chicken was stuffed with mozzarella, parmesan and fontina cheese.  While they might have looked more appetizing if they’d browned up a bit, the fact is that with the bacon and all the cheese stuffed into the chicken rolls, this was a pretty tasty entrée.

I had to deal with 3 leftover servings of bacon wrapped cheese laden rolled chicken. (Laurie doesn’t like most leftovers) I actually ate one serving cold, but sprinkled with Tabasco.  Laurie heated the other 2 in a frying pan with butter and a little seasoning, then placing the chicken rolls on top of a piece of bread with the butter from the pan.  Not heart healthy for sure, but very satisfying.

Now for a little fauna…

I took this photo of a very perky little black-capped chickadee who was enjoying our planter base turned watering hole. 

Black-capped chickadees are small North American songbirds that live in deciduous and mixed forest.  They are the state birds for both Massachusetts and Maine.  They have a very useful skill or adaptation in that they can lower their body temperature during cold winter nights.  They also have a great memory that helps them recall where they cached food store.  I’ve noted that they aren’t particularly intimidated by my presence.

Our neighbor gave Laurie this squirrel feeder and it’s proven very popular with this particular chubby squirrel.  He drops about as much on the ground as he manages to eat while on the perch but it doesn't take him too long to strip that corn cob clean!  Our local blue jays appreciate the corn on the ground…

We had noted a fox in our back yard a couple of weeks ago but we didn’t know where he/she/they lived.  The other day Laurie spotted the fox and his/her kits coming out of their den…which happens to be visible from a bedroom window.  They picked a spot in one of the few remaining wooded areas adjacent to our home where they could raise their family.  The den is on a hillside under a bush just beyond the edge of another neighbor’s property.  Unfortunately, we have been unable to capture a photo of the fox family’s comings and goings.

However Mr./Mrs. Fox likes to hunt along the fringe of our yard in a strip of common ground.  On this occasion he/she spent at least 10 minutes just watching for movement in the leaf litter.  We guessed that this was Mr. Fox.

The red fox is the largest of the true foxes and its one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carinvora.  It is found across the entire Northern Hemisphere including Europe and Asia as well as in parts of North Africa.  No threat to humans, it has benefited from our presence and has successfully colonized many suburban and urban areas.

Back to the term “fauna”, which is the term used to refer to all animal life.  I was curious, so I did a little web-surfing.  The term fauna as regards all animal life, was first used in the late 1700s and it comes from Latin.  ‘Fauna’ was a rural Latin/Roman goddess of fertility and the sister of ‘Faunus’.  For his part, Faunus was the deity of pastures, fields and forests.

That’s about it for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave