City

Boston, specifically, with a few minutes to wander after my dental appointment.

This pretty planet

Do you know this song?

this pretty planet
spinning through space
you're a garden
you're a harbor
you're holy place
golden sun going down
gentle blue giant
spin us around
all through the night
safe till the morning light

It's sung as a round -- it's my most favorite song that we sing at school. I searched to find a recording or video of it to share with you; the one I'm sending you to is one of the least "professional" of the bunch but since it's school kids singing it sounds most the way I love to hear it.

The mushrooms we saw on our hike in the local state forest. Can't imagine that they aren't magical, somehow.

Wings

All summer, Dean has been keeping the hummingbird feeder filled (one part sugar to four parts water; boil to dissolve sugar and cool completely), and the hummingbirds have been visiting regularly. I'm not sure if we have one mating pair -- I know there are two regular visitors and one has the clear coloring of a male ruby-throated humming bird and I am guessing that this is his mate -- or if we have more than that.

I finally managed to get out with my camera today while this one was feeding, but it wasn't easy to catch her.

We're going to see if we can plant more things that will attract even more hummingbirds, or maybe even hang a few more feeders. Anyone have any advice about this? Are more feeders likely to bring more visitors, or do we need more plants?

And in an entirely different category of wings, I can tell you that my brother Tony makes the very best chicken wings in the whole, wide world.

Here's his recipe:

2 lbs. chicken wings (prepped with the wing tip removed and discarded and the wings cut apart at the joint)
1 or 2 whole limes, juiced
About 3 ounces of Frank's Original Red Hot Sauce (we'd like to suggest that you really do use Frank's -- first of all, because it has a very nice flavor without the kind of keister-kicking heat of Tabasco and these wings are tasty even for people who don't want the big heat hurt*, and second of all because Tony is employed by the parent company)
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
About half a cup of chopped fresh cilantro
[You will also need your favorite BBQ sauce, about 3/4ths of a cup, but you don't need it until you're ready to grill -- don't add it to the marinade.)

Rinse the wings and set aside. Combine ingredients (but NOT the bbq sauce) either in a shallow container with a lid or a zip-top plastic bag, and squish/swirl around. Feel free to play it loose and easy with the amounts of ingredients -- more of whatever you like (but probably not less of where you start from). Place wings in with the mixture, swirl to coat, and refrigerate 24 to 48 hours (you can also freeze the whole batch at this point to cook at a later date -- just defrost first). If possible, swirl 'em around or flip 'em a couple of times during the marinading time.

Drain wings and discard marinade. Grill over low heat, turning once or twice, for about 25 minutes. Turn heat up a bit and coat the wings with the BBQ sauce.
*At this point, if you do want heat to your wings, you can add hot sauce to the BBQ sauce.

Slowly cook the wings with the BBQ sauce on them, turning once, so that the sauce cooks and forms a nice crust on the wings -- don't just put the BBQ sauce on and then pull them off the grill, but watch carefully so they don't burn. We like ours with corn on the cob and grilled red potatoes. Yum.

Earl-y

So, we're expecting a bit of Hurricane Earl to pass by this way. We live about 45 miles inland, and from the reports it appears that Earl will veer off to sea, so it's looking as though the only event for us will be a very windy night. We've got a few raindrops coming down intermittently, but nothing to send us scurrying out for milk and water and bread and batteries, or anything like that. We did rearrange our deck furniture, our tomato and basil porch pots, the wind chimes and the hummingbird feeder, but that's about it.

Hope it is as relatively manageable for everyone.

Meanwhile, a little catch-up:

Last weekend we headed out to see our local football club (OK, soccer to the MLS fans), the New England Revolution, get ultimately trounced by the Philadelphia Union. The Revs have been beset by injuries -- a common theme with all New England sports teams these days -- but we will had a great night out and felt good about supporting the team. People complain that there are so few stadiums actually built for soccer (Gillette Stadium here is the home of the New England Patriots -- American football team), but no one is going to build facilities if people aren't buying tickets and going to games.

And may I say that it's beginning to look ever so slightly like Christmas? At least that is to say I am making a start on some gifts with the hopes of having some handmade aspects to the holiday this year.
The cotton zippered bag is lined; it isn't necessary for the fleece one. Thinking about what else should be on my to-make list.