No More Poop!

The starlings (little black birds) have invaded my house! I spent a good half hour trying to get bird poop off of my driveway, under the portico, off of windows, and my car.I love that they have built a nest under my portico and I love the sound of all of the baby birds chirping - but I hate the poop! My son suggested I get out the gun and take care of the problem, but after my last experience with shooting, I can't do it.

Last spring, one Sunday, a million sparrows - (okay maybe not a million) but a ton of the mud daubers just showed up in my neighborhood. They were making their mud nests everywhere! I would squirt off the mud nests they were building on the front of the house and they would move to the back of the house. Then they I found them under the hay port building their nests and they were pooping all over the tractors. I wasn't the only one fighting this war, my neighbors were as well. For two weeks, I was continually trying to cover up the mud puddles left from the sprinklers so these birds wouldn't have any mud to build their nests with. One day, I had finally had enough and I decided to use my son's pellet gun to fight the battle. I have never killed anything with a gun before and I was surprised at two things - first how good of a shot I was and second how sad I felt after I took one of their lives away. When I killed the first one, I started to cry and told the dead bird I was sorry. The worst though was when I knicked one and it lay flopping around on the ground, wounded but not dead. I couldn't bring myself to kill it and had to get my son to come finish off the deed. After that I couldn't shoot anymore of them and I gave up my hunting.

It is still freezing here. It is pretty sad when you want to wear your long underwear and drink hot chocolate in May!

For Mother's day, my son, Brayden, sold Ghiradelli chocolates and roses to raise money for his trip to Africa. We ended up with an opened bag of these chocolates that Bray took around for the men to have a sample of what they would be getting. By the time I got home Saturday night, all of the milk chocolate ones - which obviously was everyone elses favorite were gone. So we have a bag full of dark chocolate candies. So instead of letting them just sit in the pantry and get old, I think I will make some homemade hot chocolate with them.

Homemade Hot Chocolate

Melt 20 oz. of the dark chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Stirring after each minute until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Place 2C. heavy cream and 6C. milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the pan - (about 4 minutes.) Do not boil.

Remove from the heat and whisk in 1t. vanilla. Continue whisking until a light foam forms.
Serve immediately!