Those Little Squirrels!!!!!

My two oldest children are in 4th grade science this year which has them studying North American bird species.  As a year long school project, I joined Cornell Project Feeder Watch and the kids have been actively participating.  We hung out our two bird feeds and a suet cake and just waited for the birds.  It was great! The birds began to come to the feeders every day and we were learning so much about them.


But then......

The squirrels found our feeder as well.  I'm not interested in feeding the squirrels but the birds.  I've screamed at them, chased them away at lightning speed and thrown rocks at them.  I put my feeders on a super skinny pole that I didn't think that they could climb and yet they still made it up the pole. Then I greased the pole...surely that would work, but NO! It didn't even slow them down and they decided that they should invite their friends.  But today, they pulled out all of the stops. 


I looked outside and what did they do, but they chewed out the hook that the bird feeder was hanging on. The feeder dropped to the ground and they were eating all of the bird feed.


If anyone has any ideas for keeping the squirrels away successfully, I'm all ears.  I want to enjoy the birds and not have to keep chasing them away!

Great Deal On H&R Block Tax Software!

My husband and I complete our own taxes at home and for several years we have used H&R Block's tax software.  Since it is that time of year again, I have been waiting for a good sale before purchasing the software. 


Today, as I was looking through the Sunday paper, I found that Office Max had their H&R Block At Home software on sale for $34.99.  They also send you a $10 Office Max gift card when you purchase the software. That brings the cost down to $24.99 which is a good deal by itself.  


However, if you received in the mail a CD copy of the newest H&R At Home software, you will find a $10 mail-in rebate when you purchased the software from any of the retailers listed on the rebate.  One of those retailers were Office Max.  


So after purchasing H&R Block's At Home and receiving the $10 gift card to Office Max and sending in the $10 rebate to H&R Block, the total cost of my tax software is $14.99!  That is one of the best deals I have found for tax software in a very long time!


On a side note, if you have an Ebates account, you can purchase H&R Block's At Home at Office Max through Ebates and earn another $1.05 for the purchase.  Ebates is currently offering a 3% return on your purchase at Office Max. 

Steamed Cranberry Pudding-A New Year's Eve Tradition

As long as I can remember, we never did much to celebrate New Year's Eve.  That changed though a few years back when I was volunteering to be on-duty from my home for the Emergency Squad.   My husband and I decided that we would ask our neighbors to come over and spend the evening at our home playing games. 

My neighbors came over bringing somewhat of a New Year's Eve tradition for them, steamed cranberry pudding with hard sauce. I had never tried or even heard of anything like that.  As we removed it from the mold, the steam wafted towards us and it smelled delectable! That first bite was wonderful. Tart cranberries enveloped in moist molasses flavored cake, dripping with a buttery hard sauce.

Since that New Year's Eve night, years ago, steamed cranberry pudding has become our New Year's Eve tradition.  This year we ended up celebrating New Year's Eve a  week and a half late. But we still had our cranberry pudding and an evening of games. I asked my neighbor if I could share her recipe. You will find it below. Enjoy!

Steamed Cranberry Pudding with Hard Sauce

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup light molasses

1/3 cup hot water

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups cranberries, washed and drained

Mix together and pour into a greased mold and steam for 1 hour over simmering water on stove top, making sure that the pot is tightly covered. Remove from mold onto serving tray and serve warm with hard sauce.

Hard Sauce

1 cup half and half

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

Heat cream, butter, sugar and salt to a boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Serve warm over warm pudding.

Variation: Use eggnog instead of half and half and replace vanilla with rum flavoring.