Category: Animals

Slinky Bird Feeder

Form a circle with thick wire, leaving ends straight. Insert one end of wire into slinky. Secure ends of slinky with wire, leaving a gap for access. Optional: spray paint black. Fill with large size bird treats, hang outside. Cute! via

Boil & Eat Lobsters

  • Live lobsters, 1 per person
  • A large pot of salted water
  • Butter
  • Bread for dipping into the lobster-infused butter (optional)

Method

How to Boil Lobster

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First consider the size of your pot for boiling the lobsters. An 8-quart pot will easily take one lobster, a 16-quart pot, 2 or 3 lobsters. If you are cooking a lot of lobsters you’ll either need to cook them in stages or have more than one pot of water boiling.

1 Fill a large pot 3/4 full of water. Add 2 Tbsp of salt for every quart of water. The water should be salty like sea water (in fact you can use clean sea water if you have it). Bring the water to a rapid boil.

2 Grasp the lobster by the body and lower it upside down and head first into the boiling water. Continue to add the live lobsters to the pot in this manner. Cover the pot.

3 Note the time at which the water comes to a boil again. From that point, boil the lobsters for 12-20 minutes or longer, depending on the size of the lobster. 12-15 minutes for 1 lb lobster, 15-20 minutes for a 1 1/2 pound lobster, 20-25 minutes for a 2-3 pound lobster. The lobsters should be a bright vivid red color when done.

Note that larger lobsters will turn bright red before they are completely finished cooking, so you do want to time your cooking, and not just go on color alone. Unlike with fresh scallops or fish that you can eat raw (think sashimi), you don’t want to eat raw or undercooked lobster. Translucent undercooked lobster meat really doesn’t taste good. It needs to be opaque through and through. If you cook it too long, the meat will get rubbery, so keep an eye on the time.

4 Remove the lobsters from the pot with tongs and place on a plate to drain and cool.

Click HERE for eating instructions

Update: Birds!

I took the pattern discussed HERE and made these fabulous Baseball bird ornaments in celebration of my St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series this year. With help, I crafted over 50 of these birds. We used all of 1 1/2 yards of red baseball fabric and less than 1 yard of tan fabric for the bellies. On some, we sewed red ribbon to the back of the neck for hangers. On others, I used strong fishing line and poked it through the fabric – I liked this hanging process better than the ribbon. We debated about adding eyes or actual feathers, but decided less was more on these. I hope you like them – I know we do!

Paper Penguin Craft

You’ll need:

Glue

Black pen for eyes

Construction paper: (Use recycled if able!)

  • Light Blue for Background
  • Black
  • Orange
  • White
  • Peach color for bow if desired

Directions:

Tear paper to small (about 1/2 inch) bits. Start by gluing black bits into horseshoe shape. Add black for feet and bottom of tummy. Then fill in with white, as in picture. Don’t forget to add snow falling from the sky using smaller bits. Add orange beak. Draw in eyes.

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