Me with my favorite species of owl in the world – the barred owl, an unreleasable girl named Teddy.

When business took us to Rochester, New York, Roman and I decided to make a weekend trip out of it and visit Niagara Falls and then some friends in Toronto before heading back. Sometimes impromptu travels can be the best kind – this was definitely a trip to remember!

Rainbow over Niagara Falls, New York.	Tigers find my hair delicious.	Gorgeous Great Horned Owl at the Mountsberg Raptor Centre.

Me with a tiny Saw-whet owl named Hutton.	More gratuitous cute owl shots.	And another! Hutton is just precious. They are so little and cute they look unreal.	One of the bald eagle residents of the Centre.
Fish Beak! Pagwa, a juvenile female bald eagle.	Amy and Pagwa, who were amazingly in sync with each other.	Profile, Portrait. Amy and Pagwa again.	Amy showing us her incredible owl-mimicing talent.
Behind the scenes where birds are cared for.	Bernice isn’t too sure about Otis.	In the end they make friends.	I just love barred owls!
One of the resident barn owls.	A beautiful bird of another sort welcomes us to Jungle Cat World (peacock).	I was amazed that the harsh Canadian winter doesn’t phase these exotic creatures!	The stars of JCW – the tigers.
Incredible, inspiring cats.	Delicious arms.	Delicious legs.	Delicious jacket of mine.
Delicious scarf.	I have to conclude, after spending time with baby tigers – the whole world is delicious.	Mauled by tiger cubs and never happier about it!	What a face!!

Playful cubs.	One of the other cats – a lynx on the move.	Myself, Roman, Eric (with his tiger beer), and Bernice (with Wolfy).

We first visited Niagara Falls, which was beautiful in the winter with ice-covered cliffs, broken ice rivers, and a wonderful lack of crowds. We then went up to Toronto and a bit east to Jungle Cat World – a fantastic little sanctuary with a bed and breakfast on site. We had the chance to stay at the zoo overnight and see the animals when they were most active – when the rest of the crowd has gone home.  You can find their site here: http://www.junglecatworld.com/

We also had the chance to see the Mountsberg Raptor Centre which was a wonderfully run place full of gorgeous birds. Major thanks to Amy Fennell, a friend (and Mountsberg employee) for the memorable, thoroughly enjoyable trip!  You can learn more about Mountberg and the birds at their Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/mountsbergraptorcentre

Sisters of St. Benedict Monastery

Hoosier National forest, in the central part of southern Indiana, was a beautiful surprise. I didn’t know much about the park before stopping there, but was captivated by its beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous rock formations, and mossy forests. I wish I’d had time to stay and do more hiking.

Right near the park was the amazing architecture of the Sisters of St. Benedict Monastery – I am not a religious person but I really love and appreciate the beauty of structures like this. We had a very nice tour – if you’re ever in the area and enjoy old churches and beautiful buildings, check this one out!

After passing through Hoosier, we visited friends in Lexington, Kentucky and had a tour of the world famous Kentucky Horse Park.

Kimahri and I resting in a beautiful natural cave in Hoosier.	A standardbred being put through its paces at the Kentucky horse park.	A silly glamour shot of our car, “Smith” the Pontiac Vibe in Hoosier.

An amusing sign we saw on the back of a semi. Good stuff.	Kimahri posing regally in the fall leaves at Hoosier.	An artistic shot of some of the stained glass at the monastery.	The hike of Hemlock Cliffs at Hoosier is full of beautiful surprises.
Our friend contemplates one of the standardbreds, nose to nose.	A meet and greet with the horse show horses and their owners.	We were lucky to get a tour of the University of Kentucky animal cognition lab from a good friend, Holly.	Holly introducing us to one of the research pigeons. It was amazing the sheer range of personalities in the birds!
I love draft horses. It was really neat to get to meet both horses and their keepers at the park.	One of Holly’s dogs showing us one method for dog cognition research. She touches the screen with her nose to ‘select’ an item!	Another beautiful horse at the parade of breeds.

Sincerely,

-Foxfeather Zenkova

Newsletter features:

• Holiday shipping deadlines! December 19^th for standard shipping, Dec. 21^st for express orders (within the U.S.)
• NEW designs
• COMING SOON! Many website updates and new artwork
• Guest Artists – Ursula Vernon and Melita Curphy (Miss Monster)

Holiday Shipping

There is still time to find a great, unique gift for any animal lover in your life – we are offering shipping for deliver before Dec. 25^th for U.S. orders placed before December 19^th for standard shipping, Dec. 21^st for express orders – visit our holiday shipping page http://foxloft.com/holidayshipping for details!

New Designs!

There are many new designs available at the Foxloft, including our newest ‘Yin-Yang’ designs – available from our brand new T-shirt shop http://foxloft.com/store/shirts and as prints http://foxloft.com/store/prints

The glass pendant gallery has been updated as well, including both original painted designs and jewelry prints to fit any budget! http://foxloft.com/store/originals

http://endangeredark.com Endangered Ark Limited Edition card decks make a wonderful gift – over 20 different artists participated in this project and part of the proceeds are going to two wonderful endangered species charities.

Coming Soon!

This new year will be heralding many updates to our website to make the shopping experience much better. Please keep an eye on our website for a new look to the website as well as a section for art services, new features, and informational pages.

Guest Artists

We are excited to announce an expansion of our galleries to include a few new, wonderful guest artists!

There are tagua pendants now available by both Ursula Vernon and Melita Curphy (Miss Monster). We are soon adding a few other wildlife and totemic artists from around the world to our growing pool of talent.

Thank you for looking at our website and our newsletter!

We hope to see you again in the future!

-Foxfeather and the Foxloft Crew ]]> http://foxloft.com/holiday-2009-newsletter-from-foxloft-studios/feed 0 http://foxloft.com/hearty-chicken-wild-rice-soup http://foxloft.com/hearty-chicken-wild-rice-soup#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:13:08 +0000 admin /hearty-chicken-wild-rice-soup

Hearty Chicken Wild Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

To make chicken stock:

Quarter whole chicken and put in large stock pot, cover with water. Stir gently, discard dirty water. Fill pot 3/4 with water and put on medium-high heat.

Motto of best-ever-chicken-stock : Skim the skum or your stock will suck! A little attention will go a long way to making better soup. Use a spoon to skim off debris/foam from the top. Bring to a gentle boil. 

Dice onion, carrots, and celery, add to stock. Boil for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally, until chicken is thoroughly cooked and just starting to fall off the bone. Continually skim the stock (it's easier after the onions and other veggies have sunk into the stock mix) - your goal is to get rid of all the fat and foam off the top of the soup. Try not to take too much water, just the top layer of uck.

Gently remove chicken with tongs, allowing extra stock to drip back into soup. Place on cutting board or platter and let cool.

Skim out celery ends and any veggies you don't want to leave in - they will be mostly tasteless mush at this point. You don't have to take them out but I always remove just the celery.

An alternative would be to used canned soup stock - about 8-10 cups of it and start the soup from there. This works fine, but obviously home-made stock is best. If using the canned stock it's best to boil it with celery/onions/carrots for better flavor.

To make soup:

Add wild rice to stock mix, stir. Rice will take 1-2 hours to cook. Your goal is that the rice cracks and looks a bit like a split hot-dog bun, if the majority of the rice is curled up it has cooked too long. Some people prefer harder or softer rice, try out different cooking times and see what you think.

Add diced celery and any optional veggies (diced parsnips or mushrooms), butter, and white pepper.

Stir every 10 minutes or so until rice is cooked, make sure to scrape the pot to make sure rice is not stuck/burning at the bottom.

Cut up chicken (careful to remove all fat and bones, especially those tiny ribs!) and add meat back into the stock. Alternative if you want to be really fancy -grill/broil chicken breasts/thighs and add those to the soup (instead of stock chicken) for more flavor.

In a separate bowl, blend corn starch with a bit of the half/half until smooth. Turn heat down to low, add this mix, rest of half/half, and wine to the soup. Heat thoroughly but do not boil. Salt to taste. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve - goes great with fresh bread!

Notes: This soup actually tastes fantastic (if not better) the next day - save uneaten portions in the refrigerator or freeze for later use.

Enjoy!

Chicken Tikka Masala

Ingredients

Directions

Put in the oven, magic happens!

Enjoy!

Berry-Stuffed French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Blend softened cream cheese, berries, and bananas in a bowl, set aside. Slice bread into thick (1 1/2″-2″ slices) slices – I make my own light wheat bread for this but almost any country-style loaf will do.  I usually make a loaf the night before and let it sit (covered) overnight – if you’re an early bird you can make it in the morning and use fresh bread.

With a sharp knife, carefully cut a deep pocket into each slice of bread, keeping the opening on only one side.

Fill each bread slice with cream cheese mixture (pack it in there!) and stack onto a plate – chill until firm.

Beat the eggs in large bowl, add softened ice cream mixture, stir well (but gently, you don’t want it to be super foamy).

Heat butter in a skillet on medium heat.

Place stuffed bread into egg mixture, turn to coat.  Put coated bread into skillet, fry on top and bottom and then gently on all remaining sides (especially if bread is very thick)  until golden brown. It cooks quickly, be careful not to burn it! Add more butter if necessary between slices.

Serve with syrup (and a scoop of ice cream if you wish).

Notes:  If you want to get really fancy, you can slice the crust off the bread before filling – this will allow the egg mixture to soak into it better on all sides and make a thicker coating.  Be careful not to soak the bread too long, though, or you can get runny eggs that don’t cook up in the middle of the toast.

Enjoy!

Pig Pirozhki

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough:

Mix flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle, add yeast and warm milk, stir. Add softened butter and eggs. Mix until smooth, let rest for 1 hour in a warm (but not hot) place. On top of an oven set to warm (under 200 degrees) works well.

Make the filling:

Heat olive oil in a skillet, add garlic and herbs. Stir well, do not let garlic brown/burn. Cook for a minute or two, add diced artichokes (well drained) and ham. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until ham is slightly browned. Add cheese last, heat and stir until cheese is melted. Remove from heat.

Finishing:

Cover board and hands with dusting of flour. Seperate dough into 6 different balls, then break off 1/4 of each ball (for ears/nose/etc) and set aside (so you end up with 6 large and 6 small balls of dough). Keep dough balls covered in a bowl with moistened cloth over it until using them so they don't dry out (they dry out quickly).

Scramble egg white in small bowl, keep near work station (easiest to use with a basting brush for application).

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Form large dough ball into flat circle (like you would for a pizza) about 1/4" thick. Place 1/6 of filling mixture onto the middle, wrap sides of dough around to form a ball completely around the filling, making a seam only on the bottom side. Use a light brushing of the egg white to seal. Flip seam-down and place on well greased baking pan. Form small ball of dough into snout, tusks, ears, and hooves, attach with egg white. Use whole black peppers pressed into dough for eyes.  Glaze finished pig lightly with egg white mixture.

Repeat for each of the pigs, bake for 10-20 minutes (check at 10 minutes then every 5) or until golden brown. Check often so the ears don't crisp too much!

Enjoy!

Me with lead dog Balto

Over the New Year’s holiday, Roman and I, along with two of our best friends, Teagan and Kenket, decided to take a trip up to northern Minnesota to go dogsledding. We were hosted by Kathleen of WintermoonSummerSun Kennels in Brimson, MN and it was a truly wonderful, unforgettable trip for all of us! The weather cooperated (only 20 below at night and getting into the teens during the days) – the snow was perfect, and the rustic wood-fire cabin lodging and traditional Finnish sauna was a treat.

Roman driving a sled on home.	Kenket and sled dog puppies.	A retired sled dog enjoying the good life.

The hand built cabin lodging had wonderful wood heat stoves.	Here I am pumping water for the dogs.	Roman takes a turn at the water pump.	The sled dogs were all so friendly!
How can you resist that little face??	Roman and I with two of the puppies.	Dog food buckets – in the winter they get fed a meat slurry.	Harnessing and hitching up a dog – he’s really eager to go!
The dogs are incredibly excited to run, when you hitch them they can’t wait to go!	Roman and I driving teams – such an exhilarating experience!	More dog driving.	Teagan and her team.
Teagan, Roman, Myself, Kenket, and puppies.	A beautiful dog named Hund.	A very gorgeous dog named Lichen. You can really see the wolf influence!	My personal favorite, Uno-Tuk.
Another beautiful Alaskan husky – Trondheim	Look at Trondheim prance!	One of the resident malamutes, Sparky. Woo woo!	A frozen waterfall at Gooseberry Falls state park.
A hike out to a beautiful view – the frozen shore of Lake Superior.

Brimson, Minnesota is located a bit over an hour from the city of Duluth. Kathleen owns over 300 acres and has a wonderful, hundred-year old Finnish cabin. With the help of the 47 working dogs she had there we learned the basics of mushing, as well as what it takes to care for the whole operation. We were able to help feed, water, harness, hitch, ride with and drive the dogs and sleds. Miles of beautiful trails through the dense forests were absolutely enchanting.

We also had the chance to spend New Year’s Eve at the local town hall (town of just over 30 people!) – they had a live band and contra dancing, it was a blast. Definite old midwestern charm. :)  I can’t wait to go back and dogsled some more – I can see why so many people find it addicting and end up with a kennel full of dogs themselves!

It is incredibly inspiring how motivated the dogs are and how much they love their work. These northern breeds are built to run and pull and they can’t wait to go out on the trails! Their power and speed is incredible. It is obvious the wonderful care each dog gets – they are all friendly, happy, healthy and get to retire in total comfort inside the home. Some of Kathleen’s dogs are 15-16 years old!

If you ever get the chance, like dogs, the winter, and outdoors, I would highly recommend dogsledding (as well as WintermoonSummersun)!

Bison grazing at Custer State Park, SD.

It is hard to write about the Rocky Mountains, they are the sort of thing you really have to go to experience – the sheer size, majesty, and power of the mountain range. Unlike a lot of the places I’ve traveled to, the Rockies feel ‘distant’ – being a newer mountain range, still growing (maybe in the aggressive ‘teen’ years) – a bit intimidating, cold, beautiful.

It is really hard to capture the beauty and size of the Rockies.	Cowboy Roman on a really wonderful tour of the RMNP on horseback.	Hiking in the park, you find many surprises like this beautiful hidden lake.

Being able to watch the bison is a wonderful experience – and to imagine the grasslands once looked similar to this.	A view from horseback of the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park area. You can ride inside the park.	If mountains are hard to capture – caves are nigh impossible.  Wind Cave, South Dakota.  I love the amazing, unique textures caves produce.	There were lots of pronghorn wandering about in Custer, totally unafraid of people driving and walking by.
The colors at Custer are amazing!	Another of the many varieties in landscape and denizens of the area.	No trip to the Rockies, or Colorado for that matter is complete without ample elk.

The feel of the Rockies is very different than for instance southern Utah or Zion national park – also an amazing mountain range but an unimaginably old one. Where Zion practically invites you to clamber all over the cliffs, press your face to the sandstone, and be a part of the park – the Rockies feel more independent, something to view and appreciate, but not to touch.

We made a roundtrip from Minnesota out to Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park and back – passing through Custer State Park in South Dakota, Wind Cave National Park, and the Badlands on our way back. We were lucky to be able to spend some time hiking, camping, and horseback riding in the parks – in my opinion the best way to experience them!

Morning Mists in the Boundary Waters

Though as of this date I have traveled to all contiguous U.S. states except for Maine and almost all the major national/state parks – I have to rank northern Minnesota to be the most beautiful, awe-inspiring place out of everywhere I’ve been. The sheer wildness of the place, the magical mists rising off the lakes in the morning, the old growth pines and wolves howling at night… if you ever get the chance, spend some time in northern MN.

Beautiful falls on a portage.	Jan and Lenka canoeing with us in the BWCA.	Gorgeous northern waters.

I know I’m a dork. But I’m a cave-loving dork.	A train at the Duluth Railway Museum.	I love caves and as such, I love mines. We went on a tour of the Soudan Mine on our way north.	A sign inside Soudan Mine. I can’t believe people worked here by candlelight.
Mineworks at Soudan.	Jan capturing some of the morning beauty on the lake.	A nice panorama of the canoe experience. The lakes are so beautiful!	A massive freighter in Duluth, MN.

Resizing and cropping photos can get to be a taxing task.	The Weisman art museum in Minneapolis.

Roman’s brother (Jan) and his girlfriend (Lenka) came to visit us from the Czech Republic. As it was their first time in the country we wanted to give them a ‘taste of the U.S.’. We took them first to northern Minnesota, to celebrate the beauty of our state. On the way we toured some of downtown Minneapolis and then Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior.

After that we spent some time camping and canoeing in Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It’s an incredible wilderness where no permanent human structures or motorized vehicles can go. We were able to howl with wild wolves at night and see lots of wildlife including loons and bald eagles. If you like the outdoors, I don’t think there are many places in American that can rival this wilderness!