Mellow Days and Evenings

The days are short - 7.50am till 4.40pm -- and the sun shines like a shy maiden (now you see her, now you don't). Daily temperatures tell us winter is here but there's no snow on the ground yet.


(Right) The bakery round the corner from the apartment building where I live.

Many bakeries in Switzerland like to decorate the store facade according to the seasons and festivities. They sometimes remind me of the edible house in the story 'Hansel and Gretel'.


















(Above) The children's books in German I borrowed from the library and have read. I love the illustrations.

Learning German is hard-going if one does not use it every day. However, I enjoy choosing and reading children's books in the language. My other half helps me with the vocabulary and turns of phrases.


(Right) Where the lake in Cham pours into a river, there is a fishermen's boat-house with a backdrop of a church spire.


Other than writing and reading, I take walks in the lake park. When the day is sunny, despite the cold, lots of people stroll about - mothers with prams and children, people with their dogs, and a motley crew of other folk.


At the beginning of winter, a flock of greylag geese made a pit-stop at the Cham lake park. What's the marching soundtrack?!

For me, the best part of the lake park is the wildlife, the many swans, ducks, geese and water fowl that change their feathers with the seasons - just like fashion!


(Right) This could be Small Duck, actually a female Common Pochard (Tafelente in German), all grown up now and probably has a mate (the rusty-headed chap below). There are around 20 of her breed, both males and females, on the river and lake these days - Small Duck is no longer one of a kind.





Nearby is a yoga school, the building of which is fronted by a restaurant that was probably a milk-collection place - hence perhaps the cow statue?



Now that this is such a mish-mashy post, tell me which recipe you want and I will blog it:

Lemon iced cupcake

Naked coconut-milk cupcake

English scone (below right)




Or, lemon curdy pudding (below)?













Here's the recipe for Coconut-Milk Cupcake as requested by Cynthia:

80g butter
5 tbs sugar
7g packet of vanilla sugar or 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
1 egg
4 tbs coconut cream or coconut milk
3 tbs plain yoghurt
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Cream sugar into butter. Add vanilla, egg, yoghurt and coconut cream. Mix gently. Mix baking powder and salt into the flour and mix the whole lot gently into the butter mixture. Spoon 3/4 full into paper cups in medium cupcake or muffin tray. Bake in a preheated oven at 175 degrees C for 22 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes 7 or 8 cupcakes.

Note: To make it extra special, top each cupcake with a few chunks of white chocolate before baking.


For Wonda, the Lemon Iced Cupcake:

For the cupcakes, use the cupcake recipe above, except that instead of the coconut cream, use 1 more egg, 4 tbs lemon juice and 1/2 cup of ground almond or hazelnut.

For the icing, use a handmixer to whip up:

100g butter
1 cup icing (powdered) sugar
3 tbs lemon juice
(add a drop of food colouring if you like)

Ice cupcakes when they've become cool.

:)

Where Art Thou, Small Duck?

About a month ago, my other half and I began noticing a extra-small duck -- probably a Common Pochard (Tafelente in German) -- in Zugerlakeside, Cham. The tail was curtailed, so to speak, and its neck very short and curved. Its bill though was longish and slightly upturned.

Being very energetic and resourceful -- to make up for its size perhaps -- Small Duck caught our attention and charmed us with the way it caught bread pieces and avoided Eurasian coots and mallards by diving under them or hopping over them.

We singled out Small Duck and a sole Carolina Wood duck (yes, that sweet timid fellow) to feed our few leftover bread pieces to. Some people came by with a biggish bag of bread and in the feeding frenzy, Small Duck seldom got a crumb because it was a bit wary of joining the quite violent fray among the swans, coots, mallards and lake gulls.

Small Duck would charm us by paddling furiously towards us whenever we stood by the shore to hurl bread chunks to it. With its relatively big webbed feet, it could manoeuvre its small body very artfully and make sudden turns to gain some space around it. Small Duck knew it needed that advantage to beat the coots and mallards to the bread.


(Right) Small Duck (possibly a Ferruginous) surrounded by Eurasian coots.

In the past few days, after it rained a lot for almost the whole day and night, the lake overflowed at certain places and poured strongly into the river in our small town. We no longer saw Small Duck in the evenings when we took our walks there. This morning, neither did I see it on the lake. I'm worried Small Duck might have been swept upstream into the river.


(Right) The Carolina Wood Duck in spring. It has now a shorter, snazzier 'haircut'.

Wherever Small Duck is, I hope Mother Nature is looking out for it -- in that it is safe and healthy and has enough to eat. Small Duck has stolen our hearts and it is sad not to see him or her anymore.



Below are some portraits I took of my favourite teenage Mute swans. Swan yoga, anyone?




(Above) Can you see light passing through the 'nostrils'?


(Above) This teen pen (female swan) gives a comical front view of her mug -- does it somehow remind you of the front view of an aeroplane?
:

Update (Aug 19, evening): We were throwing a few pieces of stale bread to the Carolina Wood Duck and the 'Dazy' swans (the three young pens often seem to be in a daze, or 'blur') when I spotted a familiar silhouette backlighted by the evening sun -- curved bill and small body with a short tail. Yes! Small Duck is back on the lake at Villette Park in Cham. Yahoo! She is safe and slightly bigger, at one point raising her small brown body and flapping her tiny wings. We are overjoyed to see her again.

:

Feathered Friends Flock Together

One of the best things about living in Switzerland is the many lakes dotted around the country between mountains and hills. On a calm day, the surrounding highlands, some snow-capped for most of the year, are reflected in the water, which can range from an aquamarine green to turquoise. On a windy day, the waves can make even a fish chuck up.

One of the best things about living near a lake is the presence of many water birds. My favourites are the ducks, swans and 'bonneted divers' Great Crested Grebe (these have long necks and a sort of bonnet structure around their heads; they dive expertly for fish). Lake gulls and Eurasian coots (black with white beaks) are more common and less enchanting to watch, unless they're accompanied by their young.



'Hi there. Any more bread in your pockets?' One of the cute, not yet all-white, teenage swans gives me its best hungry and enquiring look.


I mistook this Carolina duck for a Mandarin duck, so I said 'ni hau?' to him every time I saw him. His modus operandi is to take a small piece of bread from the grass and dive onto the lake to eat it. Timid, sweet, very low in the pecking order, gets chased by mallards and coots.



Meet Mr & Mrs Mallard. She's always ravenous (maybe because she lays the eggs) and her man often gives in to her as far as getting eats is concerned. In this picture, she's nearer my feet than Mr Mallard -- as usual.



Mr Duck strikes his handsomest pose (below).














In the last photo, a Eurasian Coot swims by an adult swan. The bossier swans often try to prevent the blur teenage swans from getting near me (i.e. the food) but I try my best to throw bread to the skinnier ones on the periphery. Gotta fight that 'survival of the fittest or most beautiful' thing.

Two of the oft-bullied teenage swans have very skinny necks, one of which has something like a tumour growing from one side (I hope it's NOT a tumour though). The one without the 'tumour' is very slow in catching bread -- even the ducks get the better of it, so your timing must be pretty good and your throwing skilful to feed this blur-as-sotong fellow.