It's cold!

I've spent too much time behind my computer lately and was getting so bored of it! So I was really happy when hubby invited me to a little trip to Riga (Latvia) on Friday. It was a quick business trip and we decided to spend the rest of the weekend with my mom in the country. Actually it's a pretty little town but it feels like being in the country.
I'll start from the beginning. This is what the weather looked like when we were driving to Riga.

I couldn't tell the difference between the ground and the sky.

Luckily the clouds cleared and we got to enjoy a sunny weekend. It has gotten really cold though, about -15C on Saturday and Sunday, -19C on Monday. Normally I hate going out in really cold temperatures like -20 or more but this time I finally realised that it's not cold when you have the right clothes! Took me long enough to understand it! LOL Nice long and thick pantyhose under the jeans did the trick ;)

Now, some of you might remember this cute dog.

She is my mom's dog Scrappy. REALLY playful and cute doggy! :D It doesn't matter what the temperature is outside, she still wants to go out and play in the snow!

Actually I think out of all the seasons she loves winter the most. She is originally from Spain so I guess this is exotic for her ;)

There's a river that runs next to my mom's house and because of the cold it was almost completely frozen.

Cute little bunny tracks everywhere! :)

Since Scrappy loves catching snow and ice so much I decided to do a photoshoot about her and try to capture her cheerful nature. Can you tell how much she loves this? :D

 

Look at the claws in this pic! :D

  

Cute paws!!

She really can go on and on and probably would NEVER get tired! :D Us humans are the ones that get bored easily. Maybe we should learn to be more childlike? :)

The light was great for catching the snow that was flying around her.

Cute tale in this one :P

Solid ice in the mouth! :D

Rub it in! Haha

Every once and awhile you have to strike a pose! ;)

After the play we headed back home to fill our bellies. My mom's hubby is a GREAT cook and here are pics of the wonderful meals we had at their place. :P

Can you see the heart shape in the smoke? :P

We had been driving around in the countryside during the weekend and had seen many foxes and roe deer but never really got an opportunity to get close. Why you ask? Well, I guess I somewhat explained it earlier that I've always thought that going out to photograph wildlife in winter would be too cold. So I haven't invested in clothes that would camouflage me in winter time and I had a bright red ski jacket on!! :D Laugh all you want, I'm laughing at myself too ;) Nature photographer! LOL

However I know that roe deer can let you come close even if you are in red :) The key is to walk quickly but quietly to get closer and stop whenever they lift their head and look around. When they see you walking it's all over. I didn't get really close but just decent enough to snap some pics.

This one was standing on a hay ball, trying to brake it with it's front feet.

Wheee! :D

Okay, so we still have LOTS of snow.

But look what hubby got me for Valentine's Day - Spring!! :D

Until next time :)

Mariann

Chocolate mousse

I wanted to tell (and show) you about some of the delicious desserts I've been eating/making lately :)

I guess it all started with this cake photo that I uploaded to my Etsy shop the other day.

I photographed this in an italian restaurant. I was hired to design their website and photograph the interior of the place. That also included photographing food. :) Now it may sound simple but taking good photos of food is not easy at all. For this picture I used a gold reflector to bounce back the light from the window. It worked great for this cake and gave it a nice golden glow. I also used shallow depth of field which means that only the important part of the image is sharp and the rest is out of focus. I was enjoying and concentrating on my work so much that only after I had gone home I realised I didn't even taste the cake!! I did taste some of their main dishes but totally forgot about the cake. This doesn't happen often to me as I am a sweet tooth! LOL

Moving on. The other day I saw on TV how one cook had made chocolate mousse and decided to give it a go myself :P What do you think? Did I succeed?

It sure tasted good! :D
Here's a recipe if you want to try as well. It's really easy.

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Chocolate mousse

120g of chocolate
4 eggs
4 tbs of liquor

Melt the chocolate and add 4 tbs of liquor (you can also add coffee). Stir in the egg yolks. Whip the egg whites in a medium bowl until they are foamy and beginning to hold a shape. You can add a little bit of salt to speed up the process. Now gently fold in the egg whites to the chocolate mixture. Be careful not to overdo it. Spoon the mousse into individual serving bowls and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.

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I couldn't wait for 8 hours of course so I tried mine after about 2. :)

Something I also ate last week was a mandarin cake :P One of our friends had a birthday and we got him this amazing cake. Don't know exactly what was in it but it sure tasted good! :)

Did I get your juices flowing? ;)

P.S. Don't miss out on my next post, it could be as delicious as this one was ;) Scroll to the top and enter your email address to the Subscribe via email section on the right hand side.

Comments are loved, as always! :)

Hearts

I have been photographing a lot of hearts lately ;) And was thinking of opening a new shop in Etsy just for heart prints. What do you think?

These are rowan tree berries.

And the black berries are from a juniper :)

Lemons? No ;) Apples? No :) These are Chaenomeles fruits. See the Wikipedia for more.

These are wild grapes that have taken over one of our houses :S

Plums :) :P

For all the wine lovers out there ;)

So, do you think I should upload them to my existing Etsy shop or make a new one just for heart prints? Please comment :)

Last weekends trip with hubby

Trips that are not planned are the greatest! :D I came up with this idea to visit the north east side of Estonia the day before. We started driving on Saturday morning and a few hours later arrived at a place which is known as the most lake filled area in Estonia :) You get the point ;) We ended up hiking for 3 hours and walked about 12km (7,5miles). The weather was nice, a bit windy though.


This is a tiny plant (less than half an inch tall) that grows only in wet areas and eats flies and mosquitos. You can see the mosquito in the next pic ;)



Light was not good for photography but took the pics anyway to show you where we went ;)



That's a man made hill in the background, we don't have big hills or mountains in Estonia.
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We stayed the night at a beautiful manor. The room was lovely and we enjoyed our dinner at the restaurant! :)



There were lots and lots of birds in the park :) This is a fieldfare.

The view from our room! I wish I could wake up to this every day! :D

Our tasty dinner...

...and dessert ;)




A very smart and old cat! She came to the manor some 5 years ago and never left. I don't blame her, they feed and look after her and she gets to live like a queen sleeping all day at the comfy chairs :D She didn't even open her eyes when I petted her haha
The manor is located on top of the highest cliff around here, sadly we didn't see the cliff this time because on that area the trees have taken over...

And to end the story - not the manor cat but this cat had beautiful eyes :)

Thanks for reading! :)