Unusual sightings, a soup-making orgy, and live plants!

This morning I could see something odd reflected in my bathroom mirror.  The sliver of outdoors I can see that way showed a blob on the street.  I peeked out the window at said blob and decided it must be a black cat I saw down by the pond the other day.  Then it moved, or rather, waddled across the way and disappeared behind my neighbor's pines.  It was a raccoon.  I've seen them in the nabe on occasion, but not in a long while, like years.  I'm a little surprised they have not been spotted in my backyard, raiding the bird feeders.

A couple of squirrels are bird feeder regulars these days.  Their winter stores must be exhausted, and/or they are gathering goodies to take back to the rest of the family.  Around here, squirrels get "frisky" in February and the gestational period is around 44 days, so yes, the daddy squirrels are probably hunting and foraging for the mama squirrels and their broods.

But what I find odd is the squirrels have been drinking out of the bird bath.  I have never witnessed that before.  Unfortunately, no pics, so no evidence.  You will have to trust me on this one.

We are getting April showers now, so I have been channeling my gardening frustrations into using up the last the the frozen veggies by making soup, which is then returned to the freezer for later consumption.  I've lost track of which ones are which on some of these pics, but all recipes are from Love Soup.

Maybe White Bean and Garlic Soup with Greens?  (I still have LOTS of garlic from last summer.)

I think this is Green Lentil with Cumin and Lemon.

Definitely Beet Soup with Ginger!

This is part of Cannellini and Golden Tomato soup, the golden tomato part, obviously.  I used yellow cherry tomatoes I had frozen last summer.  The peels come off easily, but dealing with over 2.5 pounds of them was still a chore.

I could not find dried cannellini beans at the Co-op, so I substituted navy beans, which did not work well.  Too watery.  Now I'm not sure what to do with the leftovers.  Maybe if I cook rice in the broth?

And since this woman does not live by soup alone:

Now I must go tend to those live plants that just arrived via UPS from Stark Bros.