Ingredients

36 wonton wrappers

1 1/2 cups cooked, shredded veggie chicken

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup buffalo wing sauce

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Crumbled blue cheese (for topping)

Thinly sliced green onions (for topping)


Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a mini muffin pan. Press a wonton wrapper into each cup and lightly spray with nonstick spray.

2. In a bowl, mix together the shredded chicken, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and buffalo wing sauce until well combined.

3. Spoon the mixture evenly into each wonton cup.

4. Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until the wonton edges are golden brown.

5. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, then top with crumbled blue cheese and green onions. Serve warm.


Yield & Time
Makes about 36 cups

Prep time: ~5 minutes
Cook time: ~10 minutes
Total time: ~15 minutes

The preset robots yesterday left a little bundle of tiny wonders on my doorstep, each wrapped in pixels and time. I gathered them up this morning like a handful of postcards from the backyard spirits – an assortment of videos, brief and lovely.

First came the deer, a small traveling band of three or four, drifting through the yard with that quiet authority wild creatures carry. They didn’t hurry. They didn’t need to. They paused here and there, heads lifting, ears flicking, moving like they owned the place. I love how they seem to know the routes that were carved long before our fences and porches arrived, and they follow them still, soft hooves on winter ground.

Then the time-lapse clips… little spells cast to reveal how the sky decided to fold more snow over us. Watching the flakes stack themselves into a slow-motion blanket, sped up just enough to see the logic of it, felt a bit like peeking behind the curtain of weather itself. Hours became seconds. A quiet snowfall became choreography.

What really struck me was how bright it all was. The snow reflected so much light that the night footage looked like mid-morning. The cameras, confused but determined, did its best to adjust, but even then some lights flared like tiny suns, sparking over the pale ground. It gave the whole thing an enchanted quality.  Winter has its own idea of how the world should look, and the camera simply agreed.

Winter is showing off again, and the deer being comfortable enough to stroll through the middle of it.

#roanokeva #deer #time-lapse #backyardzoo #snowday

A somewhat tousled skunk visited this morning before dawn. Longer stripes than Flying V, maybe we’ll call this one Capital V?

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asteroids5roa.html

Roanoke Asteroids, built for playing on phone

As always, still in beta, but just added sounds (with a toggle)

Snow in Roanoke Today

Snow slipped into Roanoke this morning
quiet as a neighbor sneaking into the garage
to secretly return something they borrowed long ago.
Just a thin sift at first,
dusting rooftops, railings, the tops of parked cars
like powdered sugar on a chilled city.

By midday it thickened into soft curtains,
the kind that hush the world
and make even the usual traffic sounds
feel shy and far away.
I watched flakes drift past the window
in their slow winter dance,
each one deciding its own path,
none in a hurry.

The mountains wore the snow easily,
as if they had been waiting for it,
and Mill Mountain looked
like someone had tucked it in
with a fresh quilt.

Later, walking outside,
the air tasted like cold chalk and cloudwater.
Footprints appeared and faded,
birds hopped with the confusion of tiny librarians
whose books had all been refiled.

Roanoke felt softer today,
like the city had paused for a long breath,
and invited the rest of us
to breathe with it.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roamanc2.html

Fogbound Pilgrimage to the Hex House

Walked into the morning like stepping into an old photograph someone left out in the rain. A soft, heavy fog rolled through Southern Pennsylvania’s hills, muting the world into shades of pewter and ghosts. I followed the narrow road into Rehmeyer’s Hollow, where the trees lean close, like old friends whispering secrets they’re tired of carrying.

The Hex House sits back from the road, hunched into the earth like a wounded animal that survived a fire but never forgot the heat. Even the birds above it seemed to circle wider, giving the roof a cautious berth.

A crow watched me from a branch that looked too frail to hold anything living. I offered a polite nod. One never knows with crows. They keep their own councils.

Inside, the scent hit first – damp wood, long-settled ash, a faint sweetness like someone once boiled apples here and time never bothered to scrub it away. The floorboards groaned under me, the kind of groan that feels personal, like the house is waking just enough to acknowledge an intruder.

And there, in the center room, under a pane of glass:
A dark scorch mark.
A stubborn wound in the wood.
The place where kindness died, and fear held the match.

Nothing moved, but the air felt aware.

I stood long enough for the fog outside to crawl in after me, curling along the floor like a pale cat. The whole hollow seemed to breathe in slow wintery sighs.

There was no apparition, no spectral powwow doctor or vengeful hex – nothing cinematic. Just the deeper, quieter haunting of memory. The kind that settles behind the ribs and knocks politely whenever a shadow crosses the window.

Before leaving, I rested a hand on the banister. It felt warm, impossibly warm, like sunlight through a window even though the sky outside looked like wet wool. Maybe houses remember. Maybe they hold heat for the people who can’t anymore.

Walking back through the hollow, I caught sight of a fox near the treeline – thin, cautious, glowing rust-red even in the muted light. It watched me with that look foxes have, as if deciding whether I was real or just another wandering spirit.

I didn’t blame it.

In a place like Rehmeyer’s Hollow, even your own footsteps feel borrowed.

Today’s small delight came wrapped in a bit of math, like a message in a bottle bobbing along the currents of the universe. I kept thinking about that elegant little whisper known as Euler’s equation, the one that brings together five of the most important numbers in existence as if they were old friends waiting to be reintroduced at a quiet corner table.

There is something gentle in seeing e^(iπ) + 1 = 0 all settle into place, like a celestial seating chart where no one squabbles over the best view. The equation itself feels almost like a spell. Or a door. You look at it, tilt your head a little, and suddenly the world seems stitched together by threads finer than spider silk.

I always imagine it drifting through the cosmos the way morning mist moves through the hollows here. Soft, sure, and a little mysterious. It is almost funny how something so compact can feel so vast. You can practically hear it hum if you are quiet enough, the way power lines buzz on a cold day.

Euler’s equation reminds me that the world loves a good crossover. Imaginary numbers shaking hands with pi, exponential growth nodding politely to the old familiar 1 and 0. A tiny reunion of concepts that live everywhere, in spirals of sunflowers, in waves that ripple across pond water, in the way signals travel through the sky to our little glowing screens.

I took a brief walk outside after reading about it again, letting the cool air settle around me. There is a comfort in knowing that buried beneath the messy scatter of human days, the universe keeps its poetry tidy. Equations like this feel like postcards from the structure of reality itself, signed but never sent, waiting for whoever pauses long enough to notice.

So, here I am, noticing. And grateful for it.

This morning’s wander felt like stepping into a quiet spellbook, every page edged in silver. The world up on the ridge had turned glassy overnight, ice settling itself over the branches like a glass sheath. The first thing I noticed were the twigs, each one encased in a clear sleeve of frozen shimmer. Even the tiniest buds had their own little ice knots, dangling and catching whatever pale light the fog allowed through. Nature doing beadwork.

The drive itself felt like easing along the spine of some winter creature, the road curling through the mist in soft bends and blind invitations. Trees loomed out of the fog like old friends, content to be silhouettes. The leaves on the ground were the only hint of color, a warm rust under the cool gray, like embers under ash. Everything was quiet in that way only a cold morning can manage. Even the car seemed to whisper.

And then the holly berries – bright red and bold as punctuation marks in all that muted haze. The Blue Star Memorial Highway sign stood behind them, half swallowed by fog, like a sentinel keeping watch over the berries and their sudden burst of holiday cheer. Each berry carried its own glaze of ice, not quite heavy enough to bend the branches, just enough to shine. They looked like someone had come through before dawn and painted every one by hand.

There’s something about ice days that makes the world feel paused, like the universe holds its breath long enough for us to notice the details: the way light refracts in a frozen droplet, the shapes fog makes when it weaves between tree limbs, the crisp hush that settles over everything. I always feel lucky to catch mornings like this – small winter miracles on the roadside.

#frostedmorning #winterwalk #icedbranches #blueridgemagic #roanokeva

1913 Scout Guide: On Catching Thieves, Mice, and Colds

By Angela Taylor
March 1, 1972

1913 Scout Guide: On Catching Thieves, Mice, and Colds

She wore a midi skirt and boots and was into ecology and natural foods. She was encouraged to fly a plane (not during hurricanes, however), but was warned against trying to be an imitation man. She teetered on the brink of Women’s Liberation, but was hauled back before she got too far, back on the safe grounds of a territory known as “housewifery.”

The Girl Scout of the nineteen-tens was patriotic, helpful, and as pure as the mountain streams she was warned not to pollute. In the eyes of today’s teenager, she would probably seem an endearing innocent, hopelessly square.

The heroine in her baggy green blouse, long skirt, high shoes, and campaign hat is to be found in a little blue handbook called “How Girls Can Help Their Country,” which first appeared in 1913. As part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of their founding, the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. have reprinted the manual and are selling it for $1.95.

Authorship is credited to Walter John Hoxie, a naturalist, but the voice that comes through is that of Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts in Savannah, Ga., on March 12, 1912. Occasionally, a note of British class snobbery is also injected. (References to speech as a giveaway of the lower classes were taken out in the second edition because of the furor here.) Mrs. Low had based her book on one written by Agnes Baden-Powell, sister of Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who started the Boy Scout movement in England. His sister’s Girl Guides in 1910 inspired Mrs. Low to start the organization here.

Not Much Has Changed

The laws that govern today’s girl in green are the same as the ones laid down for her grandmother. In current handbooks, she is still required to be trustworthy, loyal, useful, friendly to man and beast, courteous, cheerful, thrifty, and “clean in thought, word, and deed.” It’s in the details of her daily life that the picture of the original Girl Scout emerges as amusingly naive. The following have been culled from the 1913 handbook:

“How to secure a burglar with eight inches of cord—Make a slipknot at each end of your cord. Tie the burglar’s hands behind him by passing each loop over his little fingers. Place him face downwards and bend his knees. Pass both feet under the string and he will be unable to get away.” (Not a word is said about how to catch the cooperative burglar.)

In order to catch mice if a trap isn’t handy, a section on tidiness suggests putting a newspaper over a pail of water and baiting it with herring or cheese.

On runaway horses: “Don’t try to check a runaway horse by standing in front and waving your arms. Try to run alongside the vehicle with your hand on the shaft… and seize the reins.”

Fresh air, in 1913, was outdoors, while homes were traps for “poisonous gases and germs.” “Sleep with your windows open summer and winter and you will never catch cold. Too soft a bed tends to make people dream which is unhealthy and weakening.

“Very late so‐called ‘fashionable’ hours will undermine… constitutions. Reading in bed brings headaches. Rubber is most unhealthy and causes paralysis. Don’t sit on rubber or oilcloth.”

Among the merit patches the early Girl Scout strove for there was Laundress (its emblem was a flat iron) and to achieve it she had to know how to clarify starch, use a wringer and do up a blouse.

The Matron Housekeeper patch (crossed keys) was hers if she could use a vacuum cleaner, polish hardwood floors and clean wire screens. The Dairy Maid (a sickle) would know how to milk a cow, make butter, and feed, kill and dress poultry.

On food: “Vegetables can scarcely be cooked too much. Tinned fish is often poisonous. If you think your brain requires a fillip, eat plenty of haricot beans, very much cooked.”

Advice on ‘Modesty’

On modesty (the word sex is never used): “Don’t let any man make love to you unless he wants to marry you. Don’t marry a man unless he is in a position to support you and a family. Don’t be afraid to say you won’t play at nasty, rude things. All secret bad habits are evil and dangerous and lead to hysteria and lunatic asylums.”

The sections on housewifery and child care warn against exposing the baby to a damp floor and that, although onions make bone and oats make brain, a baby can’t digest them. Spinning and lacemaking are suggested as useful arts—“a spinster can earn money this way.”

Under the heading of Useful Flowers, the current fad for sunflower seeds is anticipated, and it is also stated that sunflower seeds will cure whooping cough. A rather cryptic phrase states that poppies are useful for sleeplessness, but adds that they are “poisonous to eat because they contain opium.”

The chapter on careers explains that well‐educated women might become stockbrokers, architects or doctors. Others might take up nursing, teaching and typewriting. Or less crowded employments such as making ‘flowers,’ coloring photographs or gardening.

The author is vague about, but highly admiring of, “Flying Women.” This part cites a Madame Dutrieu who made “splendid flights” in her biplane. And there is also a Miss Kavanagh, “who wears a red cloth costume and a tight red cap when on her monoplane.” There is a word of caution about waiting for gales to die down before taking off.

The clichés attributed to Scouts are in the book: helping people to cross streets and rubbing two sticks together to light a fire. Actually, the writer seems dubious about the two-stick method and makes a strong point about never forgetting matches.

Scouts are encouraged to seek the frontier life. “No farther away than Florida there are some very wild places.” Present-day Floridians would certainly agree.

The book will appear on March 12 and will be available at most Girl Scout supply outlets or from headquarters at 830 Third Avenue (between 50th and 51st streets).

Linked Sources

• 
  A Long Lost Friend: Murder and Magic at Southern Pennsylvania’s Hex House — Haint Blue
  
• 
  1929 Hex Murder Trial Testimony (archival transcript)
  
• 
  The Hex Murder of 1928 — Rehmeyer’s Hollow Overview (PA Wilds)
  
• 
  Rehmeyer’s Hollow — Atlas Obscura Entry
  
• 
  Hex Murder Background & Local History — York Daily Record
  
• 
  *The Long Lost Friend* (context and history of powwow tradition)
  

Pumpkin Everything and apparently, Expressions Set to Eleven.

Tonight’s cozy watch came with an unexpectedly odd little gift: the thumbnail. Before the movie even got rolling, the screen served up this chaotic burst of energy where the woman looks like she’s joyfully jogging through a meadow on a crisp autumn morning, while the guy behind her appears to be… shouting? Barking? Casting a spell? Hard to say. His face is pure “I stepped on a Lego,” yet she’s all soft-sweater serenity, mid-Hallmark-smile, unaware of the emotional hurricane happening at her six o’clock.

It’s like the algorithm couldn’t decide if we were getting a romantic fall harvest story or a survival thriller where someone’s being hunted by their own nightmare past. Nature all around, sun-dappled greenery, and then this dude behind her looking like he’s either about to propose or announce that he’s just seen Bigfoot.

And honestly? It made the whole viewing experience just a little more delightful. Sometimes the glitches and the weird thumbnails are half the fun.