Step 1: Add the brownie mix, hot fudge sauce, eggs, and vegetable oil in a medium bowl. Combine until smooth.
Step 2: Transfer the batter into a non-stick greased loaf pan until about 3/4 full.
Step 3: Place inside the oven and bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until cooked through.
Step 4: Remove from the oven and cool completely in the pan. You have to be patient or your bread will stick in the pan and your bread will lose its bottom.
The two go hand in hand…or, perhaps, hand in mouth. 😉
Bird nests are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). This law says: “No person may take (kill), possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such bird except as may be permitted under the terms of a valid permit…” Under the MBTA it is illegal to destroy a nest that has eggs or chicks in it or if there are young birds that are still dependent on the nest for survival. It is also illegal for anyone to keep a nest they take out of a tree or find on the ground unless they have a permit to do so issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The above link shows the list of all birds/nests/eggs protected by law…
It is also illegal to collect or have in your possession live or dead non-game native birds (adults or young), bird feathers, nests or eggs, to try to incubate wild bird eggs, to keep nests or eggs even for “show and tell” educational purposes, or to have road-killed birds in your possession without a permit.
The picture is me, Easter morning…um…1956ish…I think…
As you can see, my Easter basket is empty.
I’d like to tell you how that came to pass…
I remember how excited I would get on the Saturday morning before Easter, knowing we (there were 4 of us) would get to decorate Easter eggs for the Easter bunny to hide the next day.
My Mom would get out a dozen eggs (had I known then what I know now, this certainly would have been a red flag) and we would have to wait while they boiled and then cooled (one might have thought she would have been enterprising enough to cook them way before-hand, but, no….).
Finally, it was time…out came the PAAS box…out came the cups to mix the dye in…the metal egg holders to dip the eggs with so we didn’t get our fingers covered with dye (yeah, right)…the crayon to write our name with so the dye wouldn’t stick to the egg…all the stickers…glue…glitter…
Oh! the hours it took to get each one perfect! (My poor Mother!) We each had to have one with our own name on it…
Easter morning was always the same…we would get up and go downstairs for breakfast and, there, on the table, were our Easter baskets…all that green ‘grass’ and filled with all kinds of goodies…chocolate bunnies, malted eggs (good grief, I love malted eggs), Silly Putty, a stuffed bunny or chick, a book…Sigh…
Then we had to eat breakfast, or, perhaps, I should say ‘inhale’ breakfast…Hey! We were on a mission!
Finally! it was time to go outside…(let the gathering of eggs begin!)…and we would search for eggs…what fun we had! It seemed like we would gather eggs for hours and hours (this, too, should have brought up a red flag, after all, we did only dye 12 eggs), but, finally, we were done and it was off to church.
But, I digress…actually, I’m not digressing, I just like saying that…
Which brings me to the point of the picture and the empty Easter basket…
In 1980, both my maternal Grandparents passed away…my Grandmother in February, and my Grandfather in July. The weekend of my Grandfather’s funeral, we were all gathered together around the dining room table, talking, reminiscing, looking at pictures…and there I ran across the above picture…at the same time I ran across another picture of me…much like the first one, except that standing behind me, and bent over, reaching in my Easter basket, was my Mother…(keep in mind I was 27 at the time my Grandparents died)…I know a quizzical look came over my face and I looked at Mom and asked her what she was doing in the picture. She told me that she was taking the eggs out of my basket so that she could re-hide them. Well….I gotta tell you…I was totally dumb-struck. Totally. I had NO idea that this went on. I suspect that if I had had children, I might have known this…but, I didn’t…so, I didn’t. I was floored. Well, we all had a big laugh out of this…but, I have to admit….to this day, it still stuns me.
Anywho…That’s why my flippin’ Easter basket is empty. I was robbed.
Where would we be without our memories? They remind us to make each day special…for it, too, shall be someone’s memory one day…
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