It's almost spring and I decided to celebrate the date by making springy cupcakes.
Red velvet cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting. On top of that sits a shredded wheat and coconut nest. Sitting in the nest is a trio of chocolate candy eggs.
Okay Mother Nature, we're now officially ready for spring. Bring it on. Please.
A cold sunny day this week -- a good time to slap on the snowshoes, cross over the Mighty Mogelon on a well-placed snow drift and see what's what.
Out in the garden, the crows have been feeding on my compost. They seem to love carrot peelings but don't care much for egg shells and avocado skins. Nice to see the imprints of their wing tips in the snow.
Further back, I found bunny beds; a safe place to sleep under a spruce bow. Oh!
Turn dough out on to a lightly floured board and pat into 1"-thick round. Cut into eight wedges. With a spatula transfer the wedges to a lined baking sheet, spacing 2" apart.
Bake in a 375F oven for 18-20 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Let cool on rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
With the weather warming up and the snow receding, Richard and I know our wood hauling window is closing. There is Richard, waaay in the distance on his way to cut.
A long-dead tree on the edge of one of the fields needed to be cut.
Meanwhile, I headed out back and saw the lovely sight of melting.
Yes, the Mighty Mogelon, my parents' mocking moniker for our tiny stream out back, was coming to life.
Love all the angles of the weeds surrounded by ice and water.
On the way back to the sound of R's whining chainsaw, I noticed a few nannyberries from last year, still hanging out.
They are edible, like a wild raisin, and contain one, flat seed. Richard and I each had one. They almost taste a bit like a prune. I've actually made nannyberry butter (like apple butter) out of them one year. Pretty yummy.
Okay, so if you read this blog, and you're over 40, then you've likely used one of these. If you're under 40, this odd shaped thing is called a PHONE BOOTH. In the days before cell phones (can you believe there were days like this?), these elongated boxes were the only way you could call home. And it used to cost a dime. Then a quarter. Now I think you can use your credit card! There are fewer and fewer of these phone booths around, which is why I labelled this post to go with my other posts on "antiques."
Natalie's husband Gordon was travelling all week, so I asked her over for an impromtu dinner on Saturday night.
Since I think of Nat as the Chicken Whisperer, I made her a special dessert: red velvet mini-cakes covered with egg-laying hens (which were former "Peeps.")
We sat down to watch a movie after supper...
...and both Oreo and Cookie decided to snuggle in with Natalie while she brushed them.
My cats are well trained, eh?
It's hard to believe that ATC Quarterly is in its sixth year! Here's the spring 2011 issue which is in the mail right now, wending its way to all its happy subscribers. Enjoy!
Richard and I took a walk into the woods on the weekend.
Seems that nature is ready for spring. Buds on the trees...
...and the pussywillows are out!
I love seeing Mother Nature doing artwork in the snow.
A pleasant discovery at the local grocery store. After reading in Natalie's blog post about dragonfruit...
...I decided to give it a try as well.
Really yummy. Very refreshing, tasting a little like kiwi fruit.
But before we cut it in half and ate it, I had to draw it, right?
I figured since it was Academy Awards night, we'd have an expensive supper. Two T-bones on the grill...
...and roasted potatoes (the last from my garden!), carrots, onions and garlic...
...with a side salad (not seen). Thankfully, the supper was a lot better than the award show. Richard and I gave up on it at 10:15 p.m. Did we miss anything?
I made these artist trading cards for our monthly trade last Saturday. My head was still in Valentine mode and these ATCs were a combo of Victorian cat images, labels from Valentine chocolates, brads and bits of ribbon I had hanging about and my heart-shaped rubber stamp.
Here's my brother Larry, with his bride-to-be Maureen and our cat Ballou in 1978 on the front steps of our house in Montreal.
We moved from Montreal in 1982. Here's my family, right after we sold the house (sans my bro who had already moved to Toronto) with our two cats, Ballou (16) and Haskins (1). Ballou lived till he was 18. Unfortunately, little Hasky got hit by a car out in the country.
Ballou was insistent on his diet: chicken Puss 'n' Boots. Probably not the best cat food in the world but that's all he'd eat. The tin above is a bit more vintage than I recall but the illustration of Puss 'n' Boots was pretty much the same. Always makes me think of Ballou.
