Carrot Patch Cupcakes

While everyone is out planting their real gardens around here, I must confess that I’ve been working on a few “seedlings” of my own. Heh, heh, heh. Aren’t these the cutest little garden cupcakes you’ve ever seen? And such a painless way to get a few more–ahem–vegetables into your system. Baaaa!

Start with fruity Mike and Ikes. I picked several kinds to make sure I had plenty of orange ones.

Plus all the leftovers didn’t hurt my feelings any either.  :}

I’d never seen Rips Whips before, and I tore them out of the bag before getting a picture. Essentially, they are skinny, little multicolored licorice strings. You’ll be using the green ones–so go ahead and eat the rest.

First just take a paring knife and make a tiny cut clear through the top of each little orange candy.

Now, cut the green licorice into one inch pieces. Then with scissors or a knife cut through the top of the licorice about half way down the piece so it looks like greenery.

Next, gently pinch the sides of the orange candy to open the cut up just a bit. Don’t get too rambunctious with this step or you’ll crack the outsides and make them ugly. Then, well, you’ll have to eat them.

Now poke the green stems into the top of your carrot. I used the tip of a knife to set it in–that worked the best for me.

Carefully squeeze your carrot closed a bit around the green top.

Oh, just look at your little harvest! Aren’t they adorable?!

All that’s left to do now is to “plant” your little candy carrots into your favorite patch…I mean batch of chocolate cupcakes. These sweet things–along with a tall glass of ice water–will make a fine reward for all those little backyard farmers coming in from a long day with the rototiller. Wouldn’t you say?

Oh, I do so love Spring!

Our Pink Blossoms

Truth be told, I’ve never really been one to walk around outside in the yard just to snap 600 pictures of a gnarly old tree.

Until now, that is.

See, we have this incredible crab apple tree out front that–when the stars align just right–will one day be green and plain and overnight, will explode into this magical, cotton-candy-pink creation that literally takes your breath away.

No kidding. We’ve actually had people stop their cars in the middle of the road and tell us how beautiful our whole street is…

because of this one tree. But look long and hard, because it will only last a couple of days and then, the petals fade and blow away.

Funny thing is, that we’d taken this pretty thing nearly for granted for a couple of years. You know, “Oh, look–the tree’s pink again,” that sort of thing, until one time when it just didn’t ever bloom…at all.

We thought maybe it was a every-other-year type thing.

Then the next Spring we had a hard frost and when nothing blossomed in the yard anywhere, we figured the cold was to blame.

Then last April, we wondered out loud if we had done something wrong or if the tree was old and giving up, or what could possibly be the matter. Almost as if it was trying to soothe our worries, a few scant blossoms appeared…a bare handful, here and there.

So this year, we watched and waited, anxious to see if our tree still had it, or not. And to our surprise, and relief, one day we woke up to all of this…

and this…

and this.

Oh, those delicate, tissue flowers, that beautiful, perfect shade of pink–how we’ve missed you!

Welcome, welcome back.

Snow Day

I wore capris yesterday.

The windows were thrown open…

all over the house.

I kicked off my sandals and rolled up my sleeves in the middle of teaching class…

because, it was just…

too–dang–hot.

Dear Mother Nature…

We’re confused.

Is it Spring yet?

First Fire

Normally, we wouldn’t be getting the fire pit out until after Memorial Day. You know, when it magically becomes “barbeques season.” Who makes up these rules anyway?

But Daney-boy came over with a nice, fresh bag of marshmallows and inspired us to be complete and utter rebels. Out we went in the dead of night to toast those little beggars. Oh, and I was ready too. I had a lovely package of Fudge Striped cookies–my personal favorite for making Blondie S’mores…instead of graham cracker/candy bar ones.

My favorite–that is–until I had my marshmallows toasty brown and ready for their new cookie/chocolate sandwich, and I quickly tore the package open and found…

this.

Looks like SOMEbody took a hammer to my package of cookies…or threw them on the ground…

about a hundred times. Obviously, dark and sinister forces were at work here. Who could do such a foul thing? Who could we call for help? Sadly, I’m not aware of any Broken Cookie Task Force at our local police department so we were pretty-much hung out to dry there.

Luckily, being the stalwart, sturdy mountain folk that we are…we came up with a plan B…

that…involved…

oh, FINE…

graham crackers.  Pfffft.

Sheesh.