Baby Shower

It was Felicity's baby shower today!  The color palette was neutrals.  But not greens and yellows...oh no.  Neutrals as in: chocolate brown, ivory, tan, oatmeal.



And the theme was owls, as Felicity's had a love affair with owls for a long time.  The centerpiece was a cylinder vase filled with shell fragments and holding twigs from our property (the beech twigs with a leaf or two still clinging to them).  Seemed appropriate for a winter shower, especially with a parliment of owls, drawn by Colette, roosting in the branches.



The menu:

fruit platter with fruit dip

vegetable platter with dill dip

mixed nuts

crackers and assorted cheeses

chocolates (packaged in pink and blue, please)



raspberry-lemonade-white grape punch

water infused with oranges and garnished with mint leaves (so light and refreshing!)

and the most amazing owl-crowned cake (decorated by Felicity's talented mother-in-law)



And, of course, there was a shower of blessings in the form of gifts!

I knitted a pumpkin hat for the baby, and can hardly wait for next autumn!



It was a lovely, lovely day!

And then, when the loveliness had come to and end, and the presents were all bundled off with Felicity, and the dishes were all washed, Max took the balloons, stood in the doorway, and used them for target practice.



Back to reality!  It's a wonderful life!

Sugar on Snow

Last week, just as the snow storm was ending, Colette and I made sugar on snow.  Remember the story in the “Little House” books where the Ingalls family drizzles maple syrup on fresh snow?  Well, that’s what we did!

First, you have to slowly bring maple syrup to a temperature of 240 degrees.  Patience required for this part.  I think it took us at least 20 minutes, because we were constantly adjusting the temperature to keep it from boiling over (since cleaning hot, sticky syrup off of my stove top does not rank high on my list of fun things to do).

Then Colette scooped up a plate of fresh, clean snow.



Then she drizzled the hot syrup on the cold snow.

The syrup does harden, but not as much as I was expecting.  I assumed it would harden up like a hard candy, but that’s not true at all.  It hardens to more of a rubbery, soft-caramel-like texture.  You can peel it right off the snow and eat it.





Delicious, intense maple flavor!