Here are some little fun things that have been happening around Spruce Pine Cottage recently. About a week before school started, Sophie (my niece) got her braces off. I couldn’t wait to see her new teeth, so I arranged a visit with her as soon …
About a week ago, I ordered Carl a cat-sized collar and tie from a lovely Etsy shop called ChariotsAFire. The combo arrived in the mail on Tuesday. The tie is olive green with tiny gold dots, and Carl looks great in it (it really complements …
The yard is emerald green and wonderfully jungly this summer because it’s actually been raining. For the first time in years, it seems, we’ve been getting daily afternoon thundershowers in the proper summer pattern. Rob and I spent Saturday taming our backyard jungle (just a bit) and rejoicing.
Early in the morning, Rob mowed the lush, overgrown lawn with our little quiet battery-operated push mower while I did the edging. Edging involves about 10 minutes of running the edger and then about three hours of crawling around, hand-pulling the weeds that have encroached into the beds. While I was crawling, I saw a box turtle taking big bites out of an overripe sand pear Rob had tossed behind the vegetable garden. I came across a snake skin too (rat snake), and the cutest mushroom (it was as red as a strawberry).
We picked the last of our tomatoes from the old, worn-out plants, so tattered and faded (they remind me of scarecrows). We filled a basket with Romas, Arkansas Travelers, Cherokee Purples, Amish Pastes, Debaros, and Tasty Lees.
About 11, we went to Tallahassee Nurseries and bought a decorative arch to support the heavy, fruit-laden branches of the satsumas that grow on either side of the steps to the utility room. Since Rob doesn’t like the branches to droop down and block the path to the steps, we thought we’d put up an arch and let the branches rest on top of it. Tallahassee Nurseries was a madhouse because a snowball truck was parked among the birdbaths and free snowballs were being given away with every purchase. We chose a large pagoda-style arch with a pointed top and lots of metal curlicues—oh, and we got a couple of pink champagne snowballs for the road.
The arch was kind of hard to put up. It kept wanting to lean to one side. While we were working, Rob was “swearing” in his dorky Rob way. He kept saying “Crappersnaps!” whenever the arch went crooked. But he wasn’t mad; he was smiling.
Buntin, our spoiled tortie, ran outside a million times to celebrate it being Saturday. (She’s not supposed to go outside.) Around three, she booked it down the path through the meadow, chasing butterflies as I ran after her and called, “Bunters, come back here! You’re getting your little toepads dirty!” I thought this might slow her down because Buntin has a superiority complex and would never want to be a “common” cat with dirty toepads.
Though it’s still technically spring, Saturday felt like high summer. The air was sultry, the cicadas were roaring, and the yard was jungle-y green. Rob and I spent the day weeding and mowing and planting, but it was so hot we had to keep taking …
On Saturday morning I made Vegan Thumbprint Cookies. They turned out just perfect—sweet and salty and cute, with a spot of pink icing in the middle and lots of cheery sprinkles everywhere else.
Buntin, our temperamental tortie, assisted me in the kitchen as she usually does. I let her lick a butter wrapper, but when she tried to lick the dough, I had to discourage her—and she got so mad she went and hid in a cabinet among some canned goods.
Rob shut the door behind her, smiling. “It’s the only place she can be herself, she says.”
She was in the cabinet about a minute. Then I got the cookies in the oven and she and I went and sat on the floor in the sunroom in an inviting little sunbeam. We were soon joined by several other cats, because cats find sunbeams irresistible.
Maggie was rolling around in the warm, yellow light, reveling, looking chubby and cute.
“Oh, Maggie Rollarounder,” Rob said when he came by, “a sunbeam sure is great, isn’t it?”
She responded with another roll. He was right. The sunbeam was so great I decided to have my breakfast in it. While the cats enjoyed some heart-shaped treats that looked like valentine candy but smelled like sardines, I served myself a nice little plate of Vegan Thumbprint Cookies.
Vegan Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients:
Cookies
1 cup vegan butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Sprinkles
Icing
2 tablespoons almond milk
2 teaspoons maraschino cherry juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
11/4 cups powdered sugar
Directions:
Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.
Beat the butter, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with a handheld mixer until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing until incorporated. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll a heaping tablespoon of dough into a ball, then roll the ball in sprinkles and place it on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing the balls about 2 inches apart. Using your thumb, make an indentation in the center of each cookie.
Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly firm. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Using your thumb, press into the center of each cookie again. Return the cookies to the oven and bake until golden brown, about 13 to 15 more minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
To make the icing, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Using a spoon, fill the center of each cookie with icing.
Note: I started with this lovely recipe and veganized it.
Yesterday morning I got up early and made a batch of Vegan Cherry Almond Cookies before dawn. It was very cozy. As I worked, Buntin sat nearby on the counter, tenderly licking the butter wrapper. The dough was so pretty, rose-petal pink. “Buntin, can you …
Saturday was the most beautiful and glorious day of all the year so far. It was dazzling. Everything was so green and seemed to shimmer with life, to tremble with it. Spring had truly arrived. Finally! Rob and I began the day with a trip …
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On Friday night it rained over 4 inches. It was a spectacular storm that started in the late afternoon and continued until just before dawn. Rob and I popped popcorn and watched Justified as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and I was so glad that Bernie, the old stray tomcat I take care of, had recently decided to take up residence in our garage. (It’s like he decided to go into assisted living.) I knew he was safe and dry, and that gave me peace of mind. I could picture him relaxing on the old couch near Rob’s worktable as the rain made a racket on the tin roof.
I think Bernie is the cutest thing, though Rob disagrees. Bernie’s got a big head, a tiny body, and one eye—and he’s filthy dirty. Though I’ve been taking care of him for years, he has remained steadfastly feral all this time. He still hisses at me every time I present him with his Fancy Feast.
By Saturday morning the rain was done and the birds were singing. I sat at the kitchen table and worked on a craft until it got light outside. I was drinking a Coke and stitching up a little felt Halloween ornament, a friendly bat with pearl beads for eyes and a little smile showing vampire teeth. Softee was sitting next to me on one of the benches at the table, and as I petted her she got so overstimulated that she stood up on her hind legs and started playfully biting my head as she hugged me around the shoulders with her front legs. She kept biting and wrestling me and getting her claws stuck in my pajamas, and I was laughing and laughing and saying, “Softee, you’re making my stitches come out all crooked!”
About 10, Rob and I went to Tallahassee to run some errands. We got a new battery-powered push mower at Lowe’s, and we also bought a beautiful painting at Memory Lane Antiques, near Lake Ella. It’s a swamp scene by Florida artist Donald Gibbs, full of intricate detail—Spanish moss and reeds and a feathery egret. The owner of the store told us that Gibbs painted the delicate strands of moss using a pin instead of a brush.
We spent Saturday afternoon mowing and edging the lawn for the first time this year. I did hours of weeding too, which was the most fun I’ve had in ages. With the rain, the yard had turned bright green—spring had finally come. When we took a break to have some limeade on the breezeway, Rob reported that he’d seen a hummingbird, and I told him I’d seen a chickadee with an inchworm in its beak. “I saw a little box turtle, too,” I said, “under a Shi Shi Gashira sasanqua.”
It was such a beautiful day that when Buntin, our temperamental tortie, sneaked out of the house (all our cats, except Bernie, are indoor cats), I didn’t bring her inside right away. Instead, I carried her around in the sun for a while and let her smell things, which is what cats like to do, mainly, when they’re outside. Rob was walking with us and making suggestions about where to stop. “Let her smell the lemon blossoms,” he said. “And don’t forget the glorious roses.”
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| The north side of the yard after mowing |
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| Winged pig on the breezeway |
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| Birdhouse and plum branches |
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| Lemon blossoms |
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| Rob admiring the lemon tree |
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| Rob and Buntin |
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| Leroy rejoicing for spring |
