I wasn’t going to say more than I’ve already said on twitter about it, but DmentD was sure that I needed to write it up in detail it was that entertaining to him.. and while I don’t usually do what he tells me *grins* I decided that since it was weird and strange and bizarre the rest of the world needed to know about it.

–

I had been captured, by witches, and was tied in the centre of a clearing in the middle of the woods to be sacrificed to the big black bear that lived there. It was the middle of the night and the bear came along, but instead of mauling me he sat down and talked to me. That’s right, it’s now a talking big black bear.

He released me, but told me to stay in the clearing overnight and he would see me home safely in the morning. While I slept I dreamed. I dreamed about a cake, a wonderful cake, an amazing cake. And when I woke in the morning I had to make the cake for the bear… in the woods… with no ingredients or facilities. But somehow I managed it and the cake was made. I gave it to the bear and then went home.

–

I would love to know what any dream analysers can make of that crazy bizarreness!

As soon as I woke I had to write down the cake idea as it truly was an awesome cake and I need to make it some day!

It’s that time of the year, when the sun swelters down upon us, and my legs are covered in a myriad of insect bites. DmentD’s work organises a boat trip.

So out we trek to Lake Travis. This year they had enough people to hire two of the party barges and they were roped together for the trip so people could wander from boat to boat.

We sailed out, enjoying the breeze from the movement and being out on the lake, and docked, thankfully in the shade.

There was much food and drink (we took two of our latest beers, and the hard lemonade for it’s first test run in public), and joy and merriment. Neither of us swam at all but a good time was had (the leis were to show we had paid.. itchy round the neck so mine went round the hat).

Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Carrying on the trend of not really writing about anything, here are a few more recent photos of the garden.

First, remember that photo I posted of the new grass growing. This is what it looks like now… actually, DmentD mowed it down this weeked, but prior to that this is what it looked like *grins* It grew well, and now we know that seed works we’ll gradually fill in the bare patches across the rest of the garden.

Our tomatoes are growing well. These two were our first to fruit, just small cherry tomatoes, but the rest of them seem to be coming along and starting to fruit now.

Finally, some random photos of the clouds one evening.

Garden aside, life is plodding along. Nothing special happening. We’re brewing, we’re cooking, we’re working.. much the same as ever!

This Saturday just passed (the 8th) DmentD and I celebrated our first anniversary. That’s right, a whole year has passed since we tied the knot, time flies!

We were at a crawfish boil on Saturday and I was working, so we celebrated on the Friday night. We decided to go out to dinner, somewhere we had wanted to go for a while, but hadn’t made it to yet. So we headed off to North By Northwest, a restaurant who also happens to be a brewery.. or is that the other way around? Either way, DmentD was very impressed by the beers, he got a sampler, and we were both very impressed by the food. I had a duck breast with a madeira reduction on a roasted garlic and parmesan polenta.

We were joined by friends for dessert and coffee, though the dessert beat me!

Of course we took photos.. Some DmentD knew about and posed for…

And some he didn’t *grins* As he waxed lyrical about the beer he was tasting.

And he had to take one of me too *pulls faces*

In other news we have our hard lemonade on the go for my birthday brew. And we’ve started a one gallon test batch of bochet mead. Where the honey is slowly caramelised (which took two and a half hours of stirring near constantly.. I had a book in one hand and the spoon in the other!) until it’s so dark if you blink it’ll be burnt. Then water is added and yeast to ferment it. While taking photos of it, I realised it was so dark we were reflected pretty well in it.. it’s not the best photo ever, but it entertains me.

This weekend I’ll be working on a Beatles themed cake.

Not really much to say, not a lot is going on. But here’s a few more random photos…

Firstly a couple of a fly that was bugging me when I was trying to cook.

Then the new grass growing in the yard.

Finally, my new hair cut.

All my cooking was done for the day, I had nothing else to do and it was a beautiful day. So I pulled the hammock out of it’s hibernation and went and had a laze in the sun.

That’s all! Just felt like sharing!

Life has been plodding along, in the way that it does. We’ve been busy with CC amongst other things.

We’re onto our 5th brew now.. well 4th beer and 1 mead.. it’s still a long way off but I can’t wait for the mead to be done. It’s all such an interesting process, I’m persuading DmentD to write a series of posts on how to brew for CC.

Sadly, my camera, that has served me well over the past year and a bit, took a death defying leap from the kitchen table.. that wasn’t so death defying.. It died! I was trying to get that >just perfect< shot of me piping crosses onto the hot cross buns and failed! Thankfully I managed to save the photos already on there and used DmentD’s old broken camera to get a couple finished shots, not the greatest, but acceptable. So a new camera was duly ordered and arrived quicker than the estimate – thankfully. I hadn’t realised how many things I had gotten in to the habit of taking photos of until I couldn’t!

So this morning I was out in the garden playing about with settings and seeing what I could do with close ups and macro shots.. I need to find a place I can take wide-angle photos too to play about and see what I can do with them.

We had our crawfish boil at the start of the month. I made two king cakes (a cinnamon and a cream cheese) and then some cafe su da ice cream and Guinness ice cream. The Guinness one still needs some work, but the cafe su da was a huge hit with most of the half gallon I made getting eaten up!

Work is still going well, I’m enjoying it and had my first pay check last week.. always a good thing!

While sorting through photos I realised I had the ones from the Sherwood Forest Ren Faire that I hadn’t uploaded, how very lax of me! I didn’t even write about the day! It wasn’t a huge faire, not as big as the one we go to in Autumn. But it was only their first year. Taking that into consideration it was pretty impressive. We spent a few hours wandering about and having a good time, and of course, I got my first sun burn of the year! And, I got my bronze pendant to go on my necklace, I’ve been idly looking for a while, but couldn’t see anything that resonated enough for me to want to wear it all the time, since I wear my necklace all the time.. Well, I found something.. now I just need DmentD to re-do my necklace so we can string it on there. The rest of the photos from the day are in the gallery.

March has been an interesting month, we’ve been run off our feet.. in a good way.

Since I’m posting more over on Curious Confections most of the interesting stuff we’ve been up to has been written up over there.

Techmunch was a fantastic day. I learnt plenty, that I’m trying to gradually put into practice. I met lots of wonderful people (my blogroll increased tenfold!) and ate plenty of good food! Well, no one’s going to host an event for food bloggers without making sure there’s some good food on hand. Our food was provided by Parkside, a restaurant on 6th St here in town, that also happened to be the venue. And we had cupcakes from Sugar Mama’s.

I’m trying to involve myself more on the Austin Food Blogger scene, they’re having a potluck in the park next month that I’d like to go to and meet some more people.

We had a jaunt to New Orleans for a birthday party, with a cake in tow. We had the party on the Saturday and we ate our way across the town on the Sunday. Good times! It was a whistle stop visit, but I even helped with some of the drive!

Last week I started my new job. Regular scheduled hours, knowing that I will actually finish when I’m scheduled to finish, near enough to cycle to and from (even if the from trip seems much harder!), fun and entertaining, I’m learning lots and I get tips.. even if I have to declare them so I’ll get taxed on them. I’ll be working Easter Sunday, and on Saturday so I’ll miss half of our crawfish boil.. I’m still making sweet treats for it though.

I can’t believe it’s the end of March, time is flying, I need to get my bike tuned up while I can get it for free, there’s a food and wine festival coming up next month that looks interesting, and my favourite people from the farmers market – Full English, are working to open their own cafe not too far from here!