Monday, January 27, 2014

Cactus cake, giant drifts and cats galore

Check out the AMAZING birthday cake our friend Ronna made for me and Gordon this year...


That's a beautiful rendition of our leopard gecko Kartini sitting next to an exquisite cactus. Ronna made all those prickles from piped royal icing. It took her two hours just to do the prickles!!


As you can see, we were thrilled! Gordon seems to be overwhelmed by it all. :)

Under the buttercream icing was delicious red velvet cake!


Gordon made vanilla ice cream to go with it. It always pains me to cut into Ronna's masterpieces, but she doesn't seem to mind.


And Naomi (like all my cats!) LOOOOOOVES Auntie Ronna.

Speaking of cats, here's trouble...


"Hello Mummy!"


"I am jungle cat!"


"Go away now or I will eat you for supper like the lion I am!"

And speaking of lions...



Julius does not make it easy to work at my computer.


And here's a tree of birds outside my kitchen window this morning...


Not the greatest pic, but there's a male Cardinal, a Downy woodpecker, a Hairy woodpecker, and several fluffed-up Blue Jays.

We got quite a lot of snow in the last 24 hours, and then the winds whipped up today!


It left a few huge drifts!


That's not a buried Mazda. It's solid snow.


The winds finally died down a bit towards sunset, but the windchill tomorrow is supposed to be -38C.



I love this 100+ year-old white spruce. And another impressive drift!

Hope you all have a great week!





21 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:09 pm

    AMAZING cake! It looks fabulous! Happy birthday to the birthday boy!

    All that snow. . . Yowsah! We might get a TRACE here tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I recognized the gecko right off! Ronna is so talented.

    I am almost tempted to say your snow is beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The cake is amazing!
    Love jungle cat! And King Julius of course.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a really special cake! I love the tree full of birds. It 's the same assortment I have this winter except I also have a flock of sparrows with an occasional chickadee or junco.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish I had not been away from your stories and pictures for so long. Will try to do better.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great photos, Natalie. Isn't that cake just amazing. That Ronna did it again. :) Oh, that Audrey...um...I mean Louise. What a little scamp. Glad you had a great birthday.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awwww...your Kartini with cactus is sooo sweet (pun intended :)). That is an excellent rendition of Kartini.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You covered a wide range of topics in this post. What a cool birthday cake. You have great photos of your winter weather. Keep warm.

    ReplyDelete
  9. We have been threatened with a sprinkling of snow, in a week's time. I do hope it doesn't turn out to be as deep as yours.

    ReplyDelete
  10. My hat off to Rona. Amazing. I do miss the birdies. But again, not the snow. And is it to early to wish you, Nat, a happy birthday?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The cats... luscious. The view... breathtaking (in a good way). The cold... ugh!

    Ronna's talent, skill, creativity, and generosity: Amazing! (Oh, and my mouth is watering...)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ronna' amazing cake actually took my mind off the lousy weather.
    Way to go,Ronna!
    Jane x

    ReplyDelete
  13. So cute cats!!!
    Oh my, how much snow!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Adorable cake! Too pretty to eat!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh wow!!! That cake is AMAZING!!!! Ronna is so talented!
    Happy birthday to both of you!
    That snow looks incredibly beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I was sure that was a buried car!

    Every image awesome, as usual

    ReplyDelete
  17. A perfect replica of the gecko...Ronna is a pastry genius! Love the cat-antics and your "little lion" is intimidating:-D XOXO

    ReplyDelete
  18. That cake is truly impressive. Your snow pictures are beautiful, but they look so COLD.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hey! I have a birthday at the end of July. Do you think if I asked Ronna in an especially nice way...

    I see you have an orange Julius. I have an orange Ruffy and his mother orange mamalade and that is a terrific bird tree picture!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thank you for the lovely bird shots. I think that my best Christmas present this year was finally seeing 4 cardinals on Boxing Day in Ontario. I would be afraid to eat that cake. It would probably go on display until the cake was dry and hard, which doesn't make sense either.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous10:48 pm

    What an amazing cake! A real work of art. And you don't have to worry about where to hang it...

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!