Chocolate and Roses

This evening I got home a bit later than usual.  Why?  Well, it involved chocolate and roses and not in the way you think.

At work they will periodically offer classes to employees that are not related to work.  Tonight's class was on using chocolate modeling clay.

Chocolate modeling clay?  Yep.  You read that right.

Apparently someone somewhere decided to see what happens when you melt chocolate and then add some vegetable oil to it.  You then let it sit at room temperature for a couple of hours and you then have edible modeling clay.  Obviously it's hard to dye it if you use brown chocolate.  But if you use white chocolate, dye away.

You can use the clay to make most anything you want, similar to how you use fondant.  The teacher said ultimately it doesn't get as hard as fondant, making it easier to eat. 

Here are the results of my class.  I think I've got them in the order that I made them.  If not, sue me.

 

I'd like to thing I got better as I went along.

It was fun and I may try my hand at other projects.

Papillon

A Lovely Summer's Day

I spent part of the day at the Rio Grande Botanic Park.  One of the reasons I went was to see the Butterfly Pavilion.  As to be expected, there were lots of lovely butterflies fluttering by.  (Oh, there was also the cutest family of ducks outside of the pavilion.  A mama & about a half dozen babies who acted like they owned the joint.)

After the Butterfly Pavilion, it was fun & rather soothing to wander through the rest of the Botanic Park.  Lots of flowers - begonias & roses & daylilies among others.

My favorite spot in the whole park is the Japanese garden tucked all the way at the back.  Extremely soothing.  Lots of shady spots to sit & reflect & relax & just commune with nature.  A couple of dragonflies seemed to be posing for me.  (Let's hope those photos come out OK!)  A few people walked through but for the most part I was all by myself. 

I did swing by the Heritage Farm area of the park.  I was minding my own business taking photos of daylilies when something in the foliage STARTLED me.  It obviously wasn't some small critter or a lizard, but was of significant size.  I backed up a bit & at first thought it was a cat.  Nope, it was a fairly hefty chicken.  During the day, the farm area lets the chickens go free-range.  (They're put in their coop at night - no reason to provide hot snacks for the local coyote population.)  It obviously agrees with them because they're of good size & have a rather carefree attitude.  It was fun to see them doing their thing.

Papillon