Although we're freezing our butts of today, again, there were a few pretty mornings this week. 
One of my morning hikes landed me in this meadow of Texas Blue Bonnets. Sure thing to beat the winter-blues!

When the sun is out the birds are twittering like crazy! Time to impress the ladies!

I think this is a Common Yellow-Throat Warbler

Cardinals sing especially loud and beautiful!

And the cacti are staying doggedly positive and are steadily growing their buds:

And lets not forget the Brittlebush, one of the desert's earliest and hardiest.
The flowers attract butterflies (I've already seen a few) especially when other blooming plants are scarce and broken mature stems exude a resinous, aromatic gum that was used as chewing gum and burned as incense in the past.

And they're so cheery too!

And we could need some cheering up since all of the 'regulars' from this winter have left us now. 

Last to go was John, and his attached-to-the-hip, faithful sidekick, Carlie.

                                                                                

     

I'm gonna miss them, period, but especially because John was a 'juicer' and whenever he made a little too much, he would bring me some:

  

The left one has a little more carrot and the right more beets, together with celery, kale, cabbage, apple and ginger.

I've never gotten into it myself but I do believe it's a very healthy habit. It's a sure way to get your daily veggies in and to my surprise it's actually very, very tasty. Delicious even!

 


To offset all this 'healthiness' I returned the jars with a variety of homemade cookies, chocolates, deviled eggs or macaroni salad, etc.
We both got a kick out of being surprised by what would be in it next time!
I doubt we will see each other again, since he (still) lives in Kerville, TX, but stranger things have happened and we got him thinking about full-timing too!

Another one bites the dust!

So to cheer us up (even more) I just had to have some cake (and wanted to eat it too) so I baked this apple-raisin-cranberry one ...

Yum!

This is how I bake: since I didn't have enough eggs, I substituted applesauce, some orange juice and extra baking powder, and since I didn't have enough butter I used half/half butter and veg. oil, and since I didn't have enough apple, I added raisin and cranberries! 
By some kind of miracle it (almost) always turns out great.