Random Holiday Madness and Unicorn Poop

First of all, let me wish a peaceful Memorial Day to you all and say THANK YOU to all those who have served and sacrificed for our freedom.  We often take for granted the freedoms we enjoy.

Today is a random day.  Some gardening took place- although not as much as I would have liked since I pulled something in my back over the weekend and, while I'm moving much, much better than I was yesterday, I'm still a bit stiff and sore so no heavy duty weeding for me.  I managed to plant the little tomatoes and peppers that Mom and Dad brought up last weekend but still need to find homes for the 4 little maple seedlings they brought.  I also watered the garden early this morning since the 'storm' that went through only produced sprinkles for about half an hour.
This afternoon, Justine and I baked cookies.  And not just ordinary cookies.  We made Unicorn Poop!

I saw a link to the original instructables on Root Simple yesterday and knew that we needed to make these. Of course, this gives us our yearly allotment of food coloring but they are so much fun.
We did some adaptations that I found easier.  I used the recipe that we normally use for the candy cane cookies that I make at the holidays and divided it into 6 separate bowls, each which became it's own color of dough- yellow, orange, red, blue, green and purple.  The original directions called for making tiny snakes of each color and shaping these together.  While this works, it is time consuming and a bit frustrating.  Justine discovered a different technique that works well and was much faster with the dough we were using which is quite soft.

 Take very small bits of each color (a scant 1/2 teaspoon of each)

 Roll these very lightly into a ball.

 Roll into a rainbow snake

 and shape into the perfect pile.

 Bake in the oven and when cool, decorate.

 We brushed these lightly with sparkle gel (the only thing we had to buy- the rest of the stuff we had- WHAT?  Doesn't everyone have edible glitter in their cabinets???) and added edible glitter, candy hearts, butterflies and flowers.  And voila!  Sparkly Rainbow Unicorn Poop Cookies! Because everyone knows that unicorns poop rainbows and sparkles... and these even taste good.  Justine is taking some to the birthday party of one of her friends this evening and I will take some to work tomorrow.  Justine is also thinking that these would be something fun to do in the dorm kitchen this fall.

In non cookie related randomness, we finished the back steps for the deck this weekend.  We had to build a secondary retaining wall and backfill behind that to get the base of the steps to the level of the new patio that will be built in back of the house.

That deck is definitely providing much needed protection to the back door, both from sun and rain.

The rose that Justine and I planted by the arbor we built is blooming.  With the crazy weather we've been having (we hit 94*F yesterday) it feels more like July 4th than Memorial Day.

Ah... look at the color of those roses.

With the added space on the deck, I've got more flowers than I've ever had before.  Meaning that we're using odds and ends of planters that have been picked up over the years.  Don't you love Mister Skull Head's colorful hair?