Category: Granny Flare

Cooking with a PEE - C!

12/8/2020

"Yep! The holidays are going to be soon here so I had better get busy with my cooking," thought Granny Flare. There is nothing better that this special little house Brownie enjoyed more than cooking for the holidays - other than maybe cooking with friends. But this year was different and Granny couldn't get together like she would have in the past. "I wish the gang and I were doing this together. There must be someway that could happen," she grumbled to herself.

That is when a message was delivered by a Bee G. It was Bee Glad who had showed up with a message from Parsley. Granny listened with interest as how the little Bee G explained that Parsley had found a new "Outie" tool called a PEE-C that was faster than the Mushroom Line and almost like opening a magical portal. Parsley was going to send one over today as she picked up a few for her friends. Now this was interesting!!!

As Granny continued to listen she found that when her PEE-C arrived, she was going to need to connect to something called a Zoom. There she would find a portal where she could cook and talk with Parsley just like she was in her kitchen.

After the PEE-C arrived Granny was glad she had listened to the instructions that Bee Glad had given her as she was soon connecting to this Zoom portal. Before you could say "Twitter Bird", Parsley was talking to Granny just like magic.

They were both so excited that they had this new toy to play with that they almost forgot that they had things to bake. That was until Sprout walked into Parsley's kitchen asking what was for dinner.

So, as Granny and Parsley dive into their cook books and herbs, let me share a recipe or two from them for this holiday season.

And if you haven't tried the gluten and dairy free pumpkin pies... click on this link to go there -
GLUTEN & DAIRY FREE PUMPKIN PIE RECIPIE (oops - Recipe)

Letters from the Lovelorn Ladies...

1/27/2020

In all affairs of the heart, the Bellwether likes to pride itself as an equal opportunist for those that wish to express themselves in the language of Love.
As such, this week's edition of the Bellwether is devoted to the Ladies.

Who will be brave enough to come forth in their adventure of looking for Love?

My Roots Run Deep...
Don't hide your light under a bush. Are you someone I can grow closer to? If so, then long walks along the garden path and dancing in the moonlight are just the things that will bring out my glow of happiness. Meet me at the Entrance of the Sacred Grove at the next Full Moon to see if we are kindred souls.
P.S. Must love cats and Giggle Juiceberry cookies.
~~Share with me the beauty of nature,
 Efem, Tree Mother of the Sacred Grove

Come Sweep Me Off My Feet...
I am a homebody at heart and looking for someone to share the hearth with. We will spend magical evenings lounging by a spotless fireplace. Or if being well stuffed after one of my dinners in a well-scrubbed kitchen is more your idea of romance, I have been known to whip up something delightful in a moment's notice.
A game of matching the last sock out of the wash is one of my all time favorite matchmaking games.
Dust the negativity out of your life with me,
Granny Flare, House Brownie

Do You Believe...
As a Dowager, I excel at ruling over a large table of guests, but nothing warms my heart more than a lovely intimate dinner for two. If good food prepared by the best Brownie cook with stimulating conversation and dragon flames glowing in the sconces on the castle walls; followed up by a tasty dessert is your type of wish for a Valentine evening then *RSVP below.

(*RSVP - Reserve Seating with a Very special Person)
In friendship,
Griselda, the Dowager

Valentines Day is coming and love is floating in the air - who else will cupids arrows strike? One of the few immune to this Valentines Day holiday is Sprout. He can't figure out what all the hallaboo is about with squirrely giggles and fluttering butterfly kisses. So where is he? Parsley still has not found that boy...

Hidden in a message...

5/24/2018

"Terrific! I got you back before Granny even knew you were gone. Hungry, I am getting out of here before she shows up", whispered Meen. "See you later, and you better stay inside or Granny will get annoyed and you know what that means. No sweets!"

Hungry watched Meen as she scampered out of the cave.

"No sweets?" But I like sweets," Hungry growled.

"Hungry! Where have you been? I have been looking high and low for you. You know you aren't to leave this cave! Do you want someone to see you?" Granny Flare shouts, pointing her finger at the little Dragon. "Do you know what would happen if anyone saw you?"

"No, what would happen?" he asks. "Would they feed me?" Granny could tell, this was not going to be easy raising a baby Dragon.

Meanwhile, as the Baron was starting to settle down on a chair in the parlor, he thought he heard voices. "What's this? Hearing voices at my age? I'm not that old!" he mumbled to himself. "Now I am talking to myself... Fiddlefaddle, where are you?"

The faithful batman was just finishing unlocking more doors when he heard his name called. "Now what?" he thought, "I haven't even been able to put away the luggage."

Entering the parlor, he sees the Baron sitting near the fireplace.

"Fiddlefaddle, we need to check out the Mansion." says the Baron. "I am hearing voices."

Turning around to do as the Baron asked, Fiddlefaddle notices the letter on the mantle. "It appears a message has been left for you." Taking the message from the mantle, he hands it to the Baron as he reads the cover. "It is from your granddaughter, Dragonia."

"I wonder what she has been doing?" thought the Baron. Opening the letter, he starts to read.

Did you see the hidden message? --- Dragon below mansion in cave

A Dragon's Secret

2/22/2018

The Shadow King Hears a Rumor...

2/11/2018

“The King must hear about this,” thought Meen excitedly. “If Atian didn’t have the best jumping mushrooms around his cottage to jump over, I would have never heard him and Granny.”

As Meen rushed back to the Shadows' Realm, jumping over mushrooms, logs, and frogs in her hurry to report to the King, she could still hear Granny telling Atian not to yell at her. “Of course Dragons could talk – doesn’t everything talk?” Meen asked herself. “If frogs and fish can talk, why not a Dragon?”

Shortly Meen was through the edges of the forest and starting into the deeper, darker, parts of the woods. This is where the sun could only come through the tree tops as small beams of light and wisps. The Shadows lived here and the bright strain of sunlight was never very strong. “Ah, home!” smiled Meen. It was nice to play tag with the sun beams as they poked out, but she preferred to stay hidden in the shadows.

“Okay, slow down, catch your breath… breathe…” she told herself before entering the Shadows' King's Receiving Hall. “Oh how I can't wait to tell him everything,” she mumbled to herself.

“Tell me what Meen?” asked Hunter, the Shadows's King of the Shadows' Realm. Startled, Meen prostrated herself before her liege. “Arise Meen. You know I do not like that! Get up!”

“My Liege, I have wondrous news. Granny Flare and Atian have a baby!”

Hunter looked at Meen, raised one eyebrow and tipped his head down to look at her, and waited for Meen to say more. When Meen just stood there smiling, Hunter asked again “Let me get this right, you are telling me that Atian and Granny Flare have a baby?”

Meen jumped up and down, clapping her hands together and smiling while nodding her head in the affirmative. “They were talking really loud about it to each other outside of his cottage. I was hopping mushrooms when I came up on Snoop who was there listening too. They were yelling about the baby and who on the council would they tell first.”

“I will have to see this! They must be very excited. Thank you Meen. As he turns to leave he thinks to himself..." I did not even know they were seeing each other, or is the correct term dating each other, let alone now having a baby!"

The Heart of Magic...

2/2/2018

“Atian, it just isn't so!" said Granny Flare. "Just because you figured out the Baroness' secret that I have been trying to keep, doesn't make you the expert! Yes, a baby Dragon is a challenge, but I am sure we can come up with a solution to keep him undiscovered until we are ready to let the Village know.”

"You are right about not letting the Village know, Granny, but you should have told the Council," Atian replies with a small shake of his head. "The Council should be a part of this process of helping the baby Dragon."

"You are right. The Council needs to talk to the Dragon," conceded Granny.

"Do you mean he can talk too? Baby Dragons talk?" hollered Atian.

"Don't yell at me Atian. You wanted to know all about him. What are we going to do?"

"What 'we' are going to do, Granny, is tell the Council now. But how and who should be first to know... I don't know?"

Off in the bushes, trying not to be seen, Snoop was doing what he is best known for - Snooping. "I wish I could get closer to hear more of what they are saying," he thought. He could only hear parts of their conversation, but enough to know they were talking about Dragons.

"That's it! Granny has a baby Dragon! No wonder Atian looks worried. That also explains the strange way the Baroness had been acting. This has got to go to the presses for today's edition of the newspaper... wait, who is that coming? It looks like Hunter. The King of Shadows hardly ever leaves his realm..." smiled Snoop. "I might as well get comfortable and wait to see why he is here."

Granny Gets Caught...

1/5/2018

“I wish I could have found what I needed in these books, but I am glad that Gardner left his wheel barrow out again. It does make it easier to for me to bring all of these books back,” thought Granny Flare as she pushed the load of books to Atian’s hut.

As Granny neared the hut she saw Atian sitting on his mushroom reading again. Or maybe he had never left it from the time she first borrowed the books. “Books with outdated information are so frustrating!” she grumbled as she approached.

“What did you say?” asked Atian, “And what did you mean by ‘outdated information’”?

“Your books were not much help Atian,” replied Granny.

Looking slightly puzzled, Atian put down the book he was reading and shot Granny a glare. “What do you mean Granny? These books are about Dragon history. How could they be outdated? It is not like Dragons have been seen here for hundreds of years.” Atian walked over to the wheel barrow and picked up the top book in the pile and opened it to the middle.

Granny walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the open page. "Now see that picture? It is all wrong", Granny snapped without thinking. "A baby dragon has smaller wings and the nose bump is all wrong. Even the tail is not right... it should be shorter.”

“How do you know that Granny? No one has seen a Dragon since these books were first scribed and babies were rarely seen."

Blushing, Granny realized that she had just made a mistake. “I… I…”

“So Granny, I think you need to tell me more about what you know regarding baby Dragons.”

Snoop starts snooping...

1/3/2018

"What is the Baroness hiding I wonder?" thought Snoop. Just having left her tea parlor, Snoop wasted no time in starting his ‘snooping’. "Maybe if I visit Atian he can see what clues I might be missing.

"We shall see… We shall see...” he thought. "After all, he is a fellow council member and the Village Historian and I am going to need help solving this mystery of what the Baroness is hiding."

As Snoop starts his walk to Atian's hut, Atian already has a visitor, Granny Flare. She yells out the front door as he is sitting in his favorite reading spot, the oversize mushroom in his yard.

"What else do you have on dragon's?" Granny asks. "Since you are the Historian, you might as well be the Librarian. You are the only one in the whole village with a decent collection of books." Not waiting for Atian to respond, she continues, "Do you have anything on the care and maintenance of a baby dragon?"

"Try the second stack behind the door. Towards the bottom," replies Atian. Granny soon finds them at the very bottom of the indicated pile. "If Atian was a Brownie he certainly would be much more organized than this, that's for sure," Granny thinks to herself.

As Snoop nears Atian's hut, he sees the Historian sitting on the large mushroom and reading one of his books. "Yep! Nothing strange here... Atian always seems to have his 'nose' in a book", Snoop thinks smiling to himself.

Granny sees Snoop coming up the walkway through a small window of the hut and decides she had better get out of there. "All I need now is Snoop snooping around and asking questions I don't want to answer," Granny decides.

"Atian, I am going to borrow a few of these books and will return them to you later in the week. Is that is okay with you?" Again, not waiting for Atian to answer, Granny sneaks out the backdoor of the hut with the books in tow.

"Good morning Atian, my old friend," greets Snoop.

Before looking up from his book, Atian mumbles to himself, "My day started so much quieter before all my friends started dropping in".

As Atian peers over the top of his book he replies, "Hello, Augustus (aka Snoop). I predicted from the way Granny Flare was just here that you would also be showing up soon."

"How would you know that?" responds a startled Snoop.

"It is all in seeing the patterns of history. That is my specialty after all. Now, how can I help you? You usually have some bee in your bonnet (or top hat) when you come to see me."

"I just finished having tea with the Baroness and I know that she is hiding something. She was twitching, nervous, and appeared like she was trying not to tell me something."

As he listens to Snoop's theories, Atian starts putting together recent events and some of the things that Granny Flare said while she was hunting through his books. Ideas started floating around in his head. Crazy ideas they were indeed!!!

"Snoop, Granny Flare was just here and she did mentioned that the Baroness had received a letter today from her grandfather, the Baron. This might be part of the mystery of why she was so twitchy and anxious as she told Granny that she had to leave town suddenly because of it."

"Did she say anything more?" asked Snoop.

"Granny did say she was being left in charge, but as to what, she wasn't sharing those details. Could this have something to do with the books she was asking about regarding baby Dragons? We all know about the Dragons leaving the Village and how that brought down the decline of the Village, but you are wanting to know more... Am I correct? There is a pattern here that the two of you are weaving regarding the need to know about Dragons."

Hungry...

10/14/2017

“Hungry!”

Baroness Dragonia turned to look at Acorn with an irritated glance, “We are not calling it Hungry.”

“What are you talking about? Why would you call it Hungry?” he replied. Then they both turned to the dragon. This time together they heard in their minds the dragon’s demand. “HUNGRY!"

“So what do you feed a baby dragon,” asked Acorn. Dragonia responded while shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t know. I told you before this is my first time too.”

Behind them they heard a quiet but firm voice. “I know.”

Startled, Acorn and Dragonia with the baby dragon turned around to see Granny Flare standing at the entrance to the cave. “Long has it been since I have seen a baby dragon, but not so long as I have forgotten them. Hello little one. I am Granny Flare and you are?”

“Yet to be named,” Granny heard in her mind.

“It is not polite to mind talk in a group of listeners. You should speak instead,” she replied looking at the baby. She then turned to Acorn. “I should have known you would be somehow involved Acorn. When there is a little chaos brewing you always seem to be in the middle of it. I predict that you have just now become part of the biggest event this area has seen in many a year.”

Before Acorn could respond, Granny turned to Dragonia and continued, “So, this is the big thing you wanted me to see. I felt the power building when I was using the tunnel to the Baron’s mansion but never expected it to be this. What will you do now Baroness?”

We will raise it. It must be in secret to start with though so we do not repeat the past,” she replied. “Besides, it needs us right now as much as we need it.”

Granny Flare looking at Dragonia nodded her head and said, “Then I will help. Being a dragon, it needs something other than milk. I am writing you a market list of the necessary items, but for now, we need to feed it.”

“About time!” they all heard in their minds.

“What did I tell you?” Granny Flare glared at the baby.

“Hungry” replied the dragon out loud this time. Acorn jumped back a little startled. It was one thing to hear a voice in one’s head, but quite a different thing to see a dragon speak.

“Acorn, you go and find some coal oil or kerosene and the biggest bottle you can find. Baroness, we will need something tough, like leather for the baby to suck on,” commanded Granny Flare.

Acorn started to argue but the look that Granny gave him helped him to change his mind and off he went. “Remember, no one must know about the baby yet!” he heard her yell as he was leaving.

Looking at the Baroness, Granny Flare, being the house brownie that she is, continued “Now, what are we going to do about cleaning up this mess?”

“More importantly, what are we going to do so that the Village Council doesn’t find out about the baby?” replied Dragonia.