Rosmarin my Darlin'

"A taffy to the nines."

There ain’t no Clementines in this here taffy, but what I can promise you folks is a sensational ballad of rosemary!  Dive in (cool and easy) for a low and slow cruise from sweet honey fields to rosemary finale.  

You know, thinkin’ about poor ol’ Clementine reminds me of that time my rosemary taffies revived my little brother after a surprise swim in the lake.  I say surprise swim because no one expected it, not even him.  You see, the year was 2012 and folks from all over the state of Oklahoma - both experts and regular folk!- had gathered at Foss Lake in the Washita National Wildlife Refuge for an exciting 24 hour period of rapid biological inventorying of the surrounding area’s flora and fauna.  It was held during a normally warm period of the year, but, as seemed to often happen, that exact weekend had a massive cold front come through.  My soil mites didn’t seem to care, but those dragonflies sure did.  Those folks sure had a rough time of it.  Anyway, not terribly long after my brother had approached me with a hand full of giant cactus thorns (he claimed they exploded onto him), I saw him down by the lake.  Just off the dock was a big ol’ hunk of styrofoam, bobbin’ up and down in the water, all tattered and covered with algae.  I tried to stop him, but of course he didn’t listen.  Jumping from the dock to the foam, physics got the best of him and he crashed into the freezing water.  Well we were just camping there in a tent and none of us had any extra clothes.  The wind was a-howlin’, and it was a cold breeze for sure!  His lips began to turn blue and his eyes cooled to ice as he shivered away like a cod in a snowstorm.  Helplessly I watched as he inched towards death.  “Brittany,” he creaked, “...do you... do you have any of that taffy of yours..?  If I go today I wanna go with that sweet magical chorus of comfort riding my icy last breath.”  Tears freezing down my cheeks I said, “sure, little man.  I sure do.”  And from my pocket I pulled the very last of my rosmarin taffies.  Fraught with grief I hardly noticed the warm glimmer of hope radiating from within the taffy, but as he started to chew, the air filled with the scent of rosemary and the winds sang of warmth!  Color came back to his face and he stood up, all fine and dandy again.  I shook my head and pat him on the back.  “Well, I suppose we won’t miss the final counts after all, thanks to that rosmarin taffy!”