http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag%C3%A9es

Whether or not they are inedible, as the government agency said, they are certainly tooth-breakers.  Since encounters with them at weddings during my childhood, I have no time for them.

But it is all the more wonderful, therefore, Roz, that you and Deanna found such a brilliant new use for one!  (Presumably they are not sold singly, though, so I guess one of you has a small jar of these things sitting on a shelf.)  How in the world did you drill through it to make a ring?

On the other hand, the pastel-colored drage'es are much more pleasant and satisfying.  But sure, why not, they are real almonds, after all, and almonds are just about the happiest of all tree-foods.

Which brings us to the Nubian goat on the grassy roof: I love marzipan!  I love it as much as chocolate!  In general, the confections made from almond paste that are best known to us, e.g. torrone from Cremona, are fruits of the peaceful, long-lived good neighborliness, back in the Middle Ages, between Christendom and Daru 'l-Islam, in southern Europe, the Christians tending to receive more than they gave.  And marzipan is surely the greatest of those confections.

But why is the goat "Nubian"?

Best wishes for your Diagon Alley project!  If you carry it out with the same thoroughness that you put into the eco-gingerbread house, it will be museum-worthy.  Would you use marzipan to make figures of, say, the owls?  But, you know, if it is permanence that you want, the method that the Mexicans use for forming sugar into skulls and skeletons, for los Dias de los Muertos, might be promising.  I have had a Mexican calavera for around ten years now, which I keep in the freezer, and set out on a plate every mid-October, next to our carved miniature skeleton mariachi band, with barking dogs and cactus, in a glass box, and our statuette of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Also, for after New Year's: You do have a set of the marine-animal-shaped cookie-cutters from Oceana, don't you?  Then do some sort of under-sea fantasy, with perhaps a Nemo-meets-Ariel theme.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.