Upper Peninsula Michigan and Auction Win Outcomes

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I was up in Wisconsin and the UP (upper peninsula) in Michigan. It was a lot of driving after launching/landing in Appleton WI. I got an item off the bucket list by driving across the "Mighty Mac". Altough it was built in the late '50s. It is still the longest suspension span in the Northern hemisphere. It is a crazy long bridge with a crazy long suspension span. It was good to see the bridge in context of the seemingly endless forests of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan. The culture in the two haves of Michigan are noticibly different as you might expect. Great time meeting with folks both in WI and MI. The tractor I won in auction, seems to have paid off. This time I beat the odds. It was a really good deal. I have the "no-key, non-running, may have hydraulic problems, unknown hours" -auction win, running well with minimal cost and time. I have some more tweaks, maintenance and minor fixes but the major risks are gone.
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My exercise regimen is paying dividends. I am somewhat surprised at the progress. I am running 3.1 miles (5k) in 24 minutes now. The amount of weight I use on almost all the machines has increased, except for the biceps. I have backed off a little bit on the overall routine just to take the edge off it. Further progress I am sure of, but I can take more time.

Bonnie's sister is down this weekend and we celebrated Bonnies birthday.

I made Baked Alaska. I did quite a bit of research before I started. My recipe was a combination of recipes I gleaned from the web.

I made a 13 x 9 inch chocolate cake, cut into 6 pieces. I took a half gallon of french vanilla ice cream and cut that into 6 even slabs. I refroze the ice cream slabs in foil in the big cold freezer we have downstairs. Then it is time for the meringue. I used our own chicken eggs being careful to use the oldest eggs we had. I read that you should use eggs at least 4 days old. (That was difficult). I had about 9 or 10 egg whites being very careful not to get any yolk and avoiding getting any hand oils in the egg whites. I added about an 1/8 of a tsp of cream of tartar in 1 cup of confectioners sugar. I very vigorously beat the egg whites with an electric mixer and slowly added the sugar-mix. Minutes later I had a stiff meringue. I assembled the deep-frozen slabs of ice cream and cake on top of brown paper on a cookie sheet. The assembly then got covered with the meringue, carefully and completely down flush with the brown paper, looking for leaks. I froze this new assembly for a couple of hours. Placed the alaskas in the oven at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes. (could have gone longer). I garnished with canned pears and chocolate sauce. It was good.



I had quite a treat this morning. I have pictures of a Sundog. Sundogs are created much like a rainbow except that the refraction is done in atmospheric ice crystals. They are distinctive from rainbows since they most often look almost purely vertical. In my pictures you can see they are gently curved, although not nearly as much as a conventional liquid-water rainbow. I was very pleased to get the pics. I am again surprised at the number, variety and intensity of rainbows I have seen on the farm. As with all rainbows, seeing them in person far exceeds the experience seeing them imaged.

Here is a decent link that explains Sundogs. Sundog


Click pic for video

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