Summer Starting to End on the Farm

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It has been good spending time on the farm. I really had forgotten how quiet and dark it is here. It can actually be a bit unnerving. The leaf doodle bug was put to work in the forest. However, it looks like the car will be going back on the road. We can say it failed field trials,but that would only be partially true. The better utility value at this point is more suited to getting a teenager back and forth from high school. The mycological aspects of the farm did not disappoint. The pics of these shrooms are not photoshopped. The coal stove (very heavy) is loaded on the truck. It will be rebuilt in Georgia if I can save it. Coal stoves are increasingly out of production. When they are gone they are gone. The small wood stove is now in its place. The pic of the red sky in morning was indeed a warning of weather. We had strong storms and tornados in Upstate NY. Although I was travelling much that day in the area, I missed the worst of it.
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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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