The Hackberry

I have one large tree on my property. It's sad but true. Want to know what's even sadder? The one lone large tree on my property is a Hackberry and I absolutely abhor it! Well, in the latter part of the summer anyway. 

This time of year, the Hackberry (which my great-grandmother planted by the way) produces gobs and gobs of sap which inevitably ends up on my roof and the chairs on my porch and my car and it seems that every other day I'm washing something because of the sap situation. If the Hackberry wasn't the only large tree on my property, I might have it cut down, but it does provide a lot of shade and it's only annoying about three months out of the year so I guess I will continue to put up with it...for now. 

Not only does the tree produce massive amounts of sap, it also attracts aphids which eat sap. The aphids are little white bugs which look like lint but if you look closely you can see them moving around. After parking in my spot for just a few minutes there will be some combination of sap and aphids on the car. Now, I'm not sure if the tree saps more because of the aphids or exactly how that all works, just that aphids are not good according to my neighbor Jeff who is knowledgeable in all things flora. 

Lady bugs are natural attackers of aphids and will eat them and therefore rid you of your aphid problem so whenever I see a lady bug, I let her be because she is helping, not harming. Jeff always says that when the aphids are bad there were not enough lady bugs. Well, my friends, thank to the power of the World Wide Web, I have ordered 1550 lady bugs from Amazon of all places and they arrived today. I'm going to rid myself of this aphid problem and in turn hope that the sap problem subsides a little as well. I guess you can call this my summer of 2013 science experiment. 

When I opened up the package, I read the instructions carefully. I had seen online where the ladybugs needed to be released at dusk and I wanted to make sure that was correct. The paperwork actually said the lady bugs could be released at early evening which I guess is dusk and since it was in fact early evening, I went ahead and opened the sealed bag and shook a few of them out and then placed the bag at the foot of the tree and let the lady bugs come on out.

I don't know if this little experiment of mine will be successful, but I hope it will be and I will certainly keep you posted. 

Cooking In The Car Part III

Yesterday was the first day of fall and the temperature reached 98 degrees here in Huntsville; 98 degrees – in September! I’m not sure what the heat index ended up being, but I assure you it was probably higher than 98 degrees. I wore a sleeveless dress when I should be wearing long sleeves – it’s September for crying out loud. Next week the temperature is supposed to be in the 70s. I’m not going to hold my breath.

If ya’ll pray for anything, pray for cooler weather! Well, unless you don’t want cooler weather I guess. I’m just really ready for a break from all this heat we’ve had this summer. My grass doesn’t really need to be cut, but I would like to trim it up and pull up what’s left of the tomato vines that didn’t shrivel up in the sweltering sun but I just can’t bring myself to get out in the heat and do it.

Since it was going to be yet another sweltering Alabama day yesterday, I prepared in advance and decided to try cooking in the car again. Of course after yesterday’s cooking experiment I thought to myself that I really need a thermometer to place in the car so that we would know what the temperature was throughout the day. Maybe I’ll break down and invest in one soon.

Yesterday’s experiment was at the suggestion of Erika in the comments section of Cooking in the Car Part Two. She suggested baking a potato, and that’s exactly what I did.

I had three different types of potatoes at the house, but went with the smallest, the red potato in hopes that it would actually cook. I wrapped it in some foil and placed it on the dash when I arrived at work. I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday morning, so I didn’t arrive at work until 9:45 and I left for the day at 4:00. So, the potato was in the car for a little over six hours.

When I got to the car, I was obviously anxious to see if it had cooked. I opened it up and…. Wah, wah, wah – it was still hard. It was extremely hot to the touch – quite literally a hot potato, and even had sweated some as it had a spot or two of what appeared to be water, but it hadn’t really cooked at all.

So, this third Cooking in the Car experiment was unsuccessful, leaving me with a record of 1-1-1. I’m calling the egg a tie since it cooked a tiny bit. I don’t think the car was as hot as it had been back in August when I baked the cookies and even on the day that I attempted to boil the egg. So, I might give the potato experiment another go next summer if we have a day in the 100s, which we most assuredly will.

The red potato before being placed in the hot sun.

On the dashboard of the car.

Up close and personal with the red potato

The skin is a little shriveled and it was somewhat tenderer than it was before,

but still didn't cook enough to bite into.

Cooking In The Car - Part Two

Since the cookie experiment was such a big hit (10 comments so far – almost as many as Jim Brickman – almost!) I decided to conduct another experiment with cooking in my car. I forgot to watch the news last night to find out what yesterday’s temperature was; but I did some searching on the internet this morning and from what I can tell, Huntsville reached 103 yesterday. This seems strange to me because I swear I thought it felt slightly cooler yesterday. Maybe I’ve adjusted to the high temps – but my utility bill sure isn’t! Whew!

Anyway, back to the story at hand. This time I decided to experiment with an egg. I thought about cracking it open and mixing it up with some cheese to see if I could cook and omelet; but instead decided on placing the egg in a glass of water to see if it would end up hard boiled. So, before I left work, I grabbed a small glass from the cabinet, filled it up with water and dropped an egg inside.

Transporting this glass to work wasn’t very easy. I had a few small spills, but luckily I had brought a towel along to dry them up. Once I got to work, I placed the glass on the dashboard of the car and headed inside. It was once again about 7:25 when I put the glass on the dashboard.

I went about my business and silently laughed to myself every time I thought of my egg out there in the hot sun. Was it cooking? I couldn’t wait to find out.

I left work around 4:35 and when I got to the car, the water in the glass was extremely hot – a lot hotter than I thought it would be, actually. I put the egg in the cup holder for the ride home where I changed clothes for the gym and let The Tide out for a potty break.

I went to the gym for an hour and then went to pick my brother up from work; all the while leaving the egg in the car. I wanted to make sure it had plenty of time to cook. By the time I had arrived at my brother’s place of work, the water had cooled off considerably. We actually had some cloudiness in the afternoon and some small rain showers, which obviously cooled things off or at least limited the direct heat of the sun, which probably contributed to the cooling of the water.

When my brother got in the car (around 7:05 p.m.) he informed me he was coming to my house (long story) instead of going home. I told him that was fine, but he had to help me with my experiment.

We arrived at my house and finally were able to start the egg cracking process around 7:20 or so. By this time the egg had been in the glass of water for about 12 hours.

He cracked it open…

Started peeling back the shell…

Clearly my brother loves rubberbands and colored bracelets -

he's Living Strong times two, man!

And…

The egg was not cooked. I’m sad to inform you that this cooking in the car experiment was not quite as successful as the cookies. The white of the egg had actually cooked a little bit, but the yellow, was obviously still quite runny. It was more like a poached egg than anything else.

Not hard boiled - just poached

.

A happy assistant

Egg hands

Oh well, so much for that. My brother had a grand time being my assistant. He told me to include him on any future experiments and suggested I do brownies next time. The weather is cooling off (high 80s/low 90s) over the next few days, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the 100s will be back soon, and there just may be a pan of brownies waiting for them when they arrive.

The failure of this experiment left my brother sad

The Cookie Experiment

So, I conducted an experiment yesterday and I know you are anxious to hear about it. That is why you stopped by today, isn’t it? Clearly I am hurting for blog material. As those of you who live round these parts know, we have had 100 plus degree days for I don’t know how long – too long if you ask me. For those of you who know me or who have read this blog for any period of time, you know I some times like to do quirky things. So, I decided to conduct The Cookie Experiment. You probably already know where this is going, don’t you?

Over the weekend I bought some Nestle cookie dough, which was by one get one free at Publix by the way. Chocolate chip cookies are one of my most favorite things on earth. I have gone through phases, I’m not ashamed to say, where I will eat chocolate chip cookies every night. Love them! I actually bought these cookies just for experimental purposes if you can believe it. I honestly haven’t baked any of them except for the three I used in the experiment.

So, yesterday morning before I left for work, I put three of the unbaked chocolate chip cookies on my small Silpat and coordinating cookie sheet.

When I arrived at work, I placed the unbaked cookies on the dash of my car and headed in to the office. I wanted to see if they would bake in the heat of my car. I was pretty sure they would, but didn’t know if I would end up with hot dough or crispy cookies.

The cookies were placed on the dash around 7:25 (yes, I was running late – have been all week). I had an appointment yesterday afternoon; so, I left work around 2:40 and when I arrived at the car, the cookies were indeed baked through. The chocolate chips, were, naturally, gooey because of the heat, but the actual cookie was baked.

Pay no attention to my disgusting windsheild; it's the fault of my sappy Hackberry tree.

I took a bite out of one, and it was indeed delicious. I took a few photos, placed the cookies in the passenger seat and headed to my appointment. Every time I looked over and saw the cookies, it totally cracked me up.

Cookies - baked in the car! Yum!

The view through the dirty windshield - after I had taken some bites.

I left the cookies in the passenger seat through my appointment and while I was at the gym. I got home for the day around 6:40 and the cookies had been in the car the whole time, still making me laugh. Generally speaking, these cookies were actually a little crisper than I like. I prefer a chewier, softer cookie, but they were still good. I actually brought the other two today to eat with my lunch. I’m sure I’ll share this story with the girls at lunch who will think I’m even crazier than they first thought. I wanted someone to take my picture with the cookies, but sadly, there was no one around.

So, that was my experiment yesterday. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but it provided me with a little humor on and off throughout the day; not to mention my car briefly smelled like fresh baked cookies. I’m thinking about doing an egg next or maybe something else. Any suggestions?