Basic Egg Custard

  Tom isn't big on desserts but as his birthday cake ran low, I began thinking about what sweet treat to make next. I decided on a basic Egg Custard. I had fresh blueberries I bought a few days ago from Kroger and thought that would make a perfect topping.

 Tom said he'd have preferred my custard pie with blueberries on top but I just wanted something simple.

Basic Egg Custard

2 C milk
2 large eggs
1/2 C white sugar
1 pinch salt
1/2 ts vanilla
Nutmeg on top

Preheat oven to 325°

Whisk the ingredients together and divide into five custard cups
Place in an oven-safe pan and add hot water (up 1/2 the depth of the cups)
Bake about an hour. Check that a knife inserted comes out clean

Before baking

After baking

 This is really a terrific and easy dessert and somehow seems more wholesome than instant pudding.

 Two notes: I think a little extra baking time would have set the custard more firmly, say an hour and five minutes? And I forgot to add the fresh blueberries. Well, there's always tomorrow.

The Deluge

  We needed rain. We didn't need this much nor this quickly.

 This morning I read 3.25". Most of it fell in the evening.

 Here's what Montgomery County stations have reported so far:

 Yesterday morning I read 0.04" and then it rained some early in the day. But by evening all hell broke loose.

08/01/26 - Evening Rainfall

 Note that around 8:30 pm the rain was falling at a rate of 3.5" per hour.

08/01/26 - Evening Lightning Strikes

 The Tempest reported 2254 strikes yesterday.

08/01/26 - Wind Speed

 The only thing that didn't go crazy was the wind. There were a few gusts but nothing of any consequence. Even so, AES reported over 2,000 power outages.

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — As strong storms move through the Miami Valley, 2 NEWS is keeping you updated on the latest power outages.

As of 10:35 p.m. on Saturday, 2,218 AES Ohio customers were in the dark across the region.

Now, as of 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, only 138 households do not have power.

 Here's what my rain gauge looked like when I peered out the back door at the height of the storm ...

08/01/26 - 8:30 pm

 And here's view from my Wx Cam:

08/01/26 - 7:58 pm

 The 3.29" of rain I've received in the first two days of August exceeds the normal for the entire month (3.08"). And we're up 4.18" for the year through July.

 During the storm we had multiple Tornado Warnings. We were instructed  to take shelter immediately. We didn't. Instead I kept a close eye on radar and saw that nothing would directly affect us.

 Watching the nightly news, it seems most storms are of this type: quick deluges. They're coming more and more often. Surely this spells climate change.

Views of the Hummingbird Feeder

  Every spring when we hear the hummingbirds are back in Ohio we hang the hummingbird feeder. Right now is the peak and it requires refilling every few days. There are endless hummers visiting it every day, well into the dark.

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07-30-26

 This hummer arrives every day and uses the feeder as a perch.  He does his best to tell others it's his property and they should stay away. They don't agree so there are quite a few frantic flights as he tries to prove ownership.

 But why does the ant moat hanging above it empty so quickly? About a week ago I watched a woodpecker land on it and swing it violently enough to spill both the moat and the feeder. I knocked on the glass and he quickly  flew away.

 There's yet another reason the moat is so often dry ... and it's not evaporation:

07-30-26

 I was shocked to walk by the window and see this squirrel draped across drinking from the moat. Here's a closer view:

 In any case, the feeder is a popular spot with  both the birds and the critters. No wonder it requires so much upkeep.

Tom's 70th Birthday

  Next Tuesday (07-29-26) Tom will have his 70th birthday. We're not into celebrating but one thing I do every year is make him his favorite cake, a Coca Cola Cake.

 It's certainly not hard to make though I approach the project in four stages: make the chocolaty syrup that gives the cake its flavor (this step requires boiling), mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl, combing the two and then making the frosting. It requires some dish washing.

 I use the Cracker Barrel recipe. Click here.

The baked cake is certainly, decidedly, overwhelmingly chocolate!

 And the final cake, now frosted, could as easily be called Death by Chocolate.

 I prefer Hershey's Dark Chocolate cocoa but I had Kroger's cocoa on hand. Chocolate is so expensive nowadays that it was an easy choice, though perhaps not quite as good nor as dark.

 Though we don't usually buy gifts for each other,  this year Tom bought me a Paul McCartney autograph. And that didn't give me much room to equal a gift like that. But I took him out for lunch several times and asked him if there was anything he really wanted. He said he was saving his money until after he paid property taxes and then he wanted to order a STAR WARS Jedi Master Yoda Masterpiece Tabletop Lamp. I went ahead  and ordered it for him online. The Bradford Exchange said they wouldn't be shipping  the item again until August 10 so I told Tom is would miss his birthday. But - surprise! - it arrived one day last week and Tom's kept the boxed item beside him in the living room. Unopened.

 Late yesterday - at about the hour of his birth (5:30 pm) he opened it. Today he bought a LED light bulb for it and has it on the stand beside him.

Canadian Wildfires

  I hadn't noticed smoke in Farmersville but on Friday, when we went to the YMCA, Dayton was heavily  shrouded in haze. We mowed yesterday so I was out in the open air for some hours and never noticed anything unusual.

 Yesterday the AQI peaked at 156 between 8 am and 9 am. [Credit: IQAir]

 I decided to watch the sunset last evening as sometimes the deep reds give away the status of the atmosphere. Here is what I saw:

 What's going on with the wildfires in Canada? Here's Google's response to the query: "Over 850 active wildfires are currently burning across Canada, with the vast majority out of control. The largest and most severe clusters are located in Northwestern Ontario (near the Minnesota border) and Quebec, along with significant fire activity in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Alberta." [Source: IQAir et al]

This map shows the location of the many fires:

Credit: aljazeera.com

 Tomorrow we have rain predicted and that should give us a break, however brief, from the haze.

Real Photo or AI?

  Plenty of people have been having fun with the Mitch McConnell photo: is it real? is it current? is the 84 year old Kentucky U.S. Senator dead or alive? He's been missing from his Senate duties since June 14. So for more than a month he's been unexplainably absent.

 Other pictures have shown him, not with his wife, but with Senator Lyndsey Graham (known to have died June 11), Elis Presley, Michael Jackson  and John Wayne. People are having fun with AI.

 So yesterday my friend Alex sent me an AI-generated picture that shows me in place of McConnell and Tom in place of his wife.

 I figured it was just a fun take-off of the McConnell picture but a number of friends briefly thought I was hospitalized.

 Alex said he "put a prompt into Chat GPT" - he calls it "AI magic" - asking for the official picture to be recreated with Tom and I. Actually I don't make a bad McConnell look-alike.

That's the picture I posted on Facebook with the text "Everyone! I'm still alive here!"

 And here's the original for comparison:

Credit: Office of Mitch McConnell

 In the end,  I hope it was good for a laugh.

Later: Alex was at it again. These are good!

Red-headed Woodpecker Regular Visitor

  While a Red-headed woodpecker is considered a common bird in Ohio, they aren't here. I hadn't seen one at Pinehaven in the almost forty years I've lived here ... until two days ago. And since then, its been returning daily, usually with another woodpecker (a Red-bellied), to visit our suet feeder.

 I first saw it two days ago while I was doing dishes. I was most surprised by it's snow-white belly. It's a hard bird to miss.

 My camera died earlier this year but I've managed a few shots with my cell phone, all cropped.

 Ah, the joys of bird-watching. We never know what will show up next. But each is a colorful mystery that often arrives unawares.

Farmersville 250 Held

  Though Farmersville held a 250th celebration yesterday, neither Tom nor I attended. Instead I walked into the back yard at 10 pm to see if I could view the fireworks show. I could ... and quite well.

 Tom went over to feed his cats before 10 am because Center Street was to be closed between 10 am and midnight. That's hardly convenient for those who live on that street; many do not have driveways nor garages. Tom said just after 9 am there with concessions being set up.

 Neither of us enjoy crowds so this year's event was no different for us.

 I did have a good view of the fireworks show from my back yard. It was being shot off south of where I'd have expected.

 This shot is from my weather camera mounted in the garden.

Eye Wounded by Spruce

  How does a spruce cause eye damage? Yesterday morning I was mowing on the south lawn and passing beneath the spruce closest to the garage. As I passed by, a spruce branch swiped across my eye. It seemed a dead-center bullseye hit, too.

 It began tearing and I could barely mow with all the water running down my face. But I finished half the yard since that was my goal.

 When I came in the house I cleaned the eye as bet I could and washed it out with a commercial eye drop. It didn't feel any better but I couldn't see any real damage. We wanted to shop at Meijer and I knew I couldn't go anywhere with tears streaming down my face so I placed a cotton ball there and taped it in place.

 I took a nap in the afternoon, thinking having the eye closed and resting would be a good thing. I can't say the eye ever felt much better afterwards but I think it was improving by small degrees. I wanted to avoid the ER if possible.

 I continued adding over-the-counter lubricating drops to the eye and also Systane, a greasy substance in a tube that my eye doctor suggested for my dry eyes after cataract surgery.

 When I went to bed I took a second Ibuprofen and slept well. I woke with my eye no longer in pain and my vision seems about normal. I'll monitor it today and see whether things continue to improve.

 My friend, Alex, sent me this picture of how he sees me at the moment.

 That's exactly how I felt at Meijer yesterday.

Trying to Attract Monarchs

  This is the third year Tom has a "flower" bed devoted to Ohio native plants. Top of the list was milkweed. He dug up samples from nearby fields and planted then here. This is the first year they're really done well. The whole idea is to attract Monarch butterflies.

06-02-26

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06-05-26

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 I've been carefully watched the undersides of the leaves to see if I might find a Monarch egg. But so far nothing. How is this done? Check here.

 The plants are beginning to form the seeds pods. We'll probably collect seeds and expand our plants:

06-29-26

06-29-26

06-29-26

Seed pods are developing beautifully. But no Monarchs.

07-12-26

Now the Joe Pye Weed blooms ...

07-16-26

I think the bottom line is that we're going to have no young Monarchs this year. We'll keep trying every summer unmtil we have success.
 

Catalpas Trimmed ... again

  How long has it been since the power company sent tree trimmers around to trim our catalpas? One year? Two years?

 "Trim" isn't a descriptive enough word. "Murder" is closer to the truth. You've surely seen trees under power lines completely gutted. They leave a branch perhaps on one side of the power line - sometimes on both - while the center is completely removed. They're silly looking things when they get done. They're hard to look at. And they surely can't be healthy. Or safe for passerby's or traffic.

 But I suppose in the interest of economy that's their only choice. The trees were planted beneath the power lines and that is the right of way. Proper trimming would take too long. So they hack.

 I have to show some compassion for the trimmers. It's been into the low 90's every day they've been working in this area and that has to be a miserable job.

 We first knew the trimmers were making the rounds on 06/11/26. I was cooking lunch when a man knocked at the door and explained what they would be doing "in about three weeks". He handed me this:

 I've heard them working all week. First down the road near Carla's house and later north of us on Mink's woods. This afternoon I heard the chipper getting ever closer.

 The trimming they did was relatively minor, at least to the trees in front of our house. I'll have to withhold my opinion until I drive north and see how the woods looks. But here's in front of the house looking north:

 One way I know the surgery was minor is that there is not a pile of logs at the base of either tree. The notice says "All debris will be chipped and wood will be left at the base of the tree". The last time we were here I had to have help (Jarred) moving the massive logs. This time I see none.

 Tom particularly hates seeing the trees trimmed. Today, I think, was minor enough that he won't be too upset.

Later (07-07-26): They're back trimming in Millie's lane and that includes my sycamore an a hackberry. It doesn't look terrible, though it isn't natural to have just one side of a tree removed:

Still later (07-08-26):

 The trimmers worked yesterday in Millie's lane but didn't get all the limbs cleared. I suppose they'll be back today. Back near Millie's house limbs are still lying on both sides of her lane.