Wordless Wednesday: Paint Branch

Back and Catching Up

So, yes, I'm finally back and I'm finally well!  It just really took a few months to recover.  My advice: don't get bitten by a tick!

I have lots of photos and things to blog from the summer, and I am gearing up for the new school year (actually, my Anatomy and Physiology class starts today!), so I'll have lots to blog about.

In the mean time, here are a few pictures from the summer:

How Cool is This?!

It was 93 (almost 34 C) outside today, although the calendar said it was an autumn month.

This must be the last gasp of summer-time to make ice cream!

It counts as science of course.  There really is no better way to see that phase changes require energy.

We actually used an ice cream mix that someone had given us, so it was just add cream and mix, and put the combination into the inner container. Pina colada flavor, yum!

We packed layers of ice and salt in the outer container, and turned the machine on. 

Our machine has a dasher (like a mixing paddle) that stands still while the inner container moves around it.  It takes about half an hour to churn and freeze the ice cream.

In the mean time we measured the left over ice: 31 degrees (-1 C). The salt was at 78 degrees (25.5 C)


Then we measured the ice and salt: 2.3 degrees (-16.5 C)! 

What the heck?

 For the ice to change from a solid to a liquid, it needs to absorb heat, and it's absorbing it mainly from the sides of the metal inner container (the outer container is plastic).

The salt melts the ice faster so it causes more rapid cooling.

Eventually our thermometer registered -4 degrees, but that actually shows that our (cooking) thermometer isn't accurate at extremely low temperatures.

Zero was chosen as the set point for Fahrenheit because it is the coldest point that saturated saline (fully salted water) can get before freezing.

Which is why I prefer Celsius, frankly!  Everyone knows how cold water is when it freezes, it's something we  experience all of the time.  Saturated saline is...less common.

But it makes great ice cream!

Popsicle Life

It's been in the upper 80s and low 90s (around 32 C) here for most of the past two weeks, and quite stickily humid.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, we've had lovely cool weather for most of the spring, and often we're about ten degrees warmer this time of year.  Oh, yes, I see I've mentioned that, and how much I enjoy it.


But clearly it was time to make popsicles.  I did a quick Pinterest search for popsicle recipes, and found enough recipes to turn the Washington Monument into a frozen confection.  In August.

I spent a good three minutes worrying that Pinterest was crushing my creativity since it has thousands of project ideas for anything I want to do, and then Choclo (he and Oob were kibbitzing on the popsicle project) saw these chocolate dipped strawberry popsicles.

Rapturous delight! 

You just stick strawberries in the blender (with a little water) freeze them in molds, then dip them in Magic Shell.  If you haven't run into this, it's chocolate with coconut oil, and it freezes on contact with a frozen surface (usually ice cream), giving you a thin brittle shell of yumminess. 

In my case, I added a bit of sugar to the berries: the cold numbs the sweet taste buds more than the sour, and I find plain frozen fruit tastes unripe to me.