Full Swamps, Friendship Failures and Missing Eggpassengers

Someone else who needed to get flour I guess ... don't worry, that will make sense later in the post.
I hope.

I took the slow way to the grocery store yesterday and stopped to watch this river swamp still draining Fay water to the Suwanee River. The dirt road I was on acted like a dam across the swamp and all the water was being channeled through just 2 large culverts. Stacked up like cordwood in front of the culvert mouths were Florida Gar eagerly snapping up any critter the current brought their way.
Sorry, but the tea colored water and the overcast skies prevented a shot where you could actually see the gar.


A few weeks ago, I posted about the Friendship Cake con in which some poor sap is given a bag of starter goo and a sheet of instructions.


I was amazed at the time when so many of you not only knew about Friendship Cake, but some of you actually had happy childhood memories of the thing.


This caused me some concern as it implies there may be other things I don't know, but y'all do.
Disconcerting to say the least.


I was all set to post about how each of the four women I gave starter to at work, took it home, failed to read the instructions, and had it burst from the ziploc bag to ooze around the room as if looking for a young Steve McQueen.


I found that doubly amusing and a bit ironic ... the idea of women not reading the instructions and screwing up a cake.


I was primed to tease them right here on PF ... until yesterday.


Mrs. FC travelled down to Tampa with a friend to see Emma at college this weekend. Before she left, she said, "You'll have to make the next batch of Friendship Cake as it's ready to go and I'll be gone.


"No problem" I replied.

To make a short story long and almost totally unbearable, it went like this ...

• We were out of AP flour ... so a trip to the store ... 20 mile round trip.



• I screwed up the part where you divide the starter into quarters to give away before you add oil, eggs, etc in the final step. So now the proportions were off ... I failed to read the instructions... arrrrghhhh!



• The two part pound cake pan leaked batter all over the oven heating coil causing black smoke to fill the kitchen, setting off the smoke alarm, and scaring Bear who left a trail of tinkle drops from the kitchen to the front door.

Needless to say, I wasn't feeling too friendly by the time the cake made it to the cooling rack.

I had some for breakfast today, so in the end, it came out okay ... not as good as the first one, but still pretty tasty.

In other news, Princess Laya (the best hen ever!) has been sitting on yet another clutch of eggs, even though her last 3 chicks are not quite completely feathered out. This time she chose to ground nest out in the open near the boat. Last week I dragged the hog transport pen over and set it around her so Bear, Flounder, and Feather could not get to her.

This morning, the nest is empty except for a cluster of open egg shells. They are still in the nest and not strewn about as if some predator had raided the site.
I will be looking for Laya later today and hopefully will have some good news to share.

Here's a short (22 seconds ... I promise) video that captures the essence of hurricane season down here.