Water Drive

 

So this first picture is from Tori; she's on the corner of Dee-Mack Road and Hild Road (obviously), looking north at a very flooded Mackinaw River. This was Thursday morning before she went to work, because when we tried to do this Thursday evening, we couldn't get this far: Dee-Mack Road was closed by then.

 

 

Our evening drive started out through Mackinaw hoping to see the aforementioned scene; like I said, we got stopped by barricades. Fine by me. That water was too close to the bridge for my comfort. Well, so we wandered around the township and saw every Mackinaw River bridge we could possibly find. Some of these px are pretty repetitive, with the same repetitive message - flood - but Josh wanted me to use them all. So I did. But I don't know where they all are.

So this one I recognize. We're heading south on the White Oak Grove Road, looking west, and just starting to see water trickle down the levee. In the distance is the Vance farm at the bottom of the hill on Sauder(?) Road.

 

Crossing the river, still heading south. I didn't love this part of the Drive.

 

 

We turned around in White Oak Grove; this is heading back north.

This is just north of the river at White Oak Grove. Seeing water flow over the levee gave me kind of a funny feeling. I don't like floods.

 

 

Not sure where this was.

Looking south down Schmidgall Road just south of Townline (I think).

Crossing the bridge on Feather Road maybe?

This was at the Locust Street bridge. Dad and kids walked out onto the bridge but it was cool out and I was happily warm and safe in my big white van :)

So thus (hopefully) ends the spring flooding of 2019. So far this week we haven't had much of the predicted rain, and I think we're all hoping it stays that way!

Rainy Week

 

Last Monday Josh found my selfie stick and did some experimenting. 

 

 

That night was Dad's 50th birthday. Was great that all kids could be here.

 

We were all inside because it was cold outside.

 

Tuesday was rainy. I don't remember when the rain started but it rained almost all day. And it was cold.

 

And it poured.

 

Everyone knows that rainy days are for Monopoly.

 

Wednesday we had a little crowd here. The usuals I guess plus a sweet Jovie.

 

 

 

About the time the masses were going stir-crazy in the basement, out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

Well not exactly ALL the rain, but enough that the masses were sent out.

 

And they did have some fun. Not sure why Clay is petting Cason here but it's pretty funny.

 

If mud is an indicator of fun, these kids had fun!



 

Time for some books.

 

By Thursday there were quite a few ponds in fields,

 

so by Thursday night there were reports of roads and bridges closed due to flooding, so of course we had to do a Water Drive and check it all out. And it was actually a double-hitter as we saw a few deer along the way, making it a successful Deer Drive as well. 

 

What? 

You don't do Water Drives?  

Or Deer Drives?

Well, you should try it sometime.

Exciting stuff.

Stay tuned... 

 

This & That

 These few px got missed somewhere along the line. Not sure of dates.

 

 

Individual Breakfast Quiches

So the last time I posted a recipe, I realized that most of the recipes lately have been cookies or sweets!! You might think that's all we make around here, but not so! Time to correct this deplorable misconception.

And here's a good one that I kind of invented a couple weeks ago. Although this is called a quiche, which is technically (I think) an egg casserole baked in a pie shell, this does not use a pie shell.  Rather, it uses baking mix in the mixture which kind of settles to the bottom and bakes into kind of a crust. Hence, its name: Breakfast Quiche. And the funny thing is, for years and years we had this every. Sunday. morning. for breakfast. It's definitely a family favorite. Or, it was until everyone got tired of it and I stopped making it. That's how it goes sometimes. All or none. Feast or famine. And in all those years of making this...I never posted the recipe. How odd is that? Well to be fair, although we all like this casserole a lot, it just doesn't have the rock star status as, say, Cherry Berries On A Cloud or Cookie Dough Brownies or French Silk Pie. Uh oh. Here we go. Back to the sweets. How about Chicken Noodle Soup or Roasted Chicken or Paula's Pork Loin?? All fantastic, and not sweets. All Healthy. (Notice the capital H) And Paula's Pork Loin? Oh my. That's a relatively new one around here and is a top-of-the-list fave. I haven't posted the recipe yet but it is coming soon. Stay tuned. It is amazing.

Anyway. Back to eggs.

So although I've made this for years and all the girls could probably make it in their sleep, the concept of individual quiches is only a couple weeks old. And actually I got the idea to make the individual quiches from Pioneer Woman, but I haven't yet tried her recipe; I just used our aforementioned favorite quiche recipe and put it into cupcake cups like she did. They turned out delicious! They bake more quickly than the 9x13 recipe and are better than the traditional pan because each one has the slightly-crusty outside and the cheesy soft eggy inside. I haven't tried freezing them yet, because in general I've never frozen egg casseroles, but PW says her recipe is great to freeze individually, so I'll try that one of these times when if I ever have oodles of leftovers.

I ramble.

Here it is.

Enjoy.

Ingredients:
12 eggs
1 cup Bisquick (generic baking mix works fine)
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups bacon/ham/sausage (more or less to your taste)

Mix all ingredients and pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350d for one hour. Can be made several days ahead of time.

I usually mixed this up on Saturday and then popped it into the oven Sunday morning. Worked very well.

For the individual quiches, grease 24 muffin cups (I use oil spray and do it outside so that extra spray doesn't get all over my kitchen). Use about 1/4 cup of egg mixture per cup. Bake at 350d for 20-25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Eggs will rise pretty high then sink as soon as they are removed from the oven. These individual quiches work well too for picky households; last week Jewel mixed up two half-batches so we could have a dozen sausage and a dozen ham.