Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Hot Enough to Fry an Egg

I don't have a sidewalk out here.  So I used a black cast iron skillet.

I checked the remote thermometer we have that sits outside and broadcasts the temperature to a receiver we have inside our house.  It said it was 108 degrees outdoors. That's in the shade, too, because we keep this thermometer in an old bird house.

But then I took the thermometer to the fishing pier, in the sunlight, and got a different reading.


Then I got my laser-beam thermometer and pointed at the black skillet I set on the fishing pier:



I am not making this up.  These are scientific instruments and you can't fool a scientific instruments.

So, the only thing missing in this experiment was a bunch of kids.  Fortunately, we have new neighbors and it's like I had custom-ordered them.  Rachel is three years old.



And she brought her brother and two sisters.  And then the goats followed them over. The geese and duck, who thinks he's a goose, started to follow but I guess they're not as attached to the kids as the goats are.  The goats always come over when the kids do.


I can't remember the goat's name but I know they all have names and I'm sure I'll come to remember these details.  She's enjoying some of the grass that has grown from the bottom of our pond.

So, back to the egg:


I had to come inside after about 15 minutes.  It's dangerously hot.  The kids anf goats had to go home.  There was some kind of complication about needing to finish cleaning house so they could go swimming (not the goats, though.) Apparently, my 125 degree back yard with the crazy old lady trying to cook an egg outdoors isn't as interesting as a swimming pool.

I went back out after about an hour.  The egg white looked definitely "cooked" but the yellow had broken and made a big mess.  I decided to bring the whole thing inside but the handle was too hot to touch without a hot pad.

Conclusion:  It is hot.