My blog has moved...

Hi everyone!

I've moved my blog over to Wordpress. All of my posts that are here at Posterous, as well as all future posts, can now be found at:

http://mackinacislandgal.wordpress.com

See you there!

First Fudge

As the school year is winding down, I'm slowly starting back up at May's Fudge Shop on Mackinac Island for the summer. This weekend, I worked side by side with my oldest sister, Tienne, to make fudge throughout the day. And I am proud to say... I STILL got it!

As a candymaker, you really seem to forget how to make fudge. It's like riding a bicycle. And you can never go wrong with chocolate fudge... lots and lots of chocolate fudge. We made sure to stock up on it by making mostly plain chocolate and chocolate nut fudge. We did throw in some vanilla nut, maple nut, and peanut butter fudge as well. It was nice getting to work next to my family once again, and I'm really looking forward to this upcoming season!

Here are a few more pictures of what I got to make on Saturday and Sunday:

Before I could make the fudge, I had to make sure we had plenty of chocolate on hand to put into the batch. I was told that you can actually buy this kind of chocolate (No. 23) in little chips, but in keeping with tradition, we do everything by hand and cut this large block of fudge with a knife:

My brother being a career artist, likes to make special notes about the quality of our fudge in the fudge itself:

When the fudge has finally cooled down to a certain point, it's ready to cut off the bars and start flipping:

The finished product! Well, almost... the fudge still needs to be cut:

Once Memorial Day Weekend hits, we should be able to get more of our standard flavors in, gradually working our way back up to our normal 16 flavor menu. Also, there is a chance that we'll be making our famous Monster turtles later this week! More pics of that to come soon...

Hiking Mackinac

Don't you just love Michigan weather!? Last week we had piles of snow - this weekend, it's almost nonexistent. With the warmer weather upon us, my friends and I took the opportunity to take a hike around Mackinac Island. I was pretty psyched about getting some fresh, spring air in my lungs, and hoped for some good shots of the surrounding nature. I also realized that I hadn't gone letterboxing in quite some time, and immediately geared up to find some boxes!

If you are unfamiliar with letterboxing, it's an outdoor pastime that combines navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a treasure hunt style outdoor quest. It's actually very similar to geocaching - in geocaching, one is given latitude and longitude coordinates to find a hidden box where one can log in by signing a sheet and trading items within the box. With letterboxing, instead of coordinates, you receive clues that lead you to a box where one logs in with rubber stamps. Making your own rubber stamp is fairly easy, and a lot of fun when finding other creative stamps too! We set out to find two specific letterboxes, and found both.

(download)

Afterwards we decided to step up on our hiking and took a couple of trails and stairs that led us to Sugar Loaf. I was here earlier in the winter when no one had yet disturbed it in all of its snowy glory... this time, it looked as though some people had made their way here by foot, ski, and even snowmobile.

We made our way up Henry Trail towards Point Lookout, where we caught a glimpse of Sugar Loaf:

(download)

Then slowly made our way down the stairs. This was probably not our best idea, since the stairs were half wet and half covered in snow, therefore creating slimy, slippery stairs!

(download)

My friend, Myron, works for the island, and has been working very hard to clear the roads and trails of trees and branches that had fallen from last weekend's snow storm. We actually lost a lot of lilac tree branches and some lilac trees because of all that heavy snow, which is incredibly unfortunate. Myron noticed a couple other branches at the bottom of the stairs, and cleared the way for us.

And finally... Sugar Loaf!

It won't be long until all these barriers will be taken out for the summer!

Another thing I noticed along the way - the amount of litter left in the park. I brought a bag with me on our hike specifically for picking up empty bottles and trash. Every little bit counts!

I'm hoping that with this warm weather coming up that my friends and I might be able to take more hikes and more time to pick up litter as we go along.

Mackinac Island also hosts a Geocaching event, the 6th Annual Spring Fling, which takes place this year on the weekend of April 28th. Find out more about geocaching at www.mi-geocaching.org or www.geocaching.com. If you're interested in learning more about letterboxing, please visit www.letterboxing.org or www.atlasquest.com.

The Aftermath of a Snowstorm

How does your town compare to the snow on Mackinac Island?

As I walked downtown to buy some groceries, I was amazed by how the snow had not only fallen, but covered, every object and crevice outside. So of course, I had to take pictures! I've been seeing multiple pictures on my friends' facebook pages of what's going on in their towns. Here's what's going on here:

The trees & bushes in my parents' front yard:

French Lane:

The Cloghaun Bed & Breakfast:

Metivier Inn:

Luckybean Coffee House & The Birches on Market St.:

Hoban St.:

Taking the cat for a walk!:

Downtown Mackinac Island - some people leave their snowmobiles downtown when they leave the island:

(download)

... and it's not always fun to come back to a snowmobile covered in snow!

Fort Hill:

Fort Mackinac:

Father Marquette in the snow:

Trees of all kinds are weighed down with snow. Some have faired worse than these. Hopefully we can do something about it so that the lilac trees don't get damaged from the extra weight.