blackberry bread Harold

Yesterday I busied myself using some berries picked by Mona's lovely mom. There was an enormous bowl of them, enough to make a batch of seedless blackberry jam from my favorite french jam book. Delicious!

And what would jam be without fresh bread to eat it on? Usually my loaves are hearty and dense, and I've been looking for a more casual loaf. You know, the sort that you could use for a sandwich without feeling like you're eating a bread bomb. Usually I end up with open-faced sandwiches because two slices at a time are too heavy. There is a great shared blog written by several excellent bread bakers called A Year in Bread, and I tried out their farmhouse white loaf.

the autolyse period, where I discovered that my biggest bowl was way too small

It's a big recipe and makes three loaves. Big enough that I couldn't use my kitchenaid to knead for me. Luckily I was having a good-hands-day and was able to enjoy getting sticky and kneading the huge lump of dough until it was smooth. Though I typically prefer multi grained bread, a straight-up white recipe seemed like just the thing to make a tender fluffy loaf. The milk in the recipe ensured tenderness. The verdict from Charlie: tastes very much like an english muffin and is good. I had a piece of toast last night and it toasted up very crispy and was lovely with a little butter and cinnamon. A success!

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I missed today's Summer Fun Time excursion because I went to Bellevue to see if I could solve my thorny smocking problem. After consulting with a woman at the sewing & vacuum store, the answer seems to be using a new bobbin casing and adjusting it. The experiment will happen tonight.


At least Mona went to the farm and was kind enough to take a picture of Harold for me. He seems to be quite happy there, still hanging out with Buzz the duck and Tom the other (much more impressive looking) turkey. I really have to go out there and visit him...

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 50

Septic Excitement

To cap off our Plumbing 2008 Extravaganza, I decided to have our septic tank pumped. Every three years or so you need to have people with an enormous tanker truck come and suck all of the, well, all of the crap out of there: all of the solids that have settled to the bottom to the tank over time and have not decomposed. It's mostly toilet paper. You can use the most eco friendly stuff in the world and it still just sits in there, because there is no motion in the tank to help break it up. It's grease and oils too. Just unpleasant all the way around.


It was fun having the guy come because while I'd had a peek inside the tank when the plumber was here getting rid of the clog of grease (ours) and baby wipes (all visitors are hereby put on notice! No baby wipes in the toilet!) I hadn't seen how the whole production works. It's complicated and simple at the same time. Stuff flows into the main tank from a pipe connected to all of the drains in the house. Solids settle to the bottom. Water and pure liquid trickles into a second tank which has a rudimentary filter on the pipe. It would let, say, a sesame seed through but not anything bigger. That pure liquid goes through an even smaller filter into a third tank with a pump in it. There is a float in there, and when the level rises high enough a pump kicks on and pushes the liquid out through a long pipe to our drainfield. There the water percolates out through the soil and re-enters the universe at large.


It's simple until something goes wrong. If your pipe clogs, or solids get somewhere they aren't supposed to be then the liquid has nowhere to go. And if you put too much liquid in your drainfield it doesn't have time to ease into the environment and things can go horribly horribly awry. So forgive me if I'm a bit paranoid about the whole operation. Even though we're only at the 2.5 year mark, I decided to have the tank pumped just to see how things were going.

Turns out, we're pretty good. There was plenty of crap (hehe) in there, but it wasn't super full or anything. And the pumper guy was happy to show me how everything worked, and even how to clean the filter myself. This lets me troubleshoot some of the more simple problems, instead of calling a professional each time. All in all, an interesting experience!

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As a palette cleanser, behold an apple! Our mini-orchard of 5 trees planted last year are going to bear a miniature crop, but they are our own apples and they will be delicious.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 46

Ivy experiment

Ivy supply station, otherwise known as the front yard.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time weeding our land. There are many legitimate plants and trees and bushes, but there are also huge tracts of wood-chip-mulched ground. It's pretty, it's landscaping and it helps to define the yard, but it is a pain in the rear to keep weeded. Invasive morning glories and buttercups and horsetails and lots and lots of blackberry spikes provide me with a solid two weeks of nonstop weeding per year, usually done in two or three-day bursts. It is tiring. Once I finish the circuit, it is time to start over again.

ready for transplant

One of my least favorite areas is the side slope next to the propane tank and path to the back grass area. It's a steep slope, and the mulch makes for very spongy footing. You can sink in to your ankles in some places, depending on how hard you put your feet down. Plants love this fluffy loam. When Mom was here a few years ago, she suggested taking some of the (invasive) ivy from the front yard and just shoving it in the dirt to see if it would grow. We did it in a few places, and darned if the stuff hasn't taken hold. It hasn't spread like wildfire, but it's there and it's holding the slope in place and making less room for weeds to grow.

the bottom half of the hill is buttercups, which I have given up on and am just mowing along with the lawn, since the slope is more gradual at the bottom. The older experimental ivy is towards the tree in the back.

Today I decided to do a weeding run and then put in some more ivy. It's still the tail end of the summer, and it has been raining pretty frequently. I'm probably breaking some sort of landscaping law by transplanting an invasive plant and encouraging it, but it's just the right thing for the job. Most of what I put in today I yanked off of a tree that it was climbing. I'll cross my fingers that it takes hold and spreads. Perhaps next year I will have a few less days of weeding!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 42

Cherries, bowl of

Verdict: the pea soup turned out quite tasty, actually. There will be no photos because no matter how you light it pea soup just doesn't look appetizing. It only tastes good.

Sneak peek at a work in progress:

And a project from earlier this month: matching pants for Calliope and Sappho:

Sappho appears indifferent to her sister's sweet kiss

Now I'm heading back down to the basement to sew. I've been re-finishing the kitchen cabinets and that stain sure is smelly!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 5!
Eggs laid this year: 38

Shmouse

First, a peculiarity of mine. I have an intense aversion to sampling food while I am cooking it. About 2/3 of the times I cook I am working from a recipe of some kind, so aside from salting to taste I am usually fine. Charlie is used to me handing him a spoon during cooking and asking if it needs anything. Him finishing the dishes also helps because I am notoriously stingy with salt. Charlie has a magic touch with it, and I just can't get it through my head that it is ok to put salt on things and that it makes them taste better.

The problem comes on days like today. I decided to make pea soup, and had a random assortment of items to work from: smoked ham hock, some peas, an onion, and some kielbasa. I enriched some of my own vegetable stock by simmering the hock in it for an hour or so. While it was de-fatting in the measuring cup I sauteed up the onion and kielbasa pieces. Then I tossed in the dried peas.

I tried to test the broth to see how it was, and if the soup needed more spices or if the ham hock was super salty. I had a spoonful of broth and I put it my mouth and I just couldn't do it. I gagged and had to spit it out in the sink. Mind you, this reaction has absolutely nothing to do with the way the broth tasted. It's probably fine, seeing as my homemade broth has a ton of ingredients and strong notes of thyme and bay leaf. But I won't know until the soup is done. There is some switch that flips in my mind when the dish is complete and in a serving bowl.

I'd say there is a 25% chance that I will be eating toast for dinner and the chickens will have some pea soup.

Strange? Why yes, I am.

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Second: don't look to closely at the picture if you are squeamish. This is how cats tell you that they love you. This is also why you never get out of bed in the morning without looking first.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Wednesday: 3
Eggs laid this year: 24

anthropomorphic rust

So I bought some cooling racks from Williams Sonoma. I bought fancy awesome cooling racks because I figured that they would last for a long time and not bow if I put heavy stuff on them. I bought two. One of them is as beautiful as the day I bought it. The other has started rusting wherever there is a cross in the metal.

I figured, hey, these are fancy. So I should be able to walk into the store with my sad rusty rack and swap it out for a new one, even though I have long since lost the receipt. Good plan! So I go to the store today with my mangled rack. A woman I encounter on the sales floor is full of pity and says of course they will exchange. I search the baking section: no extra racks. On my way to the back I find a tablecloth I have coveted for months for 75% off.

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Tangent: One of the best ways to get decorator fabric (either interesting patterns or heavier weights than normal quilter's cottons) is to buy something not in a fabric store. All of my neutral soft cottons? Old sheets from the Goodwill. They really don't make sheets like they used too. If you find someone's grandmother's white bedsheets, chances are they will be of a thread-count and softness that you just can't buy any other way. Looking for something a little heavier for bottom-weights or jackets? Even though your fabric started out as a tablecloth, there's nothing stopping you from cutting it up and making something else out of it. And at 75% off, that works out to less than $5 a yard (in this particular case) and you can't beat that.

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Anyway. So I went to check out with my tablecloth and waved my cooling rack around, hoping that they would have extras in the store-room. The woman at the register took my breath away. In a matter of numbing seconds, she declared that the rack was incapable of rust and that I could just wash it off. She grabbed a sponge from a nearby sink and proceeded to (yes!) rub some of the rust off. Yes, retail woman, rust comes off. This doesn't mean that I want my baked goods to reek of oxidation. And then came my favorite sentence:

"You see, this metal just thinks it can rust! It isn't actually rusting, because it can't! It just believes that it can!"

I chose the best option: smile and thank her for her miraculous insight, pay for the tablecloth, and get the hell out of there. I will go back another day and hopefully exchange my rusty sad rack for a new one. One that is a bit more firm in it's non-rusting beliefs.

Today's bread: pumpernickel. There are an awful lot of ingredients, but it's the best recipe I've ever used.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 2
Eggs laid this year: 19

Cougar Mtn

Today's park trip was to the Cougar Mountain Zoo. The neighborhood in Issaquah looks like this: lake. house. house. house. house. zoo. house. house.

hyacinth macaw says hello

It's an interesting place for a zoo, and quite tiny. They've got a lot of parrots, some alpacas, lemurs, wallabys, reindeer, a cougar, and (exotically) two tiger adolescents. I'd heard about the zoo before, usually around chrismas-time because of the reindeer. There were just enough animals to be interesting but not exhaustive to toddlers.

an alpaca named Charlie Brown. Mine is cuter!

I can imagine buying a house in the neighborhood: lake view, park-like setting, occasional tiger roars and lemur screams from next door. That would be awesome!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Wednesday: 2
Eggs laid this year: 10

Lol Chickens

What's up?

Chicken butt!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs laid this year: 5

Heather Ross, you minx

I can honestly say that she makes my favorite fabric patterns. There are many other designers that I adore, but only Heather Ross would do a gnome-themed collection one year, and mermaids another.


The gnome has been out of production for a while now, but I managed to snap up a few yard and have been hoarding it in my basement for some future project.


This fall's design features mermaids and octopi and seahorses and fish and it is lovely. I managed to find out about it shortly after it became available, and I am convinced that is the only reason I was able to buy a few precious yards. I had to sift through several online fabric stores to find one that still had it in stock.

Now it's going to get washed, folded, and lovingly tucked into my fabric stash to mellow until I find something amazing to do with it. It may take me a few years, but I'll figure something out.

the stash, when it was neatened, about a year ago. It looks like a crazy fabric explosion right now.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 2
Eggs laid this year: 4

The Girls Have Begun

supervisory dolphin

Yesterday we went to a fabulous five-year-old's birthday party. A pool party. There was a small blow-up pool, yes, but the big attraction was a towering inflatable waterslide. We're talking a 12 foot high enormous slide that you would see at a carnival. I had no idea you could rent such things, but you can! The kids were crazy for the thing, going up the stairs and sliding down into a pool of water over and over. The garden hose worked full time just to keep up with the water that got sloshed out.

cup-cones

The dessert was something I had never seen before. Instead of cooking cake batter in a pan or cupcake tin, you spoon it into ice cream cones. When finished, the top gets frosted and you have a dessert that requires no plate or utensils. And it was quite tasty too.

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The big news for today: someone laid the first egg! I have no idea who it is, but it must be one of the smaller chickens. I had on the top of next week's task list to re-do and enlarge the nest boxes. When I built them I forgot just how large grown hens are. I picked up the fluffy blonde one the other day and tried to put her in a box to show her where it was.....and I shoved, and shoved, and she couldn't fit more than half of her body in it. Poor chicken. At least she was calm, with me pushing her and then pulling her back out when it became clear that it was a physical impossibility. She was like a 35 year old trying to put on jeans she wore in high school.

But somebody fit in there! I'm going to start this year's egg count now, since I never kept a proper tally of Marian the turkey's eggs or the very occasional Gladys egg.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs laid this year: 1

Bodkin Granola

Gabe and Nick have the best recipe for granola ever. I made my third batch of it last night and have decided that it is impossible to mess up (unless you don't use a timer and burn it). To make your very own:


Bodkin Granola

4c rolled oats
2c raw wheat germ
3c fruit/nut mixture
1c brown sugar
3/4c vegetable oil
1/3c water
1t cinnamon
1t salt
2T vanilla

1. In a skillet, dry roast any nuts that you want to add to the granola, set aside to cool. Preheat the oven to 275.
2. In a large bowl, combine oats and wheat germ.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix brown sugar, oil, water, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Blend until smooth and pour over oat/wheat germ. Mix well.
4. Spread mixture evenly on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes so that it is evenly browned.
5. Remove from oven and gently add nuts and fruit to mixture. Allow to cool completely (it will crisp as it cools) and transfer to an airtight container.

Yield: makes about 8 cups

my roasted pecans, dried blueberries, and dates ready to add (by the way, this combination turned out to be much sweeter than I thought!)

In the oven, after the first stirring. It starts out pale and ends up dark and tasty.