Last weekend I planned on continuing my more detailed exploration of small-scale fodder production, during the week leading into the weekend I collected stats and took pictures. On Friday something clicked in my head and I had an overwhelming urge to make bread from scratch, BOOM distraction #1.While searching for a recipe (Sponge method had stuck in my head as being the “better” way to make flavorful bread) I found this great Blog about food that appears to be very down to earth and real and not filled with foody propaganda. The phenomenon of “trendy” has always intrigued me. Last year Paul Wheaton’s highly practical permies.com got me thinking about the permaculture thang and inspired a post, now a well written blog on real food made my head leap to the religion of foody’s. SQUIRREL! Back to bread.
Sponge after an overnight ferment
Post Kneading
Ready for first rise
post second rise
finished product
It can only be genetic, my Grandpa used to make bread every Christmas and Thanksgiving. I like to believe it was probably a connection back to his Momma or maybe even his Grandpa kinda like it is with me. My sister, Lorri, tells some great stories about our formative years and has done a great job of painting a very vivid picture of the Great man who was my Grandpa on her Blog “The King of Isabelle Avenue”. Lorri’s posts sometimes make me laugh but never fail to make me cry.
SQUIRREL
The second thing that hit me was the reality that while I had been fat, dumb, and happy believing that I had been living up to my responsibilities to my Sweety, Karen, by working on the house, the reality was that I had been rationalizing dumping the moving responsibilities on her. In acknowledgment of this fact I am diligently trying to direct my weekend project efforts towards rectifying this issue. First Step was setting a goal in my head of getting Karen’s birds moved up to Clayton.
First panel cut free
The Aviary
Results of cutting a couple hundred hog rings
We worked together and got her outdoor aviary disassembled, loaded, and moved up to Clayton on Saturday. While not a total resolution to the Bird’s it is a start. Now Karen needs to decide on the place so I can get a few more blisters hog ringing that sucker back together. That gets us to the first part of this week and Karen tackling one bedroom at a time at the old house when she gets approached by a neighbor who is going to have to move because their landlord is selling the house they rent. They are a really nice working class hispanic family with kids going to school in the neighborhood and are interested in renting our house……around the end of the month! So now the terrible process of emptying the Griffith house of 30 years worth of accumulated stuff is being accelerated. And I wonder about getting nostalgic and a bit depressed all at once?
SQUIRREL
What else could happen along with all of this? My sons Husky, Michone, broke into my coup for the second time in less than a month last Saturday night. Laura Rittenhouse wrote about her experience with this type of terrible event on her blog, in fact it rather knocked her for a loop. I work very hard to keep a more detached mindset towards my flock, constantly reminding myself that they are livestock and steadfastly refusing to name them. All of that sounds good but even with the plan developing for our “processing” this spring break when my nephew Grady was here it still gets to you. Approximately ⅓ of my chickens and all but 2 of my ducks were killed in the first attack, the second attack got another 5 chickens and both of the 2 remaining ducks (including the one exception to my naming rule, Ducken, the little drake who thought he was a chicken). Am I mad about this? Not really, more just sad. There are 2 fences between where Michone is supposed to be and the chickens and she was just following her instincts. If you read this Laura I hope you find your way back to the Blogosphere, I truly miss your wonderful writing style and so want to learn more about bee-keeping and everything going on at your new place.
SQUIRREL
This mornings attempt
Back to the present, the two loaves that I made this morning wouldn’t take near as much flour and seemed to be slow to rise. The finished product turned out good but different than last week, a little denser, a little less sweet, and slightly nutty. Trying to expand my bread making knowledge I reviewed everything I did and used , this led me to discover that not only do I have selective hearing (Karen tells me about this all the time) but apparently I have selective reading as well.
Fancy Flour
I picked this up at Trader Joe’s yesterday thinking that it was that new fangled faux wheat flour that is really just bread flour with a little bit of bran ground up real fine and used it 50/50 with my regular bread flour. Looking at the label now I can’t explain how I came to that conclusion. My wheat bread ain’t bad though.
The Fruity Chicken 
Nothing better than Grandpa’s homemade bread. I remember him talking about a cup recipe, I just wish I had paid more attention, you definitely got the genes there 🙂 He told me that he loved making bread because he could punch out all of his frustrations on the dough. The bread looks great, save me a heel.
Love this post – wandering as it is, it reflects your life and your loves. And your bread looks delicious!
Thanks for the encouragement, I had been using the chaos of moving and changes in the family as an excuse not to post.
Max, I’m here and reading blogs, but I am not sure I’ll ever get back to blogging myself. Part of it is a time thing, after stopping for a while I realised how much time I’d been spending photographing and documenting what was going on in my garden. I loved it but I don’t know when/if I’ll be ready to run down that rabbit hole again.
My new chickens are doing well – though they aren’t the sweet little pets my last 3 were. I’ll probably never get that attached to chickens again. In suburbia the chickens sat at the back door, on the farm they are away from the house in their run. So I’m less attached but I am a long way from treating them like livestock and a million miles from eating anything I care for. I think it’s a good way to live – raising your own food – but I’m too pathetic and give my heart with every dollop of yogurt.
My puppy is growing up and is getting more interested in the chickens. His instincts are there and I’ve seen him catch a bird and carry it around though not kill it, he dropped it when I commanded him and it flew away (whew). He seems to control himself with my chickens (or the fencing is enough of a deterrent). The only time I’ve seen him put his paws on the chicken run are when I’m inside trying to catch a chicken and it’s running and flapping.
I’m sorry about your birds being killed. It is hard to get mad at a dog for doing what comes naturally. I was never mad, just sad and I felt guilty. I was the one responsible to keep the birds safe and instead I trapped them in a prison with no hope of escape.
We’ve had dog attacks (at least your attack featured a respectably big dog…our flock was demolished by shitzus) and I’m so sorry…it sucks. The bread looks great, and I love when domestic skills are passed through the men in the family (my husband taught me how to crochet, and his dad taught him). The aviary looks so cool! good job! I know things are crazy with the move, but I meant to ask…do you have any comfrey that needs a home? I’d be more than happy to pay you for a few cutings to get started this spring. let me know! and good luck with the moving process…that’s rough too!
When my comfrey comes back up I will definitely give you some cuttings. Last year I was all stressed out that my comfrey had died over the winter then BOOM it is coming up everywhere! So I don’t anticipate a problem.
that would be amazing! I’ve been reading about it and I cant wait =)