What is better than sliced bread? Homemade, hand-sliced bread, of course!
Today’s double batch of double-the-recipe bread.
I started making homemade bread a few weeks ago. This is something I have really been wanting to do to provide my family with a fresher, healthier option for sandwiches and such as we attempt to become a little more “homesteady” in our food choices and methods. After listening to Farm Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I had visions of instituting a baking day – the day set aside for doing the week’s baking. I figured I would start with doubling the loaf since I have this wonderful long loaf pan. That should take my family through a week.
Not.
I never realized how much bread we consumed! I made the bread on the weekend, and by Tuesday I was making another double loaf! And they were getting antsy because it was running low by Friday.
So, here is the question, was I really that oblivious to my family’s rate of bread consumption? Or (more likely) do we just love the homemade stuff so much more that we are eating more now?
My gut tells me it is the latter. I think we are eating sandwiches when we might normally have something else, having a snack of buttered bread, and I know a certain Man of the House that is having French toast for breakfast more than occasionally now 🙂
Fresh, buttered bread
I imagine (am sort of hoping!) that the novelty of it will wear off a bit… I know I have to work on my own self-control so I don’t undo all of my weight loss of the past couple of years!! But it is sooooo goood 🙂
I don’t think I shall complain about the increased consumption by my fellas, though. I know the ingredients that are going into the bread, and I know they are good. Plus, I really am enjoying the process. It does take time, but if I am going to be around the house, it is not such a big deal since much of that time is waiting on the rise or the bake.
Today I decided to give my mixer a break. I had been using it to do the kneading, but I wanted to see if there was a difference when I did it myself. I haven’t tasted these yet, but I can say that the texture seems much more tender, and I know I thoroughly enjoyed the process! It was very relaxing and rewarding to think about the good I was doing for my family while I was working the dough. Honestly, I don’t think it took that much longer, and I didn’t have to stand over my mixer trying to keep it from walking off the counter!
My first loaf (the long one) didn’t rise properly. I think I did something wrong with the yeast (trying a new brand), but it did eventually rise enough I could bake it. It will be interesting to see how it turns out on the inside… it rose in the pan the whole time I made and baked the second batch (the two smaller loaves).
So, do you bake your own bread? All the time, or just as a treat? I have made rolls, cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, and the like (and I love to bake!), but this is the first time I have attempted to nix the whole store-bought bread routine.. I am excited to try new recipes and work into whole-grains rather than this (quite delicious) white bread all the time. Now that I am getting into a routine, I am ready to expand my horizons!
After getting the interior fence in, things have settled down A LOT in the chicken yard. Atlas is much happier with his freedom to run and not be confined to his crate while we are gone or cannot be watching. The chickens seem quite content – although Dominique the Barred Rock decided to take a flight into Atlas territory the first evening when we fed Atlas. She was a little perturbed to not have access to his dish, I guess. LOL!
Two of the Black Stars did find a gap in the fencing under the coop for us. I was so surprised that day when they started carrying on with their distress calls. At first we assumed they had flown out, but when we put them back in we watched them immediately go back to the gap and exit. Noted. Fixed.
One thing the Black Stars escape showed us is that our 50+ pound livestock guardian is still very much a PUPPY. He may not look so much like a puppy anymore, but he sure wanted those birds to play with. My mom says perhaps he just knew they belonged inside the fence and was doing his job. I’m going with puppy on this one.
All in all, it has been quiet and peaceful with the critters. It has made me realize how much more time I have to do things around and in the house when I am not out with Atlas on his leash worried that he’ll have to stay too much of the day in the crate. I’ve actually gotten to clean house (yay!), start – and finish – a sewing project within a week (found some neat rooster-motif fabric at Jo-Ann’s Columbus Day sale!), start making bread for our family, continue working on my quilt that I started in 2002, and take an afternoon to head to out for an impromptu trip to the Nashville History Festival!
We did have a little scare last week with the baby chicks. With all the rain we had, it turns out the CamperCoop™ was not providing the protection from dampness that was needed. The little ladies were struggling, and we were worried about coccidiosis. We brought them in for several days to dry out and give them some medicine. They are thriving again, and we are still keeping them inside at night, but have refreshed the coop and are letting them enjoy these sunny days outside.
I will really be glad for the chicks to be big enough to start incorporating them in the main chicken yard/coop. We made a Pet Porter tunnel in the garage (two of them end to end with a chicken wire pass through) to give them more space when they are in at night. They seem to have taken a growth spurt while they were recuperating… they don’t all fit in one dog crate any more. Ryan has to go in and retrieve them one at a time in the morning so we can move them out, but it is worth it for them to stay healthy!
Until next time… we are staying busy here on the farm! Here are some pics from our adventures of late (and yes, I realize I didn’t include any Atlas pics this time… these are more about non-chicken/dog projects 😉
My new (made-by-me) apron!
Still getting beans! There are blossoms even!
Ryan at the Nashville History Festival.
Flintlock shot demonstration at the Nashville History Festival.
The best! Vintage baseball at the Nashville History Festival.
Fresh baked bread
My great-grandmother pieced this quilt, and my grandmother taught me how to quilt on it. Goal is to finish it by the end of the year.
Wow! I didn’t realize I had not posted an update all month. It has been quite busy around here indeed. For the humans, anyway.
A little front-porch-sittin. Where I come from.
Atlas has kept us busy with his puppy-ness. He has developed a taste for the feathers of our red hen and cannot be left alone at all with the chickens. So there is a lot of crate time along with a lot of leash time. That translates to a lot of time I am out in the yard walking him around instead of being inside cleaning, cooking, teaching, etc. So I hope you’ll forgive the lack of blogging 🙂
The poor red girl is a bit lacking in the tail feather department these days.
We have decided to make a semi-permanent interior fence that will allow the chickens to leave their coop and have a decent sized-run while allowing Atlas to have the perimeter of the yard to patrol and run somewhat free without the temptation of red feathers.
She was a beautiful hen… now she has a very stubby point to her tail, and I am grateful that he only caused moderate skin damage. And she still faithfully gives us a beautiful brown egg every day, so she’s only broken on the outside, I guess.
So, you’ve read this far and are wondering, “Why on earth did she title this post ‘Of Slinkys…’?” Well, a funny thing happened when we were trying to run the new fence this week. We were letting Atlas run while we were all out there working on the fence. I had finished up getting the t-posts in and Jackson was going to start cutting pieces of wire for me to tie the chicken wire on with. Problem was, he didn’t quite realize how to open the package and broke the back off. We got it situated, and were able to work with it, but it didn’t quite close all the way.
Puppy move #1: Atlas snatched a pre-cut piece of wire and took off. He thought the shiny pieces were quite fun. Nevermind how dangerous the really could be, they are pretty and fun to toss!
Puppy move #2: Atlas snatched the lid of the box of fence staples we were using to attach the wire to the trees. Needless to say, there was a pile of staples on the ground and a box half way across the yard before we got it retrieved.
By this point, I am NOT having fun. I know in the back of my mind that it should be funny, but I really wanted to get the fence done before it started raining again. Did I mention it has rained this ENTIRE week??! I’m a bit waterlogged. But, Mom and I got a little chuckle by reminding ourselves it would be funny later. Right, when I write about it. That is how it becomes funny. To me, anyway. Don’t know how funny you will all find it, but maybe it’ll bring a little smile to picture the comedy that went on in my yard that afternoon 🙂
Puppy move #3: This was the grand finale, for sure. I set the hammer, wire cutters, and the roll of baling wire down to go out of the yard to get one more post to place on the fence line. I barely got out of the yard, and I looked back to see Atlas running up the yard with the whole roll of wire in his mouth! I scampered to get back in the yard and get to him, but he dropped it on the ground before I could get to him. I was momentarily in awe of how it looked like a Slinky laid over on its side as it lay there on the ground. I reached to get it, and he picked it up. “Where?” you might ask. Right. In. The. Middle. And took off running down the yard.
If you’ve ever overstretched a Slinky, you know how hard it is to get it back the way it is supposed to be. Impossible. Well, when you picture Atlas running across the yard with about 100′ of rolled up wire streaming out on either side of him, you can imagine how this story will end.
Jerry managed to get half of it back in the packaging so that it would feed properly. I’d say that is some sort of miracle. The other half has been rewound onto a block of wood for future use.
All-in-all, this could have been much worse, and much less funny. It would be funnier if I had pictures, but that just wasn’t happening.
Obligatory vet visit pic
We did get Atlas to the vet for his last round of puppy shots. He weighed in at a whopping 49.1 pounds (4.5 months old). I keep telling myself that he is not unlike my tall children… looks like he should be more mature than he can be expected to be. I trust the breed, and I trust that his brain and instincts will catch up to his size. Hopefully soon.
I haven’t forgotten the revolving doors.
Did I mention the rain? I really have felt like a Pacific Northwesterner this week (although definitely not a native one… I don’t think I could do this for months on end!).
Atlas was in his crate one afternoon this week, and it was close enough to dusk that I wanted to just let the chickens get in the coop before letting him out instead of taking him out on the leash. One of the joys I have found in having chickens is being able to just watch them as they go about their daily duties. I was just watching them milling about and then they start hopping one-by-one onto the ramp (they don’t walk up from the bottom) and into the coop. All but one black star were in, and then it started. Red poked her head out and out she came. One or two more came out. The pecked around a while and then started going back in. And out. And in. And finally, all 6 were in. I quickly shut the door, and let Atlas out.
While watching all of this, I was commenting to Atlas about how I didn’t remember installing a revolving door in this coop. He didn’t think it was funny. He just wanted out.
Incidentally, it is nice having a dog out there for when you have these conversations. Otherwise, it might seem like I was talking to myself. Talking to the dog is much better, right?
Well, the sun is out this morning, so I am going to get busy. Today we finish the inner fence and set the dog free(er). Enjoy some more pics from the farm (including a shot of the finished inner fence since that happened before I got pics uploaded to this post 🙂
