Random Thoughts
Wow. Amazing how fast time can pass when you’re not having fun. My monthly friend came along like 3 all at once and I felt like I got run over by a 100 car coal train. (TMI?) My days and nights are now screwed as I was getting up every 2 to 3 hours. Thus my eating has been hit and miss and I’m down to 122 lbs. which is Bad. As soon as I hit 120 or below I start getting sick. So got to start piling on the calories. Cranky and tired are the words for the day.
I did make it out to our local Farmer’s Market and bought myself some comfort food – Butter Toffee Peanuts. I deserve them. I sucked down half the bag on the trip home. 🙂 (Oh, and I also bought ‘real’ food, kohlrabi, tomatoes, plums, mmmm – just picked raspberries.)
I still haven’t decided what to do about apportioning time for the blog (here I am at 10 pm again!), I’ve been brain fried for the last week. And I still have to do bills! I’m also currently wrangling my husband to get him to decide what in the heck he wants to do for Father’s Day and his Birthday (the 20th). He is being uncooperative. *Sigh* (with a slight growl)
Sitting in the grass late yesterday with my baby lizard, I was eating and looking at life in the grass and realized that in our hustle and bustle we forget how much goes on around us unnoticed. It made me think of this quote and it’s one I need to put up somewhere where I can see it regularly.
“The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.” — Veronique Vienne
Life at Our House
We had a pop-up thunderstorm that made me smile. It was over our house pouring down the rain and in the back part of our yard the sun was shining.
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School is out and Spider Bait is now home for the summer. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to be working his butt off helping his mother get Shtuff done.
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Okay, Saver of Bugs, here is the sourdough bread recipe leaving out proofing times and temps, just doing it the way I do it at home.
World Bread
Mix the 1/2 cup of sourdough with 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 cup of water. Cover bowl and sit on top of the refrigerator. Do this right before you go to bed. (Note: In the summer it should be warm enough in your room that you don’t have to do this downstairs. Out of curiosity, you should check the temps on your dorm fridge every 15 min. for about an hour and a half. You might be able to raise the loaves on it.)
When you get up, add 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup water and mix well. Cover and put up on the fridge (or in your room – you’re looking for min. 72 degrees, no more than 85). Let it work no less than 4 hours. Depending on how warm your room is or on top of the fridge, the culture will start to go down at about 8 hrs. At 12 hours it is flat. I generally like to set up the loaves at about 6 hours. But I’ve done it all along the time frame at one time or another.
Bread time. Grease both bread pans and make sure you have enough space to knead bread. Get your small saucepan out and toss 2 tbsp butter in it at medium heat. With my old nasty pans, you should probably do it at a notch or so below medium. When the butter is melted, put in the 1 cup milk and heat till lukewarm. Remove from heat and add 2 tsp. salt and 2 tbsp. sugar and mix till dissolved. Pour into sourdough mixture and mix well. Begin adding flour 1 cup at a time till it gets too hard to stir well. This is usually at about 5 cups for me. Dust kneading surface with flour and tip sourdough out of bowl and start kneading and adding the rest of the flour. Knead till smooth and elastic. Depending on how humid it is and how dry the flour, you may need less than the 6 cups or more. This is the part you learn to do by feel. You want the dough as moist as possible and still workable and elastic. Not gummy gooey. Not stiff as a brick.
Divide the dough into 2 loaves, knead into shape and drop into the pans. As wide as those bread pans are moosh the dough to cover the bottom. Cover and let raise in a warm spot till the tops are just barely below the top of the pans. About 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. If you forget and the dough gets above the pan sides, use a fork or the tip of a knife to burst the bubbles or the top of the crust will come off when you cut it. Spray or brush with water and cut the tops of the loaves. Bake at 375 for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from pans and cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting.
(You are feeding your sourdough at least once a week – riiiight?)
Fur Babies and Other Friends
This poor baby deer, just out of his spots, was apparently hit by a car. That front leg is barely moveable. And it clearly didn’t learn much from the experience, ’cause my husband almost hit him the next night coming home!
Will someone please explain to me how in the heck this is comfortable? He didn’t even wake up when I turned the light on to take the picture!
Out In The Yard
Our header for today is one of my daughter’s Dianthus.
My lizard with no name* is also part of the yard stuff today, or should I say – last night. They need sun to manufacture Vit D to process calcium and I don’t have a UV bulb up yet so I take him outside. While sitting there, I started watching life in the grass. It was sooo relaxing. There is so much going on right beneath our feet. I managed to get a couple of pictures of my lizard and a couple of the lawn’s occupants living their lives around my feet.
The Jungle
Naw, I don’t let him run free.
I’m so cute!
Busy, busy, busy, Bee. It was really hard to get a picture of one of these guys!
One of my fav’s, the Preying Mantis. That clover flower next to him is about the size of a pea.
(*What to name this lizard? I keep calling him Squirt, but he won’t be a Squirt forever. More on that in my next post. I kinda liked Willow but everyone’s running away screaming on that one. Then Cooper kinda hit me, but Spider Bait sneered at that one too. And apparently my hair dresser says it has to have a lizardish name or a dragon name. [Spider Bait got his haircut today and was discussing my lizard.] Suggestions?)
Movement
Also while I was miserable this past week, I had problems with my right knee. A reminder that I need to find my ankle weights and start back on my old knee exercises. Horseback riding in the number of hours that I was putting in back in the day plus running created a muscle imbalance that will always be with me. When I was working and running it wasn’t so much a problem because I was also doing weight work to keep my body evened up. It was during the off-season when the muscles began to atrophy that my knees would give me the most trouble. At one point the imbalance pulled my kneecaps sideways, which was less than fun and had one doctor wanting to cut the muscles off the sides of my kneecaps. Well, you know that ain’t happening. I eventually found a doctor and runner who realized what was going on and gave me exercises to do to save my knees and keep me moving. The catch? It will always be there and require exercises to keep my parts where they belong. So gotta get back to it.
Things did straighten up enough that I started walking again yesterday. NO sore muscles! I’m excited. I’ll walk a couple more times and if I still have no soreness I’m going to go from 20 min. to 25 min. and see what happens. Squee!
Mug of the Day
I really need to bake some homemade ones. Mmmmm…
Critters and Chaos 