It was bright and sunny this morning when I went out to the garden. Happily I saw that most everything I had planted was now pushing it's way up through the soil.
Can you see the little green sprouts poking up here and there? The cucumbers are planted along the edge of the pallet fence.
See the tiny green tomato?
I was also greeted by two wild rabbits. They appear to be quite young yet, juveniles. I can't see that they've eaten anything from the garden yet, but if they do too much damage I'll have to see about putting up a rabbit fence.
Later
grandkids came over and got in the pool for the first swim of the season.
I hadn't got the skimmer set up so there was a little more than usual floating on the surface.
Surprisingly it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. It was cold when you first got in but you warmed up to it pretty quickly.
I didn't get any pictures of the clouds coming in, but the way it was starting to look, I got the kids out of the pool and everything put away just about the right time. They had time to get all dried and dressed and for their mother to pick them up before the rain and hail came. We had some marble sized hail with the first storm front and the second front dropped smaller hail. I hope the garden has
faired well, I guess I'll find out when I check it tomorrow. I had a loaf of bread making in the bread maker while the kids were out swimming. After giving all the
grandkids at least one slice of hot buttery bread I hardly had enough for sandwiches tomorrow, which is why I was making it.
So I had to make a second loaf, which K-Monster probably would've eaten all on his own if I would have let him. I may have to make another loaf tomorrow.
Can you see the little green sprouts poking up here and there? The cucumbers are planted along the edge of the pallet fence.
See the tiny green tomato?
I was also greeted by two wild rabbits. They appear to be quite young yet, juveniles. I can't see that they've eaten anything from the garden yet, but if they do too much damage I'll have to see about putting up a rabbit fence.
Later grandkids came over and got in the pool for the first swim of the season.
I hadn't got the skimmer set up so there was a little more than usual floating on the surface.
Surprisingly it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. It was cold when you first got in but you warmed up to it pretty quickly.
I didn't get any pictures of the clouds coming in, but the way it was starting to look, I got the kids out of the pool and everything put away just about the right time. They had time to get all dried and dressed and for their mother to pick them up before the rain and hail came. We had some marble sized hail with the first storm front and the second front dropped smaller hail. I hope the garden has faired well, I guess I'll find out when I check it tomorrow. I had a loaf of bread making in the bread maker while the kids were out swimming. After giving all the grandkids at least one slice of hot buttery bread I hardly had enough for sandwiches tomorrow, which is why I was making it.
So I had to make a second loaf, which K-Monster probably would've eaten all on his own if I would have let him. I may have to make another loaf tomorrow.
13 comments:
those storms were pretty serious last night. glad to see your greens coming up!
Good Morning, Heidi! The worst threat we were under here was hail, but my folks live in south Wichita and they had some circulation in the clouds in their area for a while. At one point the forecasters were saying that a tornado was on the ground at 71st and Hydraulic, but later no one seemed to be able to find any damage and I haven't heard today.
Hmmm....my goodness...I know I just wrote a comment, but where did it go? Hopefully, I did not send it somewhere else.
Glad to hear that you are okay. We were in Wichita yesterday and caught the very beginnings of the storms before heading home. DD and I saw two tornadoes as we were headed back west. They came down and then disappeared into the rain.
Looks like the grandkids had a wonderful time. That is what going to Grandma's is all about! Your yard looks like the perfect place for a STAYcation and I hope you will join us for the STAYcation Extravaganza. I still need to figure out that Mr. Linky thing.:)
I like the layout of your garden, but I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE your compost bin!
The bread (almost) has me wanting to go bake bread. That will probably be the very first thing we cook in our solar oven when it arrives.
~anajz~
I just took a walk out to the garden, I'll post pictures later. We've got water standing, which is unusual for us, but no damage. Do you know that I didn't see a tornado till I was an adult? And I'm born and raised in Kansas.
I like being able to vacation in my yard. I know where everything is.
If you liked the compost bin then you might want to check out the links to Humanure in my showerhouse post.
Bread making took on a different meaning when my folks gave me a bread machine. I had made plenty of bread by hand, rather time consuming. With the breadmaker it's just measure ingredients and push a button. : )
I recall a solar oven being used at girlscout camp, but I don't remember what was cooked.
As you may have noticed at my place...I have had some failures with my home-fashioned solar cookers. I so anxious for my commercial solar oven to arrive.
Yes, I did read about your experience with solar cooking thus far. I will be interested to see how your commercial unit works out.
The kids look like they are having such a good time! I love your garden shots...
Part of my reason for baking bread for me is that I like the stress-relieving part of kneading the dough.. it's therapeutic to me! I have kneaded probably tons of dough... I was the dough person at Daylight Donuts for three and a half years, 6 days a week!
Anita, here's the first bread recipe I ever used to make bread...
Whole Earth Bread
1 c oats, corn meal, or wheat germ
2 tsp salt
1½ c water (warm)
2 egg yolks
¼ c sugar (raw is best)
4 c flour
1 pkg active dry yeast
_ c corn oil or butter
1 c dry milk
Stir lightly in a large bowl the oats, cornmeal or wheat germ (depending on the flavor bread you desire), the water and sugar. Sprinkle in the yeast and wait 10 minutes for the yeast to do its thing. Add salt, egg yolks, corn oil and dry milk. Mix with a fork. Blend in the flour. The dough should be dry and a little lumpy. Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for a half hour. Now mash, punch, blend and kick the dough and return it covered to its warm place. The dough will double in size. When this happens, separate the dough into two even masses and mash each one into a greased bread (loaf) pan. Cover the pans and let sit until the dough rises to the top of the pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven that has not been pre-heated. A shallow tray of water in the bottom of the oven will keep the bread nice and moist. When you remove the pans from the oven, turn out the bread into a rack and let it cool off. Once you get the hang of it, you'll never touch ready-made bread, and it's a gas seeing yeast work.
STEAL THIS BOOK
By Abbie Hoffman
http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html#2.01.0
The bread in your photo looks to be a good sandwich bread. Would you be willing to share that recipe?
I am new to bread baking and would like to find a recipe for a decent sandwich bread. My family would like for me to find one that has the same consistency as commercial bread.
~anajz~
anajz - WOW, I had to go to the Internet Archive to find the web page that I got MY recipe from. Here's a tinyurl for it...
http://tinyurl.com/6fxlnj
You didn't say whether you were using a bread machine or not. My slant on this recipe is to use 1tblsp of the liquid 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' and 1tblsp olive oil, then I use Eagle Mills All-purpose Unbleached flour (made with Ultragrain) that I bought at Sam's, sea salt, Splenda Brown Sugar Blend and then a smidge more yeast than what it calls for. I think the next time I fix it I'm going to use all olive oil and see what difference that makes. I think the ICBINB makes it heavier. At the link I sent you might want to check out the 'Recipes' link at the top of the page. From there, there's a Bread link and then a link to a recipe for Beginners Bread. She gives lots of tips and suggestions.
I never made yeast bread with corn meal before... that's interesting... I usually use my grandma's recipe :)
PS - lately, I always make sourdough
This is sad, I can't find my copy of the book. I wanted to see if it had something other than "_c corn oil or butter". All the recipes I find online have the same thing. My breadmaker recipe for about the same amount of of flour calls for 2tblsp of oil. So I wonder if that was suppose to have been a fraction.
Do you need a started for sourdough bread? I always think of mom's 'Happy Fruit' when I think of starters. After doing a search I find that it is called "Friendship Fruit".
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