Waste Not Want Not

After my horrible ordeal with the Sour Dough Bread being a miserable flop again, I broke the loaf up into large hunks and tossed it out into the yard for the birds. I figured either they would eat it or if not the squirrels would surely enjoy it. If neither of them wanted to partake of this bounty, I'd give it to the dog next door!  Since she is part shepherd and part wolf, I figured she would love it! A far cry from the dog food that she normally gets.

I checked yesterday evening and the backyard was filled with birds, swooping in and pecking away at the bread. This morning not one morsel is left out there!

I did make another loaf of regular white bread in my bread machine last night. I could hardly wait for it to come out of the machine. I love the smell and taste of warm bread!

That's It, I've Had It!

No more attempts at making Sour Dough Bread using a natural starter without any yeast!  In fact, I am going back to anything but Sour Dough from now on! I have tried and tried repeatedly and the loaf before this one came out hard as a rock  or a brick, whichever you want to compare it to!  Reminded me of the very first attempt I made at baking just plain regular old bread when I first got married!  Poor new husband, didn't know he married a woman who could barely boil water without burning it!  I do think that the first "french fried eggs" I made for him sorta gave that fact away though!  Anyway, back to the bread, I didn't start that project until late in the evening, and when it said to punch it down, put it into the bread pans and let it rise again, I didn't do that. I figured it could rise as it cooked!  Needless to say, I had two wonderful bricks in about an hour!

That is how I am feeling about this Sour Dough Bread at the moment. Now mind you, I've tried several different recipes from several different cookbooks and I really do know how to read instructions. So much for trying to be economical and make bread without having to use yeast all the time. I made an Artisan Loaf tonight, the outer crust was so hard I almost broke the bread knife trying to slice into it. Once I got it cut, the inside is gummy and gooey and it cooked for 45 minutes like the instructions said!  Oh well, back to the bread maker in the morning!

I hope the birds will eat it! 

Life's Little Pleasures

Spring has sprung! The sun is shining, spreading its warmth all over my little city. It is about 72 degrees outside and the air smells fresh and clean.I can hardly hear the noise of the traffic on the busy street which is four blocks away and I am truly enjoying the serenity and almost silence of the day. I decided to walk up to the store, just a couple of blocks away, to get a few things for dinner  and to enjoy the feel of concrete under my feet instead of the ice and snow of several weeks ago.

On the way back, my neighbor was out sitting on her porch enjoying the sunshine so I stopped to say hello and visit for awhile. It was good to see her home since she'd been in the hospital for about a week in ICU with double pneumonia. Pretty scary stuff for such a young woman of only 34! Even though she is still not 100%, some congestion still in one lung, she is on antibiotics and feeling much better. It was good to see her smiling and on the mend.

As I came around to the corner of my yard, I noticed a profusion of yellow flowers in the flower beds. There are multitudes of Jonquils/Daffodils growing. Many are in full bloom and others are still buds, waiting for another day before they spring forth into bloom. I was able to gather enough flowers, a good sized hand full, put them in a vase and set them here on the desk in my office. What a beautiful reminder that spring is here at last!

I love fresh flowers from the garden and from my own garden makes them all the more special. As many of you know from reading previous posts on my blog, I am not the world's best gardener. The things that I don't have to mess with seem to survive the best. The things that require watering I think I "over love" because my vegetable garden last year, I tended to and it died.

Now I am going to grab a fresh cup of coffee, go out and sit on the bench on my front porch and soak up some of this gorgeous sunshine.  Live is good!

Beans Beans The Musical Fruit

As some of you know from reading my blog entries from last summer, my first gardening attempt failed miserably. I was very devastated to think that just the few things I put out did not bare fruit.  I had a flat of tomatoes, that did produce a couple “itty bitty” tomatoes but then they fell of their vines or the birds got to them before they had a chance to grow big enough for me to enjoy.  The bell peppers and jalapeno peppers looked like they were going to do something. There were little flowers and then those changed to little pods and I was like an expectant mother, waiting for the birth of her child, thinking I would soon have some produce. Nothing happened, they wilted up and I got nothing!  My bright idea of trying to grow potatoes in a pillowcase (yep I read about it on the web) ended up a disaster also. The pumpkin seeds never even broke the ground! My pot of herbs withered and died. The only thing that grew was one jalapeno pepper plant where t I took a seed and shoved it into a flowerpot!  I actually got one whole pepper!

Therefore, you can imagine how excited I was today when I checked some pinto beans that I had shoved down into the dirt of three pots that are sitting on my kitchen window ledge!  I soaked the beans for a day before I planted them and then just shoved them down into the dirt. Then today, here are little green things poking up, little stems with what look like little green hats!  I hope that our cold weather will hurry up and vamoose on out of here so I can get them into the earth outside. 

I think I need to get a couple more pots loaded up with dirt and get some onions started. If I remember correctly those are another one of the veggies I need to start early.

Can you tell that I am determined to have a garden this year?  After going to the convenience store tonight to get gas, that was $3.18 a gallon on Wednesday and was $3.29 today, with rumors that it will be $4.00-$4.50 by tomorrow morning, I decided I needed to get some in the tank quickly.  Now granted, I do not drive far and I do not drive often, but I sure want some gas in the tank and not have to pay an arm and a leg for it, which I anticipate happening worse than it already has!  I totally expect us to see $5.00 a gallon by this summer.  Guess we shouldn’t gripe too much, those in foreign countries pay a lot more than we do, not only for gas but for other goods as well and I am not sure that their ratio of income to debts is any better than ours are. Therefore, I will count my blessings and hope that my garden is a success this year in order to take some of the strain off the old pocketbook.

Bitten By The Spring Bug

I don't know about anyone else but I've been bitten by the "spring bug" and I've thrown open the windows to let the fresh air blow through the house. As a kid I used to laugh when I'd hear someone talk about doing their spring cleaning but I am long since over that because over the years I've come to appreciate the meaning of those words. You want to get in there and clean every nook and cranny, to  get out all the stale smells that accumulated in  your home from being closed up all winter long. The sun is shining and you want to open all the curtains and let it shine into your home,  the warm glow it creates as the beams of light come streaming across your freshly polished floor.

Many people go through an entire redecorating phase at this time of the year. Some will think about painting, be it one room or the entire house. Others will be adding light colored slipcovers to furniture, changing out throw pillows, getting out the light weight curtains and adding spring colored spreads to their beds.

Spring is a the beginning of life anew; be it the start of new grass and flowers growing, to that of the birth of farm animals, the return of the robins or domestic animals looking for a mate. We emerge from winter, wanting to shed all the extra layers of clothing and the heaviness of multiple blankets and comforters on our beds that kept us warm for the past few months. Spring is wanting to go out and dig in the dirt or run through mud puddles after a rainstorm and the clean fresh smells that the rain brought with it.

It is a good time to be cleaning out your closets and drawers, to give things to a charity, offer them to some one in need or have a garage sale and earn a few extra bucks.Now you can reorganize those closets and cabinets with ease.

I am so anxious to get busy with a paint brush it isn't funny. I have a large bookcase shelf unit that needs some repair work first and then a fresh coat of paint. Then I am bringing it indoors, putting it in my laundry room to become my pantry shelves. After that is done, I need to put a fresh coat of paint on the little country bench that sits on my front porch. 

What projects are you going to tackle?

The Last Hurrah!

Well, I truly think we now have had the last winter storm for this year.  At least I hope so! When parts of Oklahoma have the lowest low temperatures recorded in history, at 21 and 31 degrees BELOW ZERO, and two storms back to back, I certainly hope they are over.  There was just enough of a 24 hour break between where some people were brave enough to get out on slick, ice and snow covered streets to grab more supplies before the next round came through.

Now we start preparing for what could either be a rough spring with many outbreaks of tornadoes or a very quiet one with no tornadoes but lots of wildfires. Yes, I did say wildfires because even with all the snow we received the weather forecasters say we are still experiencing a drought.

With as much of the country being affected by our recent weather, not only in our country but world wide, my concern is for what has happened to all our crops. I am expecting to see food and gas prices going through the roof sky high!  Just one more reason to be sure to replenish those pantries as soon as possible.

I know that once it warms up a little bit more, probably in the next week or so, it will be time to start getting those early garden plants into the ground. It will also be time to do any repairs on my storm shelter so that it is ready to go once our spring tornado season is upon us. I am not going to be waiting until the last minute.