Holy Moley!

Is this a beautiful loaf of artisan bread or what?

Our daughter has been experimenting in my kitchen (lucky me!) perfecting the making and baking of sourdough bread.

Yesterday she turned out this three pound loaf of all-einkorn flour sourdough artisan bread. 

How did it taste?

Wonderful!  Great texture, flavorful, hearty and wholesome.

She also made a loaf of rye with rye sourdough starter she's been working on.  Considering the bread was made with 100% rye flour, I'd call it a success.  (Rye flour has very little gluten in it which makes any rye bread difficult to rise.)  She wants to work on getting it to be a loaf higher in volume, but we all agreed you couldn't improve upon the texture and flavor of this sourdough rye.

But that wasn't all she baked.

She made a dozen of these all-einkorn burger buns.  This is the recipe you steered me to, Kristina, and although we haven't taste tested them yet, I have a feeling the recipe is going to be a keeper.

Dear daughter is a talented bread baker, there no doubt about that.  Her dad is a staunch advocate of sourdough bread so he may have to hire her to come in every Monday morning to create our weekly supply of healthy sourdough bread.  (Sounds like a good arrangement to me.)

It's a treat to have her in my kitchen (doing any cooking or baking), and this sourdough bread, especially, convinces me more than ever that those grueling thirty hours of hard labor to bring her into the world were worth it!

Shuffling Ducks (And Chickens and Geese)

Our Mama Duck who hatched out a dozen ducklings and two chicks is doing great raising her little mixed brood outside in their own little chicken tractor.

Last winter we ordered new chicks from a hatchery and the boxful arrived on Tuesday, May 2nd.  One chick was dead upon arrival and we've lost two since then.

A fellow beekeeper in the area happened to contact us before the chicks arrived and asked if we knew how he could go about getting five chicks as his 8 year old daughter was very interested in raising hens in their back yard.

Back story:  A couple of years ago this same guy had given us a nuc from his own healthy bees when we were looking to build up our bees after having lost most of them over the winter.  He was very generous and wouldn't accept any payment for the nuc.  (This was at the very same time another beekeeper in the area was offering nucs for $70 each.)

We told him we had chicks on order and would call the hatchery to see if we could add a few more chicks to our order which we gladly did.  (The least we could do as a thank you for him giving us that nuc was to provide chicks for him.)

So five more chicks were added to the two dozen we had on order.  When the 30 or so chicks arrived last Tuesday, five new little peppers went home with a thrilled-beyond-belief 8 year old.

About a month ago, our good neighbor had said he would love to try hatching out some of our eggs in an incubator at his house.  So we gave him one of our incubators and some duck eggs and the one goose egg we had at the time.

Last Saturday, May 6th, the goose egg produced one honkin' big gosling which he let dry off in the incubator for a day and then brought over to us.

We put the gosling in with the about four days old chicks (who are still in their garden cart brooder in the garage), but immediately saw that was a no go.  Those darn cute little chicks turned immediately vicious and started attacking and pecking at the gosling's head.  They would have damaged an eye and/or killed the gosling, I'm sure.

So the big/little lonely gosling was put in his own separate brooder box (in the garage).

Yesterday, we took four of Mama Duck's ducklings from outside and introduced them into the gosling's brooder.  The four instantly bonded, snuggled down together and all has been happy and peaceful.  (Hallelujah!)  Now the idea is to (tonight) reintroduce the four ducklings along with their new best friend (the gosling) back into the house with Mama Duck hoping she will welcome them all back.

The two dozen rasty chicks in the garage?  Yesterday we set up another chicken tractor with two heat lamps for them out in the poultry pasture.  We monitored the temperature all day yesterday and over night last night to make sure the now week old chicks would be comfy out there, and today they will leave the garage to go to their new home.

Last in this long saga of new poultry additions to our little homestead is the report on the two female geese who have been sitting on nests.  Sad to say, the incubation period for them went far beyond their "due dates" so we removed all the (undeveloped) eggs and the two girls seem happy to be out and about with the other six geese swimming in the pond and grazing all day long on the new green grass shoots in their pasture.

We're appreciative of the new additions to our feathered flock we did get this spring.  Next year, with maturity, perhaps more of the geese and ducks will successfully hatch some offspring that can be raised naturally (a much easier way to go for us) by their mothers.  

And wouldn't it be nice if we had a broody chicken mama next year, too?

 

Oh, Spring, Wherefore Art Thou?

We've been alternating between cool, sunshiny days and cool, dark, drippy days.  Not the best for getting much speed built up on outside tasks.  But it is the merry, merry month of May in the north woods, so we shouldn't expect anything else.

Yesterday was a drippy one so I spent the day in the kitchen making four different big pots of soups/stews in an effort to restock the pantry for the upcoming busy summer months.  I was planning on making two more batches today but we did have sunshine so I worked outside digging out great quantities of the dreaded quack grass which is making an effort to invade the (as of yet empty) raised beds.

I've dropped several hints to Papa Pea that the field garden is wanting to be cultivated in order to further incorporate the compost we put on it last fall plus to beat down the early weeds.  Cultivation hasn't happened yet but the fella has been a busy beaver doing lots of other chores, all of which seem to rank as a number one priority now that the snow is gone and outside temperatures are pleasant.

Pleasant temperatures, yes;  warm temperatures, no.  We're still dropping down to the low 30s at night and even the sunny days do nothing more than tease us by getting allll-most to the 50 degree mark. 

I did some transplanting of seedlings today, planting to bigger pots.  (Avert your eyes, Rain.  I'm using those deeply despised peat pots.)  I think I have the damping off fungus under control.  Sort of.  At least nothing else seems to be dying, but out of 40 Brussels sprout seeds planted (and they were new seeds), I got germination and good growth of only 10.  Not a good ratio.  I think I still have time so I'll plant some more seeds tomorrow.

I also planted one raised bed outside today with a mixture of salad greens.  An assortment of lettuces, some spinach, Swiss chard, Scarlet Frills, arugula, radishes, kale, etc.  Covered the bed with a cold frame and am hoping for the best.  The seeds are all cool weather crops and we've certainly got the cool weather!  I'm thinking the biggest hurdle will be to make sure I ventilate the cold frame enough on sunny days and keep the seeds watered.



 

Even My Ankles Ache

Usually I start off the gardening season doing nothing more strenuous than preparing a bit of soil and planting some seeds.

This year, I decided I'd better attack the asparagus bed before any of the new shoots appeared.

I had left the ferns, which were close to six feet tall in the fall, standing and covered the whole bed with a light mulch of straw.  Now was the time for the spring clean-up.

Yesterday I started by crawling down the rows and into the maze of topped over and intertwined debris and cutting off the dead fern stalks with hand pruners.  That in itself was a challenge.  (I took my cell phone in there with me in case I got lost and couldn't cut my way out.)

I tossed the stalks off to the side and Papa Pea came along to gather them up and haul them away.

Then I spent a little time in an upright position with rake and pitchfork getting all of the mulch off the area.  I made several trips hauling it in a wheelbarrow down to a pile of "reusable" straw at the end of the main garden.

Back down onto my hands and knees again with a hand spade to dig out all the weeds that had already started to take hold.  Most of them were big dandelions (not yet blossomed) spread out flat on the ground with roots two feet down into the ground.  (Slight exaggeration.)  As seems typical, most of them (no foolin') were growing right in the center of an asparagus plant.  How to remove them without damaging the asparagus?  Very carefully.

Next I put a sprinkling of canning salt around each plant as they need sodium chloride rock salt (NaCl).  This improves overall growth and helps resist crown and root rot diseases.  (Don't use iodized table salt for this supplement as that's a whole 'nother thing.)

Again, Papa Pea helped by going to our saved stash of wood ashes and spreading a dusting of them over the whole bed which helps to raise the pH level ( which should be 7.2 or higher) required for optimum asparagus growth.

Revving up my little Mantis tiller (vroom-vroom, love that thing), I tilled in the wood ashes and maybe even eradicated any weeds under the surface that were thinking of emerging once I turned my back.  Then I raked up several inches of soil into a mound on the rows in which the asparagus is planted.  It's believed this helps prolong the abundance of the crop as sometimes the roots can slowly work their way upwards from where planted which may, in turn, produce thinner and tougher stalks.  So adding some soil in this way each year assures the roots stay as deeply covered as they're supposed to be.

Lastly, I ran the tiller around the edge of the patch a couple of times to let the sod know I'm serious again this year about not letting it creep into the patch.

In a couple of weeks, I'll lay mulch down between the rows and up near the plants.  Unfortunately, our straw used for mulch over winter had a lot of seeds left in it, and I'm expecting many of them to germinate so I'll use the tiller to beat them back a couple of times before applying the mulch.

I did, also, manage to get my Sweet Pea seeds (which I had soaked over night) planted on either side of the trellis in one of the raised beds close to the house.

Oh, yes, I was feeling the pain at the end of the day yesterday, but a couple of doses of Arnica pellets during the day and one before bed last night and I don't feel too bad this morning.  Not too bad.

The New Chicks Have Arrived

Despite all of our cajoling, pep talks and out-and-out bribery, we've not had any success in the past couple of years getting any of our hens to go broody and do what comes naturally.  In other words, hatch out some new, replacement chicks for us.

So early in 2017, we sat down and made out an order to send to a hatchery for some new chicks which arrived this morning.

Years ago, we purchased this small garden cart from folks having a household sale.  We found it a bit too small for our purposes, but a good size to use as a brooder for ducklings, goslings or, this year, chicks.

Papa Pea got it set up yesterday with heat lamps, water and food in anticipation of the chicks' arrival.

We got the call from our local post office at 7:30 this morning so Papa Pea made the trip to town and came home with a loudly peeping box of chicks who were ready to have their day and a half journey over.

All seem healthy and perky . . . except for one that succumbed on the trip through the postal service.

One half of the shipment.

The other half of the box.

They were all thirsty (understandably) and quickly got the hang of dipping their little beaks in the fresh water.  (If only it would stay that way for more than fifteen minutes!)

Now most are settled down for a nap under the heat lamps and will soon be acclimated to their new home in Minnie-soda.

First Gardening Day!

I'm calling this my first real day in the garden for the season.  Yippee!  The weather started out cool (barely 40 degrees) but climbed to feeling very warm in the sun by midday.  'Course, then by 5 o'clock it started to feel very cool again.  So goes spring time in our neck of the woods.

Chicken Mama and Gilligan were here giving us a hand with various projects all day.  At break time in the afternoon, I made a special treat using the new "soda fountain" glasses I got for my birthday.  (Thanks for the idea, Rain!)

I made strawberry shakes for us all using berries I had in the freezer from last season.  I don't think the shakes could have tasted any better with fresh strawberries.  But just for the sake of comparison (ahem), we'll have to try a repeat with fresh ones as soon as they come in this year.

Speaking of strawberries, Chicken Mama and I took the mulch off the strawberry patch.

When Papa Pea and I put the straw on the berries last fall, it was a windy day so we laid cattle panels on top of the mulch to keep it from blowing into Canada.

Aaaaand, uncovered.  The green leaves you see are the old ones from when we put the mulch on.  I'll let the soil dry for a few days, then rake up what's left of the straw.  Then a week or so (depending on good drying days) the old green leaves will turn brown and wither.  Going up and down each row on my hands and knees, clipping off the old foliage will be the next task.  Then I'll mulch around the plants with wood shavings and put some of the old straw on the ground between the rows.  If all goes well, by July 4th, we'll have all the berries we want.  Nuthin' to it!

I finished off the day by putting up the trellis in one of my raised beds where I'll plant my Sweet Peas this year.  If the weather stays decent, the seeds will go in the ground within the week.

I'm tired tonight, but it sure felt good to be out working in the garden again.