So, in between unpacking and rearranging, cooking with sourdough, feeding the critters outside and taking pictures of our deer visitor, other things have been going on.
First update: I did get an email back about our claim to the moving company.
Actually, I got two.
We are going to have to rethink how our living room is laid out again. A bit of adjusting to better suit my husband’s needs, and a bit more shifting around. Our big picture window is currently blocked off completely, and I’d like to open it up again.
Then promptly block it again. With a tripod. :-D
We had many chickadees, as usual, and a third squirrel has joined the two we usually see. Then we got this crowd.
I have been able to find our copy of A Field Guide to the Birds of North America, and was able to identify them as chipping sparrows. [correction: these are redpolls, which were not in my book at all. We get chipping sparrows in the summer.]
Then our beautiful lady came to visit again. We first saw her going through the spruce grove some distance away, but she came back for a quick feed.
What a beauty!
We have a pair of blue jays that regularly visit – likely a mated pair. One of them hung out in the spruces for a while.
I just love their colouring. They’ve always been one of my favourite birds.
It took a while – and perhaps it was found when we weren’t there to see – but today, a white tail deer finally showed up at the deer feed we’ve been leaving out.
What a beauty, too!
This is so exciting!!
(photo taken by P., using a Nikon D80 and a 70-300mm Nikkor lens)
The last couple of days, I neglected to meet my “one box a day” unpacking goal. Saturday, other things happened and Sunday, I tried to make it a day of rest (but we still did baking).
Today more than made up for it.
My daughters had a visitor at their second floor window this morning.
Hello, Rolando Moon!
Today was our first yeast bread using Sir Sour Alot. The recipe is very basic.
Typically, with yeast breads, I like to do things like use oatmeal, seeds or grains, or knead in herbs or shredded cheese.
For this one, I didn’t play around. When my pantry is better stocked, I will get more creative. I didn’t even double the recipe, like I usually do. So these buns were much tinier than what I typically make! :-D
It was quite a success.
The sourdough flavour is still quite mild with this baby starter, but it is identifiable. A bit of butter melting on the still warm buns is heavenly!
Sourdough Dinner Rolls
(adapted from The Sourdough Cookbook)
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 egg
1 cup sourdough starter
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp oil
3 – 4 cups all-purpose flour
Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and set aside for 5 minutes, or until bubbly.
In a large bowl, beat egg. Stir in sourdough, sugar, salt and oil, then stir in the softened yeast mixture.
Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. *
Continue beating in small amounts of flour to make a soft dough. **
Turn dough out onto floured surface, then wash and grease the bowl and set aside.
Knead dough, adding flour as needed, until smooth and elastic. **
Place into prepared bowl, turning to oil all sides. Cover loosely and set aside in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, or until dough is doubled.
Oil large baking sheets and set aside.
Punch down the dough, then divide into 24 pieces. Shape the pieces into rolls and arrange on prepared baking sheets. Cover with a towel and set aside to rise for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 400F.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. ***
* How much flour needed can change based on things like humidity. When I made these today, the first 2 cups was almost all that was needed. I mixed in maybe half a cup more with this batch. Likewise, rising times can change dramatically. I placed the bowl in the oven with the light on for warmth, and it took only about an hour to double in size.
** Sourdough breads will have a slightly stickier dough than those made without sourdough starter. This is normal.
*** Ovens can be quite variable. Check after 10 minutes. Of our two pans of buns, the first one was ready in 10 minutes. The other in about 15.
Sir Sour Alot is now a week old. This image is of how it looks now, after it’s been stirred. 
At this point, the starter gets more frothy than bubbly, and has a finer texture.
The starter can rest in maintenance mode now. Aside from feeding after use, it can just be stirred daily and fed lightly every two or three days. If it’s not going to be used for more than a week, it can be put into the refrigerator. It will go dormant and doesn’t need to be fed often, though the occasional stirring is good. When it’s going to be used, it should either be taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature, or just the portion needed can be removed, while the remainder is fed with the same amount of flour and warm water as was taken out, then left in the fridge. A bit of sugar to feed the yeast wouldn’t hurt, either.
None of these are hard and fast rules, of course. Once a starter is going, theoretically, it can be kept going for generations with minimal care and regular use. It’s good to remember that a sourdough starter is a living thing that needs to be cared for. Like a pet, it needs food, water, shelter, and a bit of TLC.
More fun than a pet rock, plus you can eat it.
My copy of Alaska Sourdough has been shipped, and I’m quite looking forward to it. I plan to start a new one when it comes in, but I don’t really need to have more than one starter going at once. We’ll see how the new one works out, and then decide what to do.
The Re-farmer
One of the things I was looking forward to – hoping for – with this move, is to be able to sleep again.
The few times I came out here to visit, I slept better than I had in decades, not realizing how poor quality my sleep had become.
For all the weird things going on, including the odd things that keep me up at night, this hope of mine has been true.
The last few years, I’ve been getting perhaps 4 hours of sleep at night. If I was lucky, I’d get a couple hours nap, later in the day.
One of the things that prevented sleep was noise. Traffic noise. People noise. Drunk people noise. Emergency vehicle sirens noise. Animals. The occasional crunching of vehicles hitting each other noise. Having people living on either side of our walls noise. Just… noise. I wore earplugs to sleep for many years.
The other thing that prevented sleep was pain and stress. The more stressed I was, the more pain I was in, and the stress levels have been high since 2013. It wasn’t unusual for me to have to take painkillers, just to sleep. Just over the counter stuff, but I was already taking painkillers daily because of my osteoarthritis and dislocating of metatarsals. Then there was that mystery pain in my side no cause has been found for. I used to never get headaches, but tension headaches had become frequent. By the end of the day, anything I’d taken earlier had worn off and I would need to take more, many nights. In the last weeks before the move, of course, I was taking them every day, just to push myself to keep going.
The biggest sleep killer, however, was busy brain. Much of it, stress related. I’m sure many reading this will understand. No matter how exhausted, once your head hits the pillow, it starts. A thousand thoughts, whirling through your mind, and before you know it, you’re wide awake, too wired for any possibility of sleep.
I used quite a few techniques to help alleviate the sleeplessness. I picked up some sleep headphones and would listen to music. This would sometimes be enough to drown out the busy brain. Sometimes I would listen to instrumental music, sometimes to binaural recordings to induce brainwave patterns to assist sleep.
Some nights, however, the busy brain was just too much, and I needed voice to drown it out. For a while, I tried listening to audio Bible, only to find it led to me start falling asleep in church, during the homilies and sermons. Plus, if I want to listen to an audio book of any kind, I want to actually pay attention to what’s being read, not fall asleep and miss it.
One thing I tried that worked well was to record myself reading positive affirmations. Unfortunately, my first attempts, using my phone, didn’t last. For some reason, after a while, the files became corrupted and the recording would begin to sound weird. Eventually, I borrowed my daughter’s microphone and used my desktop. That worked, and there was no file corruption problem.
Sometimes, however, nothing would work, and I would resort to over the counter sleeping pills. Which also didn’t always work, but it was a last ditch attempt.
Since the move, for all the hassle and stress with the state of the house, the hot water tank dying, the ongoing troubles with the movers, and so on, my sleep has improved substantially.
No more earplugs. Noises such as the furnace turning on or the wind outside are about it, and those are rather soothing.
Not once have I had to sleep with headphones on to drown out my busy brain. I’ve still had some nights where my thoughts just ran in circles, but I fall asleep anyways.
Most amazing of all is, I hardly ever take pain killers anymore.
It’s not that I don’t have pain anymore. I certainly do. But it’s so much less than it was before. Once in a while, I’ll be hurting a bit more and will need to take some during the day, but I don’t think I’ve had to take any before bed since the move.
I can actually sleep again.
What an amazing thing.
The Re-farmer
I suppose I should at least be glad I emptied three boxes yesterday.
Today feels like a waste.
I have been using the Keurig more often, to try and go through all those boxes we have a bit faster. I noticed it seemed to be having a harder time of it and, considering how hard our water is, I figured it was due for a descaling.
I’ve been fighting with it for hours.
Basically, after a few cups of vinegar water, it stopped spewing water at all, though it was still trying to.
I’ve cleaned those nozzles with a paper clip so many times, it’s ridiculous. After I do, it’ll run a single mug of vinegar water, then get clogged again when I do the next one.
I’ve noticed it also only half fills a mug, when on the “large” setting.
I’m going to just let it sit, off, for a while and try again later. Let the vinegar do it’s work.
Meanwhile, I will end this on a more positive note.
The jade plant is recovering quite nicely.
Plus, I’m getting a decent amount of progress on a shawl I’m making, in between fighting with the keurig.
So not a completely wasted day…
The Re-farmer
Today, we finally started on the bathroom.
I got my darling, somewhat more able bodied daughters to clear out the shelves for me. Among the things they found was a box of prescription medication from 1984.
It seems they didn’t do child safe containers back then.
Then I started on the counter, and an item we’ve been really avoiding until now.
The Re-Farmer 