Sourdough Starter: day 3

Here is the progress on our new sourdough starter.

It was fed after 24 hours, and again after 48 hours.  With the size of my container, I fed it only a half cup each of flour and warm water, with a sprinkling of sugar.

This is what it looked like before I stirred and fed it tonight.

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You can see that it has separated a bit, and there is quite a bit of liquid. This is normal.  I stirred the liquid in, then added just flour and sugar. There was no need for more water.

This is what it looked like, about an hour later.


I am relieved to see the sponge bubbling up as as well as it is.  The ambient temperature is on the low side, but it seems to be handling it quite well.  What has been funny is to see my family opening the lid every now and then, just to smell it!  Nice to know I’m not the only one.

If I felt the need, I could place the whole thing in the oven with the light on. The heat from the light bulb would be enough to create a nice, cozy temperature for the yeast to grow in. I would make sure something was under the container, just in case it overflowed.

I went digging through some boxes to find cookbooks with sourdough recipes in them. I collect cookbooks, so that took a while.

We aren’t ready to start making bread quite yet, but we can do pancakes.

:-)

The Re-farmer

Furry New Year Visitor

When my daughter opened the front door to feed the outside cats, we found a furry neighbour sitting at the front door of my brother’s van, looking right at us!  My brother’s dog had come for a visit.

20180101_1028521586177201.jpgHe’s a skittish sort, so as soon as the outer door was opened, he ran off and hid behind the van.  He wouldn’t come back around until after my daughter went over to the food and water containers, then he followed at a distance.

Also, the screen door window frosted over in the few seconds I stood at it, taking photos.  It did make the shots look at bit more artsy. LOL

It may be warming up today, but not by much, yet!  The dog is just loving the cold, though.

Then he joined the cats for a New Year’s treat of left over turkey bits and gravy.  As long as my daughter didn’t look directly at him, or try to interact with him, he would come close.

I look forward him being comfortable enough to let us pet him. He is so beautiful, with such a sweet temperament.

I’m glad he and the cats get along fairly well, because I expect we will be seeing lots more of him.

You can certainly tell which of the containers got the leftover turkey bits.

The Re-farmer

Happy New Year!

HappyNewYearIt is a bitterly cold time across much of North America right now.  Many places have cancelled their New Year’s celebrations, or moved them indoors, for safety’s sake.

It seems a good time to bring in the New Year in the warmth of home!

For us, we are happy to say goodbye to 2017, and feel that 2018, in our “new” home, for all it’s problems, is a step away from way too much artificial stress.

May 2018 be a year of peace and prosperity, good health, good friends and good tidings.

Visitors 

Last night, we were blessed with some awesome visitors.  My son from another mother and his Lady Fair came with their mechanical beast of burden and three animal side kicks.

It was fantastic to see them as they have their own major move, even farther than ours.

So we had our New Year’s dinner early and stayed up to the wee hours.  Good company, good food and good conversation.  Can life get any better?

Well, it could have for our own cats, unfortunately.  While DaBoy would probably have settled in with our animal visitors fairly well, especially since we shared our home with the two cats for some time, his mama was far less tolerant.  When she saw the dog, much to my surprise, she didn’t run off.  No, she was the one who was going to chase him!  The poor dog was just trying to be friendly, too, but she would have none of it.

After much crashing and banging and knocking over of things, we had to close up our own cats into the office for the night.  We moved their food, water and litter in with them, of course, and would pop in to give them some loving, but they were not happy campers.  Mama has always been more of a bundle of nerves than her much more laid back son, but her frazzled mood rubbed off on him a bit, too.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him growl before!  Even while they were on my work table, where a bed was set up for them, and I pet them, she wouldn’t stop prowling back and forth, in between freezing and staring at the space under the door.  She could tell when the other cats were in the hall, no matter how quiet they were.  And if the sound of a dog coming down the hall reached her, the growling would start as well.

That cat just doesn’t know how to chill.

Our animal guests, however, were much more relaxed.

Just look at those eyes!  What a dream of a dog.

Despite having cats for so many years, we’re actually kinda dog people.  We just haven’t been able to have dogs for one reason or another, but somehow managed to have lots of cats.

 

Getting a dog is definitely one of our plans.  Until do finally do, we get to love on other people’s dogs.  Like this beautiful beast.  Such a gentleman, too!

The cats enthusiastically explored every nook and cranny they could, and disappeared a few times in the process.  I think they still remembered us, but it has been long enough that they weren’t quite comfortable enough for cuddles.  At least not from us.  But we at least got to pet them, eventually.

Sharing some love.

And of course, they got cuddles from their human.  They are so hilarious.  They just love being held like babies and snuggled close.

They also found the catnip pillows to play with, which was quite hilarious to watch.

Getting photos, however, was a challenge!  They hardly ever stayed still long enough.  Plus, with a black dog and a black cat, they are notoriously difficult to get photos of.

“Get that thing out of my face, or else!”

They tend to be just black blurs, so I’m happy to have managed a few good shots with my phone camera.

One of the cats, however, knows what’s going on when that phone comes out, and does NOT like getting her photo taken!  Not even while getting cuddles.

Can you imagine road tripping across the country with these three?  Awesome!

It was a grand visit, all round.  I am so glad they were able to stop by and stay the night.  Who knows how long it will be before we can see each other again, in person.

The Re-farmer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The lengths we go to…

Okay, so having an internet connection was a necessity for our living here, for a variety of reasons.  We had to settle for satellite, which is better than nothing, but has limitations.

As the router is in my office, my desktop is hard wired.  Everyone else is on wireless.

That, too, has limitations.  These range from sporadic connectivity (I get that even with my hard wired desktop) to slower speed. Even with the use of a wireless booster, which we had handy because we needed them even in the townhouse we lived in before the move, it’s still an issue in parts of the house.  Whether that is due to wireless issues, or our satellite itself, there’s no way to know for sure.

My husband’s desktop still isn’t working, so he’s using his work laptop.  Due to space restrictions, he’s set up in the living room.  That gives him the added bonus of using the big screen TV left behind for us as a second monitor.

The wireless connection, however, is causing him some problems. Continue reading

Window woes

Lots of stuff in this house is very old.  I don’t even know how old some things in the Old Part are, as I don’t know when it was originally built.

One of the good things is that we have excellent new windows in most of the rooms.

Most.

For some reason, my mother insisted that the big window in the master bedroom did not need to be replaced.

This would be the window that’s now about our heads as we sleep.

The following photo shows what’s going on in one half of it. Continue reading

Getting Started on Starter 

There is a fair bit of variety of sourdough starter recipes.  The first one we made used potato water – an unpeeled potato boiled until soft, then mashed into its own cooking water – as the liquid.

In essence, though, getting a new starter going is just flour and water, left to sit.  Anything else is just bonus.

Of course, there are a few basic requirements that need to be followed.

So if you are not fortunate enough to be able to get some established sourdough starter from someone, here is what you need to start your own. Continue reading

Oh, What a Pain!

Coming from the background that I have has found me making some very interesting observations over the years.

Growing up here on this farm, I essentially grew up as if I were part of another generation.  We were subsistence farmers; we basically grew enough to support ourselves and make a bit of money selling a few cows.  When my father bought the farm from a family member, he upgraded from using horses to using tractors.  There are very few people my age that actually took part in stooking and threshing, outside of Thresherman’s reunions.  I can go into museums that feature pioneer displays and see tools and equipment I actually used.  We grew, raised and processed most of our own food.  It was, as I affectionately call it, a life two sticks ahead of the stone ages. Continue reading

The Good, The … oh F****

Well, now.

First the good stuff.

I have awesome brothers.  I phoned my younger brother today and asked if I could borrow their van for about a week.  Just until it warmed up and I could get our own van to the garage next week.  He said yes, and this allowed me to do the shopping for the month.  We have FINALLY been able to stock up on the basics and necessities.

Unfortunately…

Continue reading