I have discovered a problem with the postcard records.
I can only listen to a track and a half, or so.
These are fascinating, by the way. I would love to hear all the songs in completion. I’ve lost much of my Polish, so the words are just on the edge of my understanding, but I have identified love sings, drinking songs and humorous songs.
Sometimes, all in one song.
I think.
The Re-Farmer
Recently, I was finally able to find a bag of rye flour. Of all the things I knew would be harder to come by after moving here, rye flour was not one of them!
In anticipation of baking day, I got a rye sourdough starter going last night, using 2 cups rye flour, 2 cups warm water, and about 1/3 cup of our usual starter.
Allow me to introduce you to…
Overnight Rye Sourdough Starter
…The Rye of Sour-on.
My kids are hilarious.
Sir Sour Alot is looking good!
Because our original starter has aged so well, it can be shared or used as a base for “overnight starters”, which some recipes call for.
The girls didn’t bother looking up any rye bread recipes. They just modified their usual Quick and Easy Sourdough recipe (minus the optional garlic and Parmesan with herbs). With their usual double recipe, they used 2 cups of rye starter, substituted the sugar with molasses, and added 3 cups of rye flour before switching back to all purpose.
Rye sourdough bread
The result was a denser bread that didn’t rise as much during backing. Which is good, because it means they slices will fit completely in the toaster, unlike our usual loaves, which sometimes need to be flipped. :-D
Still warm from the oven!
Hearty and delicious!
I like the idea of using multiple kinds of flour when baking bread, but that requires having multiple kinds of flour on hand. Which we really don’t have the space for, anyhow. So we usually just use all purpose flour, since it gets used for so many other things as well. I think I’ll make an exception for rye flour – which was only available in a small bag, anyhow.
It looks like we’ll be maintaining two sourdough starters now; Sir Sour Alot and the Rye of Sour-on.
The Re-Farmer
Things got busy quite early this morning. :-)
After putting out more feed, the grosbeaks, redpolls and chickadees were in in full force.
Then they all disappeared, en masse.
Why?
Hmmm. Could be the big orange Rolando Moon that came sauntering by.
Followed by Nasty Crime Boy.
Then Beep Beep.
Beep Beep was kind enough to pose for a picture.
Butterscotch came by, too. For a while, we had at least 3 or 4 cats, just hanging around.
It didn’t take much for the birds to come back.
Including this beauty.
Male Downy Woodpecker
Male Downy Woodpecker
I finally got some good shots of the male downy woodpecker. Look at those bright red spots! And those fuzzy little bits at its beak. So pretty.
He would be on the tree trunk (that tree is dead and among the ones we need to clear out out our spruce grove), drilling away, then he’d go down to the seeds, pick up a few, fly back to the tree trunk to peck away some more, then back to the seeds.
He was soon joined by the other birds.
Male pine grosbeak
It wasn’t long before the birds were chased away again, this time by Hungry Girl and Barbecue.
They are still really skittish, but have calmed down enough that I got a few good photos before they dashed off.
I think they have opinions about that.
Hungry Girl, sticking her tongue out at me again!
*giggle*
Barbecue, licking his chops
E tu, Barbecue?
*giggle*
I’m such a child.
The Re-Farmer
My husband called attention to a strange new bird in a spruce tree…
Can you see it?
Look closely…
Can’t see it? That’s okay. She moved to a more visible spot.
Butterscotch, looking very comfortable.
Yes, that’s Butterscotch, up in the spruce tree. Quite settled in!
Since this photo was taken, however, she has made like she wanted to get down, but seemed to be having difficulties. So my daughters went out with a ladder to help her down, but she just went off out of reach and just sat there, looking at them.
They’ve left the ladder on the tree for now.
Meanwhile, we have some more familiar birds to look at.
Redpoll.
The redpolls were very co-operative today in posing for me in the bush.
Blue Jay
We had 4 blue jays, bullying each other for the piles of seeds. This one looks like he’s mocking the ones he just chased off. :-D
The Re-Farmer
We had an unusually heavy “people” day today. :-D It’s amazing how quickly I got used to not being surrounded by people all the time.
Aside from an unusual amount of phone calls from different family members, my sister and her husband were able to come for a visit! They picked up their carpet shampooer, and were kind enough to lend us their record player – and a box of records!
Also, they gifted us with more potatoes. Another big bag of them! That was sweet of them. :-)
Oh, I discovered something from them. They maintain a bird feeder by their dining room window, and after checking out my set up, they corrected me. The chipping sparrows? Turns out they are redpolls. Which weren’t even in my bird book. :-( We do have chipping sparrows in our region, but not this time of year.
Dang. I’m going to have to fix all my old tags and posts, now.
After they left, I found an outlet I could plug the record player in, and the first thing I did was break out the old 78s.
It’s one of those new players that can play cassettes, CDs, is Bluetooth enabled, and has the ports to use USB and headphones. It even has a remote control.
There was also, thankfully, a record cleaning cloth. Those 78s were shockingly dirty! We will have to take some time to very carefully clean them. Until then, we used the cloth, then, after doing a bit of research, the carbon brush for our camera lenses. It’s just enough to get the big, loose stuff off, but they are so bad, they’ll need more work.
The 78s we have are in a book of sleeves, and this is the first time we’ve actually taken any of them out. Sadly, two of the ones we did take out had chunks broken off of them! We could still listen to parts of the songs, but it was a sad thing to see.
I’ve come to realize my family is extremely rough on things!
After listening to several 78s, I then brought out the 45s, including…
Who Stole the Kishka.
Oh, did that ever bring back memories! :-D Going to socials with my parents at the old hall, dancing the polka and the butterfly, with a live band (all locals, playing drums, violin, guitar and, of course, the accordion!) on the stage, and the guy that would walk around in between the dancers, scattering those wax granules on the floor, so dancer’s feet would wax the floor, but would send people’s feet skittering around for a while first! I recall seeing a few people go flying, and I know I did a few times!
Our parents were real party animals! They really loved to dance. And drink. Then dance some more!
I am pretty sure I saw the Chicken Dance among the albums. Oh, how much fun I remember we had, dancing to that! I can’t wait to play it for the girls!
My daughters are quite amused by my recollections!
After listening some 45s, we moved on to some 33s, including this gem.
Interesting to read the “Arrest Warrant” for Mickey, where it says “Divorcing Bunny.” There are two records in my mother’s stack from Mickey and Bunny. :-D
Check out the songs list!
I’m pretty sure the “Recipe for Homebrew” really is a recipe, but it’s in Ukrainian, so I can’t quite understand it.
I think we’re going to be listening to records a lot over the next while. :-D Among the discs my sister brought is some Queen and David Bowie, and in my Mom’s stack, there’s an album from Danny Osmond! There’s quite a variety of classical music, which I’m quite looking forward do. For today, we listened to some German Brass from my sister’s stack.
I especially want to check out those post card records I found. I’m not sure what speed they’re supposed to be played at, but I figure they’re most likely 45s.
Should be interesting!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 