Saturday, April 25, 2020

Life around the Homestead, and More Sourdough


You may remember my sourdough obsession from several weeks ago. I was flabbergasted by how many people responded to it—it was among my most popular blog posts to date. Not long after that I became absolutely overwhelmed by starter, so I used up most of it and stuck some in my fridge for a while. Ten days ago I got out my Amish Sourdough starter and started feeding the beast again. My obsession is back.

Yesterday I split this resuscitated starter for the first time. Of course, I made our go-to Amish cinnamon bread. I intend to share some with neighbors, but who knows if I’ll actually make it out the door with any before it’s consumed.

I also hunted around for a new sourdough recipe to try. I found two—sourdough chocolate chip cookies and sourdough crumpets.

It's worth making chocolate chip cookies just for the smell.

The cookies were, quite simply, amazing. I forgot to adjust the sugar for the sweetness of my starter, so they were a little on the sweet side, but as for ooey, gooey, chocolatey-chip goodness, they absolutely hit the mark. My friend Elaine wouldn’t like them, because they’re soft and chewy, but I’m sure a little less flour and more time in the oven could fix that. The recipe says to flatten the cookies, but I actually preferred their shape without flattening. Part of the three dozen in the batch also went to neighbors. I don’t expect the rest to last the weekend.

Is there any taste in the world like a cookie fresh from the oven?

The crumpets were far outside my comfort zone. I’d never made crumpets—a cross between a pancake and an English muffin. I’ve certainly never tried with sourdough. I experienced a lot of operator error as I tried to find the perfect setting on my stove-top griddle and messed with canning lids as muffin rings, so my first (and second) attempt turned out…I think interesting is a kind word. 

Working with canning rings on a griddle was a new experience.

Few of them actually looked like crumpets, and several were burned. I also have a feeling the sweetness of the Amish starter made them far sweeter than they should have been, and I’d be curious to try them with a sourer starter. However, that doesn’t mean they tasted bad! The sugar in the starter caramelized on the griddle, giving them a texture and taste that reminded me more of crème brulee than English muffins. I definitely would not mind eating them again.

A lot of trial and error, but not too bad. Not too bad at all.

However, it’s not all sourdough all the time. It’s not even all baking all the time. How fat would I be now if that were the case? (I think I’ve put on a few pounds as is. I don’t know how many, because I refuse to get on the scale.)

Last week the sun finally, finally, showed itself. It became warm enough to work outside without even a sweater. Our family took full advantage of the sunshine to get some work done outside the house. I even got a good start on this year's farmer's tan.

With my husband’s help, I finished turning our chicken run into Fort Knox. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it will now keep our chickens in and the neighbors’ chickens out. That meant I was able to retrieve our rooster from the neighbors who had him in their run to keep him away from the Rhode Island Red across the street. The neighbors' rooster inspects it daily to make sure there are no weaknesses. It’s a long story. A functioning run means it’s also ready for our six vulnerable chicks whenever they’re ready for it.

With my chickens not only surrounded, but also with bird netting on top, I hope I finally have my small flock contained.

I also spent some time around my neglected garden and flower beds. I have a garden every year, but this year I’m making a conscious effort to practice companion planting. Not that I’m terribly methodical about it; I found a chart online, and that’s my expert source. It will be pretty, though. Potatoes, cabbage, marigolds and more, living in (let’s hope) mutual benefit.

Marigolds are good to have throughout your garden, because they repel pests that harm other plants.

With peas, lettuce, onions, and carrots waiting to go in the ground, not to mention corn, beans, and tomatoes later in May, I still have plenty of work ahead of me. I’ve by no means been bored, though I have been missing the voices and faces and presence of friends. Please, drop me a line in the comments to let me know you’re still alive!

Have a blessed weekend.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Daily Life while Sheltering at Home—a.k.a., No News


One problem I have with blogging—that is, with me, personally, blogging—is time and content. I’m pretty sure every blogger on earth would list those as top difficulties, but it’s a dilemma. If my life is full of interesting activities, I don’t have time to sit down and write about them. If I have time to open my laptop, chances are I don’t have anything interesting to share. (Or I’m not doing something that should be done. There’s always that possibility.) Lately, though, I’ve struggled with the worst of both predicaments—way too busy, and none of it interesting.

Since I don't have any news, here's a photo my daughter took while practicing the Rule of Thirds.

For the past week, I’ve been writing the day and date on our school whiteboard every morning because, let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t remember them if I didn’t. The days are flowing together so seamlessly, I have to put things like “take a shower” on my to-do list. Last week I did a dozen loads of laundry in three days. That was exciting. I was caught up on laundry for, like, five minutes.

I’ve also spent the last week concentrating on my eldest daughter. Before I’d ever heard the word “coronavirus,” I’d been letting our school schedule slide a bit too much. COVID-19 sent us into a tailspin. Now is the time to get back on the horse, gird our loins, polish up the old…something. All of those clichés to indicate that we need to really work on staying on track. This may be partly because I recently sent in her testing registration for the year.

That’s right. Standardized testing. Homeschoolers aren’t getting out of it just because of some old pandemic.

I can double down on my daughter’s schoolwork and still catch up on laundry by dialing back the intensity of the other children’s schoolwork. Yes, I can do that. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you, but your first-grader doesn’t have to be ready for Harvard entrance exams. As long as they stay in the groove with reading, writing and math, they’re good. Play is good. So much learning happens through play. Plus, because of all the random ways we bring education into daily life, I trust they’re still learning plenty.

For example, this bedtime conversation:
Son: “How many miles away is the closest star?”
Me: “They’re so far away, they’re measured in light years…”
Son: “What’s that?”
Me: “The number of years it takes light to reach us from the star. Light goes 186,000 miles per second.” (Okay, I rounded.)
Son: “Wow, that’s a long way.” Pause. “Where can I get a grappling hook? Does Walmart have them?”

Or this breakfast conversation about mummies:
Eight-year-old: “Mommy, in the old days did they wrap up people who were still alive?”
Me: “No, they wrapped them up when they were dead. It was a way of burying them.”
Eight-year-old: “What would happen if we went and opened that place where they were buried?”
Eleven-year-old: “We would be freaked out.”

Meanwhile, my seven-year-old has been using washable markers to draw dark circles around her eyes and pretend she’s been in a fist fight.

How is your week going?

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Entropy


I read a secular fantasy once in which the heroes battled not a villain, but entropy. Never meant to exist, brought into the world by a wayward being, it was the slow death of the entire universe. The heroes knew they could never stop entropy, but they continued to strive against it, hoping to slow it for a moment.*

Entropy. Energy to no energy. Order to chaos. Working to broken. Alive to dead.

My apiary was a scene of destruction on Thursday.

It always interested and saddened me how close that premise came to the truth while remaining so far from it. Yet I know that all of us, every day, wage our own wars against entropy. We grieve its effects, large and small. Sorrows as disparate as a broken toy, a garden taken over by weeds, or the death of a spouse or child, they all represent the entropy sin brings into our world. We rage against it. We wish that, even for a moment, we could slow it. That’s especially true when entropy seems to speed up and takes something from us before we believe it should—or if we feel guilt for helping it along.

A colony of dead bees--roughly 40,000-60,000 bees.

These were my thoughts as I surveyed the scene of destruction at my small apiary on Thursday. I only have—had—three hives, and two of them were gone. The beekeeping term is “dead-out.” It would have been a sickening sight under any circumstances, but more so because I knew I could have prevented it. The mites I had treated too late, combined with late winter weather and low food stores, had worked together to kill two whole colonies, and it was my fault for not reading the signs.

The bees of the remaining colony, a living reminder that life does go on.

Thursday was not a good day.

My mood was not much brighter yesterday. Good Friday—a day that is good for me, a sinner for whom Christ’s blood was shed, but also a day of shadow and introspection. A day of sorrow as we remember the sacrifice of the ultimate Passover Lamb before we prepare to celebrate His resurrection on Sunday. This year, with the world topsy-turvy, it has an added layer of shadow. Today our family will go to an empty country church to record an Easter service for those who usually gather there. To say it will feel odd is understating the situation drastically.

But we will go there, because Easter isn’t cancelled. Nothing happening in the world right now negates the power of Christ’s death and resurrection.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

What was this love?

“…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

We can’t stop entropy. We can’t stop death, disease, or decay. We can sometimes work to slow them, but the power of giving life is not in our hands. It is such a wonderful comfort to know it doesn’t have to be. Yesterday we remembered how Christ overcame sin for our sakes. Tomorrow we celebrate His victory over death.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live’” (John 11:25).

Another reminder of new life--the new chicks we got Thursday. Appropriately, these chicks are Easter eggers.






*I'm referencing Diane Duane's work, specifically So You Want to Be a Wizard and The Book of Night with Moon.