Weekend Warrior

I over did it this weekend in a rush to get everything done before the rains came Sunday. I am actually having trouble moving today. First it was the struggle to get the chipper shredder down the hill to the garden...it's a big ole hunk of steel with a 6hp engine. It does have two wheels but it is very heavy. Looking at the garden as I was tilling through the day I decided that 6 small (4") trees, mostly choke cherries) had to go. Down they came and then had to be cut up, the limbs chipped and the logs stacked. Madam helped but a back breaking job nonetheless. Bottom line is everything is tilled but nothing planted. Planting will have to wait for a few days for everything to dry out again. Besides another little cool snap is happening right now with night time temperatures in the mid to low forties and germination wouldn't be good or even happen with nights that cool. Better to wait.

Still babysitting the dogs. We did get in walks yesterday and today and they are now tuckered out and sleeping. They are used to walking with two young people in a lot better shape than I and I was tuckered after this morning's walk. They are well behaved walkers though, no tugging and trying to race ahead but they like a quick pace.

Baking bread today using a recipe from "Baking with Julia" it is the multi-starter version which starts with a sponge made from a bit of unused dough (I made a pizza Saturday night and save a bit of dough) and proceeds through several iterations of adding more water and flour before you actually make the bread dough. This is an old fashioned way to make bread by gradually building a dough using natural fermentation and time. It's a two day recipe but I started yesterday and I just made the final dough a little while ago so we should be baking a couple of batards in a few hours. Yes, I do have proper butter to put on it and I will save a couple of ounces of the finished dough to start a new batch of bread. I've decided that I will give my daughter and her firefighter buddies each a loaf of homemade artisanal bread for helping me with my leaning tree later in the week. My daughter insists I can't pay them but I can give them a loaf of fresh bread and maybe a jar of homemade apple butter for helping me out.