life in the tundra

[liminal_space]

+ it got down to -32F last night (that's right, that is a negative number) and no chickens died, so we may last the winter without any casualties! knock on wood. 

it's really difficult to think about doing any outside stuff with the weather this cold. i couldn't tack up a horse without a huge struggle, since normal riding gloves do not protect from this type of cold and "warm" riding gloves make buckling things difficult....plus, they don't really keep fingers warm in this weather. 

+ tomorrow is still chilly, but we should be in the positive numbers — which means we'll FINALLY be able to get to ceramics without too much difficulty. when i say "difficulty" i basically am referring to the incessant layering ON and layering OFF that takes place to leave the house — i have to layerON then when i get in the car, i have to layerOFF a little bit so i don't melt. then before getting OUT of the car when we get to where we are going, it's a game of twister while we layerON again. 

ugh.

i'm so looking forward to spring — even with the wet and the mosquitoes and bugs and and and. i can picture that specific shade of midwest-green and it's a lovely, lovely color. 

~~

today i am probably tackling a loaf a sourdough. o.O my starter is active again after a LONG hibernation in the fridge and i'm ready to try for a rustic loaf. we are almost at the point where we don't buy bread at all anymore — i'd like to take that "almost" out of the equation. 

bread should not be as complicated as it is, you know? in the cooking world, it feels like it's the equivalent of riding a green broke stallion around a bunch of mares that are in heat. read: unpredictable crazy-town. 

i feel like i'm getting some of the more nuanced THINGS that go in to it, but there's still so much to learn. i do know that my last cranberry bread had some of the BEST flavor and texture of i've ever had. not just that i've ever MADE...but that i've ever HAD. o.O and of course we're out of brown cheese, so bleh. 

one of my fellow "health journey" travelers and i were talking about how much bread i'm making recently and she asked how hard it was to avoid it. i told her i wasn't really avoiding it, per se, but i was not having it every day and the more i make, the more i'll give away to family and friends. there's joy in giving food to others...i kind of like it. :)

which is why we are looking at how to make what we're doing here a not-for or non-profit. i would LOVE love love love love LOVE to have some blend of education/community connection/animal stuff that i could use to help with taxes and maybe make a little money (that's where the not-for-profit would come in). we talked to our CA accountant about it and were going to set things up, but i think someone local would be more helpful. spring is coming, so getting things legit would be quite helpful!

~~

and now...i go forth and conquer. 

Comments

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

OMG, -32.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

oh, yeah. it was eyeball freezing weather!

[nick-101.livejournal.com]

I can't wait until Spring, too. This winter is just not happening in CA. If it's not raining, it's not winter.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

where i lived, rain was not a winter thing — but we were a chilly and cloudy thing, which i miss. ;)

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

One of the things I learned about bread is that if you freeze it and then thaw and use the carbohydrate content changes to make it easier to digest and reduces the carbohydrate to resistant starch (there's a paper about it here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17426743/). Even better if you toast is after its been frozen too. I always think sourdough is so much better anyway and I make nearly all my own loaves.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

that's really interesting! we DO freeze bread, but only because there's rarely a time when we can eat a whole loaf before it goes sideways. good to know that the freezing makes it even better body-wise. i love my regular rustic loaf and this foray into sourdough seems too complicated for me, to be honest — i just don't have the patience for it. i think. today i'm trying my loaf and already, i'm thinking my levain wasn't quite right. but it might be.

i rarely know when it's smart to give up, so i'll probably just keep sticking with this until i either figure it out OR go broke from buying flour. =D i have a banneton coming today or tomorrow, so need to stick with it long enough to make the price of THAT worth it.

[debris4spike]

Wow — that's cold ... I was moaning that the temperature went down to zero over the weekend!!

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

yep, this is legit cold! what's weird is that as long as there's no wind? i don't die. with wind? dead bug. :)

[albert71292.livejournal.com]

It got down to 26F here in northeast Louisiana last night and I was complainin'. Seems the older I get, the less I can deal with cold weather.