Category Archives: March

The first day of Spring! Long awaited, and not disappointing. Right now the sun is shining, and the temperature is above freezing. We still have a lot of snow, but there are also large patches of brown grass showing in the yard, and the driveway is clear.

When I went out to fetch the newspaper, always thrown onto the end of the driveway, I noticed some Robins “frolicking” on the front lawn. I walked a little ways down the road in front of the house, to see them more clearly. Just at this point one of the neighours walked by, and stopped to chat. We watched the Robins, and determined that we were observing a mating ritual.

During my chat with the neighbour, he asked me if Attila liked his job. I was confused. Attila has been working at this job for years now, it isn’t a new thing. Attila does like his job, and looks forward to retirement, like most people. Sometimes the things people ask are puzzling. It seemed an odd question to ask, out of the blue, no context, on a sunny morning out watching the birds.

While outside, I decided to sweep the front porch. It sits under a branch of the Crab Apple tree, now so popular with the birds. The birds eat the seeds, letting the flesh fall to the ground, and onto the front porch. It makes quite a mess. While sweeping the porch, I noticed four wasps crawling about on the deck. I dispatched them. Perhaps it is through the very drafty front door that the wasps have been entering the house.

I’ve found a source for Wheat Berries, the bulk food store in the city will order large 25 kg bags for their customers, and offer a 10% discount on each bag ordered. This may be our best option, but I’d like to do a little more research before making such a large investment, over $100.00 with tax. That quantity will make about 100 of the small loaves that I bake. That price is the equivalent of 40 to 50 store bought loaves, about double the size of the loaves I make. The cost for homemade versus store bought bread is roughly equivalent, but when quality is considered the homemade bread is superior in every way. And a great big bonus for me is that a homemade loaf is made with 1/16 teaspoon of salt, which is 145 mg of sodium in the whole loaf, which is the same amount of sodium that one consumes in one single slice of store-bought bread. I could eat the whole loaf and not compromise my daily sodium intake (500 to 1200 mg per day).

When I finished my crocheted blanket recently, I needed another pick-me-up-put-me-down project. Using some leftover cotton yarn, a 3.5 mm crochet hook, and a single crochet stitch, I started on a facecloth. This was completed yesterday, and it got a thumbs up from Attila. Today I am starting another one. The weave is much denser with the 3.5 mm hook, resulting in a very sturdy and serviceable facecloth.

So that is me, the first day of spring, enjoying the day no end. I hope you are too

Worldly

Weather

2°C
Date: 11:00 AM EDT Wednesday 20 March 2019
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.6 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 1.6°C
Dew point: -0.3°C
Humidity: 87%
Wind: S 13 km/h
Visibility: 18 km

Quote

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
Thomas A. Edison
1847 – 1931

Years ago I baked all of our bread, all of the time. Then we moved to the country house, and my job demanded my time for almost all my waking hours, and the bread baking just wasn’t possible. Then the job disappeared, and I began taking on a series of truly horrid, very low paying, local jobs with either long hours, or on-call short notice jobs that chopped up my time so that I couldn’t really expect to have open ended hours for bread baking. Bread baking became more and more difficult to undertake, and eventually I just gave it up.

Then we moved to Mist Cottage. Living in the tunnels-through-the-boxes in this tiny house, and working on downsizing, took years. There were also significant renovations going on the whole time. Then, just as the physical environment was stabilizing, Attila had a “midlife crisis”, and life upended in a different way.

Attila’s crisis has eased, 2018 was survived, life at Mist Cottage has stabilized, and I am able to return to baking all of our bread.

Years ago, before we moved to the country house, I purchased 50 pounds of whole wheat flour. If life had not had other plans for me, and my bread baking had continued, the flour would have been easily consumed before its shelf life had expired. But life did have other plans for me. The flour was not consumed. Some of it spent time in the cupboard. Some of it spent time in a 6 gallon bucket. Some of it spent time in the freezer.

The flour that spent time in the cupboard was thrown away a few months ago, when I began to organize the basement and finally checked it, after the garage roof project was completed. It was rancid.

The flour that spend time in the 6 gallon bucket was edible, not fresh exactly, but edible, and it has provided us with bread for the last month. I am glad it is gone, I did not enjoy baking with it.

The flour in the freezer was checked yesterday, it was fresh, not off at all, and so it will be used for bread baking until it is gone.

When all of the old whole wheat flour has been consumed, I will begin to mill my own flour, in small batches, from whole grains. Whole grains keep much longer than milled flour. The whole grains will be kept in the freezer, then thawed in small quantities, to be milled for our daily bread.

I will be experimenting with all kinds of grains, and hope to try Rye, Kamut, Spelt, Red Fife Wheat, and Einkorn Wheat. Currently I am searching for reasonable suppliers. Shipping is the real issue with grains, because they are very heavy, so that the cost of shipping is around the same as the cost of the grain itself. So far I’ve found only a few Ontario suppliers, who cater almost exclusively to the well off, and quite a few fantastic suppliers from the prairies. I”ve even found suppliers from the USA, with free shipping, and their products would be cheaper to import than products purchased locally, or in Canada. Decisions, decisions!

Worldly

Weather

-9°C (-19C last night!)
Date: 9:00 AM EST Friday 8 March 2019
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 102.8 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -8.7°C
Dew point: -14.2°C
Humidity: 65%
Wind: SW 8 km/h
Wind Chill: -13
Visibility: 24 km

Note: The predicted temperatures going forward are getting warmer, so that our Heat Pump will be taking over the heating from the forced air furnace, most of the time. The low humidity and static problems will subside. Heat Pump heating requires a different kind of wardrobe during the day. It circulates room temperature air, so that the thermal mass in the house does not heat to a higher temperature as it does with the heat from the forced air furnace, which blasts warmer than room temperature air. This means that objects, like the chair I sit on, will be room temperature, and cooler to the touch, thus cooling the body on contact. So, my autumn/spring wardrobe will be adopted. I will need slightly heavier clothing to keep comfortable.

Quote

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
Walt Whitman
1819 – 1892