Late Spring...


Shelling peas from our garden, or, in Astrid's case, eating peas from our garden


Enjoying our homemade meal - peas, kale, carrots, mint, and cilantro from our garden, homemade bread, and raw milk from a nearby farm



Finding trilliums in the woods



Discovering the magic of a Spruce-Fir forest...where fairies must live



Celebrating Emily's 33rd Birthday



Experiencing the excitement of a dance recital


Looking under rocks for salamanders



Hanging out in our backyard



Vacationing with family at the beach

Happy Mother's Day! Every day is a good day to be thankful for Mothers. I just found out the origins of this holiday and am so excited to share this original proclamation of Mother's Day by Julia Ward Howe.

Andrew, Ramona, Astrid, and I have been enjoying the spring in our garden, with friends here in Johnson City and back in Asheville, and with our families. We were happy to witness the coming of Spring with our very own robin family nesting on the front porch. Ramona and Astrid watched the whole process from mating, to nest building, to little blue eggs appearing fresh each day, to mama sitting and sitting, and finally the babies all pink and tiny, then the growth in size and of feathers, and then they were gone...we did see them one last time a few days later still being fed by their parents out on our birch tree.


We have been eating the first of spring harvest from our garden...spinach and kale. I have lots of new ground planted and am trying to keep "peter" rabbit from eating much of my baby plants. I think it is rabbits because we have seen big brown cottontail rabbits a few times in the back yard and my turnips are always all eaten down to a nub. (Isn't that what Peter Rabbit loved out of Mr McGregor's garden?) We just finished putting up a new fence, hopefully that will keep Peter out of my garden.

We just spent a wonderful weekend going to the Lake Eden Arts Festival and hanging out with good friends. I'll have to say that even Andrew was dancing at the festival. If you've never heard Haitian music and want something that will get you dancing try this artist. There was a kids tent full of instruments and Ramona really enjoyed playing with the violin.

Andrew has finished his first year of grad school and will soon start his field work in the Smokey Mountains. I am still working two days a week on Labor and Delivery as an RN. Ramona has gotten into a full-time preschool that will start in late August. Astrid will start attending daycare twice a week in the fall and hangin' solo with Mama the rest of the weekdays. Of course, Andrew and I are still pondering all sorts of plans for where we might move when grad school ends, but our top two are Missoula, Montana or Chapel Hill, NC.

Happy Spring!

Spring Fever

I hope everyone's been enjoying this "Spring" weather. We've been playing in the backyard, playgrounds, the woods, and the sidewalks... anywhere outdoors! Ramona's favorite outdoor art is painting windows (we replaced our house's windows and saved many of the old ones) and drawing with chalk.

Lately she also enjoys collecting rollie-pollies (I have no idea how to spell that), helping with the chickens, and riding her tricycle. Over this hot spell she has been donning her swimsuit and playing in the sprinkler!

Astrid likes to paint, too.

But more so she enjoys opening and closing the containers of paint. She also loves the birdbath.

I think her favorite outdoor activities are running up and down the sidewalk and climbing everyones stairs, "riding" Ramona's tricycle, and playing with the gravel in our driveway.

All you need is love...

We've entered a new era in hiking with the kids. Ramona can trek for a couple of hours without usually complaining about being tired. The only hitch is that she wants to play hide and seek the entire time we're hiking. So one of us must run ahead with her to hide, while the other must look the opposite direction and wait. Here's Ramona climbing up some tree roots that run down a rocky face.


And here's Andrew rescuing her like a cat up a tree.



The river was beautiful and made us want to try fly fishing.


Here's a cool tree.


Looks like a beaver borrowed this tree.



Some of you were interested in the recipe for those 4 loaves of bread I pictured in the last blog entry. Here it is from "Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World" by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (My favorite cookbook authors).

This is a slow rise bread and need to start 2-3 days before you want to bake, timing is flexible. Makes 4 large loaves, each weighing 2+ pounds.

large-batch whole wheat pan loaves

Poolish
3 cups lukewarm water
Scant 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour

Bread
6 cups lukewarm water
11 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp salt
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
About 2 tbsp unsalted butter or mild veg.oil to grease the pan

Make poolish at least 12 hours before using:
Place lukewarm water in medium bowl and sprinkle on yeast and stir to dissolve. Add flour and stir well to make smooth batter. Cover with plastic wrap or tight lid and set aside to ferment for 12-36 hours, whatever is most convenient. The batter will develop bubbles and look lively.

When ready to proceed, place lukewarm water in a large bowl. Add poolish and stir to dissolve. Add 2 cups whole wheat flour and stir in, always stirring in the same direction. Add another 4 cups whole wheat flour and stir in the same direction until smooth, then stir for 1 minute longer. Now you have a sponge. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to ferment for 8-18 hours.

Stir the honey into the sponge, then sprinkle on salt. Add the remaining 5 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring and turning the dough to combine it completely. The dough will become heavy and difficult to stir. Sprinkle about 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour over a wide area on your work surface and turn dough out. Use a dough scraper to lift one side of the dough and fold it over, and continue to use the dough scraper to knead by folding the dough over on itself. You will soon need to add another 1/2 cup flour or more to your work surace, and soon thereafter you will be able to knead using your hands, as the dough gradually gets less sticky and more smooth. Use a dough scraper to keep your work surface clean, and knead for a total of 10-12 minutes, until the dough is very smooth but still soft and a little sticky.

Place dough back in clean bowl, cover, and let rise 4 hours, until doubled.

Lightly flour work surface with all-purpose flour. Turn out dough and fold over on itself several times. Use a large knife of dough scraper to cut the dough into 4 equal pieces (weighing about 2 1/4 pounds each). Loosely cover dough and butter/oil four 9x5 inch bread pans.

Gently flatten 1 piece of dough in to an oveal about 12 x 8 inches, then roll from narrow end into a cylinder. Pinch the seam closed and place seam side down in pan. Repeat with remaining.

Cover loaves with plastic and a cloth and place in reasonably warm place (68-75) to rise. After they have proofed for 1 hour, start preheating over. Place rack in lower third of oven and place baking stone or sheet on it. Preheat to 425. Fill a sprayer with water. (I just use a bowl of water and fling it with my fingers)

When the loaves have proofed nearly 2 hours they will have risen a little but will not have doubled. Slash one loaf two or three times diagonally with sharp knife, spritz generously with water, and place in oven on stone/sheet. Repeat with all. Then spritz them all again generously. Close door and reduce to 400. Spritz generously every minute for 10 minutes, then bake for 35 minutes. Lower the heat to 375 and bake for 30 minutes. (I lower the heat after only 25-30 minutes and then bake another 30 minutes, I guess my oven cooks faster) Remove the loaves from the pans and place on stones/rack and bake a few more minutes, until corners are very firm when pinched. (Sometimes I forget to do this and it doesn't make much difference.) Let cool completely on a rack before slicing.

Note: Let stand 12 hours before wrapping in plastic to store at room temp or freeze. Defrost by leaving out overnight at room temp.

Enjoy!

Snow and Bread

Butterflies, Fairies, and Peaceful Protests

There is so much excitement in the air with this upcoming inauguration. Andrew was just saying today that if John McCain had been elected this inauguration would not be half as publicized or festive. It would have just been another rich, white guy in the white house. People are excited because Obama represents the hopes of many of us who felt underrepresented in the past. And that's great. But he can't do it alone. On that note...

For those of you with a yearning to get out of your house and shake things up...there is a massive peaceful protest being planned in March in DC to put the word out about the nasty effects of coal mining. This includes such major issues as global warming and mountain top removal. Andrew and I just might do it...let us know if you're going, too. I've included a link in the post below to the Capitol Climate Action website for more info.

Here in our lives the kids could care less about politics. Crafting and dancing have been all the rave. We worked on a large butterfly mobile today and collected supplies for making little flower fairies. Ramona has become quite the prima ballerina and was doing some lovely ballet performances to the new (and wonderful) Bob Dylan album "Tell Tale Signs" tonight...she's very postmodern! She called her performances "the butterfly dance" and "the fairy dance". We've also managed to spend fun times outdoors, despite the cold front. Today we were walking through the neighborhood and stopped to watch the street maintenance crew. They dumped a load of gravel into a huge hole with a dumptruck and scraped it neatly into place with a bulldozer. Ramona loved it and said that she would bring her cousins and some of her Asheville friends to come and watch next time.

Capitol Climate Action