clean
Just so you know…
…somebody other than my mom does wash the thing.
Because I knew it was keeping you up at night wondering.
(He even asked me to wash the cover. Something about slimy banana chunks and fuzzy green cheerios grossing him out)
Today is…Tuesday May 24 2011
We started the morning with a game of “sock-er”:
Which involved a lot of hooting and running and throwing of socks.
Then the boys brought up a bunch of books to read. One in particular seemed quite fitting for the day:
Then, while mommy mopped and cleaned up water in the basement (torrential rains seem to bring on a small stream in our basement), the boys read books and played upstairs all morning:
When I came back upstairs and found a quiet moment, I read scriptures and shared a Gospel message about the nature of the Godhead. Giant seemed quite interested in the knowledge that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have bodies of flesh and blood, but the Holy Ghost does not:
Then we read stories together. Giant read half a Bob the Builder easy reader to me…he is getting quicker at recognizing some small sight words and word family sounds:
After the little boys were napping, I was severely tempted to offer him a movie to watch or computer games to play. However, just before I did he asked to play with “the knights and castle people”. This is a special playmobile set, made of tiny toys for the already tiny playmobile children.
I only let Giant play with it when the little boys are sleeping:
…so tiny!
He played with playmobile for the rest of the afternoon.
Have I mentioned he’s a boy after my own heart? (Playmobile was my favourite toy growing up)
Toys like this are considered worthwhile homeschooling materials, right?—I may just start budgeting for it now 😉
Our daily bread
Instructions for making our staple bread recipe.
Locate rather well-loved bread recipe (complete with scribbled maps, food storage inventory, important phone numbers, scripture quotes, yogurt making notes, grocery lists, etc, etc).
Commit for the hundredth time to recopy the recipe onto something that would look prettier on the fridge.
Get out one (mostly) clean bosch:
Add 3 TB yeast:
1 TB sugar
7.5 c water
3 eggs (you’ll want to crack them open and add them to the mixer. Just in case it’s not obvious)
3/4 c honey
A lot of flour (you’ll eventually add about 18c, at this point though, start with maybe 6):
Let your kids add some flour too. Because baking bread just doesn’t feel right unless there is flour everywhere.
Now that you have created a very hazardous situation by loading a bosch full of water and adding powdery light flour…
…give the ingredients a thrilling whizz!:
Or, if you are not up for that kind of excitement, mix the flour in gradually with short blasts of mixing power— pulses that will eventually mix it up, but won’t send the water flying out every crack in the lid.
I mix this thin dough for a while—5-10mins?—gradually adding more flour but leaving it very batter-like.
Then, because you forgot to thaw butter before-hand, quickly melt 1/2 c butter:
and add it to your still very soft dough:
add a heaping TB salt:
Now, add more flour:
And mix until dough forms soft peaks:
Oh wait, thats whipping cream.
Its hard to say how much flour I eventually use. I like my dough quite soft—more sticky than smooth and velvety:
I divide the large ball mass of dough into 2 large bowls and cover with plastic wrap.
Let it rise until almost doubled in size.
Okay, in all honesty I still don’t know how to tell if dough has doubled in size. Something about the concave shape of the bowl and trying to calculate what exactly the level of the dough would be if it doubled in size makes my brain hurt. I really just let it rise until it’s busting out of it’s plastic wrap cover (like that one at the back):
Don’t bother squishing it down, just grab some largish globs and form your buns:
I sit them to rise…
…covered with some towels:
and give the other bowl of escaping dough a pat to keep it at bay:
When the buns have poofed up and are touching each other, I warm up the oven to 350 and stick them in:
Then I give the waiting bowl another whack (repeating as often as necessary to keep it from getting out of the bowl)…
and bake the buns for about 15 mins, or until the tops and bottoms are cooked:
Repeat with the second bowl of dough…unless you are lucky enough to have an oven that can cook 48 buns at once!
Try not to eat them all in one go…
Recipe
Whole Wheat Buns (makes 4 doz large buns):
1 TB sugar
3 TB yeast
7.5 C Warm Water
3 eggs
3/4 c honey
18-21 c flour
3 TB salt
1/2 c butter
(I add the salt and butter at the end due to some whole wheat cooking witchery I subscribe to. The oil supposedly makes it hard for the gluten to form strands and the salt kills the yeast…so I add them at the end to better my chances of cooking fluffy buns. In all likelyhood, the order makes no difference to the outcome. I just haven’t been brave enough to try yet 😉 )
Knead in Bosch 10 mins. Dough should be sticky. Let rise and form into buns. Let buns rise. Bake 350 15-20 mins, or until tops and bottoms are “golden.” Makes 48 large buns.
Compost Systems
We compost.
We used to compost in a compost bin.
However, my store bought composter got a bit backed up with spring clean-up stuff, so I’m trying out a new system—the Trench Method.
Basically, you dig a hole (this is about 1ft x 2.5ft and 8 inches deep):
Load in your compost, smash and chop it with your shovel to get it flatter (a little technical, I know. But I have confidence in you.) Then pile on the dirt:
Rotting lettuce, slimy banana peels, eggshells, etc, GONE!
Now all I’m left with is the smell of decomposing oranges wafting over from my old composting system.
Note: the trench method is a lot like composting with a worm bin (another method we’ve tried, that lasted for about a year):
But the worms, flies, mold and lovely poop are outside in the dirt—where they belong 😉
How to make a zillion garden boxes
Locate or purchase 3 5ft long 6in wide boards.
Have hubby, or someone not in charge of a baby, cut one board in half. This leaves you with 2 5ft and 2 2.5ft lengths.
Drill holes into the 2 5ft boards where you’ll be placing your screws. This helps prevent splitting the wood:
Rest one end of the long board on a handy surface…
…you kids’ toy shelf, for instance:
Screw the other end to the shorter 2.5ft board:
Continue until you have a box.
Or several boxes:
Figure out where you will be placing the box:
Rototill to make the ground nice and soft:
Shovel the dirt out of the area you’ll be placing the box:
Remove any obstacles:
Measure again:
Scoop dirt away to sink box down:
Check for level (on all four sides):
Shift the soft dirt in the box out to the sides:
Then rototill within the box to fluff up the dirt some more:
Rototil beside the box to soften the dirt you’ll be shovelling into the box:
Shovel dirt into the box:
…until nice and full:
In summary:
Build, til, dig, til, dig, til, dig, til, dig.
Repeat times 1 zillion.
Amen.
Note: 1 zillion in this case actually equals 116 boxes. But it felt like a zillion.