It's finally here!!

The 2014 Johnny's seed catalog has arrived!  This, my friends, is the equivalent to the Toys R Us "Big Book" at Christmas time!  NOW you can understand how excited we are! 

Duck Hunt

Andy enjoyed a weekend duck hunting with his younger brother.  He came home with a duck, but it was a decoy!  So much for filling the freezer with this trip....maybe the next one. 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Our seeds are finally here! They have arrived, and they are teeny tiny!  

Their leaves will be gigantic and their potency even greater....any guesses what these seeds are for??

It's TOBACKY!! Good, ol' fashioned, roll-your-own tobacco. We are planning on growing it, drying it, and smoking it this year....oh, and vomiting after our first drag!  Hahaha 

Meat is meat.

These kids are crazy about legs: turkey legs, chicken legs, AND rabbit legs! Yummy, yummy! 🐰

A duck pond.

We couldn't resist putting the decoys in the thawed out pond. We'll see how many passerbys take a second glance! 

Sourdough Slacker

I'm not going to try to catch up. I have had a few photos, but I keep forgetting to send them!  You'd think it would be a habit by now! 

Here is the first rise of the second loaf.  It's a marvel to me how yeast reacts. The dough doubled in size in 12 hours!

After the second rise....

A fantastic second loaf of sourdough! We didn't cut into this one. I sent it home with Robin to enjoy and share. We'll see what they report about taste. The first loaf was tasty!  I was proud and a little surprised that I didn't wreck it somehow. And yes, it was definitely sour!

It looks like bread!

It smells like bread! 

Can't wait to taste it! 

I'm in sourdough heaven! 

Sourdough

I'm going for it! Wish me luck!! 

Ps- I'm sorry for being a slacker. Andy has photos on his iPod. I just need to forward them to my device. We have lots of exciting things going on over here: birthday fun, bread baking, a successful rabbit escape, seed purchases, and lots of EGGS!!  With a busy home, I have been slacking on the picture taking and photo sharing. I'll try harder because. March 23rd is fast approaching!  

Shrinkage & Tina Bobeena

After checking on the starter in the morning, I saw that it had shrunk down to the amount when I first placed it in this giant pickle jar. I'm not exactly sure what happened or why it reacted the way it did, but here it is!  I smell pancakes and loaves of bread in our future!  

Tina visited the vet yesterday and came home microchipped and fixed. The cone stays on for another five days and she cannot go outside for another nine. Tilly cracks up every time she sees the cone. Evan loves to baby this little kitty and helped Tina try out a few different bowls to drink out of until they found one that worked. Andy promises that that Tina will be catching mice in no time. Promises. Promises. 

Caught up!

This is our compost heap. It sits directly under the rabbit hutch. The Donnas aerate the pile every day and Andy rakes it back up every evening.  It has worked out well. They're doing the tedious mixing job for us!  

This blurry photo is of our new pair of breeding does!  Hooray!  Introducing (unofficially- names are still up for discussion) LadyBird Johnson and Miss Piggy/Martha Washington!  

I was brave and decided to go for it!  I made myself a sourdough starter from scratch using Grandma Oma's recipe from her cookbook. (Her cookbook as in she wrote it. It's neat, I know!!) 

It started out well.  We were getting excited! Then.......

.....within 30 minutes it started to overflow!!!  I started to panic. 

BUT who can panic when your child begs to play with the cheesecloth covered in beginning bacteria growth and is giving you this look!