Bread-Making, Marion's Lazy Way

Just before dinner yesterday, Charles said, "Uh-oh; we're out of bread".  No problem.  A few minutes later, I put 2 cups of warm water in a large bowl, tossed in some yeast (about a tablespoon full, more or less) and the same amount of sugar, and covered the bowl.  Then I sat down to eat.



After dinner, I beat two cups of whole wheat flour and a teaspoonful of salt into the water, making it the consistency of pancake batter.  Then, I covered it and left it for an hour or two, when I stirred in a cup or so of white flour.  By then, it was a sticky dough, too thick to stir easily. 

Another hour later, I dumped it out onto a small pile of white flour, maybe another cupful. 

I kneaded it for three or four minutes, using lots of flour because it was so sticky.  Then I put it back into the bowl, moved the bowl into a cool spot near a window, and went to bed.  If you added the time I spent on it all together, it would total about ten minutes during the evening.

This morning, while I was waiting for my coffee to be ready, I formed the bread dough into a loaf and put it near the stove to rise.  By the time I had to go milk, it was nicely risen and the oven was hot.  I put it in the oven for a few minutes, then covered it loosely with tinfoil and went out to the barn.  When I came in, I took out our fresh, hot breakfast loaf.  Pretty lazy, huh?

Garden Planning 2011



The garden now

I mailed away my 2011 seed order a few days ago.  It''s a slightly smaller order than usual, because I'm not ordering any flower seeds this year.  I'm going to concentrate on changing my garden layout in hope of reducing my workload.

For as long as I can remember, I've been interested in things like permaculture and natural gardens.  I try to focus on plants that grow easily in our climate rather than struggling with the ones that need babying.  My garden has never experienced a power tool, there are lots of flowers mixed in with the veggies, and I encourage volunteers.  It's slightly chaotic and quite unlike the gardens of my neighbours.  I believe theirs are all more productive than mine, but I manage to grow nearly all the produce we eat and I'm enjoying myself while I do it, in a garden that suits my personality.

The biggest difficulty I have is the lack of running water.  I haul water from our pond in buckets to use for watering seeds if we have a dry spell, but after the seedlings are growing well, they have to make do with whatever water falls from the sky.  Mulching heavily between plants helps keep them moist.  I've also placed the garden where it's "sub-irrigated" by the natural water flow heading for the creek below our property.

I grow a wide variety of greens, some herbs, root crops, asparagus, and berries.  A small, unheated greenhouse shelters some cherry tomatoes to snack on, as well as a few tobacco plants.  My neighbours grow tons of beautiful potatoes, so I trade a lamb for my winter supply of these.  Add the meat, cheese, milk, and eggs that my animals produce, and some wild foods that I gather, and you have our basic diet.

In a pinch, we could live quite nicely on what we produce here on our land.  We don't, of course.  We buy grains and luxeries like coffee and spices.  Also, we usually travel a couple of hours south in the fall to pick our yearly supply of tomatoes, squash, and peppers.

Anyway, I've ordered the seeds I need.  Now there's nothing to do but dream and plan for a while, till the first seeds can be started in the house in early March.



Early spring garden




First spring flowers



Reading Buddies



Floyd just can't wait to go to school

Rural schools rely on community support.  Charles and I do our bit by volunteering in a program called "Reading Buddies" in our local elementary school.   In this program,children who aren't having a good time reading are put together one-on-one with adult volunteers who read with them and to them.  We go in once a week for a couple of months, and our goal is to help the kids realize that reading can be fun.  We usually have a pretty good time doing it, meeting some nice kids, and we think it's important.

"Isn't it time yet?"

Floyd has also been a Reading Buddy this year.  He's a very good school volunteer, making the kids feel loved and welcome, and being quiet and attentive during the reading.

On the way to class



Everyone's favourite Reading Buddy



Helping choose a book



Small schools all over the province are threatened with closure.  Ours was, back in 2004.  The whole community rallied and refused to let it close.  They fought, and in the end, they won.  Charles has documented this, and other B.C. school struggles, in his film, "School's Out?"  Part one of four is up on YouTube now and the other three parts will follow once a week.

1993 First Breeding Experience

We borrowed a buck, a fat, donut-fed Nubian cross youngster named Bob, for our first breeding.  Bob stayed in the old goat-pen, while Sally and Lyla had the barn and barnyard.  We intended to breed Sally, but felt that at six months old, Lyla was too young.

Bob escaped one day.  I was standing right next to the does as he ran up and mounted Lyla, so I hauled him off -- he couldn't have been on top of her for more than a couple of seconds.  I dutifully recorded the date -- just in case -- but we really couldn't think that this had actually been a "breeding".  ( We had never had a buck at that point and had never seen goats breed before.)  Five months later, Lyla presented us with a single kid.  Sally, who had been bred the next day, produced twins, a lop-eared buck kid and a lovely cream-and-black doeling that we named Celeste.

It never fails to amaze me that farm-raised kids (the human kind, I mean) have unplanned pregnancies.  They must know how easily it happens!!!!

Heating

the first stove

I love my cookstove.  One of the reasons I can't imagine moving back to the city is that I'd have to leave it behind.  That might break my heart.

Being a lazy person, I strongly approve of anything that accomplishes several objectives with one amount of work.  I chop wood once.  That same wood, via the stove, heats my house, fuels my cooking, dries my clothes, heats my water, makes my toast, dehydrates food for storage.  I can slow-cook a stew or a roast, or do my canning, with no extra energy.  How can you improve on that?

The first cookstove we had was one we bought for $75.  It was an old, worn-out Enterprise brand, with a warming oven.  We used it for several years when we first moved here.  I liked the way we could have so many things on the stovetop at once, and it served us well, but it was so "leaky" that the fire was always either going full-out or just going out. 
The firebox was so small that we had to cut the wood into tiny pieces and stoke it often, and it wouldn't hold a fire for even half the night.  The house was cold by morning and during the winter months we needed to keep a second stove burning in the basement.

We finally wore that stove out completely and bought another used one.  It was a much plainer model, with no warming oven.  Being in better shape, it was more easily controlled, but basically still had the same problems.  One advantage to having these two old stoves was that they taught me to judge my wood well.  I had to know which kinds of wood burned hot, or burned for a long time, because it took finesse to get the oven to the right temperature or keep the house warm for as long as possible while we were in town or asleep.

Our current stove is everything those first two were not.  It is an Amish-made model from Ontario.  We bought it brand-new four years ago, for about $1200.  It's that marvel of technology: an airtight cookstove.  It has a nice, big firebox and also a big oven.  The heat is easy to control.  It holds a fire ovenight with no problem at all.  Our house is always warm.  We still need a stove in the basement to keep things from freezing down there, only when the temperature drops below -20.  I'm looking forward to many happy years with this one.

our current stove

Extreme Weather Mittens

 These mittens are quite time-consuming to make, but they are worth it if you live in a cold climate.



First, you knit your favorite mitts, but make them several sizes too big (including the thumb).  I like a pattern that has a fold-over flap so that I can use my fingers when I need to.  A two-colour pattern makes a denser knit, which adds to the warmth.

After they're complete, turn them inside out.  Starting just above the wrist, sew big loops of soft buffalo wool all over the inside of the mitt.  If you catch the inside of the knitting rather than sewing right through the fabric, it makes a nicer finish.  When the whole surface has been closely covered with the fluffy loops, turn the mitts right-side out and enjoy.





Mercury plunges

Wool warmly enfolding hands
Extreme weather mitts

When I was a child, I wore a completely different kind of extreme weather mitt that Lazy Marion could approve.  My mother would stack several layers of fabric together, using cloth of differing weights.  Then, she would have me put my hands on the stack and she'd trace around them.  She'd cut out two hand-shapes for each mitt, put the "hands" palms together, and sew them with the seams to the outside.  They aren't very pretty, but they are so warm that my mom ended up making them for all the neighbourhood kids.

1992 Barn-Raising

We needed a barn before the first winter set in.  We'd got as far as putting in our foundation posts and framing the walls, when I got a phone call one morning.  At that time, Charles was attending the local church.  The pastor of the church was calling to tell me to expect a crew the next morning to put up our barn.

It turned out to be a good old-fashioned barn-raising, and it was something I'll never forget.  Twelve men showed up with their tools.  Their wives came with food at noon, and by the end of the day, the barn was complete up to the rafters.  The only things left for Charles and me to do were to put the tin on the roof, nail the siding on the walls, and hang doors.

Since that time, I've been involved in a couple of community building projects, but not nearly as many as I'd like.  It's a wonderful way to do things.  Most people are either too independent to want the help, or too dependent (so that no-one wants to help them again).  For a co-operative system to work, everyone has to do both giving and taking.  It sure makes for a strong community.