Sunday, November 30, 2008

Family


I do believe that having evicted the family of opposums we are now invaded by a family of racoons.

We caught another one this morning in our live catch trap and it appears to be a young one. I offered it a dog biscuit which it took, hissing and growling at me all the while. It ate the biscuit and then began looking for another one, "I'm not your friend. Don't think that for a minute, but if you've got another biscuit I'll take it off your hands (hand too if you get too close)."

As DH just said, "I have to admit living here is interesting. Not always in a good way, but interesting."

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Little Too Much Excitement

When Larry went out to feed tonight he discovered a large rattlesnake (Larry measured him at a bit over four feet) impeding his way into the barn. It was keeping warm on the concrete pad that is in front of the barn door. He came back in the house and got the shotgun. I went with him to hold the light.

He killed that snake and then while he was out in the big horses' pen he found another one. This one was smaller, only about three feet. This one was harder to kill. It took two blasts from the shotgun and chopping its head off.

The horses were very cautious coming in from the barn. They weren't going past those things until I led the way. That is except for the ponies and food or no they were not going past those snake bodies even if they were twenty feet from the barn. Eventually I did get them to quit trying to check out the snakes and come on in to the barn.

I could do without that kind of fun and games.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Pet Officially Deceased

Okay. I've given up. My attempts at creating and maintaining sourdough starter are over. I killed my last batch. Since I don't consider myself a cruel person I'll just quit tortuing those poor little microbes and go back to using ordinary commercial yeast when I want to bake bread, pizza or sweet rolls. Besides the dogs and horses refused to eat that last batch of bread I attempted.

And speaking of sweet rolls, while I was trying to find a book I consider an important refrence I ran across various old books about cooking, gardening, goat keeping, and compost building, as well as other things. These are not only books I've collected over the years, but ones various relatives collected, including one created by my grandmother. It has recipes, crochet patterns and housekeeping tips in it. Some of them are clipped from magazines and newspapers and some are written out. She gave it to me in 1967 when I was first married and complaining about not knowing how to bake bread.

Back to the rolls. I found my grandma's old recipe and decided to try it. The first batch turned out okay, but needed something. The thing is she didn't use the measuring tools I have today. Her Cup was an old teacup. Her spoons were the ones she used for coffee, soup and serving. There is also the pinch of this and dash of that that are determinded by experience.

it turned out I needed more sugar in the dough, but not as much as I put in the second time. I tested the dough by making a small pancake and tasting it. Since the dough was too sweet and you can't remove the extra sugar I decided I would make her cinnamon rolls.

The cinnamon rolls turned out okay, but when she said to add a hint of caynne to the cinnamon and sugar mixture she meant a HINT. Still they turned out edible and that is good enough for me.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Deceased Pet

After two weeks I gave up on my first attempt at growing sourdough starter.

I've started over and I'm trying a different method of keeping the temperature at a proper level. I put the container in the oven and left the oven light on. This seems to keep it at about seventy degrees, the recommended temperature.

I'll let you know if this works any better. If it doesn't, I'll probably give up. After all I can buy very good sourdough bread at a local store any time I want it.