For now, I’ll have to stick with yeast dough, at least until next summer, I don’t have a reliably warm enough place. It gets warm during the day, but at night it gets down in the teens, we don’t try too hard to keep the cabin warm, we just dress warm most of the time.

Yes, I do find comedy, even if it’s a comedy of errors, I have to laugh, the only other option is to cry and that doesn’t help, much… The bread I was working on didn’t turn out, I ended up putting it in my neighbor’s oven. After it was baked, it didn’t seem to brown very much, it had a very unappetizing pallor to it. After I took it out, I discovered that it stuck to the pan, it took quite a bit of work to get it out of the pan, and it took the so called non stick coating with it, I couldn’t even bring myself to toss it outside for the animals to eat, I didn’t want to poison them with that non stick coating. So back to the drawing board. I’m not too disappointed though, I know I can make a loaf of bread, I’ve done it too many times before. I can say though, this was the most spectacularly failed loaf of bread I’ve ever made, so if nothing else, I can’t do any worse than this. :)

You are so right about appreciating each step, I have to laugh when I think of other people living like I do, I don’t think many would like it for long, but I don’t mind the “hardships” because I know that each time we improve something, it makes life so much easier and makes me appreciate even the little things, like doing the dishes, at first I had to get the water that I hauled in, take it outside in a small pan along with the dirty dishes, a scrubby pad and the soap, wash the dishes with cold water and rinse with cold water, then I had to bring in all the clean dishes. Once Bob got the sink drain plumbed, I could at least do the dishes INSIDE the house, still with cold water that I had hauled in. Once we got the 55 gallon drum inside the house with the 12 volt pump, what a luxury! I had running (cold) water and could do the dishes in style! :) Most people would balk at having to do the dishes by hand, I am just thankful that I CAN do the dishes inside the house with running water and a drain. Yes, I am thankful for each and every small (and sometimes big) step we take to improve our lives. Hot water is the next big thing, I’ll feel so very civilized when I have hot running water inside the house…

Wretha

It’s funny, I just came here to read your blog after I finished a long blog post of my own tonight on bread-making. I had succeeded with making sourdough bread, after I made my own starter, and I was feeling happily pioneer-ish. So I thought of checking in at this website.

If you’d like to read my sourdough story, stop by:
http://www.bendingtreearts.com/blog/2008/11/07/making-sourdough-bread-de-mystified/

And I hope your loaf of bread eventually made it to your table!