Dogwood Winter, Orchids and Sourdough Bread

Hello friends, How was your weekend? Easter is always a special family time for us. We went to my sister’s house for a cook-out. I made baked beans and some cookie bars. How did you spend your Easter Sunday?

My cookie bars just before baking them.

I have been sitting in the early mornings listening to the whippoorwills while I drink my coffee. Whippoorwill winter will be here soon. All last week we were experiencing Dogwood winter. The Dogwood trees are now fully bloomed out and the temps have turned quite warm again. Dogwood winter was very nice while it lasted. Cool mornings and warm afternoons.

I think the Dogwood is one of the most beautiful trees.

I mentioned last week that I had visited Harmony Lane Farms in Smithville Tennessee. If you missed that post check it out Here. I took a sample of their sour doughbread starter. I didn’t have time to make the sourdough bread when I brought the starter home. I kept the starter in the refrigerator and took it out last Friday to feed it and get it to room temperature to get it ready to make bread. Just like my yeast bread it is a two day process. If you are unsure of making sourdough bread check out some of the YouTube or Instagram videos out there. There’s so many good ones. I think I’ve watched about a million trying to get different ideas of how people do theirs.

I fed the bread on Friday morning around 5:00 AM and marked my jar to be able to see if the starter was active and rising. I came home Friday night and ran to the kitchen to check the starter and it was rising. It had almost doubled in size. I fed it again that night and the next morning I started the bread.

There is a lot of stretching and folding when you are dealing with sourdough bread. It took most of the day, off and on. I finished it in the afternoon and decided to let the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight. I had read that this makes for a more flavorful bread. On a side note I made more bread a couple of days later and didn’t do all of the stretching and folding and I didn’t leave it in the fridge as long. I couldn’t tell a bit of difference. I did stretch and fold a few times and let it rest and rise for a few hours.

This is the proofing basket. I used to put the dough in after I had folded it and seamed the bottom.

I baked the bread on Sunday morning. I was very happy with the way it turned out. It is very different from my yeast bread and the artisan bread that I make.

I love the color and the texture of this bread.

I celebrated my birthday this week and my 35th wedding anniversary. I don’t know if I told you but I got married on my Birthday. So we have a double celebration. I asked for an ice cream maker for my Birthday. The electric kind not the one you churn by hand. No thank you on the hand crank job I remember those from my childhood. Hubs and I took the day and did a little shopping and went out to eat. Very low key.

My morning view a couple of times last week.

I had read that if your cat has a box to play and sleep in it makes them more sociably comfortable and happy. I fixed a box for the kitties. They were very interested. Gus was the first one in it.

And then Kitty Kitty got in after Gus had finished inspecting it.

As soon as Gus saw Kitty Kitty in “his” box he ran straight into it and pushed Kitty Kitty out. The fight was on. I went down to the basement and got a second box and fixed it up for them. And wouldn’t you know it, neither one would have anything to do with the second box. Now they have lost interest in both boxes. Oh well it was an experiment.

Several of my orchids are blooming and I am just loving all the different colors.

That is what has been going on around here how is your week going?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

A Trip To Harmony Lane Farms In Smithville Tennessee

Happy Monday. How was your weekend? Last week was a long week. I started last Monday taking my sister for outpatient surgery in Knoxville. Then I had to stay late at work three different days. A long week. But the weekend was great!!! And I was so ready for it.

On Saturday my sister, niece and I went to nearby Smithville to visit my nephew. He works in Smithville and has lived there for more than a year. He discovered a goat farm near his house. Harmony Lane Farms, it is a working farm and they sell goat milk, ice cream and even fudge all made from Goat’s milk.

I went online to check it out and saw that they even had a farm tour and baby goat cuddling. We were all in.

We met my nephew in Sparta Tennessee which is about thirty minutes from his house. He had a pizza place he wanted us to try. We got into Sparta almost an hour before we were scheduled to meet him so we drove around the town.

My sister and I chose something different than pizza. Although the pizza looked great too.

Just outside of town we saw a little farm store that was very crowded. We still had some time to kill so we pulled in. The Farmers’ Storehouse. It was the neatest shop.

So many different types of flour.

They make a lot of sour dough and even gave me a sour dough starter. It turns out that my sour dough bread is actually more of a yeast bread than an actual sour dough bread. But that’s okay I can do both. I have already fed the new starter a few times but haven’t actually made bread yet.

The farm tour was so much fun. We rode on a wagon and fed chickens, goats, cattle and watched the hogs being fed. I even got to milk a goat. Then we were able to cuddle the baby goats and even feed them with a bottle. They were just adorable.

It was such a beautiful day.
This farm was so beautiful
The goats know when it is feeding time.

The goats are hand milked twice a day.
Me and my sister and some baby goats. We also got to bottle feed them.

We sampled several different types of cheese and the fudge of course. It was all delicious. My nephew always buys ice cream here.

I got home just in time to capture this beautiful moonrise.

Sunday was mostly resting and some laundry and spending time with my hubs.

How was your weekend?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Goodbye March and Hello April!!

I was thinking about the month of March. It’s hard to believe it has ended for another year. March came in like the proverbial Lion. The weather was terrible the wind was so strong it blew our outside furniture all over the deck. We had tree limbs down and lost power one night for about six hours. We had a hail storm that left our deck littered with hail so thick it looked like snow. And then it, March, went out like a little meek lamb. Goodbye March. Until next year.

March was a full month of work and reading, knitting and crochet projects, dinners with family and then with some friends, I was the guest speaker at a hospitality training seminar, my husband retired and is loving it, I was able to visit with my niece who was in for a time from California, I visited a farm that grows tulips, my tulips are blooming and several of my orchids are blooming. So wow!!! Quite a month. I would expect no less I guess.

The Reduds are also blooming. At work we have several visitors who come in and ask “what are the beautiful purple trees that we see all along the roads.” I tell them they are actually Redbuds. Redbuds? but they’re purple, and then I show them the picture of a Redbud when it first blooms out and it is definitely a red bud.

See how red the first bloom actually is?
I passed a house that had this beautiful tree blooming and just had to get a picture.

And of course just like clock work we experienced Redbud Winter. The temperatures took a plunge last week which is always what happens when the Redbuds bloom. I truly believe in all the winters that we experience in East Tennessee. If you haven’t read my post explaining them you can read it here: The Five Winters of East Tennessee. Many people I work with, even my husband, poo poo this and don’t believe that the trees budding, and other signs have anything to do with the weather, but I firmly believe they do. My parents always believed this and so did early settlers, for them it was the only way they had of knowing when the last frost had occurred and it was safe to plant crops.

A few weeks ago I became obsessed with the crocheted Easter eggs that are all over the internet. I spent several hours watching a YouTube video while working stitch by stitch with a yarn, turns out was much too thick, to make one of these eggs. You crochet one side and then the other side separately and then slip a small plastic Easter egg inside and slip stitch the two sides together. My first one turned out so large, because of the thick yarn I was using, you could have put three Easter eggs inside of it. Back to my computer and YouTube I went. The second egg wound up on the floor because I got so frustrated, I may have actually yelled and stomped a little, with the yarn. I had picked a thinner cotton yarn. Wrong. The cotton just didn’t work. It kept splitting and it was still too thick. For round three I chose crochet thread, it is super fine. I am using a size 2.75 crochet needle. I finished it and I think I sort of like it. I would like to make a few more and hang them across my kitchen window.

The third attempt. I think I am better off sticking with the crochet thread. I hung this one in my window and would like a few more. Maybe I will get better with each one.

If you want to try one of these eggs, just put crocheted Easter egg inside your search bar and lots of them will come up.

So here we are in April. The weather has been so nice and soft. The trees are turning about a million shades of green. Flowers are blooming, and the pollen is going crazy!!! I guess you just have to take some of the bad with the good.

I leave you with one of my favorite April poems.

Have a wonderful week and month!!!

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!