A Day in the Handmade Life

Ok, I know I talk about wanting to post more than I do.  But today I realized something about this phenomenon:  I always wait to post until I have finished some big project (or lately I've been doing it at the end of the week after not finishing big projects to blog about) to make some fantastic tutorial post about (I LOVE tutorial blog posts, I've learned so much!).  So I was reflecting on what blogs actually are, online journals that you share with everyone, granted as they have evolved they've taken on more specific characteristics, but in it's core this blog especially is just supposed to be about my life and sharing with distant family and friends where we don't have as much time to keep up as I wish we did.  So today's post will just be about today. 

I did take some pics throughout the day to make this a little more interesting:

This is "T" (below).  He actually has a different name that I don't like, so we'll just call him "T." I don't know if he was featured in the introductions way back when this blog was created, but he's the current resident peacock (accompanied by two peahens and preceeded by Lyle).   From about mid-April to July he does this all day, every day.  I don't know if you have ever seen a peacock display but he doesn't just launch his tail feathers into the air, he vibrates them, occasionally calls and shows off his fluffy underpants (not pictured).

These little babies are growing up!  It's hard to see how big they've gotten in the pic, but here are some of our 2012 batch of new birds.  These guys are Bramas (very cold hardy, combination egg and meat birds with intact brooding instincts and feathered legs), sunning themselves during th approximate 2 hrs of sun we had today.

Above: Meat bird (or Meat Monster as we um, affectionately call them) compared with one of my little silkies.  These birds are exactly the same age.

As a way of teaching Chobe about the seasons we look at the fruit trees in front of the house throughout the year. They're one of the best examples of decidious trees around especially because their cycle is so clear from bare to buds to flowers to fruits. When we looked yesterday  Chobe was happy to learn about the "baby flowers" inside the buds.  Then he proceede to point out all the dandelions as other "baby flowers" in the yard.

Lunch. Kale salad with puple cabbage, carrots, apples, feta, and pecans.

I finally made bread today!  I have been wanting to do this for weeks.  We have been paying 3-5 dollars a loaf for organical hippy bread.  This cost me maybe $2 to make and only because I used raw goat milk, which is pricey.  I wouldn't mind doing this with pasteurized milk since it gets baked anyway, so the cost might really be around $.82 or so.  This is my first loaf since a failed sourdough attempt last fall.  I used the Joy of Cooking "milk bread" recipe and substituted about 2/3 of the white flour with whole wheat pastry flour and used honey instead of sugar to make this more hippy friendly.  It's pretty good, but I'm excited to try out some different recipes and see which one we like best.  Chobe was soooo excited to eat the bread when it came out of the oven last night.  It was still cooling when we went to bed so he'll have to wait until morning for the taste test.

This is one of the infamous baby legwarmers in progress.  I got a couple inches done today.  I'm secretly wanting to get these done by the end of this week, even though I swore off making that goal because it's already failed two or three times.  I guess if I keep making it though it's bound to be successful at some point.  Yes, maybe this week.

 Today was a good day.