58:365 Escape!

Anna: It's alive - and trying to run away!

My sourdough has reached young adulthood. Rosencrantz is still unsure of what he wants to do in life, and wishes to explore his options.

This is why a sourdough must never be in a sealed container.

And yes, we name our sourdoughs.

When I lifted the lid to feed the started today, I could see it had expanded to just under the lid after yesterday's feeding. I didn't need to add water this time, just flour and a bit of sugar, but I knew I'd need to keep a close eye on it. I checked it several times as I cleaned the kitchen, and it was slowly coming to a bubble. When I was done cleaning, I sat down for a bit - and promptly forgot all about it.

Finding this changed my baking plans considerably. *L* I hadn't intended to use Rosencrantz until tomorrow, at 7 days old. Instead, I started on it today. I made plain white bread for hamburger buns in one batch, then oatmeal, flax and honey dough for a second. Then I went out and bought more loaf pans and a much needed cookie sheet. By the time I came back, they were ready to shape, so I've got two sheets of hamburger buns on sheets rising with two loaves. As soon as I finish posting this, my scalded milk should be cool enough to do another 2 loaves of milk and honey bread.

Even with two cups of starter taken out, rose again to the top of the container, though not quite enough to overflow, while I was gone. It's all frothy now, too.

I'd say this starter is doing just fine!

57:365 - Morning Haze - Afternoon Treat

Philippe: Though I've blown the sky out, The shot still captures the light misty haze that was hanging over everything this morning in the valley.



















Anna: The girls and I are in "fine" shape today. I'm full of aches and pains from my shift last night. While I was working, our elder daughter started feeling under the weather, and by this morning her sister wasn't feeling too good, either. So our weekly library trip was short and missing a person, as only our younger daughter was feeling well enough to go. We made it a short trip, then stopped by at the Second Cup that's in the same building as our library. We haven't been there in ages, so it was a nice treat. My daughter was initially going to order a chilled drink, but I pointed out that a cold drink wouldn't help her stomach any. So she ordered a white hot chocolate, instead. Ah, the magic healing powers of such treats. Within minutes, her stomach had completely settled and she was feeling much better. :-D

56:365 Toes

Anna: The cat sometimes likes to sit with her front paws together oh-so-precisely. I decided to see how co-operative she would be with the super macro setting on the camera. This is the only photo that turned out. *L* I even tried a few of her face, which she's let me do before, but today she kept rubbing her cheeks on the camera and moving around. So, I had to be satisfied with my one good picture. And clean my lens of cat smears. ;-)

Today, I also got a special crock pot, just for the sourdough. Actually, it's a pottery cannister. I needed something small enough not to take up too much space in the kitchen, with a wide open mouth big enough for us to scoop in with a 1 cup measuring cup, and a lid that doesn't seal air tight (wouldn't want it to explode...). So now my baby sourdough is an adolescent sourdough, with a very thorough feeding. A few more days, and we'll test it out. :-D






Philippe: Well, since we're doing kitty shots, I'd like to say that, for *this cat*, being spoiled rotten would be a major step down for her. We are *all* private nap areas, nose wipe (she calls it nuzzling) areas, and climbing posts.. and she will *not* be dissuaded when she wants someone for one of those roles.. She's jumped up on Anna when she was putting on shoes, she's jumped on my shoulder *as soon as* I've put on my shirt in the morning (she tried once without the shirt and won't do that again, I d0n't think.. Too noisy).

55:365 Three Days Old

Anna: This is our sourdough. It's just a baby sourdough right now, at only three day's old. It's a tiny one, too. Just big enough to have room to expand in an old POM juice jar.

It's been a long time since we've had a sourdough in the house. They need tending and care, and sometimes they go bad and can only be thrown out. My husband and I still talk fondly about our first sourdough, made when our eldest daughter was just a toddler. I'd found a book, called Alaska Sourdough. It was a great read, with plenty of stories and history to go with the hand written recipes. The starter used potato water (which was an actual potato cooked and mashed in its water, not just water potatoes were cooked in), and we gave it a try. It said in the book that the sourdough could be used at 3 days, but it was better to wait a week. Well, we were eager to give it a go, so I made up a flapjack recipe from the book. Holy Moly! Talk about strong! They had an almost alcoholic flavour to them, and eating them felt a lot like drinking cognac. Those things would sure put hair on your chest! They were delicious, though we did wait until the week was up before trying again. *L*

We kept that sourdough in a large Tupperware Thatsa Bowl, and used it frequently. Breads, cakes, pancakes, muffins - there were so many things made better with that sourdough.

We kept it alive and thriving for almost 2 years. By then, we'd moved from BC back to Manitoba. We had moved into a house we rented from one of my brothers, and it wasn't unusual for him to crash at our place if he was working very late. When he did, he usually brought along some of his own foods or drinks - like coffee, as we never had any in the house. One time, he'd left something wrapped in a plastic bag in the fridge. I never looked into it to see what it was, since it was his and I won't go into other people's stuff.

The following weekend, we were invited to stay over at my in-laws. At the same time, my mother was in the city to take in a weekend event. So she was going to stay over at our place while we were gone. The first morning there, she made herself some tea, then went looking into the fridge to see what there was to go with it. She saw the bag, looked inside, and found some donuts. She started to have one with her tea when she discovered they were moldy. She was, understandably, disgusted and threw them away.

Later on, however, she looked under the lid of a large bowl we kept on the counter. Well, if you've ever had a sourdough, you know that they can have a distinctive and powerful smell. They also bubble and froth, then dry along the sides as they recede from the newest feeding. My mother thought it was something else that had gone bad. When we got home, we found she'd filled it full of water to soak away the dried stuff, but hadn't thrown it out yet. It was unsalvageable.

Sadly, we've never been able to duplicate the success of that first sourdough. We've tried the same recipe again. We've tried other versions. We've yet to have one that lasted more than a few months.

Perhaps this baby will make it. :-D

54:365 Still coming down and Cute stuff

Ok, so we over did it a bit on pictures today... ;-)

Anna: After being stuck in the apartment for several days, we all headed to the 4th floor lounge to get a bit of physical activity on the squash courts. Here, you can see the door onto the 4th floor patio.

I wonder how they're going to open it to clear the snow away? In the winter, the staff will bring snow blower right through the lounge and through that door.












Remember this picture? It's the same window. Actually, the drift is a bit taller than it looks, as there's a bit of a gap, then the drift peaks a few inches higher. It's higher than I am tall, so it's over 5 1/2 feet.

Did I mention we were on the 4th floor?









We did get some interesting sculptures again. There was one corner drift this is part of, where the wind was constantly whirling around, then up and over to the other side, to be dumped onto the drift in the previous picture.









Philippe asked me to post these next ones for him. He *really* liked using my monopod to take the shots. Her Royal Highness was being cute again. :-D First, she claimed our younger daughter's lap again, preventing any further work on the scarf.























Then she decided to look down upon her subjects while perched on the back of the computer chair.

She hates flash.

53:365 - Winter Woes

Philippe: This was a common site today.. I had to go downtown and the bus I was on decided to sideswipe a pole.. Second bus I got on got stuck in drifts.. Overall, it was a really lousy day for driving.










Anna: Today was supposed to be park day. Instead, we woke to the sounds of engines revving as people tried to get out their cars out of the drifts. So we puttered around the house, with our younger daughter doing more work on the scarf she's crocheting for her sister (who decided to do with straight purple instead of striped) - at least until the cat decided it was much more important for her to be a cat bed. *L*

52:365 Storm warning

Anna: We've actually got a winter storm warning for our area right now. It's only -9C, but it's blowing like crazy. I went to our 4th floor lounge area, intending to get another picture from the same spot I took yesterday's shot. Instead, I found this. The door to the patio is blocked by this drift.















We're not getting a lot of snow, and it's the kind of snow with tiny flakes that are more like ice chips. The wind has been sculpting some interesting drifts along the glassed in hall leading to the lounge area.

We *had* been warm enough for the grass to start turning green.

I phoned my parents in Manitoba this morning. They're expecting +20C today.