Sourdough

This has to be fast because I hear someone playing after his nap. He hasn't hollered yet so I'll get this done.

I was able to get some bread baked yesterday after the fiasco with my starter. It turned out okay. Still isn't exactly what I want, but is tasty. Also, I think I'll have to use a different recipe. The one I used is for a honey whole wheat sourdough bread, so it has a different flavor. I didn't have whole wheat flour so I added wheat germ and ground flax seed that I do have. This is what came out...

Once this is gone I'll have to bake some more. By then my starter should be good and sour too.

Sourdough Monster

I decided to try making a sourdough starter. Now you have to understand that I generally haven't cooked a whole lot in my lifetime and I haven't played with sourdough other than the Amish Friendship Bread that gets passed around for awhile. I have found several recipes for the starter here lately and since I've been experimenting with baking bread I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Easy right? Wrong. Well, mixing it up was. So was leaving it to bubble and ferment in a warm spot. I mixed the flour, water, yeast, and sugar. I put it in a container above my stove since I knew it would be warm in the cupbard there. I was making Navy bean and ham soup. I went into the living room with Bear and vaccuumed or something that took a little bit of time, but not tons. When I went back into the kitchen to stir the soup there was some sort of dough on my teapot. I couldn't remember spilling any while I was putting the starter up. I looked up and when I opened the cupboard I found this:

This was Bear watching me clean up the mess. He wasn't too sure about the crazy growing stuff. Neither was I to be honest. At least I was able to rescue most of the starter. We'll see if I can make bread with it. At least I know my yeast is good.

Merry Christmas

It's a white Christmas in Montana. We have about a foot of snow and it is still snowing. Tom and I are planning on going cross-country skiing here after a bit. I thought I would put a couple of Christmas photos on here from Bear's first Christmas. He is the one kid I've seen actually go for what is in the package versus the paper or box. He doesn't seem to have too much interest in the boxes.

We are certainly blessed this Christmas. Good friends and family, albiet too far away. Christmas in our new home has been a very pleasant one. It would have been nice to have everyone here, but the weather isn't very cooperative this year, not to mention schedules.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!

Travels

The above are earlier pictures that have needed to be posted. Tom and Bear like to play when Tom gets home from work.

Now onto Bear and my travels... A month or so ago my best friend, Jo, and I decided we needed to get together and make Christmas cookies. Well I picked this last weekend. Bear and I flew to ID and my folks came and got us. We got to drive to their house in blowing snow. A cold windy start and an indication of what was to come. We visited with the grandparents for a day or so, then went to Jo's house to bake cookies. Bear got to watch Christmas cartoons while I baked. The old good ones like "Rudolph" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Mom and I drove back to their house that night in a pretty good snow storm. Not too bad, but it wasn't a fast drive.

Then came the crazy trip home to MT. Tom and I decided last minute to send me out of Jackson instead of Idaho Falls, a good thing too as the flight out of Idaho Falls had cancelled. There were also more seats available and an earlier flight. That way I might have a shot of making it from SLC to Missoula (everything was full or overbooked). Well we made it to Jackson okay in spite of the pass being pretty hairy driving. Bear and I got on the flight okay, but then we proceeded to sit on the airplane for 2 and a half hours while we waited for the runway to be cleared and the plane to be de-iced. It was snowing like crazy. Bear is such a great traveller that he took all this in stride. He ate, napped, and played. Not a bit of fussing. Well, a tiny bit that only I noticed. As we sat and waited for the runway to be cleared, the cabin door had iced up. The crew was determined though. We had the announcement of "We will be getting this door closed." They did, and we made it into the air, and a very short flight later, we were in SLC.

There our saga continued. The weather all over the country had gotten bad. Several Denver flights had been re-routed to SLC. This is in addition to the traffic of the holidays. The E concourse was crazy! There were flights being delayed and cancelled all over. Bear and I tried to make it on 3 different flights that late morning and early afternoon. Not a single open seat to MT. That is to any city in MT, not just Missoula. We killed several hours in the airport. Bear made friends at the airport with a couple of kids who were about 10-12 years old and were also non-revving to MT. He had a great time people watching and playing with little dogs that were stuck at the airport too. Finally at about 3 p.m. there was a flight to Kalispell and one to Missoula. They were leaving about 10 minutes apart and we were listed on both. All of a sudden we were paged for the Kalispell flight. We had a seat! We ran for the plane without a moment's notice and Bear's friends made it on too. What fun. Everyone was excited to make it on a flight.

We let Tom know that we needed picked up in Kalispell which is about a two and a half hour drive from Missoula where Tom was. He drove to come get us in a snow storm. We landed and got to hang out in the airport for an hour or so while we waited for Tom to make his way through snow and traffic to get there. Finally we were reunited with Tom and Buddy! (Tom had stopped at the house to pick up the dog.)

We went to dinner and debated spending the night in Kalispell since it was a good 80 mile drive home. We decided to drive, for Bear and I were ready to sleep in our own beds. We had okay roads as the storm had subsided. As we neared St. Iggy, we could see someone had their hazards on. We slowed and realized the guy's truck had broken down. We stopped and helped of course (we are in Montana after all). He used Tom's phone to call his uncle that lived up the road, and we waited with him until his uncle got there. He also had his wife and new baby in the truck. Now you have to understand we live on an indian reservation, so yes they were Native American. Kinda the stereotypical kind to boot. Long hair, missing teeth, tattoos, and camo clothes. Really nice though. The sad part of living on the res is that there are people who make Tom and I look wealthy even when we are broke. At any rate his uncle and cousin showed up, and we finally finished our drive home. We pulled in at about 10 pm, a relief since Bear and I had gotten up at 4 am so we could get to the airport by 6 am. Needless to say we all slept in this morning. Bear joined Tom and I in bed at about 6 am, and we didn't actually get up until almost 11 am. I love Christmas vacation!

Here's Bear enjoying Grammy and Grandpa's Tree and living room.

Bear hamming it up with Grammy. She's just out of the frame.

The train in the snow on the way to the airport at the beginning of our trip. We were almost to Evaro and the tracks are right next to the road. This is about 4:30 a.m. since we had to be there for Tom's shift that starts at 5 a.m.

Merry Christmas to all!!

Brrrrrr!!

This was our dining room window a couple days ago. From the inside.

We made it up to about 10 degrees F above zero! This means we got half of our house thawed out. We've been covering windows and trying to thaw pipes for two days now. We have weird frozen pipes. At first we didn't have water in the kitchen, nor did we have hot water anywhere. That was yesterday. Today: still no water in the kitchen, but then for awhile our bathtub drain and the water was frozen. As of this evening, we have both hot and cold in the kitchen, no hot in the bathroom, but the water is draining out of the tub. At least this means we can easily do dishes, and we can now do laundry. This is still bad news for showers though. Bear can take baths in his little tub on the table with heated water no problem, but Tom and I just haven't figured out how to fit in his tub.

He's pretty happy being bundled against the cold. This has been the nap outfit of late. His heater in his room just hasn't been cutting it (we are working on that issue among others). He sleeps with Tom and I at night when it gets really cold. We all four pile in together. Bear, Tom, myself, and Buddy at the foot of the bed. It gets toasty warm then.

Meanwhile we are also trying to get ready for visiting, visitors, and the holidays in general. I think I have one more Christmas card to write and then mail. One other to mail as soon as I get an address. I figured that is one thing I'd better get done this year; what with a new house and baby.

Our first bit of snow. We only got about 6 inches. Nothing like Austria. So sad about that. We are supposed to get some more snow in the next couple days before we get sub-zero temps again.

cold

We had the snow earlier today, but now it is cold! My windows are all frosty. Those are my house windows, not car windows. According to the weather on the computer it is about 1 degree F. Brrrrr. I'm not about to go out to find out what it really is here. My thermometer is out on the garage. I just don't want to know the temperature that badly. Besides it being snowy and cold the wind is blowing. I do love winter! I kinda hope it gets bad enough that Tom can't go to work tomorrow. A snow day would be great.

Tomorrow will be a day of getting more photos off of the camera. Then we'll have the photos of snow. Right now I'm freezing out...there is quite a draft by the computer.

Snow!!! Yippee!

We are finally getting some snow after having none. It hasn't seemed like it is almost Christmas. For goodness sakes we had almost 50 degrees F only a couple weeks ago. Now we have about 6 inches and it is continuing to snow. It is supposed to do this today and then it is supposed to get bitter cold the next couple of days. I guess tomorrow our high is supposed to be -1 F. I'm okay with that so long as the sun is out. I love cold sunny days. I know this one is short, but I'd better get some sweeping and shovelling done while Bear sleeps.

Trees,snow, and the holidays

We have yuck weather here lately. We had a tiny bit of snow the other day. Just enough to get the hopes up but no more. It rained last night and melted the skiff that was here. The mountains are beautiful with snow, but none here in the valley. I'm hoping we get some by Christmas. I like the not having to drive in it, but it doesn't seem like the Christmas season without the ground being white. We are trying to make it feel a bit like Christmas anyway with our tree. It's still better than a tropical Christmas. I do like the weather to actually change once in awhile.

Here's Tom and Barrett (above)before the tree was decoratedOur tree with the train after the lights went on. It's tough getting a photo in a dark room of a lit up tree.

Bear was sunbathing one nice day recently. Made for some good pictures, most of which I won't put on here. I don't think the poor kid would appreciate that later in life.