white bread instead

The weather is whipping back and forth between unusually warm and fairly cold, which is typical for an Indiana February (...and March...and April...).  On warm days...we hike.

There's really an embarrassment of riches when it comes to hiking around our house.  When we lived in South Carolina, we had to drive an hour for a good hike...here in southern Indiana, we're surrounded by opportunities.  Morgan-Monroe State Forest, which is 24,000 acres and the second largest state forest in Indiana, is just three minutes from our house.  We also like to branch out to Bean Blossom Bottoms, a 733 acre wetland wildlife preserve that's only ten minutes away, and to Lake Griffy, a 1,200 acre wildlife preserve that's only 16 minutes away.  This week's Lake Griffy hike was two hours on a rugged trail, a bit too long and rugged for Borga... 

...who continued to rebelliously slip her collar...

...until Todd carried her the rest of the way.

Still, it was a great hike.  I love finding new growth in early February, since I'm so starved for color by this time of year.

roundleaf ragwort

grape fern

haircap moss

We also saw a familiar face:  a little muskrat, carefully watching us pick our way across the limestone bluffs.

This is clearly a favorite place for others, too.  What a nice tribute to a beloved friend!

Yes, we love to get out on warm, sunny days...

But on cold days, we stay in and enjoy nature through the window.  Thankfully, we get a lot of birds congregating nearby.

tufted titmouse

I'm also baking on cold days.  In my attempt to eat less processed food, I'm looking at different homemade recipes to provide my daily toast.  I found a wonderful white sandwich bread recipe that makes soft, sliceable loaves every single time.

I've always preferred wheat bread, though.  I tried a recipe from the same site yesterday.  It utilized a sponge that was meant to cut down on the bitterness of homemade wheat.  There was a 5-hour total rise, which is a lot, but it paid off with a delightfully soft and springy loaf.  It tastes good, but has committed the sin of being difficult to cleanly slice. I think I over-proofed one of the steps, because the loaf sank a bit in the middle, and the top separated from the loaf bottom when I sliced. I'll try it one more time, but I'm going to look at other recipes too.  

March is just around the corner and is going to provide many more opportunities for us to get out and explore.  Until then, we're just going to follow Barnabas' lead and take it easy!

Have a great week!

a blur of missour(i)

 Welcome to Missouri!   

And other states.  :)  Todd and I took a multi-state road trip last week to visit my brother in central Missouri.  We had so much fun and saw some amazing things.  We took a day trip to Johnny Morris's Wonders of Wildlife Aquarium...nearly 2 miles of exhibits!  A lot to see.

I got to feed a ray!

Too much fun...

...and so pretty.

Another day, we rented bicycles at Dogwood Canyon.

Lots of nice paths for those of us who haven't ridden in a while!

Missouri has some beautiful rock formations...

...and so many waterfalls!

We saw a lot of wildlife, even though it's late in the season.  

muskrat

groundhog

Todd nearly stepped on this cottonmouth snake...Missouri's only venomous water snake. Thankfully, it slithered off into the rocks instead of defending its territory.

We saw a ton of rainbow trout.

The water is so blue because the stream is fed by an underwater aquifer.  

We saw golden trout too, a type of rainbow trout.

The trip was a great success, in part, because there were no "medical" complications!  Not only is it really difficult for me to sleep away from home, the medicine that I'm on for my outsized perimenopause symptoms gives me strange headaches...stabbing pain behind the eye.  They're not migraines (I actually haven't had a migraine since starting the medicine, which is great), but they're  unpredictable and can last for days, which completely saps my strength.  No issues on this trip...hooray!

That means we can try another trip soon.

Have a great week!  

Goldblum Boom

Although it will be 70 degrees here by Wednesday, it's been cold, and we recently had snow flurries.  Very light...just enough to fill up the spiderwebs that have started appearing in the garden.

The flakes were so light that they themselves were caught suspended in the debris, looking like a tiny snowstorm frozen in time.  

Even with a couple of deep-freeze days, I wasn't worried about our bulbs, and they're continuing to grow with no issues.  Inside, growth has been even better.  I have to pull out my old Jeff Goldblum meme...

...because despite my many mistakes, my ranuculus are doing just fine.  Last year, I left them in the field too long.  Then, after finally digging them up, I left them out to dry for FAR too long...weeks!...and in a freezing cold barn.  I finally brought them in, soaked them, but without much hope.  They were desiccated and gnarled, but I went ahead and stuck them in my cold, dark attic anyway.  Two weeks later...LIFE!!

Ditto with my sweet peas.  After a couple of weeks in the attic, they're up and looking great!  

My little indoor grow area is quite crowded now.

Soon it will be warm enough to move out to my barn potting area!

I'm seeing so much more activity outside now, too.  Every day, herons stalk the bank of our front pond, looking for (and catching!) small fish and frogs.

A group of turkey vultures played a game of tag on a nearby hill.

After a mini-hibernation in February, the muskrats are bustling about, repairing their eroded roof.

I, too, have been gathering materials.  As my physical therapy draws to a close, I'm starting to dabble in quilting again.  I cut my Tilda fabric, layered with Kona Cotton Snow, into 1 3/4" strips.

The next step is sewing these colored strips into rows, alternating with white...

...and then cross-cutting these strips into 1 3/4" sections.

These will be mixed up in a random assortment (more random than this!) and sewn into blocks...

...and then the blocks will be joined and make up the final quilt top, like this one from Red Pepper Quilts.

This method is SO much quicker and easier than sewing each tiny square together.  In just a few minutes, I have a finished block!

I love the scrappiness of of the Red Pepper quilt, and I've worried that there's not enough color variety in my Tilda fabric...but I've got plenty of scrappy quilts, and I love the cohesiveness of this color line.  We'll see how it goes!  

I'll continue to work on this as the season progresses and time allows.  It's going to be very busy here soon between work and the growing season duties.  In just one month, the garden will be fully awake!  I like to look to past years for clues...

photo from mid-April 2019

photo from mid-April 2020

photo from mid-April 2021

I can't wait.  Have a great week!