Sunday, October 16, 2016

Weekending


This morning started with the sound of Kookaburras laughing in the paddocks, a lovely background noise over taken by the sound of the electric kettle. Sitting in the pantry was two batches of sourdough, risen to their full potential and full of big air bubbles. I'd bulk fermented them overnight, a bowl of my master (everyday) recipe and a box of pizza scroll dough. (The recipes/methods available in my eBook).
I love starting the day with kneading dough - it's such a lovely way to wake up. It seemed to be an exceptionally good batch of dough, so lovely and bouncy beneath my hands. Unfortunately I didn't flour my banneton enough (that's the last time I ignore that little voice in my head!) and my loaf of bread got very badly stuck. For a minute I thought I'd have to pull it from the banneton with my hands, but luckily it dropped out eventually. It lost a lot of air, but thank heavens for oven spring, it gained some back, so it didn't turn out as flat as I first thought.
The pizza scrolls, on the other hand, were perfect in every sense of the word.



The other thing that happened early this morning was a bellowing house cow - Missy was complaining that Peggy hadn't drunk her usual fill. Peggy has come down with 3 Day, which is basically just like a nasty flu for cows. They get a high temperature and a snotty nose, stiff joints and feel quite sorry for themselves. It can be fatal if not treated, and the fever is dangerous to pregnant animals. After a dose of medicine, Peggy got to her feet and relieved her complaining mother's udder. She's doing much better, and should be back to herself in a few days time. As the name suggests, 3 Day usually only lasts for that long, but once we had a cow turn it into 6 day. After lying down for that many days it was very hard for us to get her up and moving (we'd tried for several days to get her to stand before we had success). It's very bad for cattle to lie around too much, their joints lock up and they have a lot of trouble recovering.

All of that aside, the day turned out to be pleasantly warm and sunny. There are lots of flowers around at the moment which is lovely, and I'm enjoying the more normal weather this year. Last year we were thrown straight from winter into summer, so it's lovely that spring seems to have put in an appearance.

How has your weekend been?
I hope you've had a good one!

Below I've shared some things I thought you might enjoy looking at for what remains of the weekend, or perhaps you could sneak them into your down-time during the week:

I feed my dogs the BARF diet, and rather than writing a post about it myself, I thought I'd just share the link to this excellent article all about it by Liberty Green.

On paper I've been enjoying M C Beaton's Travelling Matchmaker series - lighthearted, funny little novels that are easy to read and are very enjoyable.

KnitPicks has 40% off all books

A crash course in hashtags

Happy reading!

Sarah x

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8 comments

  1. Loved your newsy post, Sarah, and gorgeous photos! Thanks for the link to a crash course in hashtags. I learnt quite a few new things. Have a good week!

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    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed it Marcellina - thank-you! I hope you have a good week too x
      PS Hashtags can be tricky things to get to understand, can't they?

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  2. Our weekend was lovely, Sarah. We spent time out at a local river, exploring and playing fetch with our dog. Then set up a tent so our boy could go "camping" with Dad in the backyard. I like the sound of the Travelling Matchmaker series you've linked to. Hope my local library has it to borrow. Happy Monday to you! Meg

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    1. That does sound lovely! It's the perfect weather for getting out and about, before it gets too hot. I borrowed the first four books from my library, and am hoping they have the other two in the series. I think I'll definitely be buying them at some point - I love it when I come across enjoyable novels! x

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  3. Oh those bannetons can be tricky business cant they...especially after an overnight prove. (assuming you proved in the bannetons, or maybe not) The pain is even worse when you just know how good the dough is. I bet the bread and pizza scrolls were amazing anyway. Happy baking! Off to read your hashtag link right now x

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    1. They certainly can be! The shape of one of my bannetons is harder to flour than the round one, so sometimes I have trouble with it. The bread, luckily, tasted delicious though and surprisingly didn't turn out dense :-)

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  4. Isn't the whole My Open Kitchen thing just amazing? I am loving it :)

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    1. I've only listened to a few episodes and have enjoyed them so far...my only complaint is that they go for an hour - I often miss the second interview because for some reason I always need to turn it off after about half an hour and do something that requires my full attention. If they split the podcast into two episodes it would be better for me x

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Maira Gall