We’re back to browns and yellows with a hint of green, and a few faint reminders of snow hanging on. There’s been no real winter this year, only a few visits from serious subzero cold and snow. At least, that’s how I’m remembering it. The photos here on the blog may tell a different story!
2024 from the start
All the posts from 2024, in Jan to Dec order…
Flatbread ritual
It’s a weekly slow and peaceful ritual, making a batch of flatbread. Pretty similar to doing some mindfully-drifting or podcast-listening weed pulling on a balmy summer’s day. Been making flatbread for my regular bread needs for maybe a couple of years now. Before that, it was quite a long stretch with sourdough loaves, but that suddenly seemed too complicated. This is simple: flour, water, salt, olive oil, baking powder. Rest for 10 minutes, roll out with rolling pin, place in pan. Does the baking powder mean it’s not strictly a flatbread? Don’t know–they’re still pretty flat!
I think I enjoy this primitive form of bread as much as a perfectly light and buttery croissant, or a still warm baguette… There’s some deep basic attraction to the taste and texture of cooked flour dough. As a kid craft activity, I remember making playdough with flour, salt, and water, and thinking how the same that was to the dumplings (that I loved) that we had in stew. Wonder where that might have gone if I’d been allowed to use the stove…
Spring is in the air
Spring is in the air, there’s no easier way to put it! The warmth of the sun where it touches your skin erases the chill from a mild breeze. Thermometer says it’s 64°F/80°C. Not quite T-shirt weather, but a T-shirt will do. Is this it, a straight shot to summer, or more winter still to come?
Food factory
In town today, on my regular supply run every three or four weeks, this view caught my eye. The big food factory, seen through an open lot between two houses. Not sure what stood out, or moved me to take a photo. It’s not beautiful architecture, yet still somehow striking. The huge old Quaker Oats plant is on a whole other scale of food production to the Tiny Farm veggie plot, there’s no real comparison… So maybe the photo is there just to gaze at as the mind wanders through thoughts about food. Anyhow, quite a nice walking around day, for early March!
Wetness warning
Pretty sure today’s was the first heavy rainfall alert of the year. It’s still early March! Is it worth asking what happened to April showers bring May flowers, and in March you can still go…skiing? The weather warning isn’t all that dramatic: chance of 25-40 mm of rain (about 1-1½”), with uncertainty about where exactly that might happen in the greater region. It started raining here earlier, light nd steady. Not worrisome, but still weird…
Firestarter II
Enjoying the flames and the slowly building heat from starting the wood stove for the night. Guess this is saying goodbye to the semblance of winter we’ve just had. Wood heat and tending the fire seems best enjoyed when it’s so cold outside, you really bask in the indoor warmth and outdoors seems like a harsh alien force trying to get in. This year, it’s hardly ever gotten so chilly inside that a decent sweater wouldn’t offset if you had to make do. Of course, the wood stove did bring a huge level of…comfort! Here, it’s in what I think of as stage two of firestarting. The kindling and smaller pieces have done gotten things started. Now, medium pieces are kicking in. The air vents are at least partially open, so fire burns hotter and faster. After 15 minutes or so like this, it’s burning nicely, and there’s the start of a bed of hot coals. Then the full-size chunks go in, the vents are closed, and another round of wood heating is underway. That’s my method with this particular stove, and it does seem to work!
First look of the year!
Today’s view of the field, my first since last fall! I’m about a mile (1.6 km) down the road, and I do sometimes pop by in the off-season. Usually, though, it’s out of sight, not out of mind for the whole winter. I’m still getting used to how much tinier the garden has been since I left the farmers’ market and the pandemic had its way. In any case, it’s looking fine. Most of it was cleared last fall. The straw-mulched garlic on the left seems cool, nothing poking up yet, I suppose not too early is good. And it’s really not wet, not the former usual dense, clinging, suck-you-down mud of the after winter melt-off (I’ve pulled my foot out of rubber boots trying to step forward in that stuff). Unless there’s a mini monsoon season coming up, I’ll be able to get out there pretty early, to set up the anti-deer-and-groundhog electric fence and prep beds. There’s still a broken rototiller to deal with on the tiny tractor, so that could slow things down. As always, we shall see!