Indralaya's baby chick homecoming!

April 3rd, 2009 we had a box full of baby chicks arrive! 25 of the Black Star variety, all females, so we will have a nice flock of egg layers! It has been a lot of fun and excitement since having these little chickies around! They grow so much every day and change little by little. They are now two weeks old and in one more week they will move outside to the new chicken coop. We are using an old tool shed and sectioned it off to make half of it a coop. The nesting boxes were built this last weekend at Indralaya's Easter work party. We put in three but may need more. I have heard that the chickens often take to one box and just rotate who is using it to lay their egg. They only use it to lay an egg. They sleep on roosting poles, all the birds lined up in a row! Well, there are several levels of roosts so they can choose the height they like best. Right now they have a roosting pole, made from a pruned limb from the apple trees. We plan to use these for the coop but bigger sized limbs because their feet will be bigger then! So go ahead and take a look at the video I made! I will update you soon on their progress and hopefully post a new video because they have changed significantly since this video was made!

Bread Baking with Sourdough!

     Ever since October, I have been the proud mother to a sourdough starter! It isn’t very cute, but it is very alive and bubbly. It takes proper care to thrive and develop its complex nature. Daily maintenance requires either using a bit of the starter to make bread or dumping some of it down the drain (that always makes me a little sad), or you could give some to a friend. You need to feed it equal parts of flour and water. I give mine a bit of rye flour and the rest, white. I do this once a day in the morning and by evening it is frothy and ready to be made into bread dough.
     It is a lengthy process in some ways, to make sourdough, but it is so worth it! It takes 18 hours after you have mixed the ingredients in the evening as I mentioned before, until you are ready for the next step. It has all become very routine for me however and it works out really well with my situation of living and working from home. So I thought I’d explain how it all comes together.
     For the multigrain seeded sourdough I have been making, I use 2 ½ cups white flour, ½ c. whole wheat flour, and ¼ c. rye flour. I try to use all organic ingredients when possible. I also add in whole grains such as quinoa and millet, two staples in a vegetarian’s diet, which are good to help create complete proteins. Then there are the seeds. I use ¼ c. pumpkin seeds, ¼ c. sunflower seeds, 2 Tbl. Sesame seeds, and 2 tsp. poppy seeds. A little salt and some starter, water and a couple Tbl. of yogurt, make the dough complete. I mix it until it is combined completely then cover the mixing bowl with a shower cap (it works perfectly!) Set it in a warmish place and let it be until 18 hours later. If I mix it at 9 pm I start step 2 at 3pm the next day.
     At that time I move the dough from the mixing bowl to a proofing basket, which is made of rattan and sprayed with oil and dusted with sesame and poppy seeds. Sadly the raccoons stole this basket the other night. I gently scrape it into this basket then cover it again with the shower cap for another hour and a half. I have a ceramic device called a La Cloche that is used to bake the bread inside. After one hour I start heating the oven to the max of 500 degrees. When heated I put the dough into a small metal pan to give it shape and into the La Cloche it goes. Baking takes a half hour, then I take the top cover off and cook at 475 degrees for another 15 minutes or so.
     The hardest part is waiting for it to cool before slicing into it. I need to read up on why this is important but the guy who taught me, sourdough Bob, said so, so I guess I will believe him. When you do slice into it though, it is heaven! Sometimes I put some of our homemade apple butter on it. Sometimes it’s sunflower butter, just butter, or nothing on it at all is good too! Pure yummy bread!

Skiing at Mt. Baker

What a glorious day we had at skiing at Mt. Baker on Friday! The sun was shining on us all day long and it was a nice temperature, around 33 degrees. As you can see in this photo, I was only wearing simple knitted gloves, my heavy duty ones are attached to my ski pants. I did end up using them on the last run of the day though. 

We headed off the island Thursday night on the last boat. Got into Bellingham at 10:30 pm and made our way to the Nightlight lounge for some 80's music and inspired dancing! The group was mostly young, but the dance floor was soon packed with people dancing and singing along to "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Wake me up before you GoGo". Silly, but fun none the less.

The next morning we tried our best to get an early start and get to the ski mountain! We had a little over an hour of a drive to get there and arrived at about 9:30 am. The lifts had already been running for an hour by the time we were fitted for skis and ready to roll. I was a little upset to loose an hour, but there was no one to blame except myself! But there was no time to be upset, it was a beautiful day! River and I had skied here once last year so I was looking forward to learning the lay of the mountain a little more this time. 

Those first few rides up the chair lift were incredible. The scenery is really breathtaking anywhere you are there, but particularly when you are up above it all riding on the chairs. Skiing down through it then is a whole other thrill! What a feeling it is! I soaked it in as best I could, knowing that it was a one day event for me, not a full week of skiing like we used to do as a family when I was a kid. That made it even more special, just knowing that it was only for one day. 

I thought I skied quite well, considering it's become a once a year event for me. Kind of like riding a bike I guess. I did fall once however, on the hardest run of the day. River went down that run as well which ended up being a black diamond though it said it was intermediate. He did fine, though he was challenged, as was I, but he wanted to go do it again! So we did and that's when I fell. I got up laughing though. It was no big fall. 

The lift were open till 3:45 and we got in every last run we could. I was a bit exhausted at the end of the day, but I still would have gone again the next day if I had the time and money! Someday I'd love to live near a place were I could have a season pass and ski many times in a season, ah to dream! So, after a great Thai meal and a little nap back at the hotel in Bellingham, we got dressed up and went out dancing again! Hey, we are so isolated on our island, that when we do get out we like to make the most of it! And it is a form of exercise that is quite enjoyable! 

Saturday we ran around shopping for personal items and things for Indralaya before hitting the 3 pm ferry back to Orcas. Right now it costs $42 to take a car (round trip) on the boat. That may be the weekend rate though. Prices are going up everywhere, but Mt. Baker still has an excellent lift ticket price of $35! Well, I guess that about wraps it up! I hope you will tune in again to Shandra's blog spot to see what else I am up to from time to time! 

Many happy spring time wishes to you! ~Shandra