Monday, January 01, 2007, 06:12
New Year's Eve and Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread
It is New Year's Eve. After a day of pouring rain (pouring rain this morning, mist and light rain and sprinkles and fog this afternoon), the rain has changed over to snow.
At 9:30 p.m., we were starting to get a coating of snow on the ground. Quite frankly, after 1.25 inches of rain -- or 1.5 inches of rain in the last 24 hours, I figured the ground would be too wet for the snow to start accumulating this quickly.
If the 2 inches of rain last week and the 1.5 inches of rain this week had been snow, we might have had three feet on the ground. But it hasn't snowed. It has rained. The fields are full of water. The low spots are full of water. The culverts, where water has drained off the hills behind them, are full of water. The marshes are beginning to fill with water. Little streams that are usually nothing more than a thin trickle are filled with rushing, white, foaming water.
Our driveway is a quagmire. The dirt/crushed rock mixture that Randy and a friend hauled onto the upper driveway last fall is a mucky mess. It has not had time to settle yet, and the rain has turned it into soft mud. The lower driveway, surprisingly enough, is soft and kind of mucky, too. The lower driveway has had 30 years to settle. But it is still kind of soft -- which tells you how much rain we have gotten and that the ground has been frozen and that the water has sat on top for while and is unable to drain down completely.
So, on New Year's Eve, it is snowing outside. And I have a batch of whole wheat oatmeal bread in the oven, in pans, rising until it has risen enough to be baked.
Randy is watching the football game (Packers and Bears).
It is a quiet New Year's Eve. But it's snowing outside. And there is homemade bread in the oven. And to my way of thinking, starting the new year with a fresh batch of homemade bread is a good way to go!
If anyone is interested, here is the recipe for my --
Oatmeal Whole Wheat Bread:
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* 4 cups of warm water
* 2 packages of dry yeast (or 4 teaspoons of bulk yeast)
* 1/2 cup of sugar
* 1/2 cup Canola oil (or another vegetable oil)
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1/2 cup dry oatmeal
* 4 cups of whole wheat flour
* 4 to 6 cups of white flour
Measure the water into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the yeast and dry oatmeal and let stand for a few minutes. Stir in the sugar and salt and the Canola oil. Add a cup of whole wheat flour and beat until smooth. Add another cup of whole wheat flour and beat until smooth. Add the last 2 cups of whole wheat flour and beat until smooth. Gradually stir in 3 to 4 cups of white flour until the dough is stiff enough to knead.
Add 1 to 2 cups more of white flour while kneading.You will know you have added enough white flour when the dough is soft but not especially sticky.
Grease a large bowl. Put the dough into the bowl, cover with a towel and put the bowl into a warm place. Let the dough rise for 45 minutes.
Knead the dough. Divide into 4 loaves and put into greased loaf pans.
Place the pans into a warm place and let raise for another 45 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 35 minutes (until the loaves are golden brown). Brush with shortening when the loaves come out of the oven.
Allow to the bread to cool for 10 minutes before removing the loaves from the pans.
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A Lesson Learned -- I learned a good lesson the other night. I was almost ready to go to bed when my little tabby Bobby Cat wanted to go outside. I did not turn the light on by the door. I just let her outside. When I closed the door I heard -- RAAAA-OOWWWWW!
It was Snowflake. I had closed the door on some part of her body. Since it was dark, and she is a black kitten, I couldn't see her. I think the door closed on her shoulders or maybe mid-section.
I have been watching her closely to make sure she looks like she feels all right. I once had a cat who suffered internal injuries when he was under a quilt on the floor that had partially fallen off the couch. Randy didn't know the cat was there. He stepped on the quilt and also stepped on the cat. A few days later, when it became apparent that the cat was very ill, I rushed him to the vet where they concluded that he was bleeding internally. He pulled through. But it was nip and tuck for a while.
So far, Snowflake seems okay. She is eating. And she is running around and playing. And climbing up on things. And getting into things.
I learned my lesson, though. I am going to turn on the light by the door after this if I let Bobby Cat outside late at night.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Sunday, December 31, 2006, 06:59
A Brief Winter Wonderland
It snowed Wednesday night!
A quarter of an inch!
But the snow was all melted by 11 a.m. Thursday, and the landscape was back to looking drab and dreary.
This lack of snow is making me uneasy. It's just not what winter is supposed to look like in this neck of the woods. For the past four or five years, it seems like the winters have been getting warmer, although it's only been less than 10 years since we have had a normal winter.
What is going on?
Global warming?
Is this the start of turning the Midwest into a desert as Al Gore claims in his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"? It stayed dry throughout the fall. We had a fair amount of rainfall in August, but then the rain stopped. A few times during September, October, November and most of December we got a quarter inch of rain. And then a week ago, it rained two inches. This same pattern next summer means that it would be hot and dry again.
Friday it stayed cloudy and misty and somewhat foggy, too. The weather forecasters are saying that this is one of the warmest Decembers on record. It's also one of the least snowiest Decembers on record. I don't need a weather forecaster to tell me those things, though. I only need to go outside to see that it is warm for December and that there is no snow.
Saturday stayed cloudy and dreary and misty and foggy with occasional sprinkles. And then Saturday night, once it again, it began to rain.
Saturday morning, Randy started cleaning up some of the brush the patrolman left in the ditch by our house. I went out to help him. We piled it in the truck and took it over to the farm to put on the brush pile my brother is working on accumulating from cutting pulp. When it dries out in the spring, he will burn the brush pile.
All together, we made three trips with pickup loads of brush from the ditch. That wasn't all of it by any means, but it looks better than it did. We let Charlie ride in the truck. He loves to ride in the truck. And on the last trip, Randy drove home, but Charlie and I walked back across the farm. I figured I'd better take Charlie for a walk, seeing as he was looking forward to a walk. The first two trips when we put him in the truck, he was eager to go. On the third trip, he looked at me as if to say, "This again? Aren't we *ever* going to go for a walk? Is this all we're going to do is ride in the truck."
Since there's no snow, it was easy walking. We made our way across the farm and then through the neighbor's woods, back to the powerline right-of-way and then through the woods again to the house.
Charlie was a muddy mess by the time we got back -- but he was the happiest muddy mess I've ever seen!
LeAnn R.Ralph