Now that is to the point.

It was a beautiful day- but I only slept 2 hours last night so I was not motivated at all.  I read, washed dishes, did some research for a presentation I was going to give tonight, put a pork shoulder in the slow cooker ( after I rubbed in Hawaiian red salt and 3/4 tsp of smoke flavoring), was preparing the food for the presentation when I got a call cancelling until next week and then and only then, did I hear the quiet call to go out for a walk. 

Sometimes, I am deaf and, well, dumb.  Not mute – just DUMB.

So I grabbed my camera and walked around the yard, camera  in one hand, a growing pile of twigs in the other.  I ended up with quite a bundle of twigs and some very nice pictures of the flowers around my yard.

Ladies mantle and cowslips from beside the brick walk up front.

Virginia bluebells and crabapple buds from the fairy garden in back.

Flowering quince from the back fence.

Celandine and Sweet Woodruff from the bed next to the garage.

Irish moss and violets from my moss and fern garden on the north side of the house.

Red tulips and a Chinese cherry bush ready to burst into tiny starlike flowers.

Why did I wait so long to go out? 

My spirit is replete with this beauty.

My senses are reeling with the scent and delicate detail and depth of color.

I am so happy to see these friends of mine that come back so faithfully every year- and I am thrilled that the Irish moss survived the NE Ohio winter!

I should do this more often!

What is growing in your yard?

  Oh what fun!

Fig Jam and Lime Cordial is another blog I read from Australia and they are having a cottage loaf baking page featuring many different loaves of this style.

The explanation for the knob on top has to do with cottage bakers and the laws of weight for loaves of bread.  If one was found short, there were very serious penalties, so the bakers added an extra handful onto the top of the loaf to make sure it was well within the law.

Today I had the doldrums and really could not make myself DO anything.  I just sat at the computer and read blogs and facebook- until I came to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial’s display of cottage loaves.

I got right up and made the dough and several hours later was munching on the bread- slathered with butter, of course!

Anyway, here are more pictures-  I wish I could publish the aroma!   My house smells like the most flavorful bakery you could imagine!

And the doldrums?

Out the window with them!!!

For the next  5  nights!

Luke and Willow are in Jamaica and we have the PRIZE!

I haven’t taken any pictures yet, but we’ve gone on walks and played and played and had quite a few conversations-  I LOVE talking to little boys!

I’ll post pictures later!

Aside from the actual loaf and the fantastic aroma and flavor- sourdough bread has virtue.  It has a quality that may people lack- that of patience.

It is a humble sort of yeast- consisting of a mix of store bought and wild yeasts that have been gathered over many seasons.  It eats only once a week or so, and does that in the cold and darkness of your refrigerator.  It keeps within its boundaries most of the time and then goes to work as soon as you add it to flour and liquids.  AND- for my present story- it raises slowly and surely in the cold when you don’t have time to form it into a loaf and bake it right away!

I started making this bread early in the week.  But finishing it just didn’t fit into my schedule, so I placed the dough in a large cup, covered it securely and stuck it into the refrigerator to wait until I had more time.

Mixing it up-

ready to go-

-ready for a slow raise-

of three days in the fridge!

Three days was not what I had planned- but I’ve been so busy shopping and framing and gathering stuff to get ready for the next 2 weeks in Chincoteague that I kept punching it down when it got to the top of the bowl. 

Then I finally made up a small batch of whole wheat dough and added it to the sourdough-

and then I braided it together and baked it.

The flavor and texture of the sourdough improved whilst raising slowly in the cold.  This is one of my BEST sourdough breads -EVER!

And all because of of its patient virtue.

I moaned and complained a little about breaking a teapot on this post, (ok, I complained a LOT!) and I got a reward!

Cynthia is like my fairy godmother when it comes to teapots!  She went out and found me another pot!

And not just ANY pot either.  This one has a mark and a history and a former address.

It is hard to see the mark but it is definitely there and it tells much about the life and times of this lovely pot.  It was made sometime around 1954 , in Staffordshire, in the west midlands of England, on the Stoke -on – Kent.  This pottery is located in the same area as the more famous shops of  Wedgewood, Spode, and Royal Daulton.  It was started by Arthur Wood and his son Enoch in 1860 and continued to make teapots and piggy banks until the 1980’s  when it was sold out to a larger concern.

I love it!  I like to think that it was made in 1954 and that we have both weathered the years, pretty much intact.  Both the pot and I are modest and unassuming in appearance but we still manage to do the jobs for which we were made .

I like that it bears its makers mark and brings admiration and value back because of its form and service.  I pray that the same thing can be said of me.

There is so much to do to get a house ready for renting out seasonally.  Frank and I  are going back down to Chincoteague this weekend and I’ve been shopping and sorting and stockpiling up what we need to  transport down with us.

Lately I’ve been totally working on framing the art for the walls in the bedrooms.  The walls are presently festooned with kitschy and strange craft items that was supposed to fit together into a theme.  I find it rather bizarre.

Jordan took down a lot of the items in the room he slept in over Christmas- they bothered him- hanging over his head in a threatening manner.

This is the children’s room- the shelf over the bed held old skates, a dusty resin

baseball mitt, an old wooden bowling pin and miscellaneous sports memorabilia( this is the area that Jordan had already cleared off)- over the top of the bed are two golf  clubs, crisscrossed – and as you can see, an old racquet  in a stretcher frame is over the second bed.  The ceiling fan is made up of facsimile bats as the blades of the fan and another resin catcher’s mitt holding a dirty resin baseball.

The bedroom next door has a fishy theme, with a long handled net and fishing pole crisscrossed over the head of the bed and really bad plaques of lobsters and fish haphazardly hung about the room.   Not very attractive.

So, Meredith, Cynthia and I bought some local art to put up in the rooms, instead.  The problem was that the prints weren’t too pricey, but they were unframed and so Someone needed to get them framed. 

I am Someone.  I guess I could have just taken them to Michael’s and presented Meredith with an enormous bill- but I’m cheap.  First I tried to use an old window frame to make up a huge collage- but it was just not working.  So, yesterday, I just put  some of them into old frames I had, and the rest I bought inexpensive frames and matted them.  They look pretty good-  

but what a lot of work this turned out to be!

And at the end I had a whole lot of nails left over!

  I read a lot of food blogs.  I love these men and women who are dedicated to baking and cooking and experimenting and sharing their recipes with the rest of us!  Lately, I’ve been reading this Australian blog- fig jam and lime cordial.  And she has shared a wonderful recipe that she got off of another blog, spicegirl- who got it from another blog- do you get the picture here? 

Anyway, I’m sharing it with you, because I am in LOVE with these chips- or crisps as the people from the land of OZ call them.

They are so easy to make.  AND they are delicious and not greasy and homemade and GOOD!

OK- this is what you need to make these!

~A mandolin for cutting the slices thin and uniform.  You could also use a food processor.

~a potato (or 10 potatoes- you decide)

~olive oil

~a sheet of parchment paper

~a microwave safe plate

~a microwave

~sea salt (fine)

Then you do this:

Slice potato into thin slices-

Pour 1 tsp of olive oil and turn them about to distribute it evenly on slices-

Place on parchment paper covered dish – one layer only-

Place in microwave and cook on high for about 4 minutes.

If you are like me you will stand and watch them, mouth watering, as they crisp up in the oven.

1 1/2 minutes…………. 3 minutes…………………..4 minutes!

Add salt to your taste and enjoy!

I finished my chips by the time the pictures uploaded- then while I was typing up the recipe, Cynthia came over and I made another batch for her.  Which are also now all gone.

Twelve chips = 1/2 medium potato.