Fisher, our new neighbor! Run, Porcupine, run!

Our orchard as many of you may recall has suffered for several years now at the claws of Porcupine who climb our fruit trees, the cherry and plumb being favored and eat the tender shoots, leaves and tear away and discard the branches.Disassembling a fruit tree doesn't take many days and metal wrapped around trunks and fencing only usually helps. Sometimes Mr. Porcupine gets through the barriers. A stripped tree cannot photosynthesize properly and some of our trees have died. Numerous have become misshapen.

Something very nice happened in our neighborhood today. We have a Fisher! The fisher is the primary predator of the porcupine. I could not be happier. Kill and eat, Mr. Fisher. Smack those lips. We love our fruit trees:)

We will try to catch some mice - will this result in a Pool of Tears?

I saw a little furry brown fellow scurry behind a big piece of mahogany furniture in the Library. He turned around and looked at me. He was really very cute but he turned and high tailed it to the opposite wall and the security behind the heating pipes just under the bookcases. He was gone in a flash actually. But he is instilled in my mind.

I posted my Mouse and his arrival on my Face book page. People made comments trying to be helpful:
Lee Saltzsieder said:
"Well fed kitty's tend to lackadaisical hunters. Either sharply reduce the kitty kibble or buy a couple of traps. The old fashioned snap kind work best. Just a tiny dab of peanut butter in the bait hole works wonders. "
Rachael Snedden:
"Want me to send Kobe? He's got two kills & scared a rat right out of the house! Danny want everyone to just be friends. But Kobe's got killa' instincts!" (*These are her Labs - my previous Blog as to their lineage)
Beth Vogel:
I used to have a big fat cat that would sit on the sofa and watch me chase the mouse around......I'd offer to rent out Sophie to you but now that her thyroid problem is under control and she isn't hungry all the time, not sure she would still be a willing mouser..... :)

Yes, we had tried Quincy the big fat resident cat and she just has paid no attention to the concept of mousies at all, so Clark bought traps.

This morning we baited the those standard issue mouse traps from the store with peanut butter and are waiting.

But like Alice in Wonderland, after catching them will we reside in a pool of tears?

So Innocent, but not Forever. Thoughts on the Doggies' Little Sister

This is my newest friend on Earth. Her name is Concordia Elizabeth Howland Snedden. She is a Pisces and that must make her almost seven months old now.

Already I feel love for her (I swear this) but I have never met her in person yet in this life time, as she lives near Ithaca, New York, while I am in Maine. I have adored her Mom and Dad now for a few years. I have gazed at many photos of her, and I did hear background babbles as I chatted with her mom the other day.

I know how much she was desired. I watched her parents give love and "parent" two Chocolate Labs for several years before her arrival. Now these strong mischievous Lab boys are her older brothers, Dani and Kobe. She may believe them to be her siblings at this point in her early innocence. I would guess that if she attempts to figure out relationships in her world of Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and so on, she will see the dogs boys as other kids of her Parents. And this is true, but only figuratively, of course.

The pups may most likely think of her as a late arriving litter mate. The boys never really asked for a little sister, but, hey, one day there she was! I am told that they are respectful of Concordia and have discovered quickly that their parents' attention on the new little one has given them more opportunity to be more free. Many a night I hear they have had to be rounded up after figuring out how to leave their Momma who is busy with with Concordia and run out into the night to frolic. Boys will be boys. "Brothers", thinks Concordia, "don't always behave!"

At what point will her innocence give way and she figure out the truth?

When will Concordia Snedden figure out that Kobe and Dani are the family dogs? When will she realize that she is not just their little adored sister but indeed their Mistress/Master?

And along with that revelation and the fact that she is as smart as that proverbial tack, there will be more revelations to her.

She will learn that wood stoves although giving warmth are also very hot and can burn. She will find out that stairs are a bit dangerous and tricky although very accommodating to get from one floor to another . She will discover that roses smell nice and are beautiful but that rose bushes have prickly thorns. She will learn so very much and so very soon now.

It hardly seems fair that such unblemished innocence cannot go on forever in the completely innocent state we clearly see in this beautiful baby candid photograph. It is a good thing that there are the pictures though!

Welcome to the World, Sweet Concordia! I know that you will have some fine adventures and wonderful times -- and from the looks of you now, that you will be able to "call up" that "innocence" with a seconds notice whenever needed!

Should you have 23 - 24 hours to devote to a recipe, may I suggest . . . yes, seriously!

Extra-Tangy Sourdough Bread
This bread, with its mellow tang, is perfect for those who like their sourdough bread noticeably sour, but not mouth-puckeringly so. For extra-sour flavor, add 1/4 teaspoon sour salt (citric acid).

Ingredients View by: Volume Weight
1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
5 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon to 5/8 teaspoon salt
8 ounces "fed" sourdough starter from King Arthur dirctly or a friend (mine came from Poet friend Darla)
12 ounces lukewarm water
21 1/4 ounces King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 ounce sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon to 5/8 teaspoon sour salt or salt (citric acid), optional, for extra-sour bread
Directions
1) Combine the starter, water, and 3 cups of the flour. Beat vigorously.
2) Cover, and let rest at room temperature for 4 hours. Refrigerate overnight, for about 12 hours.
3) Add the remaining ingredients, kneading to form a smooth dough.
4) Allow the dough to rise in a covered bowl until it's relaxed, smoothed out, and risen a bit. Depending on the vigor of your starter, it may become REALLY puffy, as pictured; or it may just rise a bit.
5) Gently divide the dough in half.
6) Gently shape the dough into two oval loaves, and place them on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until very puffy, about 2 to 4 hours. Don't worry if the loaves spread more than they rise; they'll pick up once they hit the oven's heat. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.
7) Spray the loaves with lukewarm water.
8) Make two fairly deep horizontal slashes in each; a serrated bread knife, wielded firmly, works well here.
9) Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, until it's a very deep golden brown. Remove it form the oven, and cool on a rack.

This recipe needs your attention for over a 23 to 24 hour period, so you know, but it is beyond delicious with its hard European peasant bread crust from any old ordinary oven!

Gravitas

A blog, started with frivolity and the lightest of hearts a couple of months ago, and suddenly now there is "gravitas" here as I sit in front of my lap top.

Yes, last night I could "Fiddle De Dee" it, but tonight is different. Tonight (for the first time) I have an audience. I actually have two followers! Well maybe it is not really a big a deal, but somehow it all feels "different". The words I type may be read! This is no longer for my own amusement.

If the tree falls in my forest now someone may hear it. I feel a bit self conscious. It sort of feels like company is coming. Should I get out the linens, better china and the sterling?

Sour Dough Starter Under the Teapots*

Keep the sour dough starter fresh and going and you can have bread for life. (In addition, one only needs some flour, salt, maybe a bit of sugar and water - and these are the ingredients plus lots of patience and some time). The starter I am using was started a couple of hundred year ago according to Flour Manufacturer, King Arthur.

Sour dough bread from scratch without a quick rising yeast takes time. There is an over night required after you mix the ingredients and then a five hour resting period and then a two to three hour rising after shaping the bread before baking. And, oh, yes, the starter needs renewal and mixing each week, whether you make bread or not.

But the outcomes are worth the time.

Give us any day our daily bread and it is a good day.

Even better I suppose the starter came from a poetess friend who had acquired some sour dough bread starter from King Arthur Flour, and it is seemingly a fine quality starter, as is my sweet friend. I am a lucky woman to know fine folks and beautiful experiences. I know this to be so.

And so far we have had several breads, rolls and tonight a pizza flat bread. The variety of possibilities seems endless.

Everything in life deserves a good start . .

*I'll blog on this some other day, but from my kitchen ceiling hang some 30 or so tea pots, each from a dear friend. . .

Crock Pots

I have had them for years, but necessity is the Mother. I need to not walk the stairs to the kitchen because it can be a constant up and down and up and down. (Suffering some Spinal Muscular Atrophy attack at present and hoping it goes to remission -- trouble walking on top of peripheral neuropathy.) So I had a Butler's Pantry installed in one end of the big dining room, Maine floor of course. Now with fridge, sink, dishwasher and some crock pots and electric skillet and and microwave and a toaster oven I no longer have to trudge those stairs to the downstairs kitchen. Tenants have the main floor kitchen, but now I can function and cook on the first floor, too. Today one crock pot did baking potatoes and the other one did a small pork roast and turnips, onions and some other veggies. What can I say? Guess that I HAVE IT MADE IN THE SHADE!

Sometimes I imagine Alice B. Toklas with me when I am cooking and here is a thumbnail photo of her.

To Blog or Not Blog . . .

Why would I need to blog? I must think that I have something to say. Perhaps, and more to the point, there must be something that I need to say, and I think that by blogging I'll eventually figure out what that is. Can we learn to blog by just doing it? If we don't have so much to say, will we have stuff to say by just saying it. Are we the tree the falls in our own forest that we can only hear if we are present. OK. Let's boogie, er I mean blog.