Witch’sona week

Because I wanted to, I wrote up my witch’sona

Picture her in the woods, because that’s where she was born.

There’s a giant maple tree there, with roots that have pushed out of the surrounding loam, and that’s where she’s sitting. Communing.

Her hair is brown-and-ash, the color of the bark, and her skirts are green-and-brown, like the moss and the fallen leaves. Thistle-purple lace peeks out from under her skirts, and from under her sleeves, which are long and leather, to fend off the sharp things that live in the woods.

Her feet are bare, because some sharp things are worth enduring to know what the lay of the land is, and her stocking cap is long and striped, the pompom at the tip getting lost in her hair.

She doesn’t smile, but her expression is calm, and her hands are still. This is where she belongs.

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Homesteading: Loaves and Lessons

Jan27

I have been learning things about bread!

If you are an experienced bread baker, most of these things will probably not be news to you. Some of them are not /recent/ news to me but I still find them interesting.

What I have been learning recently is about tenderness, crispness, and longevity.

My normal go-to loaf is Oatmeal Toasting and Sandwich Bread. It’s got milk and honey in it, it’s got whole wheat flour in it, it’s tender, it’s got a small, fine crust, and it’s great for toasting.

But I was making baked brie, and that needs a bread that can hold up to dipping.

(this, which I ended up using, is not really quite french bread. But it works).

Take away most of the sugar and all of the fat, and you end up with a crisper loaf. Increase hydration and reduce kneading in the proofing stage, and you end up with bubbles in the bread. These things I knew, but it was neat to see them in process.

What I didn’t know but learned fast was that if you take away all that fat, the bread goes stale much, much faster. That was a learning experience!

And it did, by the way, work great dipped in a drippy baked brie with fig spread. And just as great with fancy butter, toasted on top the wood stove.

Next up? Brioche!

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[Altersprig]: My first complete Ana White pattern!

Jan10

I’ve been admiring Ana White‘s blog/how-to site for a while now. She breaks carpentry-based DIY and knock-off decor down to a very accessible level, and, even though I grew up with basic carpentry, I didn’t grow up following carpentry PLANS, so I really do appreciate this.

So when I looked at my pile of tiny and small art and looked at the wall in my girl cave, I thought a-ha! I bet Ana White has a plan for this!

And she did! $10 Ledges. I went a bit smaller and cut the length into 3 equal pieces – 3″ boards instead of 4″, because it’s a very small room. The lumber cost me $15, the paint is the same as the rest of the room, and glue and screws were around the house.

Dad actually helped me put them together and Mom helped me paint them when they were up this summer. And then, finally, a couple weekends ago, I put them on my walls and started playing with pictures.

…at which point I found out that Zazzle postcards are not quite right for 4×6 frames, sigh.

Not much shows in this picture, but the “L” is by kelkyag, the mermaids are by ellenmillion, the tiny picture is a drawing of Death that kissofjudas bought me, and the postcard is of Mackinac Bridge, from a family trip in my pre-teens.

(I collect postcards 😉

Next up: I bought two shelf brackets from Lee Valley to put a broader shelf on the other wall. Dictionaries and books I’m published in!

(I also collect dictionaries!)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1045082.html. You can comment here or there.

Facepalm… brain…

Dec30

Okay, so I started writing a paranormal romance (F/m).
Outlined it with Hob and everything.
Planned it out
got character names.
100 words in, made a face to myself and thought this sounds like a romance novel

Uh, self?

That’s a good thing. That’s what you’re DOING.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1035213.html. You can comment here or there.

Gifts in a Jar: Food

Dec28

Christmas Food

I mentioned last week that we were going to make Kale & Apple Soup for my mom. It turned out delicious!

We made the following changes:

We started with butter and browned it, then sauteed some mushrooms (baby bellas) in that.

We toasted some cumin, fennel, allspice, and cloves (4 berries, 2 cloves, 1 teas fennel, 1 teas cumin) whole, then ground that up and added it to the butter.

After blending the soup and dividing it between 2 quart mason jars, we sliced a sunchoke and 2 carrots on the bias and sauteed them until they were tender and had some color, then used those as a topping.

Delicious and, well not vegan, def. vegetarian! And using up kale and apples from our garden!

That was Mom; for Capriox & Mr. Cap and a whole passel of co-workers we made Alton Brown’s Hot Cocoa Mix. Like most of these things, good ingredients are key, so we used a nice dark cocoa powder. Following suggestions from other people, we ran everything through the food processor for a bit to get the milk powder down to a much finer consistency, and, because we prefer our cocoa to taste like chocolate and not sugar, we halved the sugar (& skipped the cayenne). We put that in a mason jar, too, quart for Cap and pints/half pints for co-workers, topped or sided with mini-marshmallows and wrapped up with a ribbon so I could tie on an instructions tag.

Mason jars make everything awesome. 🙂 And, strangely, I have a lot of canning supplies in my house…

Next up: seeing if I can turn the tiny mug cakes into a kit/jar mix.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1032584.html. You can comment here or there.

First, Catch the Rabbit… Making things from your own yard

Dec23

I’m making my mother Kale & Apple soup for Christmas.

I try to make her a soup most years. This isn’t just feeding her – she can cook plenty well by herself – it’s also test-driving a recipe that almost always has some meat product in it and making it tasty and vegetarian for her.

This year’s recipe, for instance, has bacon in it. I think we’re going to start with mushrooms and perhaps a little bit of gelatin (I know, horse hooves, but she’s only mostly vegetarian…) to get the proper umami and texture going on.

It’s also going to be made – aside from the mushrooms, which I’ve not gotten around to trying growing at home yet, and the gelatin, which, uh, no – entirely from homegrown stuff.

Apples, of course. My house is still full of apples. You can’t turn around without running into a box of apples.

Apple cider for some of the liquid. When we make it, it has stock in it; I’ll probably make some leek stock as a start. The leeks are still sitting in the garden, wondering when I’ll do something with them. And the cider we pressed ourselves, from the apples our trees produced.

And then there’s the kale. Kale is a marvelous thing. It just keeps growing. Last year, it lasted until February. This year, I imagine I might have to pull it out to plant new come June – since there’s no snow to speak of yet.

There’s something satisfying about giving homemade gifts; there’s something even more pleasing about doing it from ingredients your yard grew.

I wonder if she’d want duck egg something next year…

But first we have to get the ducks.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1030436.html. You can comment here or there.

My Aesthetic is… vooooom swissh?

Dec14

Well, looking through my mental wish list, my pinterest “clothes” file, and the stuff I have on my to-sew…

Sort of like, um. Prairie waif? Goth-with-colors? Knit amish hippy?

layers of tissue-thin shirts, often with too-big necklines and def. with sleeves over my hands, down to my hips, over skirts that are fitted or fittedish to the knees and then SWISH out in a pile of petticoats.

If I had Meentik unutu (and huamu) that is what I would look like every day. Except the days I wore those shirts or loose shirts that go swish over jeans.

Yeah, my mental images never include shoes, either. Too bad I live in the frozen north.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1024954.html. You can comment here or there.

Daily Badges, because because

Dec9

I was complaining that I would have to wait a /whole week/ for another badge (or nearly so). rix_Scaedu suggested daily mini badges.

And, of course, I ran with it.

Here is my first daily badge for tracking, exercising, and measuring yesterday!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1020675.html. You can comment here or there.

It’s Holiday Card time!

Dec6

If you’d like a card from me, please fill out this form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12C6dA6e8Z7bDli6JI8ZFMtH8zo7GfhoYnfquubSb558/viewform?usp=send_form

Thanks!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1019129.html. You can comment here or there.

Ow. But Fire accomplished.

Dec6

The house came with, among a lot of other stuff, some corrugated cement board and a chair with no bottom. It also came with a lot of mess in the hedgerow that needed to be pulled out and dealt with.

The last bit led to a pile of brush larger than a truck.

Cutting it to pieces was only so effective.

Running it through a woodchipper (Small, electric), did some good, but it was slow and loud.

So we bought a firepit.

Enter the corrugated cement board – safe place to put it – and the chair – place to sit and tend it. Add the seat from an otherwise trashed office chair, one concrete block, also from the house, and a laptop.

My butt has one long scrap-bruise, but the laptop is safe.

In other news, sitting outside writing/reading whilst watching the fire burn is lovely.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1018315.html. You can comment here or there.

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