Glenda's Bread Recipe...

Yesterday, partly because it was a rainy day...

...and partly because I was out of bread...

...and partly as a huge THANK YOU to our neighbors who helped us to chase our cows out of knee-high, wet rye grass at 9:00 am (criminal cows!!)...

I decided to bake some bread.

If you need an easy recipe for delicious home made bread, give this one a try!  I don't think you'll be disappointed.  I got this years ago from my friend Glenda.  Making it yesterday took me down memory lane...I miss her!!

GLENDA'S NO KNEAD BREAD RECIPE 
yield - 4 loaves

1 cup sugar
4 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups lukewarm water
5 Tbsp oil
3 Tbsp yeast
12 cups flour (scant)

Mix together first five ingredients.  (Glenda's notes say to mix the sugar and salt together first...sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't.  Yesterday I forgot, and it turned out fine)

Add flour and stir until incorporated.

*this is a no knead recipe.  Dough will be rather sticky.

Place dough in a greased bowl.  Cover and let rise for 1 1/2 hours.
Punch down, and let rise again.
Shape into four loaves.  Place in greased bread pans, and let rise until double.
Bake at 325* - 350* for 35 minutes.
Remove from oven and rub tops with butter.

Cool and enjoy!

(On a cool, dark day like we had yesterday, I put the dough in the oven with the light turned on to rise, and it worked great!)

Homemade bread is one of my favorite comfort foods.  Toast it, add butter and home made strawberry jelly, and ummmmmm...delicious!  I hope you enjoy it!

Random 5 Friday...

It's Friday!  Of course, you knew that already!  Especially if you have school aged kids, you know just how exciting Fridays are!  They're looking forward to a couple of days off...to sleeping in tomorrow morning...

But oh...that's right...we're farmers, so Fridays don't matter!   :)

Saturday is just another day, with the same schedule.  We'll get our "time off" for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.

I'm joining up with Random 5 Friday today.  Here are five random thoughts from around the farm...

1.  I tried a couple of new things in the garden this year.  I made a raised bed out of some old pallets, and tucked an herb garden in the corner of my perennial bed close to the house.  I planted parsley, oregano, chives, cilantro, and basil.  It's too cold for the basil at night, so I've been covering it.  It was getting way too spindly in the house, so I gave it a shot.  The bed is pretty protected, and I'm hoping it won't get too cold...

I also planted my lettuce, cabbage and kale in these pallets (in the garden) to try to keep the weeds down.  For some reason, the weeds just love to take over these plants when I put them directly in the garden soil...

2.  We're down to our last four round bales of balage.  They will last us perhaps two weeks yet, and then we'll be feeding all dry hay to the cows. They'll be grazing as well, but by the time we're ready to bale first cutting of alfalfa, the hay mow will be getting empty...

3.  A few weeks ago, Jim "retired" our old New Idea manure spreader...

This is one of the few...perhaps the only...piece of brand new equipment that we bought.  Back in September of 1996, we purchased this manure spreader for $4850.  We spread manure every day, so Jim figured out the with the daily manure spreading, and cleaning out heifer pens several times a year for 16 1/2 years, that his trusty old spreader has hauled between 6500 - 7000 loads of manure!  The web has been replaced several times, and routine maintenance has been done, but it's now been replaced by a used, and slightly larger one. This old spreader owed us nothing!  It will be a great spreader for someone who has a few steers, or some horses, but it's daily, heavy work is over.

4.  My chickens are laying eggs like crazy again, now that the days are getting longer.  We lost some customers over the winter to our Amish neighbors, because we didn't have light in our chicken shed.  Now we have to build up a customer base again.  Three dozen eggs per day is a few more than we need...

5. My fern leaf peony's blooms are just about to open!  I got this flower from a lady at Church a bunch of years ago, and it's cheery blooms are one of the first to open...

This was fun...I hope you enjoyed it too!

Ahhh...Rye Grass...

Yesterday, we put the cows out in the rye grass to graze for a little while.

Here they come!

Food!  We stood near the wires that fenced off their grazing area, just to make sure they didn't run through.  When they see green, they go a little crazy...

(yes, I know it's a weed...but isn't it pretty?)

Here's Helen...she's one of the cows on the header photo at the top of the blog...about five years older, but still going strong!

I stood there and waited...and waited...trying to get a picture of a cow lifting her head with a mouthful of grass, to no avail.  They were too quick for me, so this will have to suffice!  :)

Once they settled down, their heads didn't come up for a while...

I love this sound.  If you turn up the volume the whole way, you can hear her munching...

Pure contentment!  A lush field of rye grass...and beautiful, cool spring day...and several hours of lounging in the meadow, chewing their cud and making milk.

What else could they possibly want?

Linking up to RURALITY blog hop.

The Goats Have Arrived...

It's time to meet Jenna's new 4-H goats.  We brought them home on Wednesday evening after school.

Last year we had a bad experience with the dreadful Urinary Calculi, and were determined to come home with two females this year.  However...it didn't happen.  Instead, we came home with one of each.  Hopefully, using what we learned last year will help us to have a better experience this year!

Bringing them home was a bit different than before.  This time we put down some towels on the back seat of the farm car, and took our chances.  We could hardly believe our eyes, when they curled up together on the back seat like puppy dogs for the ride home, not making a sound...or a mess!  Yay!

This adorable little guy quickly wrapped himself around our little fingers...

 He's tiny...only twenty pounds...but boy oh boy is he feisty!

The girl is a little bit bigger,weighing in at thirty-some pounds.  She was a little bit more shy...

They love having that big tree inside their pen.  It's great fun to hide behind!

It's also fun to climb up on the old stump and make yourself look mighty, even when you aren't...

It didn't take them long to find their jungle gym...an old wagon and a board. (Who needs something fancy?) Can you tell...he's getting ready to buck her off the ramp.

Right now, our focus is on getting these kiddos used to us and their new surroundings, keeping them healthy, and getting them to grow.  Before long, Jenna will practice walking them and setting them up.  It's never too soon to start!

Here's hoping for a good 4-H year!

Spring Greenhouse Field Trip...

You might remember reading about a trip I took to Henrys Farm and Greenhouse  back at the beginning of December with my Mom and my sister.

Today I visited again...for their Spring Garden Party.  What a beautiful day it was...and the flowers were gorgeous!

The first hour was spent walking around and looking, and hearing from some of the experts about particular flowers.  They gave out some beautiful planters as door prizes too, but I was not among the lucky winners. Bummer.

The second two hours were for shopping.  I didn't buy much...I have a favorite greenhouse close to home that I like to support, but I loved looking at all the creative ideas.

Here's a sampling of what we saw today...

The front window...decorated for spring instead of Christmas...

You can compare it to the December picture by clicking on the link above.

Some of my all time favorite flowers...Gerbera Daisies...

...more beautiful flowers...

They are known for their creativity and unique creations.  Some unique wreathes...

I never saw a wreath with succulents in it before, but I liked it!  A lot...

Unique containers for planting...

An old chicken feeder...

And the most unusual ...and definitely the largest "planter"...

Last but not least...check out the unique plant markers!

It's a little hard to see clearly...but it's an old silver fork with "Basil" stamped on it with a metal punch.  They had forks, knives and spoons scattered throughout the herb section.  What a great idea...especially for an herb garden!  I might have to try this one.

What fun it was...and if I didn't have spring fever before, I've definitely got it now, for sure!

Treasure in the Garden...

Spring has sprung...it's closing in on 80 degrees this afternoon!  Wow!  What a difference just a couple of days make.

I have been outside most of the day today...trying to make some order out of the chaos which is my perennial bed.  Sorry, no pictures.  It's too pathetic!

Every year about this time, I wonder why I didn't clean off the debris from last year's flowers in the fall.  However, once again, just like every other year, I was reminded of why I waited.

Do you know what this is?

This is one of more than a dozen (at last count) Praying Mantis sacs that I found clinging to last year's debris. If I would have cut off the flowers last fall, I would never have seen them, and they would have been discarded.  That would have been sad.

I saved the sacs that I found, attached to their twigs, and tucked them safely away inside of some bushes and tall grasses that won't be disturbed.

What I find especially fun about finding these treasures, is remembering how the Praying Mantis found their way into my perennial bed.  Eight years ago, when Eric was in second grade, I helped in his classroom every week.  His teacher, Mrs. Bauman, had lots of fun things for her students to do, including terrariums to tend to.  In one of them, she had a Praying Mantis sac.  When the babies hatched, she sent me home with a baggie full of the tiny insects, and I let them loose in my garden.  The rest is history!  Every spring, I look forward to finding their eggs sacs, and though they're great at hiding, later in the summer, I occasionally see one that has reached adulthood.

You can read about the Praying Mantis here.  They're wonderful insects to have in your garden!

Patty...Two Years Later...

I'm sure this is stretching to you...asking you to think back to two years ago. Just humor me, ok?  :)

Two years ago on March 17th, I wrote about when unexpected things messed up my day.  One of those "things" was a new calf that came early.

Because she was born on St. Patrick's Day, we named her Patty...

Here she is, two years later!  Yes, she has horns, unfortunately.  We de-horn our calves when they're young, but for some reason, she was missed.  She proudly holds her head high...and doesn't let her neighbors steal her feed!

She freshened on March 9th of this year...just a week shy of her second birthday, and has turned into a beautiful first calf heifer.  She's milking like crazy...

Calves are born...they grow up and join the milking herd, and we just take it for granted.  Tonight, though, as  I was washing her down before she was milked, I suddenly remembered that I had a picture of her from the day she was born.

I thought you might enjoy seeing how she turned out!

Seeding Alfalfa...

April 1, 2013...

This is one way to remember exactly when the new spring seeded alfalfa went into the ground.

It was a C O L D and windy day on Monday.  The Amish had a holiday, (they take Easter Monday off as well as Good Friday) so the no-till drill was available for Jim to seed his alfalfa.

Of course, the almost ten acres that he wanted to seed were on the very top fields at the other farm, with nothing to stop the wind...

Mid afternoon, I ran for some more seed.  Refilling the drill...

The alfalfa seeds are tiny...

The kids had off school, so Jenna bundled up in her cold weather gear...complete with a scarf...and rode on the back of the drill, to keep the seed evenly distributed, and to tell Jim when it was empty.  That way, he didn't have to keep stopping and jumping off the tractor...

Looking behind the tractor at the rows made by the drill...

Some farmers still seed alfalfa the conventional way...working up the soil and using a packer seeder...but more and more are no-tilling.  We no-till almost everything else, but this is the first time that Jim has seeded his alfalfa this way, so it will be interesting to see how it grows, and if it makes a good stand.

If all goes well, the first cutting should be sometime in June!