Bread Fail

My friend, Amanda Adams, makes homemade wheat bread.  She uses a live yeast starter and has taught me how to do it too.  I was supposed to take a few months of just feeding my yeast baby before trying out the bread, but I just couldn't wait that long.  I guess what's frustrating is that I have never been this bad at bread before!  I fail every time.  It's driving me crazy trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong!  

It turns out I need to use wheat that is fresh (not 10 plus years old).  Also, hard white wheat works better than red wheat.  So many details I didn't even know.  Well, I'm still failing.  I think I'm going to hang out at Amanda's house to see her do it and figure out what I'm doing wrong!  I'm excited to figure this out!

 

I Can See Clearly Now

Mhari joined the 4-eye club! She wasn't particularly thrilled about it.  However, she does enjoy seeing everything better now!  We tried on a pair of glasses at the eye store before picking out a similar frame online.  It's amazing how grown up she looks in glasses!  We all think she looks great!  She is enjoying her new glasses! 

 

Baseboard!

The time has come to redo the baseboard around the downstairs.  All of the flooring is in, and we have quite a bit of baseboard to redo.  I must say that I am learning a lot!  I get to use the compound miter saw and the finish nailer.  I then have to fill in the little holes and then touch up the paint.  Let's just say it's going to take a while to get it all done ... with all of those steps done.  It does look so much better now!  Here is the progress so far.  Oh, and Sandra started helping me.  It's nice to have a helper :)

 

Shopping Time

With Covid, we haven't been able to try on clothes while shopping.  It seems like an odd thing, but it's really hard to shop for something that you can't try on.  Luckily, we found a store at the mall (Macy's) that let us try on clothes!  We found some cute dresses!  I will say out of everything, just getting to hang out and act normal again at a store was so worth it!  Love these girls!

 

Trailer Trouble

We had to go pick up some minerals for the buffalo.  We hitched up the trailer and headed out. It was kind of on the way and we set it up to share with Steve so we would drop his half off on our way to the ranch.  We were over a half hour from the ranch when suddenly we lost a trailer tire!  Like the whole thing flew off on the side of the highway!  We stopped to find it, but had no luck!  Thankfully the other three tires seemed to be good so we slowly made our way back with our minerals.  Such a crazy day!  Some day someone is going to find that tire while mowing and be very surprised!

This was the week to let the two herds be together.  It was fun to see them mingle.  They checked out the boarder around the pasture and they seemed to enjoy the pond.  Overall everything went really well!

 

D and D

Grant loves Dungeons and Dragons!  He loves it so much he decided it was time for our family to do our own campaign.  I think he really enjoyed being the Dungeon Master!  The beginning is slow as we start figuring it out, but I'm sure it will pick up!  The kids are enjoying learning a new game! 

More Buffalo

Before we let these animals out of containment, we had to finish cleaning up pasture 6.  There was still a bit of PVC pipe and quite a bit of barbed wire and old posts.  It was more than I was expecting and took the whole day.  The next week, after putting up more gates, we were able to let the animals out to prepare for our animals arriving from Steve's ranch.  The animals really liked all of the extra space to roam around!

Once Steve's animals arrived it was fun to watch them get acquainted with each other, through the fence.  We gave them a week or so before letting them become one herd.  It was fun watching them.  The bulls, Achmed and Bartok, are brothers and good friends.  It seems like they are always together.  Once they all mingled it was fun to see them just join up together.  

They really are beautiful animals!

Ballroom Dance

Life is working on getting back to normal since Covid.  I love when the kids get to go enjoy something more normal - like a dance!  The older 4 kids went to the homeschool ballroom dance night.  I love that they get to go enjoy these things together!  Learning to ballroom dance is such a great experience for them!