Farewell to our dear Hercules

Here is Hercules at age 15.  He was attacked by a stray dog and wasn't strong enough to survive surgery.  So we had to put him to sleep.  That was a sad day for us all.  He was a really good cat.  Never got into trouble about anything.  He was always so loving and patient.  We will miss him.

Hercules was born in our home in Alaska.  Our oldest son Jeremy brought home a female stray cat in the middle of winter.  She was pregnant and had 4 kittens.  Jared wanted to keep a kitten and Hercules was the one he chose to keep.  (I had wanted to name him Pierre.)  He had many adventures in Alaska and then made the trip down here to Oregon when we moved in 2004.  He enjoyed another 7 years here.

After taking him to the vet to be put down, we had a funeral and buried him next to our dear Toby.  The vet said he was the equivalent of 112 human years.

Good bye Herc, we will miss you.

More lambs!

Bountiful Acres has two new lambs.  Lilah gave birth to twin ewe lambs.  One looks like her dad and one looks like her mother.  So we now have two ram lambs and two ewe lambs.  This is what we saw when we went out to the barn the other night.  I was afraid the little brown lamb had something wrong with it.  But she was just tired from being born first!

As you can see she was a big baby!  And she is up and walking around the next morning, along with her little sister who is a black sheep like their mama.



And here is Ginger and her two ram lambs that are now a month and half old.  It is amazing how fast they grow!

And then we have two ducks and three hens setting on eggs.  One hen has crowded into the duck nest box and is sitting on her eggs in front of the duck!  A bit crowded, but neither of them will give up the space.  At least the chicken will be finished  nesting in 21 days and she will leave with her chicks.  That will give the duck the additional time she needs to hatch out her batch.  Muscovy ducks take 35 days to hatch.  We also have a hen in the main chicken house sitting and one of our Dark Cornish hens sitting in their barn.

Yes it is Spring time here.  The trees are in bloom in the orchard.  Now for some sunny weather and no more rain would be really good!

Happy blessed Easter to all!  I am so thankful the Jesus came and made himself flesh and paid for our sins.  That He rose from the grave and now I am forgiven and adopted into the family of God.



Introducing the Victorian Rose Soap Company!

I would like to introduce my readers to a wonderful new handmade soap company.  It is the Victorian Rose Soap Company.  It has been started by a friend of mine and her daughter.  Mrs. Karen Lossing and her daughter Emmeline.  They have taken their goat milk and are making soap from it.  I have had the pleasure of "testing" many of them.  Let me tell you what luxury these bars of soap bring to the bath and shower.  They smell divine and are so pretty and pleasing to the eye as well.

Emmeline milks the goats that they raise organically on their farm.  They have a soap room where they hand craft the soaps.  Each batch is lovingly made by hand.

There are molded bars, cut bars, and also body butters for sale on their website.  They have really cute children soap in animal shapes and child pleasing scents available also.  And of course unscented soap as well.

To see them and try them for yourself visit the link to the right with their lovely banner on it.  Or just click Here .

Leave a note when you place your order to let Karen know you found her site via my blog.  This helps her know where best to advertise.  :)

Coming soon!

Coming soon-an interview with a creative lady and her daughter.  They have started a goats milk soap business.  Just wait until you see what they can do! 

Making bread

Here is how I bake roasted garlic and rosemary bread.  It is quite good, even if I do say so myself. 

First we need to roast the garlic.  Take several heads of garlic and slice the top of the cloves off.  I put mine in a baking dish lined with foil.  Leave extra foil hanging over to cover the garlic.

I oiled them with sunflower seed oil.  You can use olive oil too.  I then turned them over.

Seal the foil over the garlic.  Oh I should have told you to preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Put the garlic in the preheated oven.

Set the timer for 35 minutes.



While we wait for the garlic to roast, pick some fresh rosemary, wash it under running water and pat dry.

Pull the leaves off the stems like in the picture.



Then chop finely.  You don't want big pieces in your bread.

Next I get some hard red wheat from my 5 gallon bucket in the pantry.

Put it in the top of my Nutrimill grinder.

Turn it on and a few minutes later.............

I have freshly ground whole wheat flour!

Now let's go check on that garlic in the oven, shall we?

Ooh, doesn't that look scrumptious?  The aroma  is lovely!

You just gently squeeze the cloves out of their paper shells.

And they are ready to use.

I have assembled my ingredients for the bread.  Sunflower oil, wheat gluten, agave, salt, flour, water and yeast.  And of course we have the roasted garlic and chopped fresh rosemary.

My handy dandy Bosch mixer.  This little jewel makes bread making simple and quick.

Here I have added 6 cups of warm water, 3/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup agave (or honey if you like) 2 heaping tablespoons of salt.

Next I add half the flour (about 7 cups) 1/3 cup wheat gluten, and 4 tablespoons of SAF instant yeast.

Mix on low speed and then gradually add the remaining 7-8 cups of flour.

I add this while the machine in running.  When you hear the motor slow down, turn it up to medium speed.

Set the timer once again for 10 minutes.  After putting the lid on the bowl of course.  But you knew that didn't you?  ;)  You of course can skip the mixer, and do this in a very large bowl.  Mixing and kneading by hand.  If you want to give it a try by hand I would definitely half the recipe.

Make sure you have spotlessly clean counter top.  Then I rub coconut oil on my counter. This prevents the dough from sticking to it.  I take the dough out of the mixer bowl and shape it into a large loaf.

Then I cut it into several balls.

Here is where I have added the roasted garlic and rosemary.  Had I not forgotten to add it to the mixer during the last minute of time, this would not have been necessary.  So I ended up working it in by hand.

One loaf on the far left, is plain without garlic and rosemary.  I used my french bread pan for two of the loaves.  The two little round ones are the girls'.  They always have to shape a small loaf when I bake.

Next I cover them with a flour sack towel and let them rise for about 25 minutes.

While the bread is rising, I wash up my mixer bowl and clean up the counter top.

After baking them for 25 minutes in a 375 degree oven this is how they come out.  Where is the other small loaf you ask?  Well it is at my Mother's house.  I ran out of room in my oven to bake all those loaves.  I always bake a loaf for my parents and this time I took it over unbaked.  Mom popped it into her oven and we both had fresh baked bread.

I rub the bread top with oil after it comes out of the oven.

I know you are wondering why in the world that one loaf resembles a whale with too many blow holes right?  Well I decided to stuff a few more cloves of roasted garlic in that one at the last minute.  I thought for sure it would bake up over the holes.  Nope!  Didn't happen.  That is okay, that whale loaf didn't last long anyway.  All of that bread has been eaten already.  Tomorrow I need to bake another batch of bread.  I will most likely make plain loaves and a couple of pizza crusts.

The next thing I will share with you is making jam.  I made 5 batches of berry jams just before I made this bread last week.  That is part of the reason the bread didn't last long.  Too easy to eat it with homemade jam!

Thanks for tuning in and watching my bread baking day.



Coming soon, bread making

I have taken photos and will be posting about how I made roasted garlic and rosemary bread.  I just need to find the time, or rather make the time to upload the photos.  Just wanted to let you know I have been working on something new to share with you all. 

Has it been nice Spring weather in your neck of the woods?  Here we are having rain, rain, and more rain!  And rather cold at night too.

Have a great day!

Sharing a bouquet of daffodils

This is my bouquet of daffodils Ed picked for me yesterday.  Aren't they just so cheery?  They have a sweet smell too.  I thank God every Spring for creating daffodils.  They bring so much hope and cheeriness after such a long dreary wet winter.