The other week, I successfully baked my first two loaves of sourdough bread. This is especially tricky to do in the winter, as the yiddle yeasties (technical term) that are responsible for the leavening of the bread don't like the cold dry weather. Really, they're just sluggish and sleepy. Hopefully I'll get a good feel for building (yes, building) bread, and it will be available this summer for purchase. Bread CSA, anyone?
On Feb. 28th, our friend Pam Bytner from Transition Oakland County gave a workshop on the basics of the transition movement. Jared wrapped it up with a quick little ditty on the basics of Permaculture. Although it wasn't as attended as I thought it was going to be, the people who came were absolutely fantastic! No workshop is complete without snacks, so I made malted chocolate chip cookies.
Finally, with all this warm weather the arctic tundra of my backyard has started to thaw, and even my compost piles are mostly fluffy and turnable! Yay!
Back to the thawing snow, though. Where does all the excess water go!? Well, since I live in town, a lot of it does go back into the sewers. Bummer. So, last year I dug a swale in my back yard so that I could keep some of that water all to myself. What is a swale, one may ask? Well, it's basically a trench dug along a contour line, so that it slows down and spreads out water. Sorry if that's not the best explanation, I had to see one to really understand what they do.
It may not look special, but it's my first swale. Look at it, doing it's job, trapping water in it's little crevice. Go swale, go!
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