Wow, I made the best no-kneed, no recipe bread,  I did a yeast start then added in two fresh pullet eggs, some melted sheep tallow and enough flour to make a soft wet dough but not to sticky, I put a floured cover on it and then a huge towel over it, and put it in a way spot to gently raise for an hour, and when I went back for it, a purrpot was asleep in the bowl , so it had not raised that much with the warm weight on top.. thankfully with two solid layers the dough itself was clean. I preheated the heavily greased cast iron pot and matching lid to 425, then rolled the dough into it, and put it in the oven lid on for 30 min and then finished cooking it lid off for another 25 min..

I had a perfect photo of this loaf on a pretty wood cutting board, but it ghosted in the camera, so I had to take another one today of the last 1/3 of  the loaf left.. still don’t understand how that photo just went poof! This bread turned out perfect, a rich chewy crusty with a super soft light with air pockets inner.. lightly sour dough in flavour.

Finally got back on the scale this morning, honestly had no idea what I would find, its not that i have not been watching what I eat or that I have not been doing my different things I just have been having a “no scale” report, I was pleased to see I was down another 3 pds over my last weigh in, that is pretty much a pd a week..

We lost a hen this week, and it made no sense at the time, the hens were fine the day before, everyone was healthy an clucking around, I had been outside with them for a good while when I had them free ranging in the yard, the next morning, one of my big lovely hens just dead the next morning.. was very odd, so we composted her, and into the none garden compost pile..

Think I figured out what caused it, which was that the truck was leaking anti-freeze, and I figure that the hen must have peeked the spot that had it, or at least that is my best guess, I cleaned up the spot and have been keeping a very close eye on the outside cats, so far so good, I hope and pray that no one got into it before I was able to figure it out and clean it up.

Speaking of outside farm cats, have not seen the short coated orange tabby since the day I saw it, so figure it has moved one, tuesday however a Huge! orange and white spotted long coated tom staked his way down my driveway, he took off at a dead run as soon as I went out the door and looked at him, have not seen him again.

Spent a bit of time yesterday on the phones and have got all the legal things taken off the truck and have called and got price qoutes from all the local dealers that will haul it away, put one more call out to Farmer T, as she has contacts, and I want to see if she know’s anyone that might give me a little bit more in terms of value.

The lambs are getting huge, only have a few more momma sheep due but not for another while yet as they were late breeding and will have true spring lambs, Angelo is growing and filling out as is Marty, and Girl is in sweet cow mode, boy can you tell when that girl goes into heat, she is so sweet the rest of the time an so festy when she is in the mood.. No missing it, I hope it settles a bit with age..

It truly feels like spring around here right now, sap has run a bit this week, not much, better last week for a couple days. all the snow and ice packs are melting around the edges, but the muck is driving me a little nuts, I swear you can wash the floors a dozen times a day and there will still be little footprints on it..

I put together my pile of books I want to review for the blog and I have 26 of them, I need to start doing that more regular, I going to try and do one every second tuesday.

Got my winter power bill and have done the math, I have been able to reduce our power use by 25% over last winter, still paying WAY to much for power but 25% is still a good reduction really, and they gave a notice that the deliver fees are going to have a slight reduction, that would be fine with me, I often pay as much or more for the deliver fee’s then I do for power itself.

Need to go transplant some seedlings into bigger pots and get some more seeds planted back into the heated starter bed, and a rich hot coffee is calling my name.. Everyone have a great! day..