Baking bread is about so much more than nourishment. Sure it tastes great, and fills up hungry bellies, but it is as much about the process for me as the end result. I have made my own bread occasionally for years, not every loaf, but quite often. In the last month I started making all of our bread, I used the bread machine to knead and rise the dough, but then would take it out, shape it, and bake it in the oven. I loved the result, but have wanted to get into baking my own truly from scratch for a while now. A couple of weeks ago, we made bagels, and they could knock the socks off of any store-bought bagels. I found I truly enjoyed the process of working the dough by hand, feeling it change from lumpy to smooth, fragile to elastic.

Seeing the dough rise in a bowl and gently pushing the air back out to shape it and let it rise again. Putting the loaves into the oven and the smell of bread baking, and the warmth from the oven warming the kitchen. I also love that I can make enough dough for two loaves in one batch, which means that I won’t necessarily have to make bread every day, or at the very least all that hard work won’t be gone in one sitting. Not to mention the side effect of a good workout, kneading dough for 10-15 minutes is very good for the arms.

I am looking forward to getting into the rhythm of baking bread from start to finish with my own hands, or like this morning, with the help of my two girls. I think I’ll put the boys to work on the next batch.

We are snuggling in for a cozy weekend of blankets, movies, yummy food and snuggles. I hope you have a great one too!

We’ve been a bit under the weather here, first I was down for a couple of days and then one of the girls was down with a bug. Everyone seems to be fine today, but I need to catch up on some basics like laundry and dishes. I hope to be back tomorrow, see you then.

Back in October we all went to an apple orchard about an hour away for a day of apple picking. It was a gorgeous autumn day and the orchard was beautiful. We had such fun picking apples, the only problem was that it went way too fast. Picking apples is a lot less time consuming than picking blueberries.

We enjoyed a tractor ride out to a couple of different locations in the orchard, which the kids loved. We were invited to sample the apples, the best you’ll ever taste he said, and he was right. After filling baskets and bags of apples we brought our haul home.

After eating more apples than we could count, and making half a dozen crumbles over a few weeks I was also able to freeze nine quarts of apple pie filling and also can four quarts of applesauce and use a few apples to help make a batch of jelly as well. This was the first year I have really canned anything, I have done a few things before but I never really felt like I got the hang of it.

I used several different varieties to make the applesauce and they were plenty sweet without using any sugar. We just opened the first jar last week and boy was it scrumptious, just like autumn in a jar. We picked forty-seven pounds, but next year I want to do more now that I feel a little more confidant. I would love to be able to do quite a bit more applesauce and even some apple butter. I have to admit it is quite exciting to see jars of food in the pantry that we picked and made. It’s so much more than a jar of applesauce, it’s the memories that went with the day and the knowledge that something we did with our own hands has provided food for our table.

Children of the Forest is one of the babe’s favourite books. It’s about a family of tiny forest people who happen to have four children, two boys, two girls, just like us. Daisy, the littlest has platinum blond hair just like the babe. They live in the forest, our house backs up into forest, and my littlest just loves blending into things just like the forest children have to do sometimes. They gather nuts, berries, and mushrooms for the winter and their mama knits them hats and sweaters too. They have toadstool caps so that if they need to blend in and not be seen, they can just squat down and disappear into their surroundings.

I knew that the babe would absolutely adore to have her own toadstool cap, so the search was on. I couldn’t find a pattern that was quite right until I found this pattern. I tweaked it slightly by eliminating the little tail at the top of the hat and it turned out perfectly. Then I needle felted some creamy roving into little toadstool spots all around the outside. She adores the hat, and I am so thrilled that I was able to pull it off. This was my first time needle felting and despite the fact that I broke a few needles, it was a lot of fun.

The babe always wants to take pictures with mommy’s camera, so I knew this adorable wooden camera would be absolutely perfect. It is used on a daily basis as she goes around snapping her own pictures. It’s really well made and the detail is fantastic, I know it’s going to get lots and lots of use over the years.