Deb Scott Art Show Opening

Deb Scott does a wonderful job in the most difficult of all mediums ... watercolor.  Unlike normal oils or acrylics where you can throw on darks and lights whenever you want to ... in watercolors you have to work from light to dark ... carefully preserving any light areas of the paper.  Takes lots of planning.  You paint the background leaving white all the areas you need for the foreground (or put masking tape or rubber block to protect those areas).  Ask Royal, he can probably explain this better ... 

Any way, her show opened last night and goes thru the end of July.  She progressively shows pieces from her earliest works up thru her current works.  Her earliest started with painting along with a PBS video.  Also early oil with spatula knife painting ... then early efforts with watercolor ... early art competitions ... a juried piece that toured the state of Alaska for a year ... then 5 years of the art show circuit ... and her current works as a commercial artist.

It was all fun to see ... and of course, there were TASTY SNACKS!!

(the artist even had little bread stick slices with farmer cheese and lemon infused olive oil on the bread)

Bread Day!

My wife has been after me for a week to make bread. 

I'm the official designated bread machine operator.

Today I got the machine out and opened the page to a normal "White Bread" recipe.

But I just couldn't deal with that.  Altho I also didn't want to grind any fresh wheat flour.

SO, I put in the designated amounts of water ... 

added a dollop of cane syrup (not in the recipe) ...

Did all the normal sugar, salt, powdered milk, and butter (with a touch of bacon grease)

but tossed in a cup of cornmeal (couldn't let it all be white flour)

then 3 cups of white flour with the little well for the yeast.

And, on a whim,  added 2 tablespoons of gluten, and 2 table spoons of golden flax seed.

Oh what the hey!

The tricky part comes next ... turn the machine on ... and watch it start to mix ...

Way too dry!  It was just kind of packed around the walls and not doing much ... definitely not making a dough.  

CORRECTIONS:

Grab a cup of warm water and a spatula and go to work.  Pour in 1/4 cup of water and then poke around with the spatula.  Hmmm?  Needs more water ... another 1/4 cup goes in.  Poke it some more.  All the water seems to be going to the bottom ... where it is very damp and messy, but the top is kind of dry.  Reached in and grabbed the dough glob and flipped it over (while the machine is mixing) ... poke some more and it starts to even out.  Still looks like it could use just a little bit more water.  Add some.  Poke, flip, and poke some more.  Now it looks about right ... moist but not too sticky (sometimes called "plastic" or "elastic" or some kind of tic) ... at least in the center with a little dryer outer skin.  

Kind of hard to explain that to you without you seeing it.  (this after many years of failures ... heavy loaves that didn't rise, runny loaves that over-flowed the top and ran down the sides, etc.)  Maybe next time I'll try to take fotos ...

I closed the lid, walked away, and a couple hours later had a lovely 2 lb. loaf ... but most importantly my wife thinks it tastes wonderful!

A Thorny Topic

It's a really great year for black berries!

All that rain had to be good for something..

Great big briar patches loaded with berries, 

out in the cow pastures.

The thing is, you have to reach your hand down thru branches and leaves to pick the berries.

CAUTION!!  

Every branch and stem is loaded with big & little thorns.

I have the red scratch marks on my hands and arms to prove it.

You just plop that big sweet black one into your mouth ...

and see the bumper crop that will be ripe in about 2 weeks.

66 Cans Later

After canning popcorn ...

we returned home with this fellow ...

and Stefan ...

who were attacking each other on the couch.

A brief foto of happy unity.

The only view that we see of the older brother ...

He needs a computer-ectomy.

Gardening Partner

When you have a gardening partner,

You have to pay a bit more attention to what is happening around you.  Here he is chewing on the ropes that the squash and tomato are trying to use.

You also have to tell him not to chew on the potato plants because they are deadly poisonous ... but the marigold are okay (of course, they don't taste very good).