COVID-19 Virus Shutdown, Day 44

It's possible that I won't be able to take Artisan Breads class anytime soon, so rather than let it get to me, I'm gonna just start making the breads I think my teacher would've taught.

I found a syllabus online for a breads class (not my school, but just to get an idea) and these are some ideas I got:

Whole wheat
Sour dough
Rye bread
Sweet breads
quick breads
unleavened breads
Gluten free
grain free
stale bread uses

So my mission is to make 2 per week, since we would have made at least that in class, if not 4 or 5 per week.

Today I picked a honey whole wheat bread recipe that I found on the internet. It had 5 stars, so you can't go wrong with that, right?
The recipe I found was for two loaves. Since we don't need that much at any one time with all the other kinds of bread we have, I cut the recipe in half.
Check this out:

Honey Wheat Dough before rising

I wanted to put oats on top but then people would think it's an oat bread. I opted for sesame seeds instead. This bread if floofy - it was looking risen before it actually rose!
I already love it.

Baked Bread
photo bomb courtesy of Otis

top view

I have to wait to try it, though because it's still hot and bread needs to be cool before you cut into it or it gums up inside. It's hard to wait though.

Otis napping in the garden
He appreciates the walkway

Earlier today, I spent a lot of time in the garden. The idea was to move in the strawberries. I have early girls and they love to self-propagate. This means they create these strands and have little baby strawberry plants that they throw across the garden so they can grow. Then those strands dry up and there is a new plant.

If you wanted an entire garden of strawberries this would be cool, but I really need space. So I pulled them up, babies included and brought them back to the front of the garden. Otis is laying pretty much in the strawberry patch in this picture.

I surrounded them with rocks as I usually do. But this time, since I've discovered that everything grows really tall, I need to go up when I mark the borders. So I grabbed some sticks and wound twine around them to create a border.

Then I put a tomato cage around my peony, who is want to fall over with the weight of her big head. And my rhubarb as well since he likes to spread out, lay his leaves down and then rot if I let him.

At that point I pulled the stakes out of the barn, but they were gray and the wood burner that I used last year seemed to have faded where I put the names on. So I grabbed some black paint and a brush and painted the names back on.

It caused a small problem because I had wet paint on a stake I was trying to then drive into the ground with mallet. I ended up smearing a few.
But in the long run, it doesn't matter. Roping off the areas and preparing the garden by pulling out weeds, is going to keep me from losing my place where everything goes.

The seedlings are growing up. They have many leaves now and fuzzy stems on the tomatoes.
I got my potting soil as I was prepping the garden, so I'm going to repot some seedlings to bigger pots. These are the cow pots made from compressed manure so you just dig a hole and drop the entire thing in. Cool huh?

I feel like a farmer!

I'll take some pictures when I repot them tomorrow. The soil wasn't even due until May 1st, so I wasn't quite expecting it, but the tomatoes look ready.

Until then,
Stay safe, sane, and healthy!
Vicky