Sourdough Experiments

It all started from a video recipe my sister sent me... strawberry sourdough cinnamon rolls. G and I had friends staying with us for the weekend, the rolls looked delicious, I have sourdough starter in my fridge... why not make some? 

My starter has been staying alive in the fridge, but it wasn't strong enough to cook with right away. The author of the recipe I wanted to make had other articles on her website with detailed instructions on how to recharge sourdough/check if yours is ready to cook with. I tried two different methods of regrowing mine. One was to make a levain, which is a mix of starter, flour, water, and sugar. And the other was to make a 1:1:1 ratio mix with starter, flour, and water (that ratio can make it grow faster). 

The levain won out, so that's what I used to make the sourdough cinnamon rolls. I used the other starter to make these dinner rolls. The yeast likes 78-80 degrees to rise... Our house is normally between 63-65. One suggestion was to put them in the oven with the oven light on. That worked great! Eventually I needed the oven, so I tested out the next suggestion from the website...

Yes, you are seeing that correctly; it is a heating pad (my sister gave me one for Christmas; the inaugural use!). They also suggested making a 'greenhouse' with a tub. I used a clear one so I could see what was happening without lifting the lid. We had a spare house thermostat, so I stuck that inside to easily see what temp it was. With the heat mat on high, it got in the high 80s! Medium was mid 80s, and low was high 70s. Worked like a charm.

The finished products. Not super light and fluffy, but definitely delicious! I had to tweak the rise times a bit to fit our weekend schedule, so I'm sure they will turn out even better next time!

Belle Plaine

Last night, I got a text message around 9:30pm (from the MLC graduate who was going to be the long-term sub for Mrs. M before we knew she would be back) asking if I was free to sub in a 5-6th grade classroom at Trinity in Belle Plaine. She was subbing somewhere else and the school had exhausted all other options and were desperate. 

My plan had been to spend the day tidying our house to prep for hosting our church small group (like a bible study, but we talk about Pastor's sermon and then pray for each other), but I can do that after school, plus G could tidy before going to work, so, I said yes. 

Thankfully the principal was still awake and responded quickly to my texts. Arrive at school at 7:30, students arrive at 8, school ends at 3:10. Okie dokie. 

It was a very early morning... It's a 50min drive, and I left home at 6:30am to make sure I was on time. When I arrived at 7:20, the door was locked as I had suspected. I found out later the principal had arranged for another teacher to keep an eye out for me at 7:30, but since I was early she wasn't watching. Thankfully a student saw me and let me in. The school isn't very big, so I found the 5-6th grade room fairly quickly. 

No sub plans on the desk. There was a pile of student worksheets for the day, and after further examination of the room I found their assignment board filled out and the order of subjects written on the board. I figured I could teach based off that. I poked around for the teacher's manuals to familiarize myself with their curriculum. 

A few other teachers popped in to say hello. The kindergarten teacher recognized my last name... her son is the 5-6th grade teacher at Risen Savior, the school attached to our church! The principal found me too; he had additional plans with detailed notes for the day from the 5-6th grade teacher. Nice. That definitely made the day smoother. 

The kids have been good today. I made sure to crack down on anything sketchy right away. A few tried to be sneaky with games on their computers during worktime. There were lots of quizzes, worktime on projects, and studying for upcoming tests. I basically only taught catechism and 6th grade math. 

One cool thing this teacher has is an economic system. He has a set aside class for it on Friday. Along with that, he pays his students 'salaries' for doing their class jobs for the week. They can earn 'money' for doing jobs and write checks to him and to other classmates for various things. One girl sold her classmates Oreos for class cash. And if they misbehave or are irresponsible with items, they receive a fine. At the end of the year they can use their remaining money to buy actual stuff. Pretty neat! It definitely helps them learn money usage!

Penelope

Spring is popping up all over the place! I planted a few more bulbs down where Bekhor is buried, along with an arborvitae shrub that survived the pot over the winter (that was from one of G's garden center rejects we'd planned to feed the goat, but they maxed out their coniferous greenery eating, so we let it sit). As I dug, I noticed a few feet away this little guy poking through. 

Last fall, I had planted a bunch of bulbs, not sure if they would grow or survive the deer. This one did! I haven't seen any others yet. I wonder what it will be?

The swans are back. I caught them taking their morning bath. We had a very stormy/rainy day yesterday and they weathered the storm in our pond. Maybe they will stay and make their nests?

The biggest excitement from Monday happened while I cut up seed potatoes in the garage. I turned around and found a cat! Not Mopsy and not Flopsy. She seemed tame, so I tried to pet her. She let me. She was all skin and bones, so G and I put her by our cat food in the goat shed. Mopsy didn't like that, but she was too scared to defend her territory. I decided to name this one Penelope. With the storm coming the next day, we didn't want Mopsy kicked out of her own home, so we made a different shelter for Penelope. See below. 😀

We had food and water for her (both of which she appreciated) and some logs to block the rain. G saw her inside right away in the morning when he left for work, but when I checked in the afternoon, she was nowhere to be found. We haven't seen her since. I hope she comes back, but even if she doesn't, at least we could give her a meal and some water.

The Other 5th Graders

After almost a full week off, I was back at Mt. Olive today, this time in the other 5th grade classroom. It was roughly the same schedule, but also very different routines and flavor to the day. The kids were all super pumped to see me. One girl actually ran down the hall to the classroom when her friends told her I was their sub. In Mrs. M's room, I got a lot of hugs (some from students I didn't expect). 

Mr. N arrived at school the same time I did. I was a bit surprised to see him since he had the day off, but he was only there to print his lesson plans for me and make sure I knew where everything was. Mrs. M stopped by to give me a stack of cards her students made for me. There is some great art on the fronts and some sweet words on the insides. My favorites are below:

The rapper student... His made me laugh out loud.

The card in the top right has one line of text inside. The artist said it took him like three hours to do the front, so I'm guessing that's why. 😆

The art on the left side was just like we did in an art project earlier in the year. 

Look at that shading!

My favorite parts of the day... Reading class, we read a few chapters of their class book, Mr. Lemoncello's Library. Mrs. M's class wanted to have students read the dialogue, so we divvied up parts. I was the narrator. It was actually pretty fun and it helped them recognized who/when people were talking in the story (kind of tricky at times since there are many characters). They're hoping Mr. N will let them continue that next week. 

In Mr. N's room in the afternoon, we finally had time for the read-aloud book I started before I left, Slugfest by Gordon Korman. We read during art and library time, went outside for a brief extra recess (the girls invited me to play four square with them), and then they wanted me to read for the last ten minutes of the day before they got picked up. So we did. We are SO close to finishing! We have 1.5 chapters left! That's less than 20 pages! 

I arranged with Mr. N to let me come in on Monday to finish... I'm on the books to come in for Mrs. M next Tuesday to read that class's read-aloud. I'm hoping I can finish that book Tuesday, but if not, I'll come in Wednesday. 

Holzhueter Eclipse Extravaganza!

In 2017, I convinced my college friend L to go with me to see the total eclipse. We found a campsite in the path of totality down along the border between Nebraska and Iowa. It was cloudy, but we still experienced the darkness, complete calm (it had been a windy day), and utter silence when the moon covered the sun. 

Even with that disappointment, I still loved the experience and made a goal to see another eclipse without clouds. Fast-forward a few years. Eclipse 2024. One again, Emily gets a crazy idea in her head and drags G along with it... 

G was skeptical if the trip would be worth it... 9+ hours of driving one way for less than five minutes of an experience? But, I really wanted to do it so he went along with my scheming. (Isn't he a great husband?)

He couldn't take more than a day off work, so this past Sunday after church we took off for Springfield, Illinois, with the intention to stay there one night, drive about 2.5h further south Monday morning, see the eclipse, drive all the way home. First half of the plan went off without a hitch! The drive didn't even seem that long. We arrived around supper time and poked around the city a bit before ended up at our hotel. 

The rest of the plan was to get up early Monday morning, visit Lincoln's home, and eventually work our way south after checking the radar to make sure we ended up somewhere sunny. G had called a few wineries in the path of totality to see if they would be open. "Yes, we are, and we have a table with your name on it!" one waitress told us. It was on a first-come-first-serve basis, but we figured there would be plenty of places to choose from if one winery was full when we got there.

At the hotel before checking in, we parked behind a car with MN plates. As I waited for G to take care of things, lo and behold, a couple I recognized from Mankato came out to the van in front of us. They are members at Good Shepherd in North Mankato and actually had their kids play basketball at Immanuel for a few years back in the day. Small world! 

Monday morning we made it down to breakfast around 7am. Lots of people, all of them talking about going south to watch the eclipse. We got nervous about getting a spot, so we decided to forego Lincoln's home. It's a good thing we left when we did because traffic got heavy the further south we went. I'm not sure we would've made it to our destination in time if we hadn't left when we did!

We ended up at a peaceful little winery out in the country near Clarksdale, Illinois. Very idyllic and hardly a cloud in sight.

After a bit of scrounging, we found a picnic table we shared with a couple from Iowa City (Maggie and Greg). We joked that we'd check in with each other at the next eclipse in 2044... but we actually did get their phone numbers/emails. 😆

It took about 45min or so for the moon to work its way in front of the sun. I tried to take a picture of it with my phone with my eclipse glasses in front. It kind of worked. You can see a bite taken out of the sun in the picture below.

It slowly got darker and darker the more the moon covered the sun. 

It even looked a bit like sunset.

G took the pictures below with his phone during totality. The moon was completely covering the sun! You can only see a little bit of that in the picture. 

It got very cold. Before the eclipse, it had been 75 degrees and I was in short-sleeves, shorts, and flip-flops. During totality, I wrapped up in the car blanket. Like the other eclipse, the wind died down. The birds didn't quit chirping though.

The total eclipse/totality lasted 4min 9sec where we were. It was beautiful. And worth the drive. Even G agrees.

 The next total eclipse is March 30th, 2033, in Alaska. The next one after that is in 2044 and will be visible in the Dakotas. Road trip anyone? 

Homestead Updates

The weather is glorious. 70 degrees and sunny. That makes me antsy to get some work done outside! 

We have a goat pasture blend on order for the backyard. I found a few bags of grass seed in the garage, given to me last fall by a friend, intended for the Nicollet house, but I never got around to seeding it. So, the Mankato house gets it! I broadcast the seed by hand around the front yard since we're not sure if we'll turn that section into a permanent pasture. It might as well get seeded with a heartier grass so if we do a temporary pasture, the goats will have something more to eat than flimsy lawn grass. I found a few seed packets of a wildflower mix, a butterfly mix, and a pollinator mix, so I spread those around too. No clue if any of them will take. Time will tell! 

Other updates:

Two pairs of swans will land in our pond every once in a while. One pair was back! Can you spot them in the picture?

Our rhubarb has unfurled quite a bit. No other progress in the garden. My big task today is to put up portable fencing around the garden so that if/when things do emerge, the deer won't eat them.

The goats are happy. The grass in their pen hasn't greened up much, but they keep browsing. We want them to eat everything down to the nub so that when we do seed the pasture, it won't have as much competition from the existing grass. Last night we decided we want a permanent fence around our second paddock in the backyard. That will give us more freedom (and less worry about them getting out). Other pasture plans are to add two natural ponds, one in each pasture, for our future ducks. I want the weather to warm up some more before we add to our menagerie, so no new animals on deck for now.

Mopsy, our adopted stray kitten, is doing great. We caught her up in a tree one morning, surveying the backyard. She stalks bugs and plays with Gerda (the baby goat). Yesterday, a bird smashed into one of our windows and died. G and I found it on the ground and gave it to Mopsy to see what she'd do with it. She played with it for a while and then ate it. She'll be a hunter before we know it!

Mystery Plant

 Can you guess what this is?

Here's a hint: G and I walked through our pre-planted garden to see if anything had come up yet and discovered this. My shoe in the corner for a reference. 😅

We had seen animal tracks around the area, so at first I thought it was animal. But no. Rhubarb! I hadn't ever seen it coming up so tiny! 

For the record, this is something I had put there, not a volunteer. G's mom originally planted it on the side of the garage when she moved in. It was too shady there, so this fall I transplanted it to this patch of bare dirt. It had already gone dormant when I moved it, and I don't have much experience with moving existing plants, so I wasn't sure how well it would come up. So far so good!

The only other thing we detected in our garden were two little lines of garlic emerging, another experiment planted this fall. I had brought two garlic heads back from a garlic festival in Oregon (while on my annual summer vacation with my college friend L). They sat in a paper bag in my Nicollet house from early August through November, sometime in there getting moved to Mankato and hung in the closet under the stairs. Eventually I remembered them, probably mid-November. The heads weren't looking too good, all shriveled and dry, but there was enough life there that I decided to plant them anyway. 

After supper tonight G and I added two trees to our orchard: Honeycrisp apple to the west and Reliance peach to the east. We also decided to move a non-fruit tree we planted last summer from the side of the driveway to the side yard (to replace a dead tree also planted last summer). This will leave room for 2-3 more fruit trees along that side of the driveway. An apricot tree is our top choice. What else should we plant?