Little Cheeps

The ducklings arrived healthy and full of energy! We now have 15 balls of fluff scuttering around our garage... contained of course. 

G's cousin came with to pick them up, and when we got home, she decided they needed a swim. She filled a bucket and let a few swim at a time. They're too little to be in there by themselves, so she supervised them and traded them out when she thought they'd had enough. 

She named one Bubbles. The only other one with a name is Penguino, named because he or she looks like a penguin. Right now they're too little for me to know if they're boys or girls. We ordered five of each breed hoping to have a mix of boys and girls. 

G came up with names for our chicks: Pixie, Dixie, and Trixie. Pixie has a slightly dusty tinge to her feathers, Dixie has a dark streak on her head, and Trixie is the medium colored one.

Our chicks are growing in leaps and bounds. To make room for the ducks, they got moved to a different tub, one I thought they couldn't get out of. Turns out I was wrong.

I found this scene when I checked them later in the day. They hopped up on their waterer, then the side. Guess I need to bump up building them a new home on my to-do list! In the meantime, I put a grate over the top to stop their adventures for now. 

In other news, we're not the only ones enjoying our goats. This kid had the biggest grin on his face feeding our goats over the fence one morning.

 

Further Experiments

I can't remember if I've mentioned this or not, so I'll do a quick recap... A few of the trees we planted in the front yard didn't do so hot over winter and/or from deer, so we replaced them. Since the trees had at least a few leaves and clearly weren't dead yet, I couldn't bring myself to throw them away. Hence, the nursing home. G and I relocated two plums, a honey crisp, and a peach along the north pasture fence. So far they're still alive. I'm calling the space "the tree nursing home."

Gerda escaped today. There's a weak spot in our fence where the wire isn't connected. Somehow the overlapped fence came apart. We noticed her grazing on the north side of the fence this morning. Thankfully she didn't go far and didn't wreck too much stuff. She nibbled on leaves in our tree nursing home and broke a couple branches, but not enough to kill them. I got her back in quickly. 

This afternoon I worked in the garden weeding. I got a big section finished and planted root vegetables (radishes, beets, turnips, rutabaga... also eggplant, leeks, okra, and strawberry popcorn). I had a few open packs of lettuce I wanted to use up before I quit for the day. The space under the trellis hoops called to me... It's such a shame we can't plant anything in there... 

🤔🤔🤔

Maybe we could! It could be a quick growing something that would mature before the vines cover the top... That's all it took for me to experiment. Stay tuned for results!

One last update: A neighbor saw a coyote sitting on their patio today. 😳 Guess we better move a dog to the top of our animal priority list. If anyone has a lead on a quiet, medium sized, inexpensive dog that's good with animals, let us know!

Garden Trellises

I'm so pumped. G and I got our trellises up!

It wasn't as hard to build them as I thought. The cattle panels are 16ft long, curved and held in place with zip ties and a t-post on each side.

The garden center got rid of two rusty circular trellises; we plan to use them for pole beans and peas. Makes our garden look pretty fancy!

I planted my sweet lil squash seedlings right away along with a few seeds: watermelon, cantelope, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, kabocha squash, and zucchini. 

My goal is for them to grow up over the trellis so the fruit will hang down, making it easier to pick! 

Fritz the Billy Goat

A friend of a friend had a billy goat available for free, a boer cross. Hard to argue with free! G and I took his work van to pick up this little guy. Boy that dog kennel is getting good use!

He's a shrimpy little thing right now, smaller than Gerda, but he'll grow some. We named him Fritz.

Here's the introduction to the ladies. Ilsa was less than enthused. Gerda had a quick sniff. They lost interest pretty quickly. 

Mopsy wasn't a fan. 😆 She has since warmed up to him. 

Paul tried to make friends with Fritz with watermelon rinds. He was a little curious, but Ilsa and Gerda hogged them all. 

Fritz got straight to eating the grass in the pasture instead. After a while, he and Gerda enjoyed a friendly game of headbutting on the deck. I have a feeling that will be a frequent occurrence.

Battling the Deer

We won last night's battle with the deer, but we lost the battle with the rain... Our bedroom window leaked again. It rained pretty hard. 

This is a picture of our neighbor at the end of our driveway's yard. Some of their tile broke, and since then it hasn't drained well. This is after about 4 inches of rain the past few days. 

Our lawn has been absorbing all the water and it was dry enough for me to mow this afternoon. 

Since it was cold and windy, I didn't bring the chicks outside today. I took this picture yesterday. One of the chicks likes to sit on top of their waterer. She was back up there today inside the garage! One of these days I'll need to name them... Nothing has come to me yet.

Ducks and Kitchens

Even though the majority of our lilac bushes are spent, I found one bush on our property with flowers. It's a dwarf korean lilac I brought with me from my apartment. I had grown it in a container for about three years before moving. It's not doing fantastic in the ground... I might need to move it. But there were still enough flowers I could make some lilac sugar. The recipe is simple: put a layer of flowers (no stems), cover them with sugar, repeat. Let it rest for a few days, then you have lilac infused sugar to use in baking or beverages! My bush had enough flowers to make that little jar in the photo below. 

That's not much sugar to use in a baking recipe. I remembered seeing lilacs blooming in the landscaping of a few stores in town, so when I was out and about running errands, I strategically parked and brought a few blooms home with me. That was enough to make the pint jar. Now they're resting in my pantry.

The other recipe I've been meaning to try is fermented garlic in honey. I first discovered that on my friend vacation to Oregon last summer. A garlic festival featured a booth giving out samples. Another super simple recipe: peel fresh garlic cloves, cover in raw honey, let rest for about a month. You do need to give the jar a flip every day or so to keep the garlic coated; it tends to float. Make sure the mouth of the jar is loose when it's resting to allow the gasses to escape. After a few days you'll notice bubbles forming at the top or around the garlic as the good bacteria in the honey feasts on the garlic. I had to move the jar downstairs to our fruit room because the garlic smell was so prevalent in the pantry.

Our goats are doing well. They have been bothered by flies a bit; Gerda will flick her tail like a cat. She seems to be picking up habits from Mopsy. They both like to hang out on our back deck, Mopsy lounging in a deck chair, Gerda sprawled out like a cat in the sun. 

I had hoped we'd have baby ducklings on the homestead today, but unfortunately, they didn't make it. The hatchery notified us Monday morning that the batch had hatched. By the afternoon, they had a shipping label and were ready to go out. The post office called Wednesday morning to say my package had arrived. I was there within an hour. 

The postal worker brought my box to the front counter with a grim expression on her face, "I don't think they made it." We opened the box and confirmed that fact. It looked like they had been dead a while. It's pretty typical for 1-2 babies to not make it in transit, maybe they were a little weak when they hatched or they got trampled or wet or something. But for the whole batch? Something had to have happened in transport. My guess is that they were delayed somewhere along the line from the severe weather on Tuesday. 

Thankfully the company has a warranty on their animals and offers a refund or reshipment for any DOAs. They're sending a new batch next Tuesday. On the bright side, that gives me a few more days to prep their new home!

No Such Thing as Bad Weather

...Just bad clothes.

I've been (slowly) reading a book with the above title. I love the concept of not letting weather get in the way of enjoying the outdoors. Wintertime will be a challenge... but rain? Eh, could be doable.

G and I didn't get our bare-root strawberries planted last night. They've been sitting around for too long plus I had soaked them for six hours, so it was a high priority for today. Rain is in the forecast for the whole day, but it wasn't raining when I got up this morning, so I thought I could zip out and quick get it done before a downpour. 

Well, things always take longer than expected, don't they?

First, I needed to mow the grass in the future strawberry bed to make it easier to plant them. But before I could do that, I had to move the deer fence so the mower could get to the area. By the time I finished mowing, sprinkles spit at me. I whipped my hood up and kept trucking. 

The rain amped up (not a downpour) but my sweatshirt did a good job keeping me from feeling wet. It was pretty soaked by the time I went inside. 🤪

Since I was on a roll, I transplanted the wild strawberries I previously rescued from the goat pasture. Those are the most noticeable ones in the picture. They're growing well! A few even had runners started. In the background you'll notice four orange/red flags. Those mark the two rows of bare root plants. 

We have a few bins of compost on the side of our garage. The bins don't have drain holes (they started out as planters in a basement garden that never took off), so they are quite liquidy. I keep dumping our kitchen scraps on top. 

Since I was already wet and mucky, I used my shovel to mix them up. Compost at the bottom! Unless it's potting soil leftover from my experiment. 😅  

But really, composting is happening. There were only a few visible kitchen scraps, and those were the items that had been on top of the bins before I mixed: a pineapple top, squash shells, egg shells. 

Last Day Subbing

I closed out the year with the 7-8th graders at Immanuel. They were bummed I could only stay for a few hours. We made the most of it! 

Order of events: bible history lesson about Jesus feeding the 5000 (and watching a clip of The Chosen), cleaning out the ball shed attached to the gym (teachers will organize/put everything away after school), and read aloud. 

As I suspected, shed cleaning only took about 15min, so we had an hour to read. I had brought a bunch of options, some short story compilations, some short books, a few choose your own adventure books. They voted to read Lost in the Wild by MN author Ryan Jacobson. We read outside for a half an hour of the time. Man, it turned into a glorious day! We died a few times from our choices, but in the end, we finally chose one path that ended in survival! 

I met up with a friend for lunch/errands, and then spent the afternoon homesteading. The forecast predicts rain the rest of the week, so I wanted to take advantage of the nice day. 

I had a brainstorm to use the dog kennel as a mini chicken tractor for my three chicks. It worked great! It was fun to watch them act like chickens. They sunned themselves, tried to take a dust bath in the grass, hopped around, and played with each other. Oh, and scratched around to look for bugs. 

Chickens like ventilation but not wind, and they don't do well when wet, so we moved them back into the garage overnight. They might be stuck there a while with this wet weather coming. 

I found some more plants from my fall seeding!

These look like peas.

Not sure what these are... Anyone know? I should check my plant plan.

Two more mysteries... I have a suspicion one or both are weeds.

How about this one? Weed or vegetable?

Second to Last Day Subbing

Last full day of subbing and second to last day subbing this year. Hard to believe we're halfway through May! 

I was in 1-2nd grade today. They too have a jam-packed schedule with different classes every 30min or so. Whew! This class had finished some of their textbooks already, so we did a bunch of review things and educational games instead of traditional lessons. 

Two extra fun things today: I got to be a mystery reader in kindergarten. I brought my class with me and read two books, On Account of the Gum and Sneaky Sheep. Both big hits. Mrs. E particularly enjoyed the first book and took a picture so she could find it later. 

That afternoon for science we did STEM challenges with keva blocks. They got 20 blocks only. I let each student (there are six) pick a challenge for them to do: build an animal, build the tallest tower, build the shortest tower, build a maze, build a piece of furniture, and build the outline of a person (we split into two groups and they combined their blocks). They wanted me to pick a challenge, so I picked "write your name in blocks". 

It was cool to see the differences in how they approached the challenges. Some of them used the blocks to make outlines of shapes, some set blocks on their sides, some set them on top of each other. All very creative.

Their classroom has a few mice that can be 'programmed' to move certain ways. The girls (I forgot to mention, this is a class entirely made of girls) asked to test their mazes with the mice. You press buttons on the mouse's back to say how many spaces forward, side to side, etc. you want it to go. Most of the time the mice made it straight just fine, but when it came time to turn, it was hard to judge the distance correctly and the mice broke most of the walls. 

After school I picked up more t-posts at TSC for our fences and researched gate options for our goat fence. The posts fit in my little red car! While there, I peeked at chick feed (lots of organic options here) and chick prices. The breed we bought were $5.50 a piece! I'm very content with my $1 chicks. 

Chicks

I did a thing today...

Chicks were not in the immediate plans for the homestead, but someone at bible study this morning shared that Americana chicks were $1 at Bomgaars, on sale because they're getting their adult feathers. Ooo! Green egg layers! 

We planned to get a few chickens from my dad a little later this summer, but his green egg layers are old and not producing so much. That coupled with $1? It's a done deal. 

I went down an internet rabbit hole searching for diy chick/duck food. Man, there are a lot of ingredients to source. That's a someday project. So, I decided to look locally, preferably for organic feed. Might be a long shot in Mankato. 

Two places were dead ends. Believe it or not, Bomgaars had some organic, non-medicated, non GMO, etc. chick starter! And of course the chicks. I brought three home and let them chill in their travel box until I got their home set up.

They're in the garage with a heat lamp, not sure if that's necessary in this weather. I'll keep an eye on it. I also put some mesh fencing around the outside to keep the chicks in their pool and Mopsy out of the chick area. I'm not sure how she would react to them, but I don't want her to have an easy snack. 

Here they are, lovin' their new home! Beaks are dipped (sometimes they need help finding water, so you dip their beaks in to give them a taste). We gave them starter feed after supper, dipped their beaks in their food dish, and when we left they were happily chowing down.

Our ducks come next week!

Last Day at Mt. Olive

I feel like a celebrity when I walk through the halls at Mt. Olive. I've taught so many students this year, most recently the younger grades, who particularly light up when they see me in the hallway. They wave, excitedly whisper to their friends, "It's Mrs. H!", and sometimes even give me hugs. It feels a bit excessive honestly. 😆

My last day at Mt Olive this year was in third grade, and we got along just fine. They had a morning very packed with academics. Their teacher actually trusts me to teach English! First sub she's had teach a full-on lesson!

Their interactive whiteboard board was not interactive first thing in the morning. I know enough about this kind of tech to problem solve, so I tried a number of things. I wasn't successful and said kind of to myself that it was a mystery what was wrong. One of the students spoke up and said, "That could be a story! In that book!" 

I wasn't sure what they were talking about. They said, "It's a mystery, so we need to call that guy.  That guy from the read-aloud book you did last week. The detective!" I had no idea they loved the book so much: Smiffy Blue Ace Crime Detective. He came up another time that morning with another mysterious circumstance. Can't remember the specifics. Later that afternoon, the kids requested we continue reading that book instead of their regular read-aloud book. We were able to finish before the end of the day. They wanted more. Unfortunately it's just a one book series. Must not have been popular enough for them to write more. 

The big event of the afternoon was roller skating. A company shipped them a bunch of crates of skates to use for two weeks. This was day two of their PE unit, so most of them remembered what their shoe size was, how to put the roller skates on, and how to actually roller skate. It wasn't as hard to manage as we all thought. I did have to help tie shoes for quite a number of students, but overall it was very smooth. 

Once everyone was taken care of, I put on my own pair of roller skates and enjoyed a half an hour of peacefully gliding around the gym. I haven't roller skated in years, but it came back to me right away. One common theme of conversation from students I passed was how many times they'd fallen down. Most of them said it was fewer times than yesterday! I am pleased to report I did not fall down at all. 😎

After school, G and I went to the Arboretum in Chaska to celebrate Bekhor's due date. The tulips were spectacular!

There was a really great art exhibit from a MN artist. He tried to incorporate pop culture/MN themes in each piece. This one was one both of us particularly enjoyed. 

Breaking Up the Day

I spent the morning at Immanuel reading to the 7-8th graders and the afternoon at Mt. Olive... reading to 5th graders. 

ILS 

I had wanted to finish reading the last 90 pages of the read-aloud I'd started with them the first time I subbed this year. We did it! They were satisfied with the ending and want there to be a movie version. Partway through the morning, someone had the idea to read in the outside classroom. Fantastic! It was my first time out there with a class. 

Some of the boys had gone mushroom hunting over the weekend, so mushrooms were on the brain. Believe it or not, they found about 15 morels! Some were quite big, some were quite dry. The boys have plans to cook them at home. Makes me want to poke around the woods!

Mt. Olive

Pretty simple afternoon. One class had a spelling worksheet; I read aloud stories from Bloopers, Botches, and Blunders: Life's Hall of Shame. The only other 'big' subject was reading. We read from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. One class asked if they could sit under their desks while we read. Sure! The other class asked if we could read outside for class. Sure! 

Fun day, but whew! My voice is tired!

Mother's Day

I've been dreading Mothers Day, more than Bekhor's actual due date. But the day was not as horrible as I thought it would be. Sad, but not horrible. 

My grandparents planted a tree for each grandchild when they were born, and my dad decided to carry on that tradition. He picked out three swamp oaks from G's garden center and we planted them Sunday afternoon. 

Lil and Miri each helped dig the hole for their tree, fill dirt in, and water them. Lil had a blast and got very possessive of her shovel.

When Dad asked Lil what she wanted to name her tree, she said, "Beer" 😂 or maybe it was "Deer". Too windy to tell. Maybe we'll wait to name them until they're older.

Bekhor's tree:

The rest of the afternoon, I scrounged around the farm looking for supplies for my future ducks. They'll hatch in a little over a week! I found most of what I need for them. My walkabout gave me lots of nostalgia of chore time as a kid: the smell of lilacs, walking through puddles, the duck tree...

There's even a duck in it!

Supper saw us at Grandma's house with an aunt and a few cousins. We had a "tea party" with cucumber sandwiches and at least seven varieties of tea! I only got to one unfortunately, but they sent me home with envelopes of the kinds I didn't get to try. We had to leave shortly after supper to go to the hospital to visit Grandpa before visiting hours were over. He seemed in much better spirits than he had been earlier in the week and it was good to see him with more energy. Keep praying for a speedy recovery and regain of strength!

Surprise Strawberries

We found wild strawberries growing north of our lilacs! Some even have flowers and little berries started. I dug some up and transplanted them so the goats don't eat them all. 

While I was at it, I planted some old bare root asparagus that G had brought back from the garden center. The ground back there must hold a lot of moisture because there is moss growing in a nice mat among the grass and dandelions. The shovelfuls stuck together, so I just set them back, settled in my asparagus (see below) and then laid them back down.

As I was digging, a lot of dandelions came up and I threw them off to the side in a pile. As I worked it suddenly occurred to me that some people specifically save dandelion root for herbal remedies. How could I let them go to waste?! 

I bundled them up and now they are in our fridge waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. 😜

New Fence

The goats were traumatized enough by the two tie out sessions, G and I made it a priority to put up more goat pasture. Again, another session of night homesteading after G got home from work. 

We didn't have time to finish the whole thing, but we couldn't leave the goats locked in the shed for a whole day, so we rigged the fence to be upright even though it's not completely attached. You can guess that the goats would try to take advantage of the weak spots in the fence, and you would be right.

Here's their original pasture with the grass eaten down to the nub: 

They like to stay close to their old pasture and gradually eat their way further into the new stuff. They've very much enjoyed browsing among the lilac bushes. I put up some netting fence around the new windbreak we planted so they couldn't eat them all, and they've stayed out of it for the most part, but every once in a while Gerda will stick her head through, get her horns stuck, and try to pull back getting even more tangled. Thankfully I've noticed each time. Today's to-do list is to swap out the fence for some with tinier holes. 

Here are the two weak areas in our fence: 

That little section in the top picture blew over once pretty soon after we had set it up and the goats got out. G noticed them before they caused any damage and we reinforced that area so it won't blow over anymore. 

I got home from school one day and noticed two of the plants we had just planted in our planter by the garage had been pulled out and were lying on the driveway. It looked similar to deer damage, but deer don't come up onto our yard during the day. My goat senses were tingling. 

I checked the front gate and all was secure there. The goats came out of the goat shed to see what I was doing, so obviously they hadn't gotten out, right? Just in case, I walked around the fence to see if there were any places they could have gotten out. Bingo. The whole wooden fence had blown over making a very easy pathway out of the enclosure.

Upon later inspection, I discovered more goat damage to plants. They had eaten a bunch of leaves off my pomegranate bush and the fig tree. Ugh! Guess we better make reinforcing the fence a higher priority...

Goat Tethering

The goats had eaten down most of the grass in their pasture and were getting hungry, so G and I decided to tether them in our front lawn until we could get a fence put up in the backyard. 

This is a bit risky because they haven't been trained to be tied up and we didn't want them to wrap around each other, get tangled, or get hurt. I tried to think through all possible negatives before we tied them out, and I think it went as well as can be expected. 

I bought a 150 lb dog tie out steak and a cable / tether for a dog of similar weight for Ilsa (the mom) and a second set for Gerda (the baby). Before tying them out, I tried to get them used to stepping over a rope by having them wear a sheep halter I found back at the farm from our sheep raising days. It worked quickly. A few hours after I put it on they were already stepping around it or holding their heads so the rope wouldn't be in their travel path. Smart goats! 

I finally quit putting it off and tethered them in the front yard with the help/moral support of my dad (he'd come up to pick up some trees). 

The goats were NOT fans. They really did not like being separated from each other. I actually moved one tether a few feet closer to the other one so they could overlap just a little bit, but not enough to wrap around each other. Still didn't like it. They wouldn't let me come near them without frantically bleating. I guess G continues to be their favorite, haha. 

But they did enjoy eating the new grass. 

I left them alone for a while and kept and eye on them from the house. Gerda would lay down from time to time, which indicates that she was feeling relaxed and not scared.

The second time I tethered them, I tied them out by myself and lured them out with "seven layer salad" aka veggie scraps. It worked better than I expected. I swapped which goat was tied further away and put Gerda down closer by the pond. 

There must be something about that spot that freaks them out, because Gerda was quite frantic and tried really hard to get up to where her mom was tied. Ilsa had done the same thing when she had been tied down there. She would run and try to break her collar, but it would hold and jerk her completely off her feet and onto her back. Cue the frantic bleating. Actually, it broke the first time and I had to put a different one on her. Thankfully I had one in the garage! It was a metal chain halter from the farm, one previously used by our very first goat Easter Lily. That one hasn't broken yet. Gerda's hand braided twine collar still holds strong!

K&3

"Are you rich?" 

Believe it or not, two kindergarteners separately asked me that today. It was all because I wore a necklace (a Christmas present given to me by a student years ago, one he picked out himself) and a shiny bracelet watch bought on clearance from Maurices. That's all it took!

My normal watch is out of commission for the time being; the watchband broke. My alternatives are fancier (and their batteries had been robbed to keep my regular watch afloat), so I save them for special occasions. I had been carrying the watch face in my pocket, but I got sick of that and finally replaced their batteries so I could wear a watch on my wrist. The metallic shine makes it look expensive I guess. 

I must say, kindergarten is not my favorite. Lots of silliness and wiggly bodies today. The teacher I subbed for only teaches kindergarten in the morning; she moves to 3rd grade in the afternoon.

As of today, I've taught every grade level at Mt. Olive except 2nd grade. The 3rd graders have heard about me from brothers and sisters and friends, so they were pumped I was the sub. "You get Mrs. H today? She's awesome!" I overheard a 5th grader say in the hall. One 5th grader saying hi to me at lunch told me her 3rd grade sister has had a countdown going for 11 days. I hope I lived up to expectations. 😆

My afternoon in 3rd grade consisted of religion (David and Goliath), memory work practice/quiz, and art. I brought a few read-aloud options with me just in case we had time, so during art I read them a few stories from Smiffy Blue: Ace Crime Detective. Pretty sure my character voices lived up to the hype. 

Mrs. M had some teacher appreciation gifts for me from students. Earlier in the year the principal had had me fill out a favorites survey. Today I got: a box of goldfish crackers, cookie m&ms (must not have had any pretzel-filled ones), dried apples, Pringles, and a couple of very sweet notes (one from the mom and one from the student).

Make Your Own Calcium

What do you do with a whole bucket of egg shells? The Internet says to turn it into calcium for your garden (specifically tomatoes) and for your chickens as an oyster shell substitute. I bet I could even sprinkle some on Joe's lettuce! 

I thought it would be a lot more work than it actually was. 

First, I collected eggshells in an ice cream pail until I had plenty to work with. Some sources said it was important to bake the eggshells to kill any salmonella that might be on them, and I decided to try that method. So I baked the eggshells at 400° for 10 minutes. That's what all that golden brown coloring is on the shells in the bucket, baked egg whites.

Once they were baked, they sat in the ice cream pail for quite a while because I wasn't sure if I wanted to just crush them up or try to pulverize them. Eventually I decided to do the pulverizing method. We have a spice and nut grinder that I bought for G to grind his coffee beans. He doesn't use it much so I don't think he'll mind that I borrowed it. 😉 

Pulverizing sounded messy and loud and hard on the equipment, which is why I was hesitant in the first place, but it wasn't too bad on all of the above. It didn't take long to grind up the entire batch of egg shells. The only downside of pulverizing was the very fine dust that flew up whenever I took the lid off after grinding, but that's easy enough to clean up.

And here's the end result! 

Further Adventures in Sourdough- Naan and Hot Pockets

My brother-in-law enjoys using chatgpt to find recipes. One day, we decided to see how the artificial intelligence would handle "sourdough discard recipes". It provided a whole list, most of which I knew already. Somehow, I thought he said naan as an option. It wasn't, but we looked it up anyway. Here's what it came up with: 

Using sourdough discard in naan is a fantastic idea! Here's a simple recipe for sourdough discard naan:

Ingredients:

- 1 cup sourdough discard

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon sugar

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 cup warm water

- 2 tablespoons melted butter or ghee

- Optional: chopped garlic, chopped cilantro, or nigella seeds for topping

Instructions:

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the sourdough discard, flour, sugar, and salt.

2. Gradually add the warm water, mixing until a soft dough forms.

3. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes until smooth.

4. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and let it rest in a warm place for 1-2 hours, or until it doubles in size.

5. Once the dough has risen, divide it into 6-8 equal portions and roll each portion into a ball.

6. Heat a skillet or griddle over medium-high heat.

7. Roll out each dough ball into a thin circle or oval shape.

8. Place the rolled-out dough onto the hot skillet or griddle and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, until golden brown and puffy.

9. Brush each cooked naan with melted butter or ghee, and sprinkle with any optional toppings if desired.

10. Serve warm and enjoy your homemade sourdough discard naan!

Feel free to customize your naan by adding garlic, herbs, or seeds to the dough before cooking.

So... We made it! My sourdough discard was verrrrry old, so the naan didn't puff up much while cooking. Still, it had good char and good flavor. I would try it again!

My next adventure was making a sourdough pizza crust to use as the outer dough for a meal inspired by a runza/calzone recipe my mom liked to make when I was growing up. What I made is nothing like her's. 😅 I had leftovers/wrinkly potatoes to use up and wanted something G could grab and go for lunch during this busy week at the garden center.

What I came up with... Sourdough pizza crust on the outside and filling option one- shredded pork, shredded potatoes, shredded carrots; filling option two- sloppy joe meat, spinach, shredded potatoes, and cheese. 

The recipe involved using some active yeast to get a better rise. Here's the dough ready to rise. 

I forgot to take a picture after the rise before I rolled out the dough, but it definitely doubled in size! 

They turned a beautiful golden brown and tasted pretty good too!