Chicks Rock

Oh, to be a Daring Baker

I have applied to join The Daring Bakers (www.daringkitchen.com). It is a monthly baking challenge. As you may know, I deeply enjoy cooking and I feel this is a great way to expand my horizons.

I finally got a pain de mie and made my first loaf in it. What is a pain de mie? Well, it is a lidded bread pan that allows you to make perfectly square bread. Typically the bread is fairly dense, is great for making sandwiches and french toast with and, if I do say so myself, is perfect for PB&J. The pan was purchased with my King Arthur Flour gift card, courtesy of my lovely Mother-In-Law, Linda.

So anyway, expect more posts about food. Part of the requirements is that I photograph and blog about each challenge. Unfortunately, we can not reveal the monthly challenge ahead of time, however, if you like the kinds of things you see, I can arrange for lodging when I plan to do the challenge. (I’m looking at you Mom)

Since I live 5 miles out from BFE, getting the ingredients may prove tricky, but the challenges I’ve seen so far seem fairly basic. Don’t be surprised if I ask someone to mail me some dried seed pods from a plant that only grows on the leeward side of Mt. Everest during the month of February.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Life under an ice machine

Well, we had a pretty good snow on Friday. Got stuck in traffic going down the mountain to retrieve my family. I’m so glad I have four wheel drive. Ice formed on everything and now that it is melting, we can’t go outside without getting pelted by icicles falling out of the trees. It seriously looks like there is a giant icemaker above our house that is just dumping ice cubes everywhere. You can hear it falling in the woods and see exactly how avalanches start.

There is a thin layer of ice on top of about 8 inches of snow, break it off and it is soft, fluffy snow underneath. Katie is mad she can’t make snow angels, but she has been doing her best to play with as many icicles as possible.

I have to say, it is much, much different than Tampa.

Katie can will snow to happen

So for a week, my little angel informed me she was going to make it snow. Sure enough, the forecast called for snow. Saturday was to be the day. I was at work early and kept looking outside, waiting for snow. All I could think about was how much Katie would love it if it snowed and how much I hoped she was at home playing in it. Not one flake fell all day for me. I got off work and sadly worked my way up the mountain. Plenty of wet, no frozen. That is, until I took the last turn before our house, then everything was white. For about 100 yards around our house, everything was white. We had a couple inches that stayed around for a few days. Katie loved it, although it turned out, she spiked a fever and could only go outside for a few minutes at a time, she did of course, have her bowls of snow.

I watched an episode of Baking with Julia and saw a lady make the most scrumptious sticky buns made with brioche. Her dough made me yearn for the recipe. Watching her working the dough and seeing it take shape and be formed positively made me ache. I’ve got to track down that recipe! Brioche dough is such velvety, rich, luscious dough.

The weather here has been as low as 11 degrees, yeah folks, that is Fahrenheit. Our thin Florida blood is frozen. I can’t believe it hasn’t snowed more than once, we have had so much rain it is insane. Rumor has it, this is going to be a doozy of a winter. Record colds. Just like the LAST time I lived in Georgia. Do you realize that when I was 16 and moved to Dalton to live with my father, was the coldest winter they have had on record, EVER, to this day?

I’m cursed.

Oh, sorry for the 6 month delay in posting. Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

Rabun Bald

We took a hike up to Rabun Bald. It is a two mile hike. For those that do not know, Rabun Bald is the second highest peak in Georgia at 4696 Ft. Our house is at 3652 feet. The path going up is around the corner from us, so we loaded up the goats and headed out. Tom of course, did not want to bring the goats, thought they would end up slowing us down. He realized quickly the goats loved it and Katie was the slow-down. He ended up carrying her most of the way back down. It was a perfectly beautiful day with a cool breeze blowing, sun shining and few clouds. Of course, we did not see any wildlife beyond a few snails. Contrary to Tom’s belief, the goats bleating did not in fact, attract bears.

I’m trying to upload some photos now.

Things to remember:
1. 3 year olds can’t really hike 4 miles up hill.
2. Even if they say they are tired, if something interests them, they have more energy that you.
3. Down hill is much nicer and much faster.
4. The tower at the top is fantastic, however, I will not be carrying my telescope up there any time this century.
5. The decision to make it so you can’t drive up was not a good idea, in my opinion.
6. Trail goats are cool.

The big wide world of wow.

So I was reading a few funny blog sites today. Specifically:

http://psychoticlettersfrommen.blogspot.com

and

http://www.whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com/

Where I found this little gem. Really, how do 5 guys get together to plan something like this, film it, then every single one of them decide it is AOK to upload to youtube?

I forced my husband to watch it. His comments? “Wierd.” and “That guy is so stupid, his last name is Cannon and he still feels the need to come up with a name like Pipelaya.”

Land of the Lost

I have seen the weirdest creatures since spring decided to get sprung. Oh, by the way, we have a new addition to the family. Tom found a box turtle that now has a very nice home. She doesn’t have a name yet, but she looks to be pretty old. Her shell around the edges is pretty beat up, but otherwise, she is a pleasure. Katie likes watching TV with her.

Anyway, on to the mutants. I’m digging out a small pond for the turtle and I find this thumb size freaky peach colored thing. It looked almost like a sand flea. It has pincers, and the body curved around. Unfortunately, It was damaged in the digging. After some googling, evidently it is a pupae of a beetle. A darned big one from the looks of it.

Today, Fathers Day, we had a picnic at the community park. The park has a playground and a great little stream as well as some rockin’ rocks for climbing. Tom was panning for gold while Katie was freezing her butt off but refusing to get out of the water. She likes wood. She likes throwing wood and watching it float downstream. She also likes throwing rocks. We actually went to 3 different waterfalls today. She is a natural climbing around the rocks. She does not like sitting in the waterfall itself though. The fact that it is about 65 degrees and the water is around 50 degrees might have a bit to do with it.

Sorry, freaks of nature. At the Rabun Branch waterfall, I look down in the water and it looks like there is a big flower bud in the water. I grab a stick and the bud swims away! I keep looking and see what has to be a 4-5 inch tadpole. I swear, it had to be almost as big as my hand. I told Tom, he didn’t believe it was that big, then he came over to see it. His words? “Holy Shit!” We couldn’t catch one as I was unprepared. Next time? I’m bringing my water shoes, some nets and my bait bucket baby!

In the little creek that runs along our property line, I saw a nice fat crawdaddy. He hid in the much before I could gather my sanity.

Evidently, I need a camera mounted to my head at all times. We saw zero wildlife for months, and now, every day it seems I see something else/new/huge/freakish.

No snakes yet. No bears yet. No coyotes yet. Excuse me while I feverishly knock on wood.

testing

Goings On

Well, my chicks arrived 2 weeks early so it has been busy as heck for me trying to keep baby chicks in and persistent goats out. I took some pics of the coop and run. It ended up being smaller than I intended. I gave Ace Hardware 3 tries to order the right wire and they kept getting it wrong and I had to get something up quick!

Unfortunately, the run is pretty much all sun. So I made a shadecrow. She isn’t designed to scare, but to provide shade.

Also put up a swing for Katie, which she insists on calling the “Wheee!” She is once again, a swing addict. Although thankfully this time, the swing doesn’t require an endless supply of D batteries.

Tom has been job hunting like mad. Needless to say, the job situation up here sucks. He has some good leads, one for an actual network administrator, we should be hearing about that one this week. I’ll start looking next week.

On to the pics!

Doodle Do

Shadecrow- (Yes, that was my prom dress and hey Kim, thanks for the wig!)

The Babies

And to keep you updated: KayKay loves baby chickens, baby goats, Go Diego Go, Max & Ruby and just absolutely adores The Wonderpets. Her summer vacation is filled with dirt, water, critters and lots and lots of outside. I really need to get a picture of her ready to go outside. It consists of shoes. Just shoes. I swear, our neighbors must think we never dress her since every time WE turn around, she has shucked off her clothes and is running wild. I dressed her 3 times before 11 am the other day and our neighbor Nancy STILL saw her naked.

Oh, weed eated the yard the other day. Found nothing but one frog and two hornets nests. Tom trimmed up by the road and found a box turtle! No fair! Turtle is now living in the chicken run. For the time being. I’ll probably let her loose soon.

The weather here has been just wonderful, as you can tell from the pictures. Even the hottest day so far doesn’t compare at all to Florida. We get a nice breeze through the woods and over the mountain so it never gets muggy…yet. Of course, we’ve had about a bazillion severe weather forecasts, mostly it is just rain, rain and more rain, unless it is snow or fog. There are always clouds in the forecast.

I’ll try to get more pics of KayKay. Maybe even some with her clothes on.

The most beautiful phrase…

“On Fedex vehicle for delivery.”

Clear skies, husband out of town and a shiny new telescope, set to arrive any time.

Life is Good.

Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive

Well, according to People Magazine anyway. If you didn’t think that space was sexy, funny or cool, you haven’t had the opportunity to see Neil Degrassi Tyson on The Daily Show, part 1.

In case you don’t know, it is his fault Pluto got demoted.

He really shouldn’t search Cafe Press for Pluto. Some folks are bitter. Well, I’m kinda bitter, but more gobsmacked that we can declare something NOT a planet. How many astrophysicists does it take to change a planet? One really good, really convincing, really persistent one.

Chicks Rock

We really do!