The Moon The Garden The Bread and Me

-

According to my lunar gardening calendar (sidereal) today was a tomato planting day so I sowed my first seeds for 2009. I made some newspaper pots (I brought the papers home from the cafe so they didn't cost me anything).

The tray underneath the seed pots I got free from a florist shop... they were going to put them into the skip... the little indentations in the plastic are the perfect shape for adding stability to my paper pots... and of course once the seedlings are big enough to transplant I will simply pop the whole paper pot into the gro-bag where the paper will happily decompose.


You can actually buy a device for making newspaper pots but it costs about £10... mine are not all the same size but I am sure that wont make too much difference to the tomato seeds. Then I brought some old plastic shelves from the shed into the conservatory (I dont have a greenhouse) so that the seedlings will benefit from the light and heat.


The sun was shining and the conservatory was really quite warm so I decided to make some bread. I have a bread machine but sometimes I really like to get stuck in and do it by hand.


I made some white bread which we ate for lunch...

and then I made some hot cross buns ...


and while I am updating my blog I have a small wholewheat loaf and some wholewheat rolls proving in the kitchen, oh and I also had time to have a cup of tea in the sunshine.


It has been a lovely day!

Comments

  1. bill1 March 2009 at 21:55

    Time for planting! I am so behind. Thanks for the motivation. I used to have a hand mill . . . ground the organic wheat and/or rye. That was really good and I haven't done it in years. Thanks of reminding me how good homemade bread is too.

    Bill

    ReplyDelete
  2. carrielegalloudec7 March 2009 at 20:31

    well i made some bread but it hit the rack in the oven when it went in and sunk. it's lovely bread but if you want a sandwhich you have to cut it length way, well unless you are a fairy of course! ha ha

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You must register to comment - anonymous comments are no longer accepted on this site - sorry I know it's a pain to register for yet another account and remember yet another password but I just got too much spam mail ... I do love to hear from people who read my blog so a big thank you to those who make the effort.

Popular posts from this blog

Hot in the Kitchen

-
Image
According to the BBC we are experiencing a heatwave here in Spain with temperatures up to 47C in the shade. Yes, it's hot, our own north facing in the shade thermometer has registered 41.8C as it's hottest temperature this year.. it's still early August so we could easily go up from that yet.



The truth. It's like this every year here. This is fairly normal August temperatures for our region as the hot African winds blow up through Portugal and the Peninsula depositing a fine orange coloured coating of sand on the car and making the sky look like it might rain. The rain rarely comes.


The BBC reported deaths from heat stroke in southern Spain. Again, this happens every year. The increase in temperature puts a strain on the elderly in the same way that winter does in the UK.  I don't mean to belittle the danger. It is very hot and we all have to take extra care because the sun can kill you! But so far this isn't much different from most other years since we have b…
Read more

A Vicious Circle

-
Image
Having established that I need money to launch my new project what happens? Tooth ache followed by a totally different tooth simply disintegrating leaving horrid jagged edges.


Now my Sanitas health cover will pay for checkups and a yearly clean but on investigation the treatment I need is cheaper than the insurance excess charge so it's more prudent to simply pay for it...


So initially a whopping 105 euros to rebuild the crumbled tooth - with the warning that it will be forever fragile and the only other option is to take it out. 😶 Antibiotics have sorted the toothache but root canal work is scheduled for June.. that's more money.


This is the way it is. We feel like we are rich because we live in such a beautiful place and we have a lifestyle we want, mostly doing just whatever we want, but the reality is that we are on a fixed budget and over the past year or so we have slowly taken our eyes off the ball.


So it's time to pull in the horns a bit. This shouldn't be too…
Read more

Molly

-
Image
She was a very Good Cat.


We wish her an eternity filled with defrosting chicken in flimsy plastic and lots of slow moving mice.


In the end I used the basket - it reminded me of Inca funerary containers with mummified remains inside.



Her grave marker is also plastic - the wind makes the paw move. When the weather takes its toll and it starts to fall to bits we will recycle it and replace it with a glass or china statue. It’s just that the little happy cat is very much how we felt about her.


The rest of the animals were very aware of the situation and at the end they avoided her, all apart from one. Not her litter mate but a cat we acquired at the same time as her. We allowed him to sniff the body so he knows what happened to her. The only one to come to the internment was Clyde. He followed us up the hill crying. It was fitting.



It will take us a while to get back to normal.

Read more