It’s 5.30 and pitch black. How will I get everything done in the tiny patch of daylight light before I need to go to work.

I can bake bread in the dark though. Yesterday I decided not to have any dough on the go. Usually there is dough rising on the bench or at least in the autolyse stage in the purple fridge. But I chose to have nothing on the go. Give myself a break. But I was curiously melancholy.

I looked at that reaction and found it interesting. Does rising dough count as company?

So I started today’s bread yesterday evening as usual and was instantly comforted.

I am certainly getting better at it and more people are asking for a loaf, and I am wondering about asking the restaurant down the road if I can bake my bread in their pizza oven. They are beautiful new pizza ovens. I could pay them in bread?

Just a thought.

Presently my own oven is shored up with the cast iron and bricks from the garden. It takes longer to heat up but the loaves are faster to cook and also more even. Much better.

Thank you Baker Pete. They say scientists make better bread makers. Lucky for me I have scientists as readers. Because I am definitely of the artist variety.

Anyway. What was I thinking about. Oh that’s right – the new problem of having to feed the pigs in the dark before I leave for work. Excellent. I love a new problem.

Maybe I could get it all set up the night before and my co-worker could feed them after milking. We can milk in the dark but the pigs don’t like being out in the dark. They don’t see very well in the dark. So they wait for sunrise to arise.

I will have to see if the co-worker is willing to take on the pigs in the morning. They are a bit of a handful to feed. The big ones down the back especially.

Then I could get to work earlier and get back earlier.

There will be even more variables when the snow and the ice and freezing temperatures come.

I will think on it.

Love celi



29 Comments on “THE WEEK COMMENCES

  1. Haha, scientist eh? Not me; that was/is my wife (hard to decide what she is to me now); she trained as an immunologist. Anyway, I call my sourdough starter a household pet. I feed and water it twice a day 🙂 Glad the heat sink is helping, are you using steam yet? If you have one of those plant sprayers, shoot a mist of water in the oven just as you close the oven door (with the bread in of course). Not too much, it just needs to last for a few minutes at the beginning.

  2. The use of the new pizza ovens in exchange for bread sounds like a win-win situation! Especially for the pizza people who will be getting the bread!!! 🙂

  3. Perhaps exchange raw dough for them to use for their pizzas in exchange for you using their ovens.
    Why would they want baked bread when they have pizza?

  4. Pigs are smart!
    I wondered if you could scavenge some old bricks and concrete breeze blocks to build an outdoor oven and ask people to come an help you build it in a day, with a barbecue for the helpers… There are lots of plans online for the construction.

    • It is a great idea – but I am baking three or four times a week – or more – so tending fires as well would be an all night job. I would love to bake in one though.,

  5. Won’t your life become EVEN MORE complicated if you start baking down the road? I imagine they would only say yes if you did it in the morning before they need them. Said the girl who cannot stand complicated plans. So don’t listen to me. I get less done in a month than you did this morning.
    And, it would make lovely bread.
    Maybe we need to start a small fundraiser for a new oven for you. It feels more practical in the long run.

  6. I was wondering the other day how Tane has reacted to the return of Tima? Outdoor pizza ovens take more than a weekend to build and would be a drain on your precious wood in the icy months. Laura

  7. Perhaps you feel the need to bring something to life each morning before you go to work? In addition to the continuous act of creation that is maintaining the Farmy, of course… I do like the idea of a pizza oven for you, outside somewhere so the delicious smell of baking can waft into the Coupe, perhaps?

  8. Ha! Feeding the pigs in the dark … As someone who occasionally fills in for farmers down the road I can attest to pigs superior social awareness. They totally KNOW if someone new is feeding them. The young ones can be funny in their devilment. The older BIG ones … can be rather pushy if they think you are not doing something exactly right. Good luck Co-worker! 😉

  9. are the pigs fed twice or once daily? Oh the ruckus though moving their feeding time. Having HOUNDS I know what a late meal sounds like at our house. I can’t imagine what a late meal for PIGS would be like! Sheila would definitely give you a cold shoulder. Tima too!

  10. Yep, rising dough might count as company… we refer to Polly, our sourdough starter (offspring of Celia’s Priscilla) by name (after my grandmother), she lives in a nice big jar in the fridge, and comes out about once a week for a day of feeding, and often a bake, but also at other times to welcome visitors. I have sent bits of Polly off to other people, where she becomes part of their household with a new identity. She’s alive, and so part of the family. Part nature, part science snd a bit of a miracle, I think.

  11. I have just heard an amusing podcast episode on pigs, which made me wonder to ask you if you have ‘lard pigs’ or ‘meat pigs’ ?

    • Oh yes!
      Ok. Tima and Wai are lard pigs. Also I think the guinea hog is a lard pig. They have an extraordinary ability to turn the tiniest amount of protein into fat.
      My Herefords and other larger hogs are considered meat pigs.
      Where was that podcast?

      • The podcast is “Your brain on facts” Very good podcast in general. The most recent episode “Some Pig” is all about pigs.

        • Thank you ! I will sign up. I love listening to podcasts whilst doing menial shit shoveling jobs! I will listen while cleaning out the pig pen!! Seems appropriate.

  12. I am so jealous of farm life! I love to go down to my sister’s farm and just “get away from it all”. She has cows, chickens and horses (no pigs though)! AND she makes her own bread. There’s nothing like warm, heavenly, home-made bread!

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