Let's Try A "Real" Christmas Tree

Life continually evolves.  Nothing ever remains the same.  A person in their 20's thinks 40 is old, a 40 year old thinks 60 is old, a 60 year old thinks 80 is pretty old and an 80 year old knows they are old.  As I am in the decade before 80, I need to evolve too.   I have two daughters.  One has taken over hosting our Thanksgiving meal and the other is having Christmas.   I think that is awesome.  It was wonderful to see what a good job my daughter and her family did on Thanksgiving.  I am looking forward to celebrating Christmas as well.

 Since no one will be at our house for Christmas, I thought I would cut back on decorating.  When we discovered our youngest daughter was allergic to the "real" tree, we purchased an artificial tree and had one for over 40 years   We have upgraded over the years but always put up a big tree. Two years ago I wrote about the struggles we had with an 8 foot tree.   http://www.thecabincountess.com/2016/12/the-struggle-with-our-pre-lit-christmas.html

This year I got the bright idea of buying a small potted Christmas tree.  We could enjoy it in the house, and we could plant it in the yard in the spring.  Sounds good right??  My husband and I made the trek out of town to a local nursery.  I had heard they had some potted trees.   We found a Norway Spruce we liked.  It was 4 feet high, and it was nicely shaped.  It cost a bit more than I wanted, but I justified it by thinking we could plant a nice sized tree in the spring, and it wouldn't be another dead Christmas tree in the landfill.  With a little help, we got it in the truck.  My husband was able to back the truck near the porch and took out the tree.  It was frozen solid.  So far so good.  The next problem was finding a container to put it in.  The instructions we got was to warm it up, put it in a bright spot and water it regularly.  It can never ever dry out or it will die.  I measured the pot and the container had to be 16 inches across and 15 inches high.  I couldn't find anything without drainage holes that large.  We got in the truck again and we were off to find a proper container.  I thought we could surely find something at some of the thrift stores.  Nope, nothing to be had.  Next we went to the farm store.  We looked at all kinds of containers until we found one large enough.  It was a steel utility tub and would be able to hold water.  I'm not sure what it is supposed to be used for.  It's probably for hauling oats for horses or pig slop.  We got home after dark although it isn't that late these days.  It's pitch dark at 5:00pm.  We brought the tree inside, put it in the container and left it to thaw out overnight.

The next morning I got out the strings of lights I had purchased two years before.  They were LED and not that old so I wasn't worried about them working.  Thank goodness I hadn't brought up the big tree because six lights at the end of the first string didn't light.  I wouldn't have been very happy to have to go through finding the source of the burned out bulb.  In this case, I just pulled out another string of lights, and they worked just fine.  The tree only took two strings of lights and even that was a struggle for me.  The little fresh tree was prickly and sappy.  It smells good, but I got sap on my hands and clothes.  With the lights accomplished, it was time to decorate.  I brought up my bins of ornaments.  Most of the ornaments were too heavy.  They just slid off the branches.  I ended up using a bunch of small ornaments and dehydrated orange slices.  It is done, and it looks pretty good.  I only hope that we don't kill it and it lives a good long life in my yard.   If not, it was a pretty expensive little 4 foot tree.

Keeping with the Christmas spirit we brought Santa up from his storage cabinet, I ended up putting up my villages and hung the stockings on the fireplace.  Old habits are hard to break. 

Fake Sourdough Bread

I haven't blogged a new recipe for a long time.  This one is a little unusual and one I haven't made before today.  I am blogging about it so I don't lose the recipe the next time I want to make it.

In the past I have made sourdough bread, but I have found it tedious to keep a sourdough starter alive.  If you don't make bread regularly, then the starter has to be kept alive by throwing some away and feeding it.  It is wasteful, and we don't eat that much bread to bother with keeping starter alive.  I came across this recipe for Cheater's Easy Sourdough http://ladyandpups.com/2014/10/16/fraudulent-easy-sourdough/  If you google Cheater's Sourdough there are many recipes.  The cheat is using Greek yogurt instead of sourdough starter.

I mixed up the dough.  It was drier than the pictures on the website, so I added more yogurt.  It still wasn't very sticky, but I set it aside to rise.  I let it sit for 14 hours.  It looked like it had risen enough so I shaped it into a ball, covered it and let it rise another two hours.  I have made sourdough bread in a cast iron dutch oven before and used the same process to bake this bread.

After baking it, I took it out to cool.

Then I cut some slices.  It is quite dense and tastes just like sourdough.  I wonder if adding more yogurt would make it lighter in texture or soggy.  It will be great to have with soup.  I toasted a slice and ate it with my oatmeal and blueberries sweetened with date paste.  It was delicious and very filling.

I doubt that this fake sourdough bread has all the health benefits of "real" sourdough, but I don't know for sure.  I would think that the live cultures in the yogurt would be destroyed by the baking process. That would probably be true for sourdough starter as well, but the fermentation process to make the bread rise is a positive thing. I read that regular bread is hard to digest.  Even if you don't have gluten problems, regular whole grain bread is hard to digest.  The lactobacillus and the wild yeast in sourdough starter forms lactic acid which can neutralize the phytic acid in wheat making it easier to digest.  Phytic acid interferes with the absorption of nutrients so by neutralizing them, you are making nutrients more readily available and absorbable.  Long slow fermentation of wheat can reduce phytates by up to 90%.  This bread with yogurt starter definitely has a long slow fermentation process.  I hope I have that concept right.  They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  I do know that sourdough breads are usually tolerated for people with gluten sensitivities and has a low glycemic index for people with diabetes.

I will make it again when I have a hankering for sourdough bread.  If you don't count the rising time, it takes five minutes to mix and 35-40 minutes to bake.  Everyone can carve out that much time for a bread with no additives or odd ingredients.

Cheater's Easy Sourdough

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp instant dry yeast for 18 hour rising time or 3/4 tsp for 6 hour rising time
1 1/2 cups plain, unsweetened yogurt which contain active cultures or 1 1/2 cups of whey (the liquid drained off of homemade yogurt)

Instructions:

In a stand mixer with a dough hook or in a large bowl by hand, mix the flour, dry yeast, salt and the plain yogurt.  Mix on medium low speed for two minutes until a dough forms.  If the dough is too dry and doesn't want to come together, add 1 tbsp more yogurt.  Continue to knead with the mixer or by hand until the dough is springy.  The dough should be very sticky but able to retain a shape.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment and rise at room temperature for up to 18 hours.  The dough should have doubled.  Then transfer the dough to a bread board or counter lightly floured.  Gently fold the dough over itself a couple times and form it into a ball.  Transfer to a piece of parchment paper and cover with a large bowl.  Let it proof again for about two hours until doubled.

Preheat the oven and the heavy bottom baking pan with a lid (I used a cast iron dutch oven)  to 450 degrees F.  Lift the dough on the parchment paper and transfer the dough into the pan.  Cover it with the lid and bake for 30 minutes.  Then remove the lid and bake until the crust is golden brown.

Let is cool on a rack for 20 minutes.

Update:  I make my own Greek yogurt and get an excess amount of whey.  In fact, I now use the whey as the starter for my next batch of yogurt instead of the yogurt itself.  It works so well, I thought I would replace the yogurt in this recipe for equal amounts of whey.  It worked so well.  It isn't quite as dense and tastes great.  

 

In Search of Fall Color

Today had the feel of fall in the air.  Even before the temperatures drop, you can sense the change.  The sun is in a different position so the light is different and the air seems fresher.  Every fall we go in search of fall colors.  Today we decided to take a day trip with some friends.  We traveled north about 100 miles to the Green Bay, Wisconsin area.  My husband researched the area around Green Bay and found two waterfalls we didn't know about. For those who don't know Wisconsin and its position in the United States, Wisconsin's eastern border is on Lake Michigan.  Lake Michigan is the third largest of the Great Lakes.  It is beautiful with sand dunes and nice beaches, but it doesn't have many waterfalls.  We recently drove around Lake Superior and saw many many waterfalls. This is not the case of Lake Michigan.   If you travel clockwise around  Lake Michigan starting in Lower Michigan, the first waterfall you can find is Fonferek Falls in the Fonferek Glen County Park.  If you are interested in Earth Science this would be an interesting fact to research.

Fonferek Glen is on 74 acres.  It is located along Bower Creek in basically farming country.  The parking area for this area is right next to a farm.  I'm not sure I would like having so many visitors right next to my driveway, but that is where it is.  We weren't sure if we would even see the waterfall in this area.  Except for the time of the Spring melt, Fonferek Falls is usually just a trickle.  We knew that there had recently been heavy rains in the area so we were hoping for more than a trickle.  We walked down a path to get our first view of the falls.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the falls.

From this view of the falls we saw a trail into the glen.  There were signs everywhere warning of danger and steep drops.  About five years ago a woman was killed by falling over the edge so they have it well posted .  We were careful to stay on the trail and approached the top of the falls.  As we continued, we were able to cross the creek to get to the other side.  We wanted to see the area from another angle.

We didn't see much fall color today.  The area had a lot of birch trees which were turning yellow but nothing striking.

I couldn't find a lot more information about this park.  It appears to be part of a gravel pit of some sort.  It also had nice views from the trail of the dolomite or limestone cliffs.

We returned to our vehicle and headed to the next waterfall in the area.  There was a bridge out so we had to rely on our navigation girl to find another route.  We had a nice drive along the Bay of Green Bay and finally found the small roadside park.  It was a small park but it had a lot of information on signs to read.  I confess, I didn't read all of it, but I took pictures of the information in case we want to know more about it later.  This park was named Wequiock Falls park.  There is bridge which has a view of the falls from the top.  Then as you walk around to the opposite side, there is a set of stone steps.  These stairs take you down into the gorge area for a closer look.  We were lucky here too because the falls actually had falling water.

Wequiock Falls park also has a large grassy area which included a large statue of Jean Nicolet placed in 1939-1940.

When we finished viewing both of these falls, it was still early.  We headed back home.  When we got down the road a ways, we could see Lambeau Field off in the distance.  We thought it would probably be a good day to visit the home of the Green Bay Packers.  We visited the Pro shop, went into the Atrium and looked at the statues of Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi.  We ate lunch at the restaurant in the atrium called 1919. 

Vince Lombardi 

 

Curly Lambeau 

 

 

Mike doing the Lambeau Leap

We like these day trips.  It is something fun for us to do, and we don't have to pack for overnight.  Even though there wasn't much fall color, we had a really good day.

A Summer For Raising the Monarch Butterfly

It has been an interesting serendipity summer for me and the Monarch butterfly.  I first learned the word serendipity in the 60's from the folk group called the Serendipity Singers.  The word actually means "the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way".  When I lived in town, I would occasionally see Monarchs.  I thought they were pretty, but didn't really give them much of a thought.  Sixteen years ago we moved to our cabin, and I slowly started to learn more about the nature around me.  I remember the first time I saw a Monarch caterpillar, I didn't even know what it was.  I had to look it up.  I knew they liked milkweed plants, but that was about all.  Milkweeds were just that...weeds.  We used to gather the empty seed pods to make Christmas decorations.  Since then I have written blogs about the Monarch butterfly.

http://www.thecabincountess.com/2014/07/monarch-butterfly.html
http://www.thecabincountess.com/2016/09/watching-life-cycle-of-monarch.html

If you read these blogs, you know I found a chrysalis hanging from my dining room window.  I watched the whole process ending with the emergence of the beautiful butterfly, and my daughter and her son raised their first one in a jar.  Since then we have been addicted.  We read that 90% of the butterflies survive to the adult stage if raised inside but only 10% in the wild.  Our success rate has been even higher than that.  There is slightly mixed information about the Monarch becoming endangered or extinct, but we do know the populations are much smaller than years gone by.  It could be weather or environmental issues, but we wanted to help in our small way.

For some reason we noticed a lot of small caterpillars this summer.  I have to admit, I had never really looked for them before.  I only noticed them when they were large and ready to spin.

This is a newly hatched Monarch caterpillar.

I found several little caterpillars in July.  There may have been some in June also but I didn't notice.  Next year I will start looking earlier in the season.  I collected fifteen tiny caterpillars.  I gave thirteen to my daughter, and I kept two.  She had the large butterfly pavilion for raising the painted lady butterflies.  http://www.thecabincountess.com/2015/06/painted-lady-butterflies.html Since then I have purchased my own habitat.

At first these tiny caterpillars don't do much.  They are just gaining strength, eating a little and they don't move around much.  When they get to about an inch or a little more, they start moving up the side of the container.  They are ready to molt.  It is hard to see and I couldn't get good photos, but they leave a streak of black.  Since they excrete a lot, I thought that is what this was.  It wasn't, it is the shedding of the skin which they later eat.  After this happens, they climb to the food and start eating a lot.  They grow very fast from this point.

It takes about two weeks for the caterpillar to grow from the newly hatched caterpillar to a full grown caterpillar.

When they are ready, the caterpillars climb to the highest point of the container or habitat.  In one case, it just went to a sturdy part of the milkweed leaf.  They connect and hang in the shape of a "J".

After hanging for several hours, they start to spin the chrysalis.  The spinning process only takes about five minutes.  You can see wiggling inside the chrysalis until it dries and hardens.

Now it's time to wait.  It takes about ten days for the magic to happen inside the chrysalis.  Then slowly the bright green turns black.  At this point, you can even see the black and orange through the casing.

When you see the chrysalis turn from black to clear and the butterfly can be seen inside, it is time .  It breaks through and the Monarch butterfly emerges.

The emerged butterflies take a few hours to dry and gather strength.  When they spread their wings and flap them a bit they are ready to be released.

At this point they should be tagged with a small sticker that goes on the underside of the lower wing.  It has a number that is registered.  Records should be kept of the sex, location, date and tag number.  We didn't know anything about this.  Next year we will do things correctly.  We learned a lot this summer, but we still have a lot to learn.  When the Monarchs are released, they either sit on the ground for a while or fly to the nearest tree to rest and gain strength.  After 24 hours, they begin to eat and continue on with their short life cycle.

This is a female Monarch butterfly.

It is easy to tell a female from a male.  A male monarch has black dot on each side of the lower wing.  Interestingly we hatched mostly females.  Since I didn't keep good records, I don't know the amount of each.

This is a male Monarch butterfly with two black dots.

In a few days the last of the chrysalises for this summer will have been released.  We will have saved about forty Monarchs.  It is small contribution, but it was a nice summer activity.

The Larson Clydesdale's...Worth the Visit

Last week my husband saw an article in the local paper.  It was about a local attraction that we had vaguely heard about, but never gave it much thought.  It was an article about Larson's Famous Clydesdales.  We learned that this farm owned 14 of the most award winning horses in the United States.  They have competed with Budweiser horses and those owned by the Campbells soup fortune.  They aren't allowed to put advertising signs out but somehow people come in large numbers every year to see these amazing animals.  It costs $15 for adults and $5 for kids.  The Tuesday afternoon show includes a grandstand performance.

Every other Tuesday, during the summer, we have our second youngest grandson.  Since this was the last Tuesday before school starts, we thought we would check out the Clydesdales.  We called ahead which is recommended.  Sometimes they have bus tours and don't have room for everyone.  As luck would have it, our daughter and her sons were also available to join us.

When the gates opened we were allowed to walk up to the driveway to the first set of horses.  You can go right up to the fence and pet them.  They love having their faces rubbed.

Jack with the Mama horse 

 

Heather, Ewan and Dylan with Big Reggie and Max

The photos above don't show how big these horses are.  The yard we are standing on is up from the ground the horses stand on so it's easier to pet them.  The horse on the left is named Reggie White after the famous Green Bay Packer player.  He stands 19 hands tall and was voted the best American Gelding in the United States.

When the music starts playing the horses know it's time for them to go to the fence and get in their spots to be fed.

Judy Larson who owns the farm with her husband Calvin begins to tell the history of their journey raising these amazing animals.  She takes you around the place showing the horse trailers, the awards, the wagon they use in parades and introduces you to all the horses.

She introduced us to Joey.  He is only 7 years old which is how long it takes for these horses to become fully grown.

The Larson's grandson bringing out Joey. 

 

  They have huge feet. 

 

Judy shows how big the horseshoes are compared to a regular sized horse. 

They showed us how they get the horse ready to hook up the cart.  When they do parades, they take six horses to pull the big wagon.  Each horse has a job.  They brought Joey out to show him pulling the cart and how light they are on their feet.  The horses are trained so well, they respond to the slightest command.

Lastly we saw the baby Scottie.  He is four months old and is already bigger than Big Reggie was at that age.  They have hopes that he will also be a grand champion horse.  The Clydesdale mares are pregnant for eleven months but ultrasounds can see if a mare is pregnant at two weeks because of the size of the baby.  The mortality rate for Clydesdales is very high.  It is due to the fact that most babies have a condition similar to the RH negative factor in humans.  When the babies are born, they are tested.  If needed the babies are infused with nine bags of plasma from the mother.  It is a long process, but worth it in the long run.  Big Reggie actually needed eighteen bags of plasma, but look at him today.

The Larson's newest baby Scottie.  Four months old when we visited. 

 

It was a surprisingly awesome day.  We had no idea we had these famous horses only a half hour away.  I wonder what other local attractions we don't know about.  This is the link for the original article that prompted our visit.  https://www.thegreenlaker.com/2018/08/07/larson-find-fame-with-their-four-legged-friends/