Per usual, I was up early Saturday morning to start my chores and run my errands. I admired the sun rise while the dogs ran about doing their business, taking in the new day. The air smelled like springtime and the birds were a lot more chatty than usual. Even though the ground was still frozen, cold and icy, the afternoon temperature would soon rise to 60 degrees and it would very much feel like springtime, with mud and all… I think the birds knew this already.
I headed back inside to start a loaf of bread. I made my loaf a little different this time, and actually let it rise and bake in a buttered bread dish. How crazy, right? ; )
Normally I would just form a boule and plop it onto the oven stone to bake. But I thought I might like more uniform slices, for an egg salad sandwich or something, and that was my reasoning for the change.
Once the bread was set to rise, I headed off to the feed mill to pick up 800 lbs. of feed for the farm animals. The dirt back-roads are always scenic, no matter what the season, though annoyingly bumpy from all the ruts caused by buggy wheels…
As I was admiring the maple trees, all tapped for maple syrup collection, it occurred to me that now is actually when they start tapping the trees, yet they started tapping at least three weeks ago. But clearly the sap is flowing – the bags were filling up. This means spring really is coming earlier than we think – right? It’s been a really mild winter this year. And I will never complain about that!
I headed back home after I picked up my grain, then unloaded it all and put it in the tack room where I store it. Once I was back in the house, I heated up the oven and put my now puffed-up dough in to bake. It rose up nice even though it was a chilly morning in the house – I was pleasantly surprised.
Needless to say, the bread didn’t seem to mind being shoved into a bread pan, rather than thrown onto a baking stone, and it came out just as good as always. And perfect for slicing… ~A
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