Gratitude Sunday

Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.

Phew, it's been a busy week for me. Getting the last of the plums and tomatoes in prepped and stored away.

I ran out of jars so I resorted to stewing the plums down and putting them in freezer bags. 

I also made another batch of spiced crab apple and ginger jelly. This one had more ginger in it so has a bit more of a yummy kick. 

But here is my gratitude list:

I have been thankful this week for:

                   ... the lovely weather we have had this week although it's a little chilly.

                   ... I have finally made my yeast-less sourdough bread rise. (YAY!)

                   ... The glut of produce I have harvested.

                   ... The smell of autumn in the air

                   ... Having reduced hours at work which meant more time for baking and knitting

                   ... Spending time with family - something I haven't done in a while and I should do more

                   ... My peas sprouting

                   ... The grass seed also sprouting, almost got a front lawn! I shall write a post about that.

Wooly Moss Roots

This is a post dedicated to one of my favourite bloggers.
Taryn over at Wooly Moss Roots is a big inspiration to me. Every post has beautiful pictures and heart felt words.

  

I've been following her blog for about a year and she is also one of my main inspirations for living sustainably with a low-impact on nature. She has taught me to just follow my heart and not worry about what people think, life isn't always easy but it will sort itself in the end.

Taryn and her husban Jeff run two etsy shops: MysticOrb and WoolyMossRoots.
Mystic Orb sells beautiful jewellery made by Jeff from reclaimed wood whilst Wooly Moss Roots sells herbal remedies, lovely hand made buttons also made from reclaimed wood and the odd wooly creation made by Taryn.

Her little boy, Bracken, is probably the cutest thing ever too!

It is a blog you should check out.

Plus she is currently running a prize draw to win some of her gorgeous hand made buttons. You can find it here.

Gratitude Sunday

Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.

This week has been a bit more relaxed than the last. I managed to get some baking in so I am pretty grateful for that. Here is my attempt at making my first yeastless bread using my soda starter. It turned out pretty good, but I left it in a little too long. Still good none-the-less.

 

The second part in  my baking adventure what I am grateful is the complete glut of plums I have been picking. I have picked close to 8kg this week and theres still plenty left on the tree! I am incredibly grateful for Mother Nature in providing us such tasty treats.

Here is a plum cobbler I made this morning. I haven't gotten round to trying it yet.

 

My OH also took me out for a lovely meal today, I didn't take any pictures, I feel weird taking photos in restaurants of the food. I don't know if any you are a bit like that?

Knitted dish cloths

I am a huge fan of knitted dish cloths and the fact they are completely re-usable is a plus. Once they have done their duty washing up and are mucky, chuck them in the washing machine with the other laundry and they come out as good as new.

After they have been washed to death and are looking a bit sad they get relegated from the kitchen draw to the bathroom to clean in there. Once they are beyond that, as they are 100% cotton they can be chucked into the recycling as textiles. 

After visiting my Nanna in Scotland, she traded me a huge bag of cotton, double knit in white and ecru. So I set to work knocking up a few 

I don't bother blocking them as they are only to be used for cleaning pans and eventually the toilet. 

The one at the back is just a simple stocking stitch block with a garter border. The other uses this pattern found on raverly. I added a crochet border for added prettiness but I find crochet is better for scrubbing with.

Do any of you guys still use knitted dish cloths? My Nan always said her mother (my great Nan) always used them.

Washing Fleece

One of the main aspects of my self-sufficiency plan is to process wool from fleece to yarn. I managed to acquire two fleeces in May, from a lovely lady down in Devon.

 They are two varieties, a cross which I can't quite remember, but the fleece is quite curly and rough. I find this one quite difficult to wash. And the second is a texel X blue-faced leicester, but it feels very much like a slightly finer than usual texel.

So let me go into the washing process in a little more detail. Firstly you must make sure you store the fleece somewhere cool and dry. In this case my garage.

I have them wrapped in old sheets to keep them cleanish.

So on a nice day, when is relatively warm and sunny (for the uk at least) I tear of chunks to wash. As I don't have anywhere suitable to store a whole washed fleece. 

Firstly you need to do what is know as skirting. Basically you search through the fleece and take out any undesirables; such as poo, bits of bugs and plant matter.

So to wash the fleece is use one of those flexi-tub bucket things and fill it 1/2 full with hot water from the tap and then top it up with boiling water from the kettle. The water needs to be hot, just hot enough so you can barely put your hand in it. To this I add a good squidge of washing up liquid. I like to use traditional green fairy because it quite concentrated. (A squidge probably equates to around a table spoon in normal person speak.) 

I need to weed the patio I know!

Once it has soaked for around 20 minutes you can removed it and change to water to clean water. You may need to do another "soap soak" or use plain water if it is clean enough and soak for another 20 minutes or so. An important thing to note is the temperature needs to be roughly the same otherwise the temperature shock can cause the fleece to felt. Which is no good for spinning!

Once your fleece is clean you can either leave it on some mesh to dry (or the swing chair) or stuff it into an old pillow case and swing it around. This actually has a proper name but I can't remember it right this minute. 

On the left in this photo is an unwashed fleece and on the right is a washed one.

I hope you find this information helpful and let me know if you have any other questions!

Gratitude Sunday

Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.

After probably the busiest weekend in history which involved driving up to Scotland (400 odd miles), staying in a hotel (don't like doing that at the best of times) visiting my Nanna and then going to a family wedding and then coming back the next day. Phewy, I am tired. So I am very grateful for seeing my family. But also my own bed.  Nothing is quite the same. 

I am looking forward to some much needed rest and some catch up time with the spinning wheel. I carded lots of rolags last night so I can crack on with that.

I also need to dig over the front garden. I will make a post about that at another time. But it is quite a mess at the moment. But I am grateful for the couple of days of rain we have had so the ground has eased up.

Sour dough bread

Well yesterday marked the one week birthday of my new sour-dough-y pet. I must say he is coming along nicely.

I have almost remembered to feed it daily and has taken on all the usual characteristics of a sour dough starter. Let's have a peek inside.

Nice and frothy looking with a nice beer like smell.

I also have started using it to flavour the dough of my bread. Not quite ready to use it without my commercial yeast yet. But soon.

This loaf tasted fantastic. Never again will I buy bread.

Over the next few days I will continue to grow it and hopefully it will replace the commercial yeast in my loaf.

Gratitude Sunday

Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.

Last week I didn't have the time to post a gratitude Sunday post. But I do this week, that is the first thing I am grateful for, some time to slow down and enjoy life rather than worrying about superficial things.

I am also grateful to. My grandad for giving me load of advice about getting rid of those pesky caterpillars that have almost decimated my cabbages :(.

I am all grateful for the abundance of fruit this year. Last year it was a poor because we had such a rubbish summer. This year it has been pretty decent so I guess that's another thing I am grateful for. 

And after living in this city for nearly two years I finally got myself down to the handmade and vintage fayre that happens about three times a year. I must saw it was pretty awesome, I didn't buy anything but I had my eye on a few bits which I will see if they are still there today.

Much love to my readers, I am also grateful for you too. 

 <3

Sour dough starter

On Monday I started my sour dough starter so I don't have to rely on shop-bought yeast (on more steps towards sustainability). I followed the instructions on the back of the bread flour packet. It wanted 70g of flour and 70ml of water, which works out at about three heaped table spoons of flour and a bout an inch of water in the kilner jar. You need to store it somewhere warm, I keep mine in the airing cupboard in amongst the towels, and feed it 70g of flour and top up the water 70ml a day and give it a good stir. I forgot to do mine yesterday, I hope it is ok!

You need to do this for about a week, and then you can store it in the fridge and use 150g instead of yeast. After that you feed it occasionally when the bubbles stop forming. 

Busy day

Today I have spent the day baking and jam making with the fruit I foraged.

A standard white bloomer, one pot of crabapple, clove and ginger jam and three of pots of elderberry and blackberry jam. Also made a pot of stock for the celeriac soup later. We all have the sniffles and I am hoping it will make us feel better. 

Bit of a weird shape but I am sure it is tasty!

I have also bulk-purchased some flour as I go through nearly two kilos of bread flour (that equates to about four loaves a week) and 1kilo of self raising a week. Hoping this will save me some money.