winter approacheth

The ice is coming! Temps have dropped around here, to below freezing for most of the day, and that means that little icebergs have begun to form on the river. They slowly float downstream, making gentle little slushing noises when they collide. This photo of Dave and Julia and the ice is from two days ago, and today the river is more white than not with ice. Pretty soon it will be solid. On Saturday evening, we flew to a nearby village named Crooked Creek to have dinner with the teachers there. Angela and Taylor are both pilots and have two small planes. It took about 20 minutes to fly there. It was kinda nice to be getting out of our village for a couple hours, even if we were going to a similar small village. 

Julia and Kiley playing in Crooked Creek

Sunrise, about 8 30 am, and a light dusting of snow

And for my adventure of the day today, I'm making bread. I don't have a mixer, so I knead by hand. Here's my recipe, from the Holden cookbook

2 cups water

1 Tbsp yeast

3 Tbsp sweetener (I like brown sugar or honey)

3 Tbsp oil (canola or olive)

2 tsp salt

4-5 cups flour, half wheat half white

(this time I also added 1/2 cup powdered milk, a Tbsp of gluten and 1/2 cup wheat germ)

mix everything but the flour and the salt in an ice cream pail. Add the salt with the 2nd cup of flour so it doesn't kill the yeast. Add flour while mixing with a spoon until too thick to mix. Dump onto a floured counter and knead as long as the baby will let you. (2-10 min) Put dough back into pail and cover with lid. Let rise. Punch down. Let rise again. Shape two loaves and let rise. Bake at 350 until done, about 40 minutes. 

This is my standby recipe for bread, as it is very forgiving. I can make it slowly or quickly which is helpful with baby around.