Flats and Handwashing Challenge Day Three

These are diapers hanging out from the first warmish spring day we had 2ish months ago. L to R you see prefolds, covers, inserts and flats.

Today is the third day of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge and I thought it'd be a good time to reflect on how handwashing makes me feel connected to the past. We have two sets of elderly neighbors that are an absolute blessing in our lives. Both women used birdseye (flat) diapers with their children and were delighted when they realized I was using cloth diapers on Baby. They told me stories of how they washed their diapers in a bucket and hung them to dry and as I do the same this week I can't help but feel connected. There is something very peaceful in doing a simple act of service for your child and knowing that millions of women before you have done the same thing. I feel the same about hanging my laundry out to dry, there is peace in knowing I will always have the knowledge and skills to provide clean, dry diapers for my child. This challenge has been less of a challenge and more of opportunity. I would now not hesitate at all to recommend flat diapers and hand washing to anyone who asked me for the cheapest way to cloth diaper. Don't get me wrong I love my Kenmore, but there's something to be said for hand washing as well.

Struggling for diapers, say it ain't so!

We have a couple that we're friends with who were struggling a bit financially after the birth of their daughter and we were able to loan them the diapers that Baby had just outgrown thereby easing their financial burden a bit each month. I could not imagine the stress that would come with not knowing if I was going to be able to diaper my child, having a newborn is a challenge enough on it's own.

Is there anything you do that makes you feel especially connected to the past? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Homesteading Skills: Baking Bread

Slices for Papa's lunch, bread never lasts long around here. This is half a loaf.

Every 3-4 days I bake us up two fresh loaves of bread. There's nothing terribly special about the recipe, but it makes a mean sandwich loaf and can easily be scaled up or down. You can also use the dough to make rolls or bread sticks to go with whatever you're cooking for dinner. Here's the recipe:

2c. All Purpose Flour
1T. yeast
2T. sugar
1T. oil
2c. warm milk
3c. bread flour
1.5t. salt

First you mix the APF, yeast and sugar in a mixing bowl. Next add your oil and milk and mix well, it will be soupy and lumpy. Then slowly add your bread flour, half a cup at a time while mixing. I turn on my KitchenAid to the 'mix' setting with the dough hook and add my flour as it mixes. Mix for 6-7 minutes until a ball forms and it's pulling away from the bowl at the sides. It should look like this:

Kind of lumpy dough ball.

  Let the dough rest for 20 minutes or so and then knead the salt into it. Once you've added the salt form it up into a ball and let it rise for 60-90 minutes while it's covered with a damp tea towel. Dough likes to rise in a warm room so in the winter I put it in my oven with the light on and during the spring before we turn the A/C on it just sits on the counter. 

Dough before the first rise.

After an hour to an hour and a half it should be about double in size.

Dough after the first rise, doubled in size.

Once your dough has risen take it from the bowl and form it into two loaves. Of course, at precisely the time you do this your Tiny Person will have a meltdown. Solve this by offering an overpriced fruit pouch reserved for such emergencies.

Adorable baby, hideous linoleum.

Here are my two loaves:

Let these rise for about 45 minutes and then turn on the oven to preheat to 375 degrees. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them after they rose because I was putting Baby to sleep and Papa was the one to put them in the oven. Bake them for 20-25 minutes until the tops are light brown and the middles read 180 degrees on a thermometer.

Right out of the oven

After a minute or two I slide them out of the pans and butter the tops. You should really let them cool on a cooling rack, which I improvise by propping up one of my oven racks that we've removed from the oven.

 

So there you have it, homemade bread!

Homesteading Skills: Gardening

This year we planted a small garden in the back yard. It measures 12' x 30' and this is photo is from our second day of putting in our seedlings. Papa is currently in the process of putting a fence around it to keep out bunnies and yesterday I mulched it all with hay to cut back on our need to water. The last 3+ summers we've had drought conditions so we positioned our garden to get morning sun (~7a-11a), be shaded by a tree for the hottest part of the day (~11:30a-2p), and then get afternoon sun until sunset. Hopefully this will prevent scorching and lessen our need to water. We have two rain barrels set up and are looking at getting a few more, so hopefully that will take care of our watering needs. This year we planted 18 tomato plants (12 heirloom Cherokee Purple and 6 Roma), 12 bell peppers (6 red, 6 yellow), 6 crook neck squash, 5 zucchini (Baby got to one seedling!), cabbage, Blue lake green beans, pole beans, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, and watermelon. We've also got a small herb garden going and some wild blackberries on our land that I'm hoping to make preserves out of. Ideally I'll be able to can quite a few things out of our garden, I'm really looking forward to having fresh produce and then putting some food by. We'll be saving seeds from this year to plant next year, and hopefully expanding next year to include more of each plant as well as some corn, collards and turnips. We garden for two reasons, firstly being because we enjoy having the fresh food and the security that comes with it, and the second reason being that in the event of a disruption in the food chain we'll be better prepared to handle it. Do you have a garden? Tell me about it in the comments!