Homemade Pizza

Yesterday morning we tried making a homemade quiche, cheddar and broccoli.

We make as much as possible homemade, the dough, the sauce. We plan on trying to make cheese soon too.

We use a basic pizza dough recipe from a book titled My Bread by Jim Lahey.

Ingredients

bread flour ....3 3/4 cups

instant or other active dry yeast .... 2 1/2

table salt ......3/4 teaspoon

sugar ..... 3/4 teaspoon plus a pinch

room temperature water ...... 1 1/3 cups

extra virgin olive oil for the pans

Sauce was prepared by our very own tomatoes that we had canned in the fall.

For the toppings we had onions, peppers, and olives.

It was one of the best ones we've made.

Just an update on the cucumbers! They're growing.

Sasha relaxing.

Seedlings and Puppies

The cucumber seedlings are up! The sprouted up within six days with the aid of a heating pad. We just moved them to a window today!

A family friend of ours purchased a purebred German Shepard puppy yesterday from a breeder and brought her over to play with our Sasha. The two had so much fun! It was great socialization for them both.

look at those paws! She's going to be a big lady!

They look alike! But pretty soon the puppy will be way bigger than Sasha!

The hens were a little confused when they saw a new puppy around. They let out quite a few calls to warn other chickens in ear shot of the little "intruder." The girls got a special treat of greens today for being so brave.

Racking the Wine

Today the weather was still nice but not as sunny as its been so we did some inside work today. This fall we started our fourth big batch of wine, today we racked it.

Racking is taking the clear wine off the sediment that sits at the bottom.

This batch is a "before" shot. You can see some of the sediment at the bottom.

The wine picture above is Riesling.

Racking wine is very simple. All you have to do is siphon the clear wine into a lower vessel.

This process takes about 15 minutes each 7 gallon jug.

This red wine is a ruby cabernet and a Sangiovese.

Planting Peas Early

We planted the peas today. We usually wait until after St. Patrick's day but because of the long streak of nice weather, this is the earliest we've ever planted them.

The girls were very curious about what was going on!

Here is the final product. I made a trellis so that the peas will comfortably grow upward. They also will take up less space in the garden. We are going to need all the room we can get this year!

Here is an article about some great creative ideas on building your own pea trellis.

Pea Trellis Ideas

Indoor Cucumbers

Started the cucumbers indoors today. This year we decided on a type of cucumber for pickling. Later in the year we plan on trying pickling with these.

Territorial seed company is a great seed company we have been using for a while.

Visited Home Depot this morning for some potting soil and got some great ideas for the yard. Considering adding some fruit trees to the yard.

The cucumbers are all planted and we added cellophane on top to trap some of the moisture like a mini greenhouse.

We've done this a few times before with success.

Early Spring? The girls know..

Today was a new record for the girls! For the first time ever, we got 8 eggs! One from every hen! Two of which are four years old, the others are 9 months.

We are starting to build up quite an amount.

Today we also tilled the garden. This year, because we bought so many seeds, we decided to make the garden just a bit bigger to accommodate all our veggies!

Before:

After:

We cannot wait for the Spring to come so we can finally start planting. The compost is put together and its coming along nicely thanks to the warm weather.

We saw the first robin of the season today in the yard! Spring is on its way!

Sunny March Day

It was extremely warm today for March, a perfect day to let the girls sunbathe.

The girls were looking for bugs and running all over the yard.

We finally put together the compost today to put some of the Fall leaves we saved to get ready for the spring planting. Sasha looked out for her sisters and protected them from hawks.