What I've learned this week
May 17th-23rd 2015

You can grind wheat in a regular vitamix blender :) Yay! I was in the middle of making a bunch of bread and realized I was out of whole wheat! Logan was down for his nap and I didn't want to leave him to go get Jane's wheat grinder so I gave it a shot and it worked! I didn't want to leave it on for too long since the vitamix probably on its last leg, so the flour was a little course but the bread still turned out delicious and none of my boys noticed a difference. My mixer was unimpressed with the texture though so I ended up kneading it by hand which is surprisingly a great arm workout! (good thing I learned how to knead in my pottery class, though clay is admittedly a bit smoother to work with)

Old food storage is an excellent option for making homemade bread. I've been using some 30 year old wheat and honey and the bread has been absolutely delicious. Using food today that was stored before I was born makes me incredibly grateful for the decision my parents made to invest in long term food storage. They probably never thought that their daughter would be happily using it to feed her own family someday.

The chickens loved the ones that didn't survive the trip...

Aunt Sondra's apricots are a wonderful replacement for my poor little apricots that froze at the end of April. Mom brought a bunch to Sara's last weekend, and on Monday I finally got around to washing, pitting and freezing what was left of them (we ate over 100 of them over the weekend...they were delicious!)  Justin was a great little helper. He didn't appreciate how they kind of squished when you pull them apart, but helped me fill up the freezer bags and was pretty proud of himself. 

When your plastic swimming pool mysteriously disappears from the back porch and Jason says it probably blew away...believe him. (I thought he had thrown it away during his "cleaning" while we were in Mesa) We found it clear across the street, in the empty lot, caught on the fence that separates civilization from the never-ending dessert. If that fence wasn't there it would have blown clear to Utah by now. ;)

A "Pocket Hole drill kit" takes a bit of practice but once you figure it out it's a game changer! I've been wanting a kreg jig forever thanks to anawhite.com  (my favorite woodworking website!) but the one I want is $100 and I finally decided to just buy a cheaper brand and give it a shot. I've been dreaming about building a sand and water table and decided Logan's birthday was the perfect excuse to do it (yes, his birthday was last month, but the plans have been on hold with all the sickness and traveling) The boys were actually super helpful and filled all the holes with screws for me to set and helped me hold the wood while I was screwing everything together.