Uh Oh ... BINGO BOSS

 It's a GREAT morning in Central California, though I could have used a few more hours of sleep.  Mornings are in the low 60's, which means Cooper gets to go for walks.  It won't be that way for long because the next seven days are scooting up to over 100 degrees.  OUCH!

It's also BINGO TUESDAY ... but let's get garden business taken care of first.

Sunflowers have sprung up all over the neighborhood, watered only by ... well I'm sure you can guess.  Once Cooper did his part to make the neighborhood beautiful, we headed for the back yard garden.

I had so many cherry tomatoes that I donated a HUGE Zip-lok bag to the neighbor and STILL had a bowl full to eat.  I think we are on the downhill slide since there are not a lot of new flowers.

I even grabbed a couple of squash, which also got donated.  I'm now wondering what they put on the veggies to keep them from going bad.  If not eaten in two days, these home grown ones go to pot.  The store bought ones can stay in the fridge for a week!!

Too much hand washing after the garden harvest meant my bandage came off.  Yup ... I ripped it pretty good.  I noticed last night that the tip of my finger is numb.  At least if I do this dumb stunt again, I won't feel it as much!

With all that stuff out of the way, I headed off to the Lodge.  We still don't have any air conditioning in the office and our poor bookkeeper was stuck trying to get the reports out for the Thursday Trustee meeting, not to mention payroll and all the bother of our new Fireworks Chairman asking a million questions about the accounting for the booth.  We didn't make a bundle, but hopefully enough to cover our next big problem that raised its ugly head last night.  

I landed upstairs just in time for the King to arrive at the Magic Castle.  Somehow I magically got talked into playing BINGO BOSS for the night.  King of the Castle ... or rather Queen of the Castle!!  Oh joy ... this should be FUN!!  Especially since I ran off and left my phone at home ... so no pictures, just lots of bingo cards with notes I hand wrote on the back.

It's all about the pull tabs and the cards sold on the floor, that make us all the money.  I never wanted to learn that part of the gig ... but here I am.  Knowing how many boxes of which game to bring out is an art ... and I'm not very artsy.  It's also hard to learn so much when people are constantly asking you questions.

The King drug me around for over an hour before it was time to call the Pull Tab games.  This is a little cousin of the machine we have.  We have boards that range from giant TV screens to 4'x10' massive electronic boards so everyone can see the numbers called.

Let's just add to the craziness by having Newby Nancy train a completely unexperienced new guy how to call the first four games.  Surprisingly, it didn't go GREAT, but was OKAY.  

In between games, I ran out more pull tab games to sell on the floor, for a total of NINE in all.  I think there are 500 cards per box, all sold to only 112 people on this night.  Then it was time for the Newby King Boss to call the early bird games.  

I was just humming right along when I heard the disaster in the making.  DRIP DRIP DRIP.  Are you kidding me?  Water is leaking from the ceiling in front of me.  I yelled LOUDLY for the REAL King.  He looked up and said ... YUP ... that's water coming from the light fixture, and got a bucket to set underneath.  We don't know if it's a bad air conditioner or a sweet little mouse that has chewed through the drain hose looking for water right at the AC unit.  Apparently that has happened before.  I tucked that little nugget of info into my brain.

I instantly resigned my Boss position and deferred to the King.  Keep calling he said ... nothing keeps Bingo from its appointed task.  We'll look at it tomorrow.  

Okay then ... and we finished off the night while I helped our new Cashier balance to the penny.  That means she'll be back next week!!

I spent the rest of the night hanging out with our crew until the last number was called.  10:00 to be exact.  With my eyes barely open, I checked all the doors, locked the safe and asked the tall guy to turn the lights off because in less than five minutes, the place was completely empty of players.  

On the way out, I set the alarm without setting it OFF, and locked the door.  It was the easiest part of the entire night.  I now have three more weeks to practice before all the Kings and Knights leave for the month of August.  It's just going to be me and the crew.  Won't THAT be fun!!!  

The good news ... there was not one single complaint all night long. Thank you Bingo players for small favors!!!

My guess is I'll be on the couch snoozing in less than an hour!!

It Was A Crafty Day

 GOOD MORNING sunny California.  It's July and that means it's HOT with a CAPITAL H.  We are up to the high 90's every day, all day.  I do everything possible to keep us cool-ER anyway, which seems to be working, though I haven't checked my bill this month.  It get's so hot here that it requires regular exercise every two hours carrying Mr. Cooper out across the WAY too hot concrete patio.  Even I have to wear shoes.

My morning routine now includes not only babysitting the sweet puppy and the garden, but babysitting the starter.  I do NOT remember this being such a pain in the patoo back in the day.  Every day for seven days it has to be stirred before it can finally become bread.  I've started this starter, so I'll finish it, but that sourdough bread has dropped considerably down on the list of OH LET'S TRY THIS!!

Truly, I only decided to try it since I heard someone say it's so hard.  You know I like a challenge.  At least I will be able to slice it nicely.  This WIDE one can be used for ALL types and sizes of bread, so it won't go to waste if sourdough drops out of sight.  I'll still use the bread machine here and there.

The first order of the day was to head out of town to the embroidery gal's teeny tiny apartment to drop off the last two pieces.  It's always a fun trip since I get my KITTY fix.  She has the most beautiful orange tiger striped girl I've ever seen.  And she LOVES to get scratches behind her ears.  

With that done, I made a big mistake.  Somehow, somewhere, I ran across a crochet pattern from ancient times.  I mean really, who do you know nowadays that crochets?  It's called the Magic Hotpad.  If you ever looked in my drawer, you would be disgusted by the hotpads I use.  Granted four are pretty nice quilted ones, but they are also not thick enough to keep you from getting burned.  

I still have one old ugly crocheted model from probably 30 years ago.  Wouldn't you know, there's a HOBBY LOBBY right down the street from the embroidery gal.  OMG ... this is the biggest hobby store I've ever SEEN!!  

I could spend a fortune there!!  But alas, I only spent $12.00 on yarn that isn't even CLOSE to the colors in my kitchen.  Their supply of 100% cotton was VERY short.  Anything else melts the first time you use it.  Ask me how I know.

It starts out like above and turns into this.  Keep going and it becomes a square.  A TOO SMALL square.  I used the measurements I got online, but they appeared too big, so I shortened it.  Now it's too small, but I'm NOT ripping it all out.  It will work just fine for my small pot lids.

As I walked through the store, I spotted this 108" fabric ... red with stars on it.  PERFECT backing for those Veteran quilts, of which I now have only THREE to finish and quilt.  The nice lady even gave me the end bolts for free!!  

Once back home, there was a flurry of crafting and crocheting.  This is a leftover I found while scrounging in the cupboard for yarn I didn't have.  Yeah, it's coming apart today to be reworked.  For one, the frame is too small, and of course the color divisions are awful.  

What it IS, is CHEAP.  The last one I purchased like this ran $65.00 for $20.00 worth of supplies.  On the other hand, it looked WAY better than this one, so maybe that extra $45.00 worth of talent is actually WORTH IT.

Not deterred in the lack of talent department, I finished up this quilt.  It's ready to hit the longarm possibly tomorrow.

Dinner turned out to be a surprise.  Remember those eight bags of frozen chicken I picked up?  WOW!  They are the perfect size and thickness and defrost SO easily!!  I turned one piece into two meals of chicken parmesan, along with some Rally's sweet potato fries.  

I was hesitant when I saw their fries in the store freezer.  We had a Rally's fast food restaurant here many years ago.  Their food was so bad they went broke and shut down.  Now they are back?  Really?  

All the Facebook reviews have been terrible ... bad food, bad service ... but the fries were on sale, so I picked up a bag to try in the air fryer.  Honestly, they were TERRIFIC!  Very thin and crispy when air fried.  It was the perfect ending to a VERY nice day.

On the other hand, I'm feeling really terrible.  I am so very lucky to live in an area where there are no major disasters, so I'm praying every day for the families and the flood victims in Texas.  It's simply crushing to think about the loss of lives.  Please say a few prayers for the children.

Something Fishy Is Going On

 This little picture made my day!  I laughed out loud, mostly because he resembles Mr. Gibbs so much at Patsy and Bill's House.  I needed a good laugh to get over the neighbors craziness!  

Fair warning .. don't look at the picture down below if blood bothers you!  Just a heads up.

This definitely helped too.  I was invited to breakfast with my best friends.  I don't know what there is about greasy restaurant food, but it tasted DELICIOUS and totally got me going!  We discussed all things Fourth of July in the Park, where they sold drinks and popcorn while eating a $10.00 rib.  That's $10.00 for one single bone barely covered with meat.  I'm definitely in the wrong business!!

On the way home, I decided to do a drive by of the party house.  Did I mention it's BIG?  That's seven ... count them, SEVEN cars parked across the front and there's room for six more.  

You know what?  I have a sneaking suspicion that none of these are the owner.  I only saw ONE guy the day before, working like crazy with a front end loader smoothing out the entire yard.  When I looked through the fence, I only saw the SAME one guy walking inside with not a stick of furniture in sight.  

Something fishy is going on here.  I'm wondering if one of the contractors had a nice big party while the owner wasn't around.  Yesterday, everything was as quiet as a mouse.  Not a single noise and not even one light turned on way into the night.  I guess I'll see what today brings.

And then THIS happened.  Once back home, I gathered up yet another bucket of tomatoes and one lonely yellow squash.  My neighbor even called to ask if I had any zucchini.  Nope ... not a single one.  It must be the weather because all her other friends she called said their's were not producing either.  That's weird.

The ground seemed dry, so I thought to grab my hose and water it a bit.  Of course it twisted up and I was WAY too close to one of the big rose bushes ... you know, the one with ONE INCH THORNS?  I whipped the hose around like I was getting ready to rope a calf ... and .... INSERT SCREAM HERE!!!  My hand went straight into the rose bush.

Gosh darn it (not the words I actually said) ... I ripped open my little finger one inch long and a mile deep.  YIKES!  I haven't felt anything hurt that bad in a VERY long time!!  An entire bloody dish towel later and I finally got it to stop bleeding long enough to stick a bandaid on it.  The calf got away and I finally remembered to turn the water off an hour later!!

That's when I heard the knock at the door ... and I want to thank whoever recommended I get a wireless doorbell.  No, I did NOT hang my wreath upside down on purpose.  I just realized that by looking at this picture.  It is now fixed!!  

See that little black thing on the side?  That is my new doorbell that just arrived via Amazon!!  You plug the big piece into the wall and glue this one on the door.  It works like a charm and I think it was only $15.00.  

It really was a lazy day, having eaten WAY too much for breakfast.  That definitely took all the pizzazz out of doing anything, so I watched one of the all time best rodeos ... the Calgary Stampede!!  I think this is the highest paying rodeo of the season, with the best bucking stock of the year.  That of course brings the best riders out in force.  

One of the things I like most about it is how they always include the younger crowd.  They have special classes for kids 18-20 that are just getting started riding bucking horses and bulls.  

They also have THIS competition.  Had this been available back in my day, I would definitely have signed up.  First kid holds the rope ... second kid grabs and controls the head (which as you can see isn't happening much) and the third one jumps on the back and rides for two seconds.  

Out of six teams, I think only one actually got on back of the pony.  The most fun part of all is the kids getting drug all around the arena while waving at the crowd.  For obvious reasons, it's the crowd pleaser of the rodeo!!  You can watch this on the Cowboy Channel for the next week.  What can I say, ranch kids are tough!!

And that was it for the day.  My finger is throbbing from typing, so I'll wrap it up.  This morning I'm off to the embroidery gal to get the last two pieces done for the last two quilts.  

After that, I feel a hot tub coming on since my swimming pool is now 90 degrees and counting.  That will probably be my last hurrah since the water now needs those expensive chemicals and I don't want to go there!!

I'll be in the garden ........

Through The Knothole

 Some days are like this ... snoozing away the morning like Jonathan.  He is so old now it's harder for him to stay on the main perch when he sleeps during the day, so I rigged up a kind of double perch.  It doesn't look too comfortable to me, but he spends a lot of the day like this.  Yes, birds sleep with their head tucked under their wing.  He makes me want to give him a big hug ... but that would result in a BIG BITE!

With the 4th of July out of the way, we are on to the 5th.  I need fabric, the Van needs exercise.  This kills two birds with one stone ... no offense Jonathan.  I unplugged the Van, closed and otherwise secured everything inside and unbolted the gate.  I wish I could say "unlocked" but my welder is on his way to Alaska.  If I'm lucky, I'll get it fixed at the end of August.

The Van needs a workout, so off we went to the tiny little store North of us ... Cloth and Quilts.  It's quite small by comparison, but they carry enough of everything, including patriotic fabric.  I was looking for backing for three of the Veteran quilts.  

No matter how you measure it, it's expensive with a capital $$.  $114.00 for this plus 2 more yards for borders on one of mine.  That $700 donation from the Elks Lodge didn't last long, so this was on me.  It's okay though because at the moment, I don't have anything else to spend it on.  Once I get it cut, I'll be quilting two of them.  

Lunch was the same Cowboy Caviar.  It's the only way I can eat all those tomatoes and cucumbers!  I'm hoping that counteracts the half slices of sourdough bread I'm toasting to go with it.

That's when it happened ... respect for neighbors, or anyone else for that matter ... seems to have gone out the window in this day and age.  It's just so hard for me to understand that so many people just don't give a damn.  

I walked to the back of my yard two days ago and snapped this picture through the knothole.  The amount of dust and dirt coming over the fence, combined with the noise, was a clear POOL indication.  I ignored it ... they were usually done by 3:00 pm.  

On THIS day however ... I heard this.  Turn your sound up as loud as it will go and you will have an idea of what it sounded like.  

Really?  It was so loud that when I went inside my house closing all the doors and windows, I could barely hear MY television.  I'm not kidding ... the floor of my house literally vibrated.  This is just ridiculous!  After several hours, it stopped.  THANK GOD!!  I could NEVER sleep with that racket.  

But WAIT ... at 7:30 pm, the noise began once again, only louder.  Are you serious?  The weird part is I neither saw nor heard any people.  Not only was the noise deafening, but the strobe lights were ridiculous!  They flashed right in my eyes as I sat in my living room.  I don't know what that does to you, but my head went bonky with an instant weird headache.  This is SO disrespectful to ALL the neighbors and just what I was afraid would happen when they started to build this house.

Surely I'm not the only one who thinks this.  I suppose I'm getting the brunt of it since their patio faces my house like a bullhorn.  I moved to the farthest room, shut the door and got out my earplugs.  It made no difference whatsoever.  

By 10:30 pm I had had enough.  I called the Sheriff.  No more Nice Nancy.  I put up with this from my other neighbor for ten years and I'm not doing it again.  Yup I got really cranky in my old age.  Within 15 minutes, the noise stopped.  Thank you Sheriff's Department!!

I literally spent the next hour trying to relax and let sleep take over while looking up houses for sale.  I love my house and my Elks friends, but I don't think I can stand the party next door or the rude disrespectful people who have moved into this beautiful neighborhood, for another ten years.  

The Sheriff's Department is now on speed dial!

A Great Celebration!!

 There was a great celebration across the land ... the beginning of our year long 250th birthday as a nation.   It's truly amazing when you think about where we were way back then compared to where we are now.  The innovation is just mind boggling, especially when you grew up with an outhouse and a hand crank well.  My how things have changed.

It was a very sad day however for those in Texas who had the river rise over 20 feet and wash away a Christian camp.  My heart and prayers go out to those families.

That made me appreciate the sunshine and my garden all the more.  It's growing so huge that the chocolate tomatoes required a chair to rest upon.  Two of four huge branches were laying on the hot concrete, which made for dead tomatoes.  

Seriously, I don't now if it's the epsom salts or the horse manure soil, but these guys are just producing like nothing I've ever seen!!  Those little containers you see in the store?  Every day I gather up enough to fill one to the top.  The neighbors now love me, as long as I don't include any zucchini!

Speaking of my neighbors ... here they are!  They provided me with a little mini parade at 6:00 in the morning.  Diehard Americans they are ... decorating up their trucks for the morning small town parade.

Two of them ... twins as it were ... along with their matching car with flashing colored lights.  One Hundred Percent PATRIOTISM here!!  They drove slow, flashed their lights and provided me with a parade of my own.  

Even HALO gets in on the act!!  He gets to participate in the parade too!!  This is Cooper's best friend, the kid next door that has just as many allergies as Cooper does!!  He's such a sweetheart!!

Back inside, my morning brought a little sad news.  My sourdough starter which should be ready for the next round, just did not smell good.  The nose knows ... and my nose smelled a rat.  I've no idea why ... maybe because it's been too hot in the house ... but into the trash it went.  I'm not taking any chances on poisoning myself.

I have plenty of bread to eat.  Besides that, as I wandered through my bread machine cookbook, I found it has almost the exact same recipes as the sourdough book.  Maybe they won't taste quite as GOOD, but they sure are a whole lot easier to make!!

I set up another round of starter and will wait the seven days for it to become yeasty before trying it again.

That left me with nothing to do but sew.  So ... I sewed ... but that was boring.  How about setting up my mini hot tub slash swimming pool!  I filled it to the brim and did the TOE TEST.  CRIKEY!!!  My well water is COLD!!  There will certainly be no morning swim taking place around here!!

I watched a little Calgary Rodeo ... one of the BEST (thank you Canada) ... before heading out for a little sun.  Wow did things ever heat up quickly outside.  In no time I was lounging in the POOL trying to cool off.  Note to self ... set up a little cocktail table.  

Thirty minutes later it had turned into a HOT tub, resembling a bathtub instead of a pool.  Okay, I was done with that!!  

Back inside, I worked on this new quilt.  It's hard to see all the designs in this fabric due to the dark colors.  This is another stash buster since it's been in the cupboard for about ten years.  The good news is fabric does not go bad like sourdough starter.

And then it began ... the BANG BANG BOOM of bombs and missiles being set off at the back of my house.  I have to admit it wasn't as bad as years past.  There was nothing all day long, and this noise didn't begin until 8:30.  It went on until 11:00.  

Where do they get these commercial fireworks?  All illegal of course and they shake the windows of my house.  They cancelled the BIG ONE fireworks show at the old Air Base because of the wind, so these folks had their OWN party close enough to my house to start fires.  I just don't get it.  Who raised these people?

I watched as bits and pieces fell into my corrals, but luckily nothing caught fire.  I heard fire trucks all around the area, so everyone wasn't as lucky.  

Happily, Mr. Cooper doesn't mind the loud booms.  Jonathan fell off his perch twice, but survived.  I'm hopeful that they fired off everything they had last night and it won't continue tonight.  I'll put a big pillow at the bottom of Jon's cage, just in case.  

As much as I would like to lounge in my "pool" today, I'm off to the fabric store.  Use some .. buy more!  I've got two Veterans quilts to quilt, but not enough backing material.  I'm putting on my blinders before I even go through the door.  

Oh LOOK ..... FABRIC!!!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

 Well GOOD MORNING she said through scratchy tired eyes, the likes of which just make you want to close them permanently!  HAPPY JULY FOURTH!!  It's Independence Day, for which I am eternally thankful.  We live on the greatest continent with our neighbors from Canada, in one of the greatest countries, if not THEE greatest, in the world.  We are truly BLESSED.

I thought the nighttime celebrations on July 3rd would look like this in my back yard.  Amazingly, that was not the case.  I'm shocked!!  I only heard one big bang all night long.

HOWEVER ... life with the ghosties in this house did NOT let me sleep.  At around 2:30 in the morning, I heard this horrible noise.  What the heck?  WHAT IS THAT?  I walked out the bedroom door to find this screeching at me, sometimes LOUD and sometimes not quite so loud.  

This is my doorbell that has not worked in five years.  Why oh why are you screeching at me now?  I went outside, thankfully remembering to turn the alarms off first, and hit the doorbell several times.  I knew it didn't work, so why is it buzzing?  Nothing ... that did nothing.  It continued to wail.

Really you guys?  It's 2:30 in the morning.  I grabbed my ladder and my trusty screwdriver, not having any idea what I was going to do with it.  I loosened the red wire and pulled it off.  Ahhhhhhh ... quiet.  I've no idea what went wrong, or how to fix it, nor do I really want to learn how to install doorbells.  UGH ... back to bed I went, only to lay eyes wide open!!  Well that was fun!!

Back to yesterday and my bread making career ... but first, let's gather more vegetables.  Had I known this was going to turn me into a vegetarian, I might not have planted ANYTHING.  What am I going to do with all this stuff??

Maybe some morning French bread with jam and butter will bring on some ideas.  You know, carb loading like I was going to run a marathon!  Oh Nancy, this is SO SO bad for your diet.  I have to admit though, ANY homemade bread is good, even if it's bad.

Now for the REAL CHALLENGE.  I turned my oven on to 500 degrees like the sourdough recipe said.  Trouble is, my oven won't heat up that high any more.  It's been sick for maybe 8 years and the doctor is too expensive.  I just use my little Breville oven instead.  Anyhoo, I set the oven at 550 and hoped for the best.  In went my little cast iron oven to preheat.

Once close to temperature, or at least as hot as the oven was going to get, I took the bread out of the fridge, dumped it unceremoniously on a piece of parchment paper, then dropped it into the screaming hot pan.  Score the top ... but the problem was with WHAT.  I didn't have a sharp knife in the drawer, so I got out my box cutter.  Not exactly sanitary, but it worked.  Cover ... bake 20 minutes.  Take the screaming hot lid OFF and bake another 20 minutes.  The wait was excruciating!

BUT WOOHOO ... LOOKY HERE!!!!  WE HAVE SOURDOUGH!!  And it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

Of course the taste will tell ... but you have to wait FOUR HOURS for it to cool completely before slicing.  What happened to instant gratification?  I waited not so patiently.  Slicing it up to eat brought about another problem.  You know sourdough has a hard crust and is very difficult to slice.  Hmmm I need a bread slicer.  

I nibbled the corner.  Well what do you know.  In spite of mixing the recipe completely backwards, it actually tasted just like sourdough bread!  And the texture is PERFECT!

SUCCESS!!!  But the REAL taste test was a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.  I threw all caution and my diet out the window.  It was beyond delicious!

I spent the afternoon basking in the aura of my new title ..... Sourdough Bread Maker .... while cutting up a new quilt.  I'm at a standstill on the Veterans quilts until I find backing for two, which means a trip to the quilt store.  

In the meantime, I kept wracking my brain about what to do with all those veggies that I was being forced to eat.  GIVE ME MEAT!  White or red, it doesn't matter.  Finally, while watching the rodeo channel, I had a brilliant idea.  COWBOY CAVIAR!  

Yessiree ... the perfect answer to a tiny garden that's producing like crazy.  Can-o-corn, CHERRY TOMATOES, red onions, chopped CUCUMBER, chopped ZUCCHINI and a can of olives.  Mix it all up with Italian dressing, which in this case magically turned into sweet onion dressing.  Top it off with a piece of toasted homemade French bread because I didn't want to throw it away.  YUM!!!

And so my friends ... today I suppose I'll have to hit up Amazon for a doorbell ... or maybe actually drive to Home Depot.  I'm really not hot on replacing this thing.  I mean what if I hook another one up and it STILL doesn't work?  I really don't want to replace the actual push button thingy either.  

I would call my Elks Handyman friend, but he's already on the hook to weld a locking mechanism on my back gate, so I hate to ask for more.  Besides, he's off on a two month motorcycle ride to Alaska.

Instead, I'll just eat slice after slice of sourdough while mixing up another batch to bake tomorrow.  That one will go in the freezer before stashing the starter in the fridge to sleep for a few weeks.  

NO, I'm NOT getting on the scales ... I killed the diet for two days, there's no use killing my enthusiasm along with it!!  I'll be in the garden!!

I'm Squashed Out And Floured Head To Toe!

 Early morning gardening really wasn't on my list of exciting things to do, but there it was.  Out we go first thing to water the tomatoes ... not that I need any more tomatoes.  Every single day, this is the harvest.  But LOOK HERE!  Is that a cucumber?  

I kept looking at that plant absolutely COVERED in blossoms, but I never did see a cucumber.  However ... and this is the interesting part ... on this day I found this cucumber completely hidden at the base of the plant, and it looks absolutely NOTHING like the picture on the tag when I bought it.  It's not even close.  I'm guessing these are "pickle" cucumbers.  

But wait ... there's MORE!  I picked four on this day, along with THREE more zucchini.  I'm definitely getting squashed out.

Back inside, Mr. Cooper was already snoring away.  He sleeps most the entire morning long nowadays.  It makes me sad ... not much ball playing any more.

Here's another CHILD that has to be watched constantly.  Someone mentioned sourdough bread and I remember saying "I used to make that".  SQUIRREL .. let's make some bread.  After six days of babysitting this thing, it's time to flour up the kitchen.  

Step one ... stir well and remove half.  Or rather get out your scale because every single recipe I could find called for GRAMS instead of cups.  

Step two ... add the required amount of flour to make autolyse, whatever THAT is.  I checked several other recipes trying to find something in English, but to no avail.  Leave that in a warm place (the counter worked for that since it was HOT yesterday) for two hours.  

That's where things kind of fell apart.  Nancy made a big BOO-BOO.  I should have added the water to the flour and let it sit for 30 minutes before adding THAT to the autolyse.  It turned into something akin to sticky plaster.  By now flour is covering the countertops.  

No worries ... worst thing that can happen is it ends up in the trash.  Now it gets covered up and "proofed" for .... count them .... FIVE HOURS.  But wait ... you have to thrash it around every 30 minutes for the first 90 minutes.  By now flour is all over the floor.  Who came up with this crazy idea?????

To pass the time, I tried to get rid of that squash by cooking another bag of those terrible meatballs, along with some creamy spaghetti sauce that has been in the cupboard for almost a year.  I had to buy TWO at Costco.  I hated the first one, and I hated the SECOND one.  Unfortunately, I'll have to eat it for the next three days.

I was relatively sure the sourdough bread was going to be a disaster, so I decided to back my bet with some bread machine French.  I was actually concerned that just flour, water and yeast wasn't really going to taste all that great, and I was right.  BUT I will toast it up and smother it in boysenberry jam for flavor.  

Still waiting .... until finally it was time to dump the mass out on the floured board, because flour on the counter and floor is just not enough.  Now I'M covered in flour from head to toe.  Let it rest 30 minutes.  Good grief .. this stuff is getting more rest than COOPER!!  

I worked on the puzzle for all that time and finally found six new pieces.

AT LONG LAST ... very delicately make it into a boule (WHAT?) and stick it in a lined basket.  Thank goodness I didn't throw that basket away last week.  

No one told me it takes TWO DAYS to make one little loaf.  Who knew?  Well probably Terry Russell because I can hear her laughing as I type.  She's a cook extraordinaire!!

So what happened then?  You're not going to believe this ... it goes INTO THE FRIDGE for the next 10-12 hours to proof.  And so as of this morning, here it is, safely tucked into a pillowcase because I didn't have the required whatever-it's-called.  

There is certainly NO instant gratification involved in sourdough bread making.  This morning, after heating the cast iron dutch oven in the 500 degree oven for an hour, I will drop this baby upside down in it and begin the baking.  The problem is my oven's temperature gauge has been on the fritz for about five years.  There's no telling what temp it will be.  Forty Five minutes later will tell the tale.  

In the meantime, I will remove the flour from two big counters, the floor, the ceiling and ME, while washing a load of flour covered laundry.  Whereupon I'll probably be out picking even MORE zucchini and some WEIRD cucumbers!!

Squashed and floured, I'm signing out!!