Hoppity

Hoppy Easter to all y’all who celebrate. 

 Donovan and Leia 

 Leanne 

 Jaclyn 


 Travis and Isaac 

 Addison

Challah

Made my first ever loaf of challah.

My braiding skills need practice but it tasted DEElicious.

This is my second bucket of dough and my first try at the slightly fancier egg breads.

The first bucket/batch, using the book’s “master recipe”, lasted just over a week and was enough to make focaccia, loaf and freeform breads. 

Because this recipe uses eggs, this batch will only be good in the fridge for a week. I’m thinking another challah . . . and beignets . . . and maybe something stuffed with chocolate. So many choices. 

BunBun Girls

Fortunately for me, Marie also signed up for baby bunny pics with Jac and Leanne. 

So sweet.

Happy (almost) Easter!

Bunny Boy

Mary took advantage of a local mom’s offer of pics with baby bunnies for Easter. 

Can you tell how thrilled Donovan is?

He was sooooo gentle. 

Love this handsome guy.

Bread Day

We loooooooove fresh baked bread 

but I’m not very good at timing the mixing and rising(s) and baking to have it ready at a specific time, so it’s mostly a special treat, not an everyday staple.

Then I saw this . . .

 
The idea is to mix a big batch of dough and let it rise in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, pulling off a section as needed to make bread. 

Mixing the first batch took about 20 minutes, then it needed to rise for 2 hours before I could pull off a grapefruit-sized section to bake. The rest is in the fridge, rising again, ready for me to grab another hunk tomorrow -or whenever- to shape and bake.

Delicious! And unlike sourdough, this doesn’t need to be “fed” every day to keep it going. Maybe next time we’ll make pita . . . or challah . . . or baguettes . . . or . . . This is going to be so much fun!

Pretty Kitty

Lily seems to have decided that the baby grands are tolerable.

She allowed Donovan to pet her repeatedly 

and let Jac walk up and pet her without me there (a first). 

Needless to say, the littles are thrilled. Lily still hides from them most of the time but I love seeing her mellow in her middle age. 

Whales, Ahoy!

Our original plan - a whale watching cruise scheduled for last week - was canceled for weather. Yesterday so was cloudy and windy we were worried today’s reschedule might suffer the same fate but, despite the wind, we were a “go”. 

The ocean was a bit rough, especially when we first got out of the harbor -

Leia couldn’t stop laughing as the boat repeatedly ’caught air’ and splashed back down, spraying her with water - but it settled down the further out we went. 

Our first sighting was a minke whale in the distance. 

We also followed a pair of juvenile gray whales for awhile,

watching as they breached about every 5 minutes.

They stayed a fair distance from the boat, spouting off and showing just a bit of skin,

until finally! we were rewarded with a fluke flip as they headed down to deeper water. 

We saw hundreds of feeding pelicans and gulls, plus another lone gray whale, 

but the highlight of the day 

was the pod of a 1000+ Common Dolphins 

that swam under and around our boat,

racing us,

surfing the waves

and our wake,

and putting on quite a show. 

 How many dolphins can you find?

The crew said that for every dolphin we could see, 

there were 5-10 more under the waves. 

Incredible!

We had such a great time 

and, as usual, Mother Nature had the last laugh. 

Just as they were getting ready to come in for the ride back to shore, a rogue wave surprised Leia and Pop, soaking them both through to the skin. I know I shouldn’t laugh but isn’t she cute, all salty and wet?