Baking and biofuels.

That's right, baking and biofuels-- but not at the same time! Not right now anyway.

Let's start with the biofuels. Remember the pesky little tallow trees that are taking over the farm? Well, I got carried away with a little more research the other day investigating their potential as a crop for biofuels. Some folks are already way ahead of me on this one, but that's only more encouraging!
They actually appear to be pretty promising as far as that goes. The outer wax can be melted off and processed into a fuel that is essentially the same as diesel. I am looking more into this as a possibility either for personal fuel or for business.

Ok, now about the baking. All I really have to say is that I am on an outrageous baking spree for the past week. It started with a loaf of bread and a batch of cookies. Now I have two loaves in the oven and a batch of dark chocolate coconut cookie dough in the fridge. The cookies are most impressive. I substituted coconut oil for butter and honey for half of the sugar, then dumped almost 1/4 a cup of dutch cocoa into the mix and ended up with great results. Oh, I used wheat flour too.

The added cocoa provides a little iron and the (10% per tbsp!), honey and coconut oil have some of their own beneficial properties. Not saying these cookies are 'healthy' or anything, but if that's what you're looking for in a cookie-- move along.

Good bread and work.

I started a loaf of bread kind of late tonight. Seth is in a bad position and I feel guilty for it. He hates change, it seems. The past year has been full of it. I dragged him to Virginia, married him, made him a father, dragged him back to Louisiana, encouraged him to take jobs, and to leave jobs and now I'm encouraging him to switch jobs again. Something that seems like a really good opportunity has come along. He's happy at his current job and things are going well there so I think he is hesitant to leave.
I can tell it's really getting to him.

He said he wanted bread earlier so I started making bread. I forgot it takes 3 long hours to make so I'll be up until 11:30 or midnight I suppose. Everyone else has already gone to bed.

This time I loosely followed the recipe on the back of my bag of flour. I added too much honey and butter but both of those are delicious so I don't think many problems will be caused. The dough feels exactly the same, but tastes a little better than my previous attempts.


It will be nice to have fresh bread again. It's so wonderful homemade, and so wonderful to make. I haven't done it in awhile. I'd call it laziness, or procrastination.

Sometimes I wonder how people have made it so far with infants around. How does anything get done ever?
I guess it does. I guess it does around here, too, but mentally it all just feels incomplete, in-progress and very scattered.
Thus is life, hm? I'd be feeling the same way without an infant, really.

It's actually no different.

The chickens are big now and I love their soft feathers. They are all pretty sweet and tame. Even though it's a hassle to move them back and forth, morning and night, it's the only time we spend with them besides feeding and watering. It's good that they're so used to us.
I really love those creatures.

Signing off now, as I await a warm slice of bread with butter and honey... or perhaps the sound of a crying child.