Embracing the whole Little House On The ̶P̶r̶a̶i̶r̶i̶e̶ City thing is not going quite as well as I hoped.
Something is eating my garden. The internet says to place surveillance to identify the villain. What did they do 500 years ago? Sit up all night watching their garden? It’s a miracle to me that humankind has managed to win the struggle against pests for thousands of years. What did they have that I don’t? I feel like I need to build an entire fortress around, under and over my garden (and I don’t even have deer or normal wildlife to contend with…just rats, gophers, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits…Ok, so maybe we do have quite a few.) Bah. I keep trying to think of what I have on hand that can be used to create a barrier. I have a ton of yarn in a bin somewhere…maybe I can knit a net or something.
I bought a 50lb bag of organic, high quality, non-GMO flour as a Christmas present to myself which turned out to be a rather fortuitous Christmas present. Between avoiding the grocery store, and the grocery store being bare most of the time I’ve had to put aside my dislike of baking. (I know, flour is an odd choice in self-care Christmas presents for someone who doesn’t like to bake… don’t judge, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking). Baked goods are one of the only things keeping my children full these days… paleo or Whole30 eating went right out the window. It’s now a la pancakes for breakfast and cookies for lunch. I’ve decided to really throw caution to the wind and attempt sourdough bread making. I asked my sister why all of the recipes are in grams and she gave me a look that said “oh honey, how innocent and ignorant you are”. So now she’s loaning me a food scale which I’ve also successfully avoided my whole life. Apparently accuracy is excessively important when making sourdough bread. This does not bode well. We will not survive the winter.
I’m glad the shelves aren’t too bare though, because it’s clearly going to take a lot more work before I come close to being successful at the Ma Ingalls things. At least I’m having fun?