Today at our house

John made a new gate

I made Peter's bread

And we worked in the garden

Bacon Bread

Today I made Pain au Bacon from the Ken Forkish cookbook Flour Water Salt Yeast.  The kitchen smelled amazing while it was baking.  This is my first time making the Pain au Bacon and the bread is delicious.

See all those bacon bits?

This bread is a levain bread, made from the wild yeast that is everywhere.   I got interested in these recipes when our neighbor, Peter, shared some amazing bread he baked from the Ken Forkish book and method.   Peter bases his recipe on the book recipe Field Blend #2 adding fennel seeds and caraway seeds and some honey.  I call it Peter's Bread and it is John's favorite bread ever.  So for John's birthday, I learned how to make Peter's bread.  I've made it several times and it is really good.

Yesterday we bought a 50 pound bag of Shepherd's Grain flour, which is what Ken Forkish uses.  Shepherd's Grain is a Northwest Regional group of farmers who are good to the soil.  Their flour is used by many of the local artisan bakeries, including Ken's Artisan Bakery (Ken Forkish bakery).  We bought a 50 lb bag of Shepherd's Low Gluton flour at Cash and Carry for $17 .

Besides the book and Peter's tips on making the bread, I found a series of YouTube videos Ken Forkish made  to illustrate his methods.  They were very helpful.  Here is one on feeding the levain.

Spring flowers

We had one nice dry day.  It was great.

But mostly it just rains and rains this year.  It's been awful for the farmers.  Here is a picture of a field at Sptringhill Farms.  We get their tomatoes at the farmers' market.  I fear for this year's crops and for the farmers.

Spring finally arrives

Spring is at least a month late in Portland.  We had our worst winter ever (in our 22 years anyway).  It was cold and windy.  It was icy.  It was not like Portland.  Much of the winter we could not do our usual walks.  John was more resilient than me but he doesn't mind the wind as much and he bought spikes so he could walk in the ice.  Yes, it was that bad.

From our local weather man, only 6 clear days in the last six months.  Ugh...

Anyway, spring is finally here.  We've resumed our frequent visits to Portland Nursery.  Here is Marje, who I love.  It is such a treat to have Portland Nursery so close.

These were taken mid March at Portland Nursery.

 The back yard yesterday.  Love that bleeding heart.  It lights up the back yard.

Our magnolia is looking good.

The front yard has some color and growth.

John put a new roof on my bird house.  I bought it on Etsy  four years ago.  The roof isn't finished yet.  I think it is going to be stained red and sealed.

And he added flying buttresses to support our old fence.  He had a good time with that project.

Garden in early October

Garden in August

 I cut down quite a bit of the bee balm.  Bee balm is pretty tough here and does okay with things like being cut to the ground.  I moved a few pots in to fill the space a little.  Looks pretty good.

Here is the other side of the front.  Our yard is so small.  It doesn't look like it here, though.

The cosmos lady

We just had three days of 100 degree weather.  These photos were taken before the heat spell.

Cosmos 'Diablo'.

This year I shared my seedlings and there are three houses up the street with this cosmos blooming.  I am so pleased about that.  Makes me feel like kin to the Lupin Lady, Miss Rumphius.   My neighbor gave me that book some 30 years ago because she said it reminded her of me, always sharing my plants.

Quoted from Amazon

Barbara Cooney's story of Alice Rumphius, who longed to travel the world, live in a house by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful, has a timeless quality that resonates with each new generation. The countless lupines that bloom along the coast of Maine are the legacy of the real Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady, who scattered lupine seeds everywhere she went. Miss Rumphius

 received the American Book Award in the year of publication.

The heat pretty much finished the bee balm.

The cleomes have too much purple.  My fault.  When I thinned them, I had a strong preference for those with purple tinged leaves.  But there are some later pink ones coming along.

Oooh Oooh that smell...

For some time there was this bad smell when I opened the basement door.  I could not track it down.   And then I realized that the landing linoleum was installed on particle board that had become wet and stinky.  So, yesterday John tackled removing the particle board.

Here is the failed particle board.  I am very anti particle board.  It's just too susceptible to moisture.  It says cheap construction to me.  John says the landing was also bad because it changed the stair height so the riser intervals were not the same.  How did it take us so long to figure this out?  And why didn't John figure it out, huh, Dave?

This is the landing now.  John cleaned the mastic off and washed it.  And today he patched it.  Then he will paint it with sharkskin floor paint.  Linoleum just inside an outside door is a bad idea anyway.  It got very slick when it was wet and even worse when it was icy.

Whatever will we do when we get too old to do stuff like this ourselves?

Roses in August

This has been a peculiar season.  It started dry and warm and then in very early June we had a hot spell with 100 degree temps.  The roses were early and in full bloom when the heat hit and it pretty much finished their flowers.  Then it cooled off for the rest of June and all of July; it hardly hit 80, many days not even 70.  It's been a great summer.  The best we've had in several years.  And now we are having a second rose season.  The flowers aren't as plentiful or as large but they are delicate with gorgeous colors.

This beauty is blooming with  salvia Amistad.  I think they look great together.  There is bee balm on the left and a big hardy fuschia on the right.  Hummingbird paradise.

Front garden in July

We are having wonderful summer weather.  It's been mostly in the 70's.  This is the first normal summer we have had in several years.

For a small yard, we have a lot of bee balm (for the hummingbirds and bees).  This is the patch on the left of the stairs.

 And this is to the right of the stairs

South side of house

Front porch paint all fixed

John finished fixing the paint a couple of days ago.  It looks beautiful, better than the professional job our neighbors got.  That is the painter company that wanted to charge us $2500 for the stripping which took about 10 hours so that would be $250 an hour.  Good job John!

He won't let me wash the floor until the paint has cured a long ridiculous amount of time, like a whole week.  He did not paint the floor.  Just the wall.

No more bubbling.