Mother's Day Loafing

(image credit)

Whether you are a mother, have a mother, are missing your mother, wish you were a mother, know a mother, or whatever your relationship is to mother's day...a very Happy Mother's Day to you! As for me, I always end up missing my mother on Mother's Day. This is the 21st Mother's Day since she passed. Here's a picture of her with me and my brother...and he's long gone now too.

If I know my mother, she probably made that dress she's wearing.

When I took the images off my camera this morning, I found a few left over from yesterday. Let's just back up to where the loafing began. Here...Smitty is watching Formula One racing with Mike as I was leaving for the farmer's market yesterday.

Smitty likes car racing almost as much as he likes lying on Mike's lap.

When I got back from the farmer's market, Mike helped me relocate the two-hooked shepherd's crook to a place where I think deer will fear to tread. Hopefully, the ferocious hummingbirds guarding their feeder will give Bambi and his friends pause.

And since I'm not convinced the squirrels aren't the culprits, we left the squirrel shield in place to discourage them from climbing the pole.

It was warm yesterday, and so I opened up the greenhouse. It's time for that anyway since the first flowers have opened on the tomatoes. It's time to let the flying things buzz through and do their job of pollinating.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a loaf of bread in the works. This is an Artisan Sourdough Loaf. It's a wet and sticky dough, and it's hard to give it much shape. I was happy with the looks of this one, although I'm still struggling with the scoring of these breads. In this case, the surface of the bread is fairly flexible, and so scoring is less important.

When I cut it open, it had a pretty crumb, and the flavor was wonderfully sourdough tangy.

This morning, Sadie was the loafer. She was sitting on Mike's lap in the living room. I suppose she's remembering the kittens she raised while she was still feral. Or maybe she just like showing off her beautiful tummy.

Flashing the camera in her eyes was only mildly disturbing. She just stretched out her little kitty arms and went back to sleep. (I love those orange stripes on her arm.)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had another loaf of bread in the works. This morning I managed to get this floppy dough into a banneton for its second rise, and then baked it off. It turned out pretty. It's cooling downstairs, and I'll take this one when we go for dinner at Erik and Mae's house tonight.

While I was waiting for the bread to rise, I finished off the 7th of the Snow Globes blocks. This one is called "Santa Claus."

Next I'll be tracing out the third  of nine blocks for Friendship's Garden. I'll be spending at least a part of my Mother's Day planting sunflowers and zucchini in the garden. That will have to wait for me to take a second pass at the weeds in those areas. After that, I'm hoping to get back to my quilting and sewing. I'll spend a little time on Quiltmaker's Garden, and then I'll get back to sewing the Wine Country quilt top together. Since I changed my mind about the sashing, I've needed some time to think about it. Now I know just what to do.