We write a lot on this blog about our neighbors at Bugtussle Farm... Eric, Cher, Ira, Opal, and Livi. But - believe it or not - they aren't are only neighbors! Another sweet family lives right down the road - Lindsay, Darrin, and little Liberty. These are the kind folks who took care of our chickens all winter while we were in Nashville. On Tuesday, while in the midst of a tiresome drywall mudding session, Lindsay and Liberty stopped by the cabin with an amazingly precious gift - warm, freshly baked bread. It was our first housewarming present, and a lovely one at that. We had ourselves a simple dinner that night without having to fire up the stove and heat our already sweltering house. We are constantly in awe of the kindness and gracious giving of the locals of Bugtussle - always willing to lend a hand or bring by food or hay bales or rain barrels, even though their lives are as hard and often frugal as our own. So, thank you, dear neighbors, for the kindness! We can't wait to get to know you better.- Hannah.
Fermentation has truly taken over our lives - and our kitchen - lately. Jesse has three different wine/beers going….the mulberry, a wild berry, and an oat and honey brew he is experimenting with. I have been trying to spend a full day baking bread each week. We have crocks and mason jars all over the counters, sourdough starters and pickled radishes on top of the fridge, all constantly being stirred and fed and monitored. They become pets of sorts, all needing constant care and nourishment until they are ready to nourish us. We are fueled partly by an attempt to sustain ourselves, partly because of THIS new book, but also out of a curiousity and reverence for this amazing, magical, and ancient practice.
*Our blogger friends at Oliver and Abrahams asked us to write a guest post for them during their wedding/honeymoon. Go check it out, and leave Jamie and McKenzie some congratulations!*
No one can talk about Thanksgiving quite like a mom. So I wont even bother. I employed my mother to bake the bread for our feast this evening and she seemed suspiciously eager. She then sent me a wonderful collection of the memories it evokes, and everything made sense:"Thanksgiving morning, 1950's: my mother and aunts were kitchen-giddy. Grandma, quiet and reserved, tended a hugely-formidable bird. My mother told stories and spicily tap-danced as if she were again dancing with Howard Hughes as in the 20's, now simply tossing homegrown green beans and onions with a flourish into a kettle on the potbellied stove. Aunts Margaret and Norma peeled potatoes and brewed bottomless iced tea. Yet the true life of the party was the yeast and flour atop the heavy oak table in Aunt Katie's kitchen, a table that I tippie-toed under, yet stretching every muscle to peek at what smelled so good. The bread was the center of the kitchen's universe, for around that bread that the four Rosendahl sister's conversation bubbled and bustled with all the oohs and aaahs and oopsies of homespun 1950's women. From a tin-sounding black and white television set in a distant room was Macy's mystical Thanksgiving Day Parade, punctuated occasionally by the men of the house awaiting football and feast. There was fun and games out there, but the life was in the bread."Hannah and I are both excited to have our families together this year. When we separately made our decisions to leave our respective big city lives and move home to farm, family was an overwhelming factor. We wanted to be closer to them. We wanted to involve them in our new lives. We wanted to provide them with good food and we wanted to start making more family memories. Lastly, we wanted to break bread together. So Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours––I'l let my mom take it away:"I learned to assist in the bread baking in the 50's, given token tasks like measuring flour and greasing bread pans. As a pre-teen, mom and I baked our own bread at home. I perfected the art of getting water prepped for yeast––now, understanding that it had to be just lukewarm and not an bit warmer or cooler, noting just a hint of warmth to the wrist––so that the yeast would add life to the flour and salt. I learned how to feel the precise stretch of bread surface when it was time to turn the bread to a bowl to rise. And tonite, I was reminded of those tasks just now as if I'd done them yesterday. It's been since you were a toddler that I baked bread. The scent, the tasks, the bubbles at the surface of the ready-for-oven loaf were as present as they were 50 years ago. It was as if Aunt Katie was right there to gently mentor and mom tapdancing in the background.Katie had a note in her cookbook that stated "I am the Queen because I bake the Bread". Tonight, I feel like the Queen. When I thumped on the golden base of the bread, it resounded in all it's hollow perfection, just the way God intended!The only difficult task here is resisting slicing into one of these incredibly perfect loaves! On Thanksgiving, we'll break bread as a family. It means the world of memories to me."
she sent us visual proof...can't wait to taste them!
We write a lot on this blog about our neighbors at Bugtussle Farm... Eric, Cher, Ira, Opal, and Livi. But - believe it or not - they aren't are only neighbors! Another sweet family lives right down the road - Lindsay, Darrin, and little Liberty. These are the kind folks who took care of our chickens all winter while we were in Nashville. On Tuesday, while in the midst of a tiresome drywall mudding session, Lindsay and Liberty stopped by the cabin with an amazingly precious gift - warm, freshly baked bread. It was our first housewarming present, and a lovely one at that. We had ourselves a simple dinner that night without having to fire up the stove and heat our already sweltering house. We are constantly in awe of the kindness and gracious giving of the locals of Bugtussle - always willing to lend a hand or bring by food or hay bales or rain barrels, even though their lives are as hard and often frugal as our own. So, thank you, dear neighbors, for the kindness! We can't wait to get to know you better.- Hannah. 
