Hibernation

Winter rain today.  The long driveway remains a large sheet of ice visibly slippery.  Tomorrow we will test our balancing skills as we embark on our training of goat milking and husbandry.  Today, however, we stayed inside cooking delicious plates and mixing cozy drinks.  Cozy is my favorite words these days.  Everything about our new places whispers cozy-the apartment, the people, the weather, the rural landscape. 

Despite staying in doors, we still had our adventures.  I finally kicked Spencer out of the kitchen.  Yesterday, she made (I may be missing something here) a homemade pizza with goat cheese, homemade yogurt with goat milk, frozen yogurt with goat milk, chia seed pudding with goat milk, a sourdough starter, and granola.  Today, I treated her and the family in the next room to homemade cinnamon rolls from a recipe tried and tested from a dear friend in Alaska.  Thank you, Juliette, for making me look like a good baker today.

While we have achieved many good eats over the first few days, we are still navigating our way around a small kitchen.  To complement (or compensate for) one electric burner and a small convection oven, we have a PLETHORA of supplemental appliances.  Today we blew a fuse with cinnamon rolls in the oven and bacon on the skillet.  At least the landlord isn't far away.  We walked in the next room to find Stephan happy to show us the electrical box in the basement. Fortunately, power was easily restored throughout most of the apartment.  Unfortunately, the exception was the outlet powering my cinnamon rolls. Eventually I had to literally carry the entire oven to the other side of the apartment to finish baking them.  Hopefully, we will find a better approach in the near future.

Other than the ongoing food marathon, we spent the day watching movies from the projector.  I should be better at setting this up by now, but it is always a problematic task.  Spencer proceeded to feed me stove popped popcorn and smoothies as I wrestled with cords, speakers, and internet hiccups.  Alas, the movie finally played and we joyfully watched...from a single chair.  We don't have a couch and didn't want to sit on the cold hardwood floors, so we snuggled into a small chair.  When Stephan came in to finish our closet, I think he was quite amused by the ridiculous arrangement. 

It all still feels a little like a dream vacation, but that is soon to change tomorrow.  Goats at 7am and back to school for me.  It is time to come out of hibernation. 

Much love,
Kenz

Remaining cinnamon rolls and hot toddies

A chair for two