Making bread

Well, now that I posted the not-obligatory/obligatory "I'm back" post, I suppose I'll do a quick catch up on the last couple days. 

Yesterday I was feeling pretty good and I decided I was going to make a batch of bread.  

My first bread since this whole safer-at-home thing started. 

I'm so contrary, sometimes. Before all this social distancing and staying at home bit started, I was baking and cooking up a storm. Lots of bread stuff was being made, because I was binge-watching the Great British Bake-off and being inspired. 

As soon as people started freaking out and buying all the flour and yeast, I lost interest in baking bread. 

I decided to break out the KitchenAid mixer, since I rarely use it and I've been seeing people on the shows use their KitchenAids all the time.  Usually I make bread dough in the bread maker, and then bake it in the oven. 

I grabbed my Betty Crocker cookbook and found a recipe for white bread. There was a side note which said this recipe could be used to make cinnamon bread.  Okay.  I'll make one of the loafs a cinnamon bread loaf. 

I accidentally added too much water.  Oops!  So my dough was a bit sticky.  

After letting it rise the first time, the dough looked really nice. 

I punched that sucker down, and separated it into two parts. Per the instructions, I rolled the dough out with a rolling pin and rolled it back up.  I've never done that before. 

The final product turned out really lovely. Both loaves are half-gone. 

That was pretty much the highlight of my evening. 

Today I did not do much. I watered the garden, does that count? 

Yes, I watered the garden.  The garden is finally put in!

I still have a mess of pepper plants that need planting.  They are still small so I'm not in a rush to get those planted. 

Oh, I need to take pictures of the tomatoes I put in pots last month, or late April. They have gotten SO big.  Flowers are starting to form. We are all super excited for the tomatoes. 

We are still hatching chicks out. The hatches are spaced out a little bit farther apart now. There is still a lot of interest in chicks.  It blows my mind how well sales have been this year. 

This is some of the chicks we have right now. They frequently fall asleep in a big old heap. They sensed me getting ready to take their photo, and started poking up their heads. 

We've had baby bunnies that have come and gone.  I didn't even get photos on my camera roll of them. 

Shadow had a litter and her babies were claimed almost right away. 

Then Loki decided to have a litter.  She has two babies. They are both little sweeties.  They remind me so much of Hass and Feffer when we first got them. 

I've slowly started adding crafting back to the mix. 

I picked up the sock I was working on.  Turned the heel perfectly. 

I got into such a funk with my crafting that I had to put it all down. Maybe I've just been burned out and needed a break. I'm aiming to get all the current projects wrapped up by the end of the month. Just in time to start canning season! I think.

I do have a funny to wrap up the evening.