I’ts evening now, and dark is setting in, and the rain has begun … um, but it’s not water, it’s tiny ice pellets.
Forecast/current conditions has us at 34 degrees F. right now with 27% humidity and a feels like of 20 degrees F. with winds from the East at 16 mph. They say rain/ice late tonight, low of 26 degrees.
Well, it’s icing NOW! Frank was just about to make a fast run to the grocery store so that I didn’t have to make a meal tonight (we can warm up frozen stuff, etc.). He’s gone anyhow, even with the knowledge that it’s icing. It’s just started. It’s constant, steady, but light. It melts eventually, but does sit on the ground, deck, etc for a little while before melting. The temperature is just so close to freezing, but just above it.
We also had no sun today, so no heating of surfaces for the purpose of melting the ice faster from heat-gain on objects.
It’s a three mile trek up the road to the store, then three miles back. Country road, a bridge or two … and you know about that “Bridge freezes before road …”
We have the entire wood pile in the house by the fireplace. It’s not that much, considering it’s our WHOLE stockpile of wood :shocked:
We’ve bought it in loads as needed this Winter. Two van fulls so far. It’s not been so cold but in spots here and there. We are flummoxed out of cash to get more wood right now. We DO have enough for tomorrow, then the next day should be warm enough, and it’s a Chuch day anyhow [we won’t be home really].
Sure it was cold in the house today. But conservation of fuel meant conservative fire today and conservative fire tomorrow: or none today, tough it out. Nice fire tomorrow, crowd around it and enjoy the heat on ICE DAY! We can be troopers. I am just that on many occassions when it’s called for, just that every occassion doesn’t call for that. Just some. Like today, I could do this. But not everything.
Funny, it feels a bit warmer in here since the pelting of tiny ice bits started. That’s really not funny, kind of a standard “natural house” thang that I can comprehend when it occurs.
So Frank will safely, we hope, bring home some stuff to eat for supper. Problem with that is, I forgot until we discussed getting something frozen from the store: I had two bowls of bread dough proofing … in the oven.
I took them out and punched them down, but still need to shape and set to rise again. It’s too cold in the house for that. That’s why the bowls are in the oven in the first place. Turn it on a few mintutes, it retains the heat of a good warm room for that bread dough to nicely proof. So if I get that shaping done, I have to leave them out — oven will be needed for food. Then it’ll be too hot for awhile afterwards — so it’ll have to cool down to an acceptable level before putting the dough back in for last proof. Phew.
That means, later up that desired … I didn’t intend that. I meant to be more on top of the dough making, and promptly forgot ALL about it 😆
Well, cooling off the oven will impart a bit more heat into the room 😉
The bread then, it’s just unbleached flour stuff, since my Mill is still broken 🙁 But I make it with my pseudo-sour-dough-culture, I still try to make it with “less yeast” than normal modern bread is made with. And use other good ingredients too.
One part of the dough is cinnamon/raisin. I’ll make a braid out of it.
The other part of the dough is just plain.
It’s all Flour, Water, Milk, Eggs, Honey, Salt, Yeast. That’s it. That’s the base. Then to the special dough I added a bunch of raisins, a big splash of ground cinnamon, and a few tablespoons of Rapadura (an organic sugar cane evaporated process sugar–very whole and good, actually nutritious, a brand.)
So I’ll just see about doing this dough up to final stage tonight. I can’t fit it into my fridge. I could cover it well and put it in the garage though 😉 That’d be cool enough to really retard growth overnight. But I will attempt to see if I can get it baked before retiring.
I really should do that, in case the storm is worse than not, and power goes out tomorrow. Yes, good plan. 🙂