Picture this!

OK, wish I'd had Josh take a pic of this one: this afternoon I suddenly had the urge to bake - there I was mixing dough and juicing oranges wearing EAR PLUGS. Here's the story...

As those who know me well fully expect, I chose 4 recipes ('cause why dirty the measuring cups for just one recipe?): My usual artisan bread recipe (someone gave me some walnuts so I wanted to add those), a new cracked wheat raisin bread recipe (got the cracked wheat at an import shop a while ago) and 2 quick breads, a glazed rhubarb-orange loaf (no rhubarb here but I wanted to substitute unripe mango for the rhubarb) and a zucchini orange loaf.

Today was a no-electricity day, so it was HOT. My kitchen was almost 90 degrees BEFORE I started baking. On days there is no power, we run a generator for the 2 houses (our home and the guest house are next door to each other) so that we have running water and can run fans and lights. The generator is located practically underneath the kitchen window and though we recently had the muffler fixed, it's still LOUD!

My first 3 hours in the kitchen I worked with green earplugs sticking into my ears. Every time I wanted to communicate with my kids, I had to yell at them for them to be able to hear me! Thankfully the power came on just before 5 PM. Only here... :) (Here's a shot of the raisin bread and the zucchini loaf - Josh likes to take pictures of food that tastes good!)

And, for the grandmas, great-grandmas and Grandpa Dyck, here's a shot of Spencer at his first piano lesson!