The week flew by!

I cannot believe how fast this week went by. It was my birthday this week and that was fun. A friend and a couple of family members stopped by. Then my husband and son took me out for Italian food to the place where we had our wedding reception, we ate outside and it was wonderful! I had lobster ravioli. Yum! My husband got me some really nice things, some music, a really nice soup pot that has baskets for steaming or cooking pasta and a barrister's bookshelf. That's a shelf with glass doors that come down. It's for my colletction of Breyer Horses that I started getting when I was a little girl. I haven't had them displayed for many years so I am excited to unpack them and get them out. I even made little leather shoes for them that I painted silver! It used to be so much fun. I hope they are in good shape as they were not packed very well. They haven't been moved much so hope they are ok. I'll know more later!

I had no idea that you could "catch" wild yeast from the air and grow it in water and flour. I have never made sourdough bread before and did not realize that that's how it worked. I have my dough rising in pans (a lot slower than normal yeast dough) and I'll bake it in a couple of hours. It will be interesting to see how it turned out. I didn't use a recipe at all, just 1 cup of water to 1 cup of flour and let that sit out for a day, then I "fed" it with more flour and water last night. This morning my "sponge" was big and spongey and had a rather pleasant smell so I figured that was a good sign. I'll report back on my bread later!

My in laws have a summer home in Au Gres, MI and we're heading up there tonight to spend the night. They go there on and off all summer. It seems to be a central meeting place for family so it should be nice.

Sunday and Monday we are going to spend here, working on getting some things done. I know I want to get my horses up and I always have a lot of stuff to do... and Clane will probably do car work.

I will report back later on how the bread turned out. In the meantime, the Baltimore Orioles are back! I have put out dishes of grape jelly for them, and they always announce they are there with a nice whistle. Last night I was weeding the flowers right near the part of the deck with the jelly, and the male was really mad at me and scolded me til I left. Then ants get into the jelly so that usually attracts redheaded woodpeckers and catbirds! We get some interesting birds around here. I haven't seen any hummingbirds yet but earlier this year we had a pileated woodpecker at my suet! I will have to dig through my pictures and see if I can find one to post. I unfortunately didn't get any really clear, good ones. The orioles are not happy when I try to take their picture but I'm not going to give up!

Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend!