Winding down . . .

It has been a stressful few days.  We moved a new cow onto the premises - look for a future post about Phyllis - and it has caused a bit of extra work.   Just in case I wasn't busy enough, I decided to bake a couple of loaves of bread for the market Saturday, since the laws in Indiana have finally changed back to the way they were about ten years ago, and I can sell baked goods from my own uninspected kitchen.  I made two braided loaves late on Friday so that they would be as fresh as possible.  I was hoping to get orders for Thanksgiving, can do about eight loaves in my non-commercial kitchen, and they are fun to make.  I am a light sleeper; I still cannot believe that I dozed off and slept through a timer than rings for two full minutes!  I awoke to the smell of bread - very well done bread.  The loaves were dark.   I am reminded of the scene in "Julie & Julia," in which Julie sleeps through a timer reminding her to take her casserole of Beouf Bourguignon from the oven.  "That is not real," I thought at the time.  "No one would sleep through a timer, especially when preparing something as important as a meal for a food critic!"  Hah!  I now believe.  Strange how that works.

The loaves were on the ragged edge.  Could I take them in or not?  I woke up a couple of times in the night (and a short night it was), each time thinking about the damned bread!  At  4 am, I was lying there wide awake and thought to myself, "There is time to make two more loaves."  So I hopped out of bed and got with it.  When they were done (and perfectly done, if I do say so myself), I observed that they didn't look all that different from the over-baked ones from the night before.  So I bagged up the dark loaves, put the newly baked ones onto a cooling rack in the car and took off for market with all four, sure that the dark ones wouldn't sell.  I told my friends Julie and Annemarie at the next booth that we would divide up whatever didn't sell by the end of the day, expecting to pass on to them at least half of one of the loaves.

First one of the new loaves, warm from the oven, sold.  Then a dark one, then another dark one!  Go figure!!  Wouldn't have guessed it.  Annemarie came back from a walk around the market laughing.  "Your bread must be good," she said.  "I saw a woman pulling chunks off of one of the loaves and eating them while she was strolling along."  What a compliment.  I was very happy about that.

After market, I went to our annual service auction at church.  Clay was coming over to button up the chickens, so I didn't have to run home.  When I got to the church, I parked, put the seat back and took a nap.  When I woke up, much refreshed, I tried to turn the car on, and I got nothing.  This is the second time this has happened with my Prius.  And just let me say that when it dies, it dies!  The wheels lock, it cannot be put in neutral, it cannot be towed, and if put on a flatbed tow truck, its locked wheels must be dragged unless the tow truck has this handy device designed for hybrid cars that allows them to run just about long enough to drive them onto the flatbed.  (Funny that the person at the garage told me this has never happened,  yet there is a handy gizzy-whiz designed for hybrid towing jobs.  Hmmm!)  Okay, I'm whining again, but it really put a pall on the evening.  Everything was closed and would be the next day.  I was 30 miles from home.  Mary said they had two cars, would take me to their house after the auction and I could drive to the farm in one of them, then return in the morning and pick her up for church.  Dealing with car problems is far easier in the morning, in daylight, so I took her up on it and did my best to enjoy the evening.

I went home and fell in bed.  I'm a light sleeper, and a long night is six hours.  I got up at 7 to do a little business, let the chickens out of the Moop and laid back down for a short rest.  The phone rang at 9 am, waking me!  Wow!!  Ten hours!!!  That is a small miracle for me.

I got to church a bit late (sorry, Mary), then after church got a ride to the rental place at the airport, went back to my dead car to move the totes full of clean, empty milk jars to the rental car, stopped at the garage with the key and a long letter (I did hold my temper, didn't figure it would get my car fixed any faster to lose it) asking them to get the right towing service there in the morning and call me to let me know what was up.  Then I headed home, fed the dogs, picked up a cooking magazine and promptly fell asleep.  Ayn Chee's sharp little barks woke me up a couple of hours later.  Okay, that makes twelve hours of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's in the last 24.  Yup, today Farmer Susie is winding down . . .