Baking Bread and Meeting People

My wife reminded me of the this bread baking adventure.

We were camping on a 3 day weekend in a public campground and each afternoon I baked some bread in the dutch oven.

For what it’s worth, baking bread while camping is more fun than baking in a kitchen.

In a kitchen, one just lets the dough rise on its own because watching dough rise…is not very exciting.  Baking bread in a dutch oven while camping offers the excitement of watching squirrels.  While the covered dough is rising and I am far from the dutch oven, three or  four squirrels will wait nearby while one tries to figure out how to get inside “that thing”.  After the first one gives up, the others will come and give it a try.  So far, none have been able to move the heavy lid.

The smell of baking bread also attracts humans.

Each day, while the bread was baking, a lot of people would come over to check out the baking bread smell and, being the good host, I always made enough to be able to offer some to the guests.

At the neighboring campsite was a young man and he noticed that most of the people stopping by were young women.

On the last day, he came over to ask where he could find a dutch oven with legs and to see if he could watch me make some bread.

It turns out he was a 4th year mechanical engineering student.  The old electrical engineer got to pass along some practical knowledge to the young mechanical engineer…and my wife (a nuclear engineer)…she laughed…

 

 

 

 

 

First Time Home All Weekend

Except for a vacation and a few short deployments (a total of 8 weekends) I have been going to my parents’ house at least one weekend day each week since October 2003.  Even after my mother died, I continued to do this as I cleaned out the house so the workers could get in there to paint and install new carpet.

Today, for the first time in almost 14 years,  I did not go over there and I’m not sure if I feel relief, sad or glad; relief at having more time, sad that I can no longer visit with mom or glad that mom is no longer “imprisoned” in a failing body.

I felt similar conflicting thoughts when my fiancee died, so I guess this is normal.  No matter what, this is not something I want to go through again..but we have no choice.

I did not make it over to the cemetery to place mom’s wedding bouquet on their grave markers.  It was so breezy this morning that they would have blown away before I could have taken a picture.  So, maybe next weekend.

I did make use of the extra time by making sourdough bread.  This is the first time in many months I have done this.  The bread just came out of the oven and the house smells wonderful. My wife just sliced a piece and pronounced it “wonderful”…music to my ears.

The 2nd use of my time was cleaning out my dresser of no longer worn (or never worn) clothes.  In my job, manufacturers and engineering services firms drop by lots of shirts with their company logos embroidered on them.  I rarely wear them, and I just stick them in the dresser until I begin to have to really squeeze the stuff into the drawers.

Now that the dresser “load” has been reduced I will be able to get my clothes into the “new” dresser.  New and old are backwards this time. The new dresser dates to 1959 and was used by my parents.  The old dresser was put together in 2015. The 1959 dresser is made from solid maple and is beautiful.  The 2015 dresser is pressed board covered with wood looking “paper”.  It looks  OK, but not as nice as the maple.