more pics from Oh my Gato farm

these pictures are out of order



I have one loaf all braided and ready to be glazed and set to rise, and I am in the process of braiding the second loaf. My other balls of dough are at the end of the table waiting to be braided, behind the bucket you can see the banana bread ready to be baked

kneading the dough. Anthony let me come to the kitchen he rents out to make some bread to sell at the farmers market. this was my second experience working in a commercial kitchen. my first was when my mom took me to her work when I was a kid and helped make cookies and chicken cordon blue

pouring the bucket of "sponge" into the blender

all ready to go to the kitchen with my bucket of sponge.

Michelle and her parents were talking about how great kiss my face lotion is, and Bruce said they are coming out with a new product called kiss my ass. So I thought they could use this picture to promote it.


a box full of veggies for the CSA, and Michelle dirty hippie feet. This week the CSA box had, arugula, chard, kale, radishes, kohlrabi, daisies, and more

a mouth full of sprouts

Michelle and i standing at the booth we had at the farmers market. I had 4 loaves of challah and 2 loaves of banana bread. I couldn't sell the challah but I was able to trade a loaf for a day pass to the wild life safari.

I thought I could bake, I'll keep practicing

I have been baking bread and things off and on for a few years. I have been baking a lot more than usual. Anthony, the guy Michelle and i are staying with, is a bread baker. I baked a challah the other day and we all like it a lot. He told me I should come to the kitchen he rents out and do some baking for the farmers market. I went to the health food store and bought organic cage free eggs, yeast, organic whole wheat flour local honey . . . . and I spent a good amount of time converting the recipe I was going to use by 4 and making sure everything was right, then yesterday morning I made what they call a sponge. To make the sponge I mixed flour water and yeast and let it sit for the day, then in the evening I put the flour mixture on top of it and let it rise until we got to the kitchen. We got to to the kitchen and I put my bucket of sponge into the mixer and added eggs and honey and oil, then I kneaded and kneaded. Then I let it rise then I shaped , then I let rise again then put it in the oven, and then. . . .I don't know what happened, it just didn't cook right. I also had 2 loaves of banana bread in there. The breads where in the oven longer then I thought they should be , but when I checked them they weren't done. Around 1 in the morning I said to Anthony, this is good enough, and I took them out and let them cool. We got back to the house around 2 am. Michelle was up when I got back. Well, she was up when I woke her up, but she was excited to hear about the baking.
This morning we all had to be up a 7 to get ready for the farmers market. we watered a bunch of plants, because we knew it was going to be a really hot day. The van was all packed up by 7:45 and we left for town. We set up a booth and I tried to nicely display my bread. Anthony's bread looked great covered with seeds on them. I was nervous about my bread not tasting good but I opened it up and ate some and it was OK, a little dry, but not terrible. I ended up making 2 dollars!! !(I got the idea to sell slices of banana bread by the slice, it was a good experience though. Next time I'll make smaller loaves, no one wants to buy a 3 pound loaf . Maybe next week i'll try making brownies or muffins.

MICHELLE PUT A BUNCH OF NEW PICTURES UP ON HER PAGE. copy and paste this link ( can someone call grandma and tell her how ) http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=16751412&albumId=2865106

the newer pictures will be on page 7 and 8

some pictures from oregon

Anthony, Sandie and I at the CSA drop off spot. every thursday people come to pick up there food
these are chicken, goose and duck eggs. they come out off the hen, duck or goose all different colors and shapes. they don't come out bleached and perfectly clean like you see in the stores
baby chicks at Frog Farm

Michelle and I on the tempurpedic matress at Matreya
the AFrame at Matreya
I was talking with Michelle about buying a truck and putting a camper on top of it and then this truck drove by. Days later we were out for a bike ride and saw it parked in a parking lot. notice the mini greenhouse in the front and the porch in the back.
huge
we composted our clothes
celebrating a good sweater

We are at Oh My Gato Farm

Michelle and I left Ashland and headed north to Winston Oregon. We got 2 different rides to get there. When we got to the Oh My Gato farm, Sandy showed us around. There are 2 big gardens with lots of veggies that they grow for the CSA. Every week they deliver 15 handmade boxes of fresh picked veggies. Anthony and Sandy live on 18 acres, and only farm about 2. They have 1 cat, 3 goats, 40 chickens and 1 llama. Anthony is a bread baker and has a food license. I made a challah from a recipe in one of the books he has here, it might be one of the better loaves I have ever made. If you want I can give you the recipe.
Every morning i take care of the chickens and goats. We have planted tomatoes and salad greens. We weeded out the strawberry bed. We also harvested a lot of salad greens and what not for the CSA delivery.
Yesterday we spent and hour chasing a llama. Some how it escaped the fenced in area it is in. It has at least 3 acres to roam in but she hopped the fence anyway.
Tonight for dinner Michelle made a lentil rice, nut seed and carrot loaf. While she was doing that I made banana bread. While I was cooking Michelle and I switched clothes and took pictures.
Also, today was our day off and we went on a bike ride. We went to the health food store to get flour and honey. The people that worked there were super nice and told us they know Anthony and Sandie. They also said that where we are staying is an amazing place, which we agree. They gave us there phone number and said to call if we wanted to go for a hike or something. The ride back on the single speed bike was difficult.
We have the day off tomorrow. I think we'll start it off with french toast or pancakes.

good bye to my sweater

Hey mom , I no longer have that beat up sweater that you hate. I got a new shirt at the thrift shop that is a lot cleaner and doesn't have holes. Michelle's pants that she had since 8th grade wore too thin and started tearing all over so we put them deep in a compost bin where they will decompose together and become part of the earth.

ashland

We left frog farm in Takilma Oregon a couple days ago and hitchhiked to Ashland. We are staying with the friends of Travis who we met at frog farm. We caught 3 separate rides to get here. The place we are staying at is called the bike house. We like it there, everyone who lives there is really nice.
Ashland is kind of a yuppie town with lots of expensive crap to buy that you don't need. It is very pretty though and somewhat environmentally friendly.

Sheldron and I made a nice dinner last night. We had brown rice, steamed broccoli, carrots, tofu and ginger root. Good tasting, it had a nice chew to it. I bought some mead for us.

Yesterday Michelle and i got some bread from the dumpster of a bakery. We got sourdough, whole wheat and cinnamon chip. We made french toast this morning with the cinnamon chip.

Michelle has been using moon pads lately. They are a great idea. they are an alternative to using disposable pads. they are made of cotton and some water proof fabric. every few hours she washes her moon pad and puts on another. they don't take to long to dry. She says it helps her to feel more in touch with her menstrual cycles. You should look into it and tell your friends. I know some people who make there own moon pads. I guess its pretty easy. I was thinking it would be a neat idea to make them in the shape of animals and robots.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the park. There was a deer really close to us, maybe 20 feet away, it seemed to be used to people walking by. We sat at a bench and watched her eat for a while.
There is a food not bombs going on down the street from here and we are going to go to that now.

pics from northern Ca and OR

shelly and i got picked up by a family in a big truck. this is shelly in the back enjoying the ride


dear mother in law, i hope you try out the brown rice cookies. the sweet rolls where made with pumpkin. i got the recipe from one of my moms cook books.


here are some picutres of the last month or so. not in any specific order. . . . click the pic to enlarge. . .


hahahahahahamaking tinctures is very detailed work
goat kids




this is steve and deb the owners of Frog farm, relaxing on the chair


down the street from frog farm there is a treehouse resort. we went to look around for a bit and we saw this gigantic swing

i've baked many, many loaves of bread here
here i am packing pills in debs pharmacy. this stuff going in them was mushroom, ginger and a few other things that i can't remember.



this one one of michelle and i'sis first days in oregon. we hitchiked to the mountains and walked for a few hours. on the way down we stopped for a while to take a break, i was talking to my brother on the phone and michelle got inspired to make art.
we are in a tree. this picture was taken in northern california
our crescent city sign was with us for a long time. when we got to matreya we had a sign burning ceramony and reminiced on our travels.
we were couch surfing in Arcata and our host Arty was nice enough to take us to the beach.

News from frog farm

A lot of baking has been going on here. I am the designated bread guy here. I've made many loaves of challah, a few batches of brown rice cookies, and Michelle made some really good black bean brownies. This is the recipe i used for the brown rice cookies. . .

• 2 c Cooked lundberg brown rice;
  
• 1 1/2 ts Baking powder
• 1/2 c Butter or margarine
• 3/4 c Coconut ( I didn't use shredded coconut, I used coconut oil)
• 3/4 c Sugar
• 2 ts Cinnamon
• 1 Egg; beaten ( they say that half a banana equals one egg. Also 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed mixed with a tbsp of water works
  
• 1 tb Sugar
• 1 ts Vanilla
• 1 c Pecans or walnuts; finely( it says to put the nuts on top but when I did that they got kinda burnt so the next time i folded them into the batter and that worked better
  
• 1 c Sifted flour

Cream together butter and sugar. Add beaten egg, vanilla, mix well. Add sifted dry ingredients. Fold in cooked rice and coconut. In another bowl, mix together 1 tablespoon sugar, cinnamon and nut meats. Drop cookie dough by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle top of each cookie with cinnamon-nut mixture. Bake in 350 oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until cookies are a golden brown in color. Makes 2 dozen.

The other day here , friends of Deb and Steve's came to the farm. There was 5 of them and they were in a band that was touring the west coast. For the show I made brown rice cookies and Michelle made the black bean brownies. Deb had me put them up for sale to make some money for the costs of the sound equipment. She said that the baked goods made over 30 dollars, and she gave the interns 17 dollars to do what we want with, so we got beer and chocolate.

A couple days ago I made a huge amount of challah. I made 6 loaves at once. Today Michelle and I made banana bread.

I have had the idea of getting a vehicle that I can live in and travel in. At first I was thinking an RV would be nice, but they use to much gas. So now I am thinking about a conversion van.

We will probably be leaving here within the next few days. We still aren't sure were we will go. But in 2 weeks or so we will be in Winston Oregon at Oh My Gato farm. What a corny name.

I have noticed that I am almost 25, just 2 more months. Weird.

The other day we went across the street to " the dome school". Every so often about a dozen or so people in this area get together and collectively place bulks orders for food. The sense of community here is great, they all save lots of money pitching in together. Maybe you should talk to your neighbors and say hey, we both eat lots of rice and cheese and oats and bananas and . . . . . so why don't we all get together and order a bunch of it and then split it up between us?


So I was thinking of how when I was back home last, my mom gave me this stuff to put on my face for my pimples. I read the ingredients on the back and one of the main ingredients was urea. Interesting!! Urea is found in urine. Urine is 95 percent water, 2.5 percent urea and 2.5 percent other trace minerals. Cosmetic companies keep horses in there factory's specifically for the collection of their pee to gain the urea which is found in lots of makeups. I will end on that.