Resurfacing

I never blog anymore. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm on a quest, and that means squeezing all the juice out of life this summer. 2009 will go down in history as the summer in which we did the most stuff. Case in point:

• Wyalusing camping trip
• Memorial Day Brule trip
• Kaila's wedding
• Carbon Leaf Wednesday, APT Thursday, Brewers game Friday, driving hung over for a Wolf River trip Saturday-Sunday. I was a sick girl after that with some virus.
• Another Brule trip with my nephew
• Another Brewers game with friends
• Bascom Hill, Hey Champ, and STS9 at Summerfest, overnight in Milwaukee
• Cookout at the Pippitts' for July 4, stay overnight and swim with the kiddies

And coming soon:

• Fountains of Wayne
• Door County (if I can find a dog sitter for this weekend)
• More APT
• Houseboat trip on the Mississippi with friends and kids(again, I could use a dog sitter)
• Mike's wedding
• Isthmus Vocal Ensemble rehearsals and concert in August

Did I miss anything? I'm kind of looking forward to August. Maybe I can spend a little time at home!

I forgot to mention that Jim did two weeks in Boulder, taking a Wilderness First Responder course. And that he's slated to go back to the Brule. AGAIN.

This would be a kick-*ss blog if I would just write to it and post up some pictures.

Clouds of Mosquitos

We grilled pizza tonight, after returning from a long and crazy weekend at the Brule. Straight out of Frank Sinatra's "It's Very Nice to Go Travelin'" -- light the home fires/make a pizza.

So after we'd eaten ourselves silly, I went out to the garage to put the grill away. Right away, I heard this low buzzing, almost like a motor or a faraway engine. I looked around and finally saw this:

Now clearly, this doesn't look like much, but in my 39 years on this planet, I've never seen this kind of thing before. Pretty sure this is a very recent, very large hatch of baby mosquitos, forming vortices of themselves in the skies above our homes. Pretty crazy. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of baby skeets, for your summering pleasure. Nothing to fear, they're not biting yet. All the same, I hope the bats are hungry and feeding well tonight.

Salt IS Necessary in Bread

This is a tenet I am familiar with.  I've forgotten to put the salt in before.  I've also put in too much salt when I mis-read my Potato Bread recipe.  But today I forgot to put it in my Italian Loaf and I may never forgive myself.  

I get all proud of myself that I have the recipe memorized.  I make the starter the night before, and I know all the measurements there.  The next day, I make the main bread, and generally, I measure the salt out so I'm sure to put it in when I add the starter.  

Salt never even entered my brain today.

I'm sure there's a lesson in here.  Besides the salt.  To be nice to myself, to grab the recipe book, to not trust they grey matter quite so much.  I think I've got most of the lesson down, even if I'm not sure exactly of its contents.  

But what I really know, and resent being reminded of, is that unsalted bread just tastes like ass.  I might as well eat straight bread flour.  All that after the work of a starter and 4 hours of rising and then baking.

I thought, after four months of silence, you'd just like to know that.