Bread Making Class

My (city girl) sister is on maternity leave. She has always wanted to make bread with her farm girl sister. The other day, she had her chance.

Unfortunately for her and that frozen pink baby in the background, the Animal Whisperer and I are on a mission NOT to turn the furnace on until at least Antarctica. Our children wake up shivering. We tell them and ourselves that it will teach them to be tough.

They don’t believe us, and fight over the space heater that shoots heat into the cold air and disperses about 11 inches in front of the heater.

I’ve been debating, after many requests, having a bread making class. It sounds fun, and I do believe I’ll do it.

What a better subject to practice on than my sister! (She was not aware that she was the guinea pig for my bread making class. She was the test rat. Oh, wait. We do not do any testing on live animals. Sort of like Paul Mitchell. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t test any of his hair products on live animals either. So, he must test them on bread making class students.)

She did VERY well. Check out the kneading she’s doing above. I don’t think she’d kneaded anything in her life. But, she did impressively well.

Until…the incident.

The nose wipe.

Now, if this had been an official class and if I hadn’t felt sorry for her pink popsicle in the background, I would have given her an F for the class.

But, I also understood. When it’s hovering around 50 inside the house, icicles start to form on those drips of boogers that dangle from the inside edge of one or both nostrils. And, as icicles go, they get longer and longer the more liquid drizzles down them and freezes.

So, she had a choice to make. Wipe it off now at the risk of failing the class, or letting a potentially long icicle fall off her nose unexpectedly and embed itself irreparably in her masterfully kneaded bread dough.

Icicle boogers can ruin a batch of bread dough.

If you’re taking notes here, please underline that one.

And, if I do have a bread making class, I promise to have the furnace on.

I think it would be bad for business if we had multiple student’s firing boogercicles into their dough. You just can’t have someone pay to come to a class, then have them suffer the embarrassment of the boogercicle.

So. It’s decided. Animal Whisperer and I will not make it to our predetermined goal of not turning the furnace on until April 3.

We will give in. For the sake of all involved, we’ll turn the heat on.

– The Goat Cheese Lady

P.S. Another member of my sister’s bread making class. He should not have passed either, but he’s too cute to fail.

About The Goat Cheese Lady

I am Lindsey. At first I was a city girl. Growing up, the closest thing I had to farm animals were a cat and a cockatiel. In 2009, Herbert (my husband) and I bought our first milk goat and I instantly became an urban farmgirl, attempting to balance city and farm life..before I knew “urban homesteading” was a thing. That’s when we began The Goat Cheese Lady Farm, hence The Goat Cheese Lady blog you’re visiting now. After moving to the country in 2014, I embarked on life as a rural farmgirl. We continued teaching farm and cheesemaking classes, raising more goats and began construction on our cheese creamery. But life had other plans and in 2017, we decided that, due to financial and health issues, we had to close the farm for business. No more classes, no more creamery, a lot less milking. We went back to off farm jobs, I as an Occupational Therapist, Herbert in construction with his business, D&A Home Remodeling. At that point, I made a silent promise to myself that I would corral my entrepreneurial mind and focus on a job for a year. Well, it has been a year and I am back. Not to classes, cheese, soap or lotion, but back to writing. I love it. I’m not sure where it will lead me, but that’s where I’m starting. I’ll continue to write as The Goat Cheese Lady for now, and whatever the future holds, I’ll let you know. Our two boys are 14 and 11 and continue to be louder than my sister and I ever were. We have two dogs, Montaña and Flash, a cat, Jumpy, a flock of chickens and three goats. Yes, we still have Lucy, the goat who helped us start it all and was milked by over 1,000 people. She’s retired but still the boss. Chocolate provides enough milk for our family with some to spare for the dogs. Soccer friends, school friends, coyotes and mice are frequent visitors. There are way too many flies and every so often we see an owl. I’m glad you’re here. Sometimes you’ll laugh out loud, other times you’ll be inspired to appreciate the small things. My hope is that, over your morning cup of coffee or your afternoon work break, you’ll enjoy the antics and inspiration that are my daily life. Lindsey

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