Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

1st Steps of a New Driveway

One of our goals for this year is getting a real driveway to access the barn.  Turns out that this is not as easy of a process as we initially thought.  Since we are located on a state road, PennDOT has to approve the access and verify sufficient sight distances in both directions.  The first step was to get an engineering firm to help draft plans to submit to PennDOT, and also contracting with an excavating company to clear out trees and tree stumps to gain access.  Last month both of those projects got started- and ever since then, it has been snowing, so progress has stalled for now.

A New Take On Potato Bread: Sweet Potato Maple Loaf

Here is another favorite recipe – for a dense, slightly sweet, wonderful breakfast bread.  I mix my dough in a bread machine, but always use the “dough” setting, and then form the loaf, let is rise again, and bake in a conventional oven.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup mashed sweet potato (about one medium sized yam or sweet potato, peel, cut into cubes and boil in water until soft, then mash with a fork and let it cool down a bit)
  • 1/2 cup of lukewarm water
  • 3 tablespoons sour cream
  • 1/3 cup of (real!) maple syrup
  • 4 and 1/4 cup of bread flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 and 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Place ingredient in order given into bread machine, use dough cycle.  When finished, remove the dough, knead to get air bubbles out, and place in a greased bread pan.  Let rise for 45 min to an hour. Then bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 30 minutes (or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped)  Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes on a wire rack, then remove from pan and let the bread cool completely.  I usually brush the hot loaf with butter to make a softer crust.

New Year – New Grandbaby

We are excited to welcome Freyja Rebecca Neill to our family.  She was born in Boston on January 3, weighing 8.3 lbs and she was 20.5 inches long.  Her parents, Anja and Duff, and her big brother Leif are very happy to greet their beautiful new daughter and sister.

Silly Hats for Little Boys

Could not resist buying a book with fleece animal hats for little kids – and then try some of those patterns.  These hats were for Toben (age 4 – Dinosaur) and Leif (age 2 – Monkey):

Sewing Purses for Little Girls

When the holiday season starts, and the evenings are too dark to work outside,  I love sewing, knitting or weaving projects for presents.  Since I just got the ultimate new sewing machine for my birthday (a Pfaff Expression 3.2), sewing projects got priority and I started with making a little purse for my oldest granddaughter, who will turn 3 soon.

I found the pattern online, at a great website called “Make It & Love It” and used fabric remnants I had on hand.  This turned out to be so much fun, that I figured even the younger, infant granddaughters could use purses for later, as could 3 “grand-nieces” and daughters of friends.  What started out as one purse project, ended with eight little purses – all lined with shimmering satin fabric and little button closures.