We’re in our eleventh week here at The Lodge. Certainly by now we’ve adjusted to this strange “normal” we’ve all found ourselves in. We haven’t done any recent outings, aside from a drive to the gas station to fill up the gas can for the lawn mower. Last week was pretty mellow and we enjoyed celebrating Alex’s birthday on Saturday, baking up a storm and a surprise middle-of-the night visitor.
This week’s blog post will be brought to you in the form of a picture diary.
The weather was really mixed last week. We had a few cozy rainy days and some unbelievable warm and sunny days.
The rain and sun sure have helped the wildflowers grow, so we’ve been adventuring through our forest.
These two are really forming a sweet bond amidst this family time. I feel so grateful that they have each other to pal around with. Hannah always wants Ben to watch her do something – “Ben! Watch me!”
This beauty here is my bucket of bread dough. I’m following the “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” method of mixing up a big batch of wet dough, storing it in the fridge and pulling off a hunk to bake every day.
Here’s my hunk, formed into a ball.
After it rested for a while I cut slashes to help it rise in the oven.
She bakes right here on our fancy cast iron pizza pan, complete with a little water in the baking sheet below {to create steam} for about 35 minutes or so.
Voila! Fresh bread. It has been extremely special to have fresh, homemade bread every day. It feels so luxurious while also feeling completely down-to-earth. I absolutely love this.
I also got to whip up an extravagant chocolate pie for Alex’s birthday, which we celebrated on Saturday. It tasted even better on Sunday!
Alex’s family “joined” us on Zoom for the cutting of the pie. It was a very low-key day. I think the highlight for Alex was our adult dinner/date night post-kid bedtime that evening.
More on Alex, his hair has grown quite long and he grew a quarantine beard. We squeezed in an at-home haircut and now he’s slightly more presentable.
I had no idea what I was doing and lost interest about three minutes in, so hopefully it’s a while before his next trim.
I am also in dire need of a haircut but I’m probably a few months out from my next trim {I guess it’ll be a “chop” by the time I get in}. I did; however, take some “taking care of me Thursday” time to myself and did my nails and a little face mask.
One morning last week we awoke to an easy-to-solve mystery! The bird feeders had been pulled out of the trees and our garbage can was on its side. We pulled up our security footage and quickly confirmed we’d had a little bear visitor overnight. None of our neighbors who we’ve spoken with have ever had experience here with bears coming to their homes {bobcats, coyotes and deer – that’s another story!} so we were a bit surprised.
Stroller snacks are both a high and a low of the day. There’s usually arguing and incessant requests to stop for no reason, but, hey, I’m getting a two-mile walk or a 3-4+ mile run every day, so I’ll deal. Plus, one day last week while out for our stroller snack I met a neighbor who is a mom of four and a big runner.
Joanna, our neighbor, took me up a forest service road just up the ridge to our east for an absolutely incredible 7-mile run on Sunday. It was a major highlight of the week for me. The trail was a gravel road so we were able to maintain our physical distance.
Alex and Ben had a blast mowing the lawn on Friday evening. It looked SO good when they were done.
Check out that fresh cut grass!
A week after planting our seeds we got our first little sprout!
And that’s a wrap on the week and our seeds! They all arrived and we got everything planted. Tomatoes still need to go in the ground and I’ll continue to plant lettuce and carrots to have a rotation of the crops. In any case, it’s been a great week and we can’t wait to start harvesting…