Doing things the old-fashioned way

A big part of my life is doing things the 'old-fashioned' way.  I think I got hooked on doing a lot of this stuff from my love of the Little House on the Prairie novels that I read as a kid, and continue to re-read as an adult.  I knit and sew my clothes, grow my vegetables, bake my bread, and so on.  The things I do change throughout the year depending on practicality.  When it is blazing hot outside with almost 100% humidity, I could still bake my own bread but I prefer to just buy it so that my kitchen doesn't feel like the outside temperature.  Now that it is cold outside, my garden has wound down to just some cold-hardy greens and I have time to bake again.  I usually just make plain half white-half wheat bread in loaf pans, but a couple days ago I decided to go a bit fancier than that.  Almost a year ago, I saw a recipe in the magazine Mary Jane's Farm for bread baked in a cast iron skillet.  The recipe is also online if you want to give it a try.  I've made this recipe a few times, and it is a soft and tasty bread.  It just looks so pretty in the skillet, I almost felt bad slicing it up!

One of my favorite parts about winter is getting to have a fire in the fireplace.  I grew up with a fireplace, and it used to make me so happy to hear my mom loading logs into the fireplace while I was doing my homework in the late afternoon.  I'd hear the crinkle of newspaper being wadded up, the thump thump of logs, the crackle of the match being lit, and then my mother grumbling when all the paper burned and the flames fizzled out.  She'd walk by me and announce "Your father will fix it when he comes home."  And he did.  After changing his clothes, he'd rearrange the logs, add more paper, light the match, and suddenly there would be a glorious roaring fire.  We moved out of that house when I was 17, and I had been without a fireplace until last year.  Now my husband and I do the grumbling when the flame fizzles out; it is really a lot harder than it looks!  This last weekend we gathered lots of kindling from the trees behind our backyard and bought a load of firewood.  After a few tries, and rearranging the logs, we ended up with this:

Ahh, so nice and warm.  I closed my eyes and almost felt like I was next to Laura Ingalls and Ma sewing next to the fire after supper.  

Another project in the works, if I can ever find the time, is quilting a comforter for my bed.  And sewing myself a fleece jacket.  So many things to do and so little time!  I must get to it!