Sourdough, Yogurt and Fleas

OK- the three are totally unrelated - but I got your attention, right...

I keep forgetting to report how everything went with the sourdough. We received some starter from a lady in the valley who had received it from another lady in the valley, and it had come to her by way of Fort St. John. This sourdough has been around! My aunt also sent some recipes and I have had great luck with making the bread, both white and whole wheat sourdough. I froze some in case something ever went wrong with the one I keep out, and good thing - it got a little too warm in the cooler where it was and it pressured up and bent the sealer up on the jar. That is powerful stuff!

My experiment with making the yogurt using acidpohilus caplets did not work out. It tasted like yogurt, but it did not thicken up at all. I talked with the lady who is the valley yogurt making guru and she gave me some good tips. I don't think the yogurt stayed warm enough after I added the bacteria to the heated milk, and therefore didn't firm up like it should have. Heather picked me up some actual starter from the health food store and now that we are settled again I think I will give it another try this week. It worked better to try this in colder weather as it needs to stay warm for quite a while after you add the bacteria. When the wood stove was running it made a nice spot to "cook" the yogurt. I was told that putting it in the gas stove will work too - just using the heat of the pilot light. We'll see how round two of yogurt making goes.

I can talk about it now that it has passed - but we were all bitten by fleas this winter, except Tim, oddly enough... The main catch of the winter was marten and they have fleas by the hordes. Squirrels and weasels were also crawling with them. When Tim was skinning them, they would likely make a jump to the next warmest thing - him - and get a free ride into the cabin that way. The kids and I got quite a few bites over the winter. I even had the pleasure of finding a few live ones before they bit! One thing this year has done is suppressed my "inner princess" and I am no longer squeamish about a lot of things that before would have sent me into a panic. One good thing - they can't live on us, and once they bit us - would not have survived long after. A friend of ours told us he used to Raid all his furs in a garbage bag before skinning and later in the winter this was tried. That worked well and there were no real problems after that. Don't worry anyone - we won't be bringing them home with us!