The bread we've cast upon the waters starts to pay off

Yesterday we filled the big sunflower seed feeder that hangs out front. This morning it was empty. The snow under the feeder wasn't helpful in providing clear tracks or other clues as to who or what went through about a couple of gallons of seeds. (We use an old plastic water jug as a scoop.) If, as we've speculated in the past, and been told by a couple of witnesses, it's been a whitetail deer then we'd expect to see more tracks or scuffed up snow. We don't think it's raccoons. Is this becoming just the excuse we need to get a trail camera?

pileated woodpecker feeding on suet

Photo by J. Harrington

A pileated woodpecker has been enjoying the suet feeders, as have red-bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers and most of the rest of the feathered crew that hangs out around here. Conspicuous by their absence have been wild turkeys and purple finches. Seeing cardinals has been a rarity. To be candid, we're not sure if what's going on is normal or if the wildlife are behaving as aberrantly as the weather. Not that we're complaining about temperatures near, or above, forty. Our weather app shows 42℉ but the thermometer on the North side of the house is reading 38℉, plus blue skies and sunshine! If we feel at all ambitious tomorrow we'll see about mounting the back blade on the tractor and tidying up the driveway a bit.

artisan sourdough bread January 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

The Daughter Person is more of an all-around baker than is yr obt svt. Our interest is pretty much limited to artisan bread of the sourdough variety, an interest shared by said Daughter Person. This morning she sent us a link that appears to offer a very promising course of action as we pursue improving our bread. We've no idea how she found it when our searches on sourdough failed to turn it up, but we are looking forward to trying out some of the techniques described in How to Make Artisan Sourdough Bread and Sourdough 101. Now, if we can make as much apparent progress with of fly-fishing and our poetry this year, it will indeed be one for the record books. But first, Winter is a season we much prefer for bread baking rather than fly-fishing so we'll remain focused on sourdough and poetry unless this current warm spell never ends.

Ode to bread

Bread,
you rise
from flour,
water
and fire.
Dense or light,
flattened or round,
you duplicate
the mother's
rounded womb,
and earth's
twice-yearly
swelling.
How simple
you are, bread,
and how profound!
You line up
on the baker's
powdered trays
like silverware or plates
or pieces of paper
and suddenly
life washes
over you,
there's the joining of seed
and fire,
and you're growing, growing
all at once
like
hips, mouths, breasts,
mounds of earth,
or people's lives.
The temperature rises, you're overwhelmed
by fullness, the roar
of fertility,
and suddenly
your golden color is fixed.
And when your little wombs
were seeded,
a brown scar
laid its burn the length
of your two halves'
toasted
juncture.
Now,
whole,
you are
mankind's energy,
a miracle often admired,
the will to live itself.

O bread familiar to every mouth,
we will not kneel before you:
men
do no
implore
unclear gods
or obscure angels:
we will make our own bread
out of sea and soil,
we will plant wheat
on our earth and the planets,
bread for every mouth,
for every person,
our daily bread.
Because we plant its seed
and grow it
not for one man
but for all,
there will be enough:
there will be bread
for all the peoples of the earth.
And we will also share with one another
whatever has
the shape and the flavor of bread:
the earth itself,
beauty
and love--
all
taste like bread
and have its shape,
the germination of wheat.
Everything
exists to be shared,
to be freely given,
to multiply.

This is why, bread,
if you flee
from mankind's houses,
if they hide you away
or deny you,
if the greedy man
pimps for you or
the rich man
takes you over,
if the wheat
does not yearn for the furrow and the soil:
then, bread,
we will refuse to pray:
bread
we will refuse to beg.
We will fight for you instead, side by side with the others,
with everyone who knows hunger.
We will go after you
in every river and in the air.
We will divide the entire earth among ourselves
so that you may germinate,
and the earth will go forward
with us:
water, fire, and mankind
fighting at our side.
Crowned
with sheafs of wheat,
we  will win
earth and bread for everyone.
Then
life itself
will have the shape of bread,
deep and simple,
immeasurable and pure.
Every living thing
will have its share
of soil and life,
and the bread we eat each morning,
everyone's daily bread,
will be hallowed
and sacred,
because it will have been won
by the longest and costliest
of human struggles.

This earthly Victory
does not have wings:
she wears bread on her shoulders instead.
Courageously she soars,
setting the world free,
like a baker
born aloft on the wind.

               -Pablo Neruda

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