Busy, busy bee!

Today I have been busy, busy. Busy like a bee, you might say! This morning I decided to try making bread today. I got a new book recently:

And figured I should give it a try. I had a "sponge" in the fridge (that's yeast, mixed with flour, water and a touch of sugar and set to... ferment... is that the right word?), so I used that. A few hours later, I realized, "that's why the pizza dough didn't rise the other night. The sponge is dead!". So, thus began my pursuit to not lose these 5 cups of flour already in the dough. I pondered... and decided to try this: I added 1 tbsp yeast that I new was alive and ready to about 1/2 cup of warm water, and several Tbsps of flour. Mixed it well and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then I added enough flour to make an almost-dough, and then kneaded that into the dead-yeast dough. At this point, I think it worked.
But I will see in a little over an hour when I take these bad boys out of the oven (they will go in shortly).

Not long after getting the bread started, during the "try to let it rise but the yeast is dead" time, I headed outside to play. I got the compost pile trellis set back up (knocked over by the wind 2 storms ago), I added two rebar posts in opposite corners and tied the trellis to those. I'll find out if my idea works during the next storm.

Hubby was out by then and helped me shovel the dirt from the pile (the scoop obtained when the in-laws where in town) into the newly rototilled plots. Later I was back out and added compost like crazy to one plot, and got it planted with a Habenero pepper (it might be serrano, I mixed the seeds on accident), rosemary, sage, some garlic, and several huckleberry plants. Now, I've got three beds planted, one rototilled and needing compost before planting and a slew of seedlings to still dig beds for.

We also pulled a whole slew of weeds, most were pointy and tall. Our yard is a bit of a jungle after all this rain. The clover has taken over in a few places...

Parts are still quite wet with mud, though our mower should be okay, its not a riding mower.

While pulling weeds, we noticed that some "weeds" are quite pretty. This is the side yard currently:

They are beautiful little white flowers

that seem to flourish in the sun. We decided we will strive to pull the tree-like, ugly weeds (yes, I'm imposing my own view of beauty on my yard) and let the pretty flowers stay... though hubby just went to out to mow the yard. So, bye-bye pretty flowers.

My menagerie of potted plants continues. I suspect those hanging pots aren't big enough for the tomato plants, but I love the idea of having tomatoes hanging from the pergola.

The mint will stay in a pot, though I'm considering putting some under the trees in the back, places where it seems nothing will grow; maybe mint will. Of course, it might just take over the whole yard given a chance. That would make mowing a bit more pleasurable!

Goodness, I can hear the mower struggle at times. It bet its taking 6" off some of those plants. Must go start some dinner for when hubby is done (he's gonna be hungry, he's worked hard today for me!)