Pizza Roast

This was supper - yum!

Adam Bakes

Adam declared today to be his oven-baking day. He started early, heating it up. At its maximum temp, it was about 700 degrees.

He keeps a bucket of water under his oven, and immerses his tools in it regularly so they won't burn when he uses them in the oven.

He finally came up with a door solution.  This is actually a panel door from his tool box.  The handle makes it easy to use (with an oven mitt), and metal holds the heat in the oven, and since it isn't wood, it doesn't burn up like earlier doors.

I'm having a LOT of trouble with the pics on this post! All that to say, that clay owl up there is Julia's of course. When Adam heats up his oven, she digs up some clay and figures out what she wants to make-and-bake. When Adam was ready to empty the fire, wood, and ashes from his oven, he just shoveled them over into the fire pit. I ripped up my tired tomato plants from the patio, and burned them in it.

Adam decided to make two kinds of bread:  country loaf and ciabatta, an Italian bread that is extremely moist as a dough. You see here how sticky it is; it's almost pourable. He puts the loaves on parchment paper for transferring outside to the oven, and places them into the oven on a pizza peel.

I like the decoration on the country loaves. Adam really scrapes and brushes out the floor of the oven so no soot gets into the loaves.  Then he sprays it liberally with water immediately after the bread goes in, to put moisture into the air and create that crispy crust we all love! Yumm!

Julia spent the time playing with Sandy.  Julia can almost speak that dog's language.  She made some little "yip yip" noise, she ran to the monkey bars, Sandy racing after her as fast as she could, and Julia just barely made it up before Sandy got her heels!!

The ciabatta above; all the bread below.

Supper: homemade spaghetti sauce, at Adam's request, to go with the ciabatta.

I love the look of fire. I love watching it sigh and crackle and smolder. But still photos of fire are almost more beautiful than watching it in motion. The tails of flame look like ghosts captured unwittingly on film.

Feeling Very Fallish

Last night, we went to some friends' home for supper, and what should I see there?

This fabric pumpkin is much nicer and fancier than anything I would hope to make, but still, it inspired me to see that somebody else has thought (generally) the same thoughts. Isn't it cute?
My friend loves to decorate, and this is her Halloween mantle. I took this picture with a flash ...

... because this is what it looked like without it! Spoooooky!

Anna wanted to go on a walk in a local park, and it became a family affair. Such a perfect day, with cool air and fall leaves blowing all around us.

This was the most golden tree in the park.

Julia had to investigate this ruined fireplace. I much prefer tromping through leaves and underbrush, than trudging along a beaten path that hundreds of humans have walked today in their usual exercise. I miss beating my way through trees along ridge lines in the West Virginia mountains. Once you get to the ridge line, the walking is lovely!

Some trees are turning; others remain green.

We heard music and voices, and found this little group strumming away.

Tonight, Adam will make pizza in his oven again.  Last week he had great success, and feels he is mastering the problem of the oven door -- how to keep adequate temperature in the oven, when the temperatures themselves seem to destroy all doors.  His 4" solid oak door burnt up. Now he has some other metal thing rigged up.

I haven't turned on the house heat yet. I'm trying to wait as long as possible. We just got rid of those horribly high electric bills from the A/C in the summer, and I don't want their winter counterparts just yet!

The Staff of Life

Today was a bread-making day. The weather was on the cool side, but sunny, and Adam spent almost the whole day outside. We had some friends over this afternoon and they enjoyed the warm bread with honey-butter. Yum. This is only the second time Adam has made loaves in his oven (usually it's pizza).

After he had a hot pizza fire in the oven on Saturday, he checked the oven on Sunday morning, and it was still 200 degrees! He also trimmed the apple trees today.

For those of you wondering about the job situation, we're confident the Lord will work out the right job at the right time. Meanwhile, Adam will pursue any possibilities as aggressively as possible. He's applied to several already online. There are a number of churches in the area looking for pastors. He is rather excited about the possibilities, I think. Please continue to pray. We know that the Lord will provide for us, because He's promised to. We just wonder how He will do it this time. It's always interesting to find out.

The oven door

Hmm. Okay, so for some reason, my pictures are being uploaded here in backwards order. I'll just have to put my thoughts in reverse:
Here is the lovely wood we'll be burning tonight in our firepit. It came from the HUGE, WHOPPING BIG log that Adam has had sitting in the yard for weeks, intending to cut it into his oven door.

And here is the oven door, so far. He split the huge log, got his sections generally square, and planed the door a bit. He's attached it to the oven with these big hinges. Later, he will curve the top of the door, and plane it some more, so it will be more flush. Don't want any of that precious heat to escape!

After the wood splitting.

He was able to get 2 doors out of the log, actually. This is the "spare." He'll keep it until the first one bites the dust. Good, old oak. Each of these door sections weighs about 35-40 lbs., he says.

Meanwhile, at the oven...

Adam worked on his roof again today.

He put flashing all around by the brick, and then the black paper.

Then the roofing shingles. Nothing fancy, but just weatherproof.

All the while, he's keeping his temperature up in the oven - looking' good! We do love fire in the family, don't know why...

Put a table out on the patio today, because Adam is having a bunch of runners from his cross-country team at school over for a run and then pizza. Middle school boys. They will remain outdoors at all times :)

The pizza he made, the fun we had

Although I didn't see it myself, I was told that the flames were shooting up a foot above the top of the chimney - one hot fire!

Girls dislike having their lovely faces seen.

Boys care not at all! That's Peter's friend, Robert.

Need I say more?

They had fun together. We haven't eaten on the patio in quite awhile, waiting for the cool weather.

That hard-workin' man!

Today, Adam wanted to get the roof on his oven. Here he is drilling holes into the masonry, for his boards.


These boards go on next, and once he got these pieces cut and attached, that's as far as he got today. You can also see one of the rafters underneath, that he built.

His mobile workshop :)

I know this looks like he crashed afterward! Actually he took this nap at lunch. After his roofing, he immediately made us all pizza, of course.

The first bread is born!

Four loaves of rye. My oh my.

But Adam says that that oven fire REALLY tires him out. He sacked out pretty early last night. Well, early for him.