Food: GF Bread

‘Falling off the Wagon’, is a phrase that originated in the Temperance Movement, according to Wikipedia.

Meaning falling of the water wagon back into alcoholism. Getting back onto the wagon means getting sober again. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new.

Every so often I fall off my gluten free, dairy free, lowFODMAP and sugar free penny-farthing-bicycle and then I am in pain and discomfort.

Getting back onto my penny-farthing bicycle is a matter of figuring out where the bad stuff has crept in. While one teaspoon of gluten-containing flour in a loaf of bread is not going to cause any problems, a cup of 100% wheat flour will. And I’ve been mixing spelt flour in my baked goods to encourage yeast action.

And having that bread daily. Having anything you’re sensitive to daily, is another no-no for people with a lot of allergies, intolerances and sensitivities.

Having a particular food once every three days usually prevents a build up of the bad chemicals in the body. But sometimes all I want is to be able to eat something without worrying what it will do to my chemistry.

That’s when my penny-farthing slams to the ground and I fall by the wayside.

Which is why I’ve started experimenting with baking my own bread. Commercial gluten free breads tend to have a ‘stampede of ingredients’, and the breads that are any good aren’t always available. The phrase ‘stampede of ingredients’ … so appropriate to food intolrances … comes from the MooGoo people, who make natural skin care products.

Cutting gluten-containing flour from my diet only half-fixed my problem. I came to the conclusion yesterday it has to be a capsule filler causing me grief. I’m now taking 0.9 mg LDN daily, either a (3 x 0.2 + 3 x 0.1) dose equaling 6 capsules, or (4 x 0.2 + 1 x 0.1) equaling 5 capsules.

Meaning, I’m taking a lot of Avicel cellulose filler. And I’ve been reading in a pertinent group that this stuff gives a lot of people grief. They either have their capsules compounded with a different filler and that’s a minefield I don’t want to go into right now, or they throw the contents of their capsules in water. The LDN dissolves and the Avicel is the residue at the bottom of the glass, and then drinking the water.

That’s what I’ll be doing. I still have about one hundred and fifty capsules to work through before I can ask for a different filler. It’s a real “Good Grief, Charley Brown!” situation.

Lunch … couldn’t wait any longer. Wilted greens, avocado, a few olives and the equivalent of approx 2 slices of newly-baked bread. A third of an apple. A jug of hot salted water.

After stopping the bread machine for a minute, I hauled out the bucket and scooped out the equivalent of two slices of bread. Bucket back in to finish the cycle, 28 minutes to go. Going on the texture of the bread, it looks like it will be my most successful loaf yet.

Been Painting…

All paintings are multiple experiments.

A3 size paper … could I sketch my cat and have it come out realistic? Her head is too long, has to be rounder next time

Could I use grainy paint and make that represent fur? sort of.

Could I make her eyes seem to look at the observer? Negative on that so far.

Could I tie the background together using a gesso glaze? Glaze too thick, blotted out the detail. Cat is sitting on a blue couch. Can’t really see that.

The original technique of spray and paint didn’t work all that well, need a better spray/misting bottle.

Other than those points I’m pretty happy with it.

The Fallow

The whole time the emergency was raging outside, nobody did much. I’ve compared times with a few other people on this seems no one had any energy to do much else other than concentrate on the storm raging around us.

Six days ago I took this shot at night, storm clouds gathering

While the whole system moved sluggishly toward the coast it was like I was stultified, couldn’t concentrate on anything other thsn reading eternal weather reports. I did not knit, paint, write, read. Couldn’t settle to anything.

Watched the birds out on the so-called paddock. Crows, pigeons, lots of ducks, magpies, a stone curlew, ibis, plovers, and a couple of white cockatoos.

Pigeons work through the weeds in the foreground in the morning hours. A lot of birds sat companionably in the lee of that pile of rocks.

I watched a tree being pounded to the ground. This kurrajong held out until the second last day, in the constant and blustery east wind. It didn’t stand a chance, growing on the podium in what amounts to a planter, it’s roots wouldn’t have been deep enough for it to take the brunt of the wind.

And I baked bread, having just got a bread machine. The retirement village where I live has a back-up generator which meant we had a power interruption for all of about three seconds until the generator kicked in. Very lucky.

My second loaf. The inside looks somewhat grey, though the bread is very tasty.

Alfred …

Cyclones as we call them here in Australia are shaped very like a galaxy I noticed looking at the Bureau of Meteorological‘s radar … this from earlier in the day

And that shape explains why, in various places maybe 11 kilometres from the coast, all we’ve been having is the effects of the various arms of the spiraliing cyclonic system.

Just a bunch of fairly light rain and wind at first, slowly increasing in strength, up to now at 8 pm, when it’s really raining, not just drizzle blowing in the wind.

Increasing as we go, I’m assuming

Battening the Hatches …

Some of you may know that South East Queensland and Northern NSW are expecting Tropical Cyclone Alfred imminently, a category 2 system at present. Crossing the coast some time this evening.

Some of you reading this are in it with me with horizontal rain on the coast since early this morning. It’s 2.30 pm at mine with a blustery wind and gappy rain resembling buckets of water thrown into the wind every so often.

I thought I was as prepared as I could be but my lovely son just brought me a camping torch lantern, a water bucket with tap, and a small camping stove.

And then he carried all my outdoor furniture and delicate plants inside , all of that stored into the spare room.

Finally, to finish off his visit, he clipped Moggy’s nails.

Spare room …. indoors I have the citrus (a branch broken already) and the velvet leaf kurrajong. Also a maidenhair fern and a bonsai fig.

Balcony left side ….

Balcony right side …

All the plants remaining outside are meant to be whippy and flexible, three figs and a millaa millaa scrambler. We’ll see how they go.

Doors are still open, wind is from the east so glances past my balcony from the left.

Drones Own the Sky?

I remember a few years back when there was a small concern about the effect of drones on birds. That thinking seems to have gone away like it never existed. It seems like it’s full steam ahead everywhere with drones, no concern about the natural world at all.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/news/battlefield-medicos-to-get-drones-support/?utm_source=Cosmos+Master&utm_campaign=669fd4296f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6828fba71f-669fd4296f-181485694&mc_cid=669fd4296f&mc_eid=9b6812d534

Can you believe it? There’s even bird-watching with drones, as well as tree-planting! As a tree-planter with Landcare for twenty years, I have my doubts that a drone can successfully stick a plant or seed in the ground, cover it (its roots) with soil, water it in and come back regularly to check on it. As for birdwatching, by drone, I have yet to be convinced.

This is the most recent study of drones around birds. https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/bird-watching-with-drones-might-want-to-watch-your-distance-study-says/ and its title says it all: Watch your (drone) distance around birds. (Another good newsletter!)

While I haven’t seen any deliveries by drones first-hand, and really have no desire for such, I hear that it is a real thrill to get a parcel delivered by a little robotic airplane.

I hear drones quite often, in parks generally, where people are practicing their new skills flying them. I saw a Youtube video just now of a person explaining all the ways he has to protect his drone from bird attack. His drone, he explained, is his livelihood. Which gives him a right to protect it from birds.

I suppose if termites took over the earth, they’d be just as uncaring of the rest of the natural world as humans are.