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Yard Work

Today/tonight we will attempt to do yard work.

The thing about yard work is it is never-ending. You think you have the upper hand and everything looks great, but then you turn your back for a week (or month) and suddenly the bushes are crazy and not well manicured, the grass has gone to seed, morning glory weeds are taking over the flower beds, long grasses are sprouting on all the edges of the lawn and garden (due to no edger), and the garden has tiny weed sprouts (that appeared seemingly overnight) infesting the onion patch.

Okay, so maybe this is just the state of our current yard. I do have an excuse: being in the last of the last trimester of pregnancy. However, I still feel shame at being the corner house on a busy street and having the yard be in such a state. Especially now that there is a carnival up the street for the next few days and people are parking on our weeds and near our sad yard.

Because I am so pregnant, doing much of this yard work will be difficult if not impossible, even if only because my feet and legs will swell up to twice their size (seriously). I will try my darnedest to get a lot done during the day (with many breaks), but I am hoping that Jamund will put in a good 3 hours tonight....

...which leads me to the real purpose of this post: how do we get men to do yard work? For me, I do yard work out of duty and pride, especially being on a corner of a main street. Men don't seem to have the same sense of duty (at least not Jamund). My solution to get him to work outside: new tools.

When men have new tools to use for just about anything, they tend to do the project: new mop, new computer, new toothbrush, etc. Hey, it even worked for our household with the purchase of a refurbished Dyson! Have I vacuumed in the last month or two? Nope!

My secret hope is that the $25 edger we purchased last night at Lowe's will get Jamund to do his fair share in the yard tonight. We will see! We also purchased a cheap nozzle for the hose so that it will shower/mist/spray/etc. the garden better: yesterday the garden got watered 3 times (usually it's just twice, but the new nozzle inspired the third water).

New tools. That's the key.

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Wheat Bread

Today I decided to make wheat bread from scratch. We just got a case of wheat, and I was anxious to make some delicious homemade bread. I've never ground wheat kernels all by my lonesome, but I was confident in doing so thanks to our lovely... VITA MIX! Seriously, so easy. The whole process (from raw wheat kernels to me eating a piece of bread with honey and butter) took roughly an hour and twenty minutes. Miraculous? Yes. The recipe came from one of the Vita Mix grain cookbooks.

Here are some photos:

Wheat. With some salt.

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Viola! Wheat flour (after about one minute in the Vita Mix! Easiest way to grind wheat into flour!):

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Mixing all ingredients together (in the Vita Mix). You even "knead" the bread in the container:

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Plopping the dough into the bread pan:

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The dough after rising for about 20 minutes:

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The finished bread:

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