Anadama, Flowers, and Farmer's Market

It's 5:30 in the morning. The birds are chirping and the sun's debating about coming out. I love waking up early before the kids do and puttering around the house. I got up about an hour ago and started my Anadama bread for the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge that I mentioned in my last post. I'm waiting for the "sponge" to form before I can do the next step. I also started the "barm" for the next bread. As far as I can tell that's like a sourdough starter. I have to feed it everyday for the next four or five days. Hopefully I won't forget. Not too much work to do in the garden yet. I keep debating about thinning out my mesclun lettuce. It seems like the best part of mesclun is that it's a variety of a bunch of different lettuces. I don't want to thin that away. Maybe I'll thin just a little bit. My tomato plants seem to be struggling. The leaves are getting quite yellowish. It's really worrying me. They looked so beautiful and perfect when they were growing inside. I don't know if it's the cold or too much rain or the squirrels that keep digging around the tomato's roots looking for acorns. The darn things (the squirrels, I mean) are driving me crazy. I'll have to create a long tirade-like post about them another day. They probably won't read it though. Yesterday, I puttered around in the yard anyway. Quite a bit of the grass seed that I planted is coming up. I may try to scatter a bit around this weekend. My two-year-old and I picked some violets that are growing all over the place under the apple tree. While we did, apple blossoms were raining down on us. How romantic is that?! I picked some lilacs, too - just a few because they're really not quite ready. I put them in a vase that I had made in pottery class this winter. How's that for homemade?! I organized my nightstand a bit and executed a badly-needed dusting then put the vase of lilacs on top. Going to bed later was even better than usual. I read my Bread Baker's Apprentice book for a bit while taking in the lovely lilac perfume. What a great way to spend the evening! At 7:00 (depending on the state of my Anadama), I'm planning to visit our local farmer's market for the first time this year. I can't wait! I don't think there will be much available yet, but I'm mostly looking for some herb seedlings. It's always fun to see what there is though, and there's always more than I expect. I'll let you know tomorrow.