Sleepszzzzzz

I am consumed by thoughts of sleep. At this very moment every cell in my body is bone tired. I have slept all night and woken up exhausted. Now that, my dear friends, is a problem. It’s also inefficient, and if “feeling rested” was a key performance indicator for sleep, it would be getting a solid “did not meet expectations” from me.

This is in part connected with my low iron and an example of how I can’t feel any change for taking iron supplements. I can’t wait to get my blood tested again to see if the numbers tell a different story. The other part of the story is that I’ve been trying to change my sleep pattern to become an early riser. It started off great, but rapidly descended into the crazy pants I find myself wearing now.

I want to rise at 5am every day (calm down, it’s possible).

Mornings are an amazing time, especially for rabbit-watching, but that’s by the by. I have found that early mornings are a time that is my own - and I’m speaking from experience because my early rising experiment had some successes in the beginning - to do with as I please. I have the house to myself; words to type on a keyboard; quiet time where nothing needs doing; where no one talks to me; no one needs answering. Plus the day just stretches out and there’s so much time get things done. Hunger kicks in at ‘normal’ times and generally, days that start earlier are better.

But damned if early mornings not the most exclusive clubs for night owls to get in to.

Sure, they say, get up early, they tweet. Those larks and their songs about all the successful kids are doing it before breakfast and 21 days to create a habit and changing your life and getting things done and oh wait, actually, 40 days to a habit and you don’t do yoga? well you can still get up and do something, I suppose.

Okay that’s my tired talking. I’m tired. I’m waking up in time to get up in time to be a morning person but I’m exhausted. I am a walking zombie. On Saturday morning and I got up early because I had to do some work. Yes I know they promised the new Content Management System would be able to schedule content to go live so I wouldn’t have to do this anymore but you know how the best project promises go after the software is launched. So I had to get up early on a Saturday and publish content manually which isn’t the hardship I’m making it out to be because I actually love publishing content to the internet as much as I love feeding my rabbits.

And I got up for a while to do my work but then I lay down because The Tired.

It’s not even a sleepy tired it’s a “Oh god aren’t we there yet” tired; a “I can’t even lift my arms to spoon breakfast into my mouth” tired. I suspect is tied to the low iron count. And so I slept, for another three hours, and woke up exhausted.

(this post doesn’t have an ending - but it does have sequels)

Sunday Bunday

Look at those little paws - Abbey doesn’t need a group hug during thunder and lightning
Our storm didn’t last long, but it was pretty dramatic for the animals of the household. The thunder clap was one of the loudest I’ve ever heard, and the bolt of lightning hit somewhere closeby in the neighbourhood. The rain came down very suddenly and hard, but didn’t last long.
Some bunnies need the safety of a group hug when the heavens are thundering
After the first thunder clap I went out to check the bunnies. I could hear residual thunder rolling around the sky, and found these four snuggled up together, safe in their hutch.
This is unusual. Often the bunnies snuggle in their bonded pairs. Occasionally I’ll find three bunnies snuggling if Charlie is one of the bunnies, but I’ve never seen four of them together. Richie (the big grey Flemish Giant) doesn’t even *live* in this hutch. He left his partner Abbey on her own and sort the comfort in the girls’ hutch.
He seems to be enjoying the attention, getting a soothing groom to help ease his worries away.
Mr Richie gets some extra, special attention from the girls
Snowflake thinks that maybe now the thunder has finished, she might get back to trying to dig her way off the property
Snowflake wanted to get out of the hutch as soon as the weather had calmed down. She’s the last of the rabbits to be desexed - that is, she hasn’t had her op yet - so she’s still a full blooded bunnie who likes to do things like dig under the fence and go wandering around the street. Thank goodness our neighbours are kind enough to bring her back when she goes on her tiki tours. Look at that face: you can just tell she’s a troublemaker.
Lady’s glad the storm has passed and goes back to staying out of trouble
Lady is a quiet bunny. She likes a nose rub from me but mostly she prefers Richie’s company or snuggling with Bella, who used to bully her a lot but now they’re friendly. She’s such a sweet girl, but Abbey still chases her around the back garden with a decent amount of aggression. I guess her relationship with Richie isn’t quite as *open* as Richie’d have us believe.

Richie goes bacy to being cool, calm, and collected

Scrumptious scones

Scones are a fantastic weekend treat. Now I have the hang of them, they’re relatively easy (if a little messy) to make and wonderful to butter and scoff with a cup of tea. Scones are a super idea if you’ve been out in the garden working hard herding your rabbits or for when you’ve slept late and get up to whip up as part of your marvellously home made brunch.

This batch of scones was made from an Allyson Gofton recipe with a few tweaks from the streets - like adding a couple of tablespoons of milk powder to add to their creamy tenderness.

First of all, I always feel more confident about my scones if I make them using buttermilk. I feel as if the buttermilk lends a lightness to the dough because of the ‘activity’ in the milk. Buttermilk can be found in supermarkets, but if you’re like me, it’s not a staple ingredient in the refrigerator. I make fake buttermilk by adding a little lemon juice to my milk and letting it stand for a while until it loses its silky ‘feng shui’ and gets all jiggly in the jug.

Big, big secret to making tender scones is to only handle the dough enough to mix the ingredients. Scone mix hates heat (until it’s in the oven) so cold hands and cold butter and bare minimum mixing is the key. Don’t even roll the dough out, that’s too much stress for it. Press it out with your cold fingers. Don’t worry about it being pretty - due to the wetness and stickiness of the dough, it won’t be - but it all comes together in the end.

Normally I chop my dough into rough squares but this time I used a round cutter and really enjoyed the result. With a round cutter you can ensure uniformity with your scones. I thought while I was using the largest circle cutter I own to form these scones, that using a small cutter would be great if you wanted to make scones for a large number of people, so they could just pop those fluffy scones into their mouths while holding their cups of tea.

Anyway, check out the associated links below. The featured cooks have super great hints and tips on getting a good result. Start with a basic scone recipe and give it a go. Don’t be discouraged if your first attempts turn out like rocks - mine were like small weapons of minor destruction. As simple as this recipe appears (and it is simple once you get the hang of them) they do take some skill - but you can be like me and totally acquire that skill with a bit of practice. 

Check out Annabelle White’s energetic, step by step video (below) guide to making scones. Her techniques are spot on and well worth following. 

Associated links: