[Mike Nolan]

The hummingbirds are here in force now, too many to count, probably well over a dozen visible at times.

Most of them are females, but we've seen at least one male. (The hummingbird migration site says the males arrive later.)

One of the females has decided that a plant my wife has sitting on the table near two of the feeders is a great place to sit and guard those feeders.

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[Mike Nolan]

We had sliders done on the outdoor grill.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tomatoes and salami for supper tonight, I could have picked a very large bowl of them, and will probably have to do so soon, so more tomato processing is coming, maybe Thursday, for sure by Saturday. The Amish Paste tomatoes tend to come in all at once, and they make very good sauce or juice.

[Mike Nolan]

Turned out only one needed reprocessing, the other sounded like it was sealed yesterday evening and it felt sealed, too. I did reprocess the other jar, and it sealed up fine.

I may need to do another batch this coming weekend, probably no more than 3-4 jars this time.

[Mike Nolan]

I made Hamelman's semolina bread today, 1 1/2 loaves went into the freezer for later.

[Mike Nolan]

There was a third quart that I wasn't sure if it was sealed or not, so we've started drinking one quart and I'm going to see if I can reprocess the other two this evening as I don't think we can drink 3 quarts in a few days. Sometimes reprocessing works, sometimes it doesn't. For at least one jar, I don't think the ring was on quite tight enough.

[Mike Nolan]

Maggie says they're leaf gulls, not a major problem, but there sure are a lot of them on that one tree!

[Mike Nolan]

Some kind of bug damage on this maple? (We have someone trimming the trees, he didn't recognize it, but we have an arborist coming out later today, she should know what it is, probably some kind of gull from bugs.)

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[Mike Nolan]

I agree, nice loaves. I decided to wait until tomorrow afternoon to bake, it would have been well after midnight before I could have baked that recipe, because it takes close to 5 hours.

[Mike Nolan]

It may be inaccurate to call it gelling, but Ginsberg says the starches and the proteins bond over time as the cooled bread sets, reducing gumminess. In some cases he recommends waiting up to 4 days before cutting into a loaf. This bonding slows the rate at which the starches go stale, which is why many rye breads remain soft for a week or longer.

[Mike Nolan]

I may go ahead and start the semolina bread tonight, so we've got it for meals tomorrow.

[Mike Nolan]

Some of Ginsberg's recipes have you wrap the loaf (after it cools, I think) in plastic and let it sit 24-48 hours before cutting it. I haven't made one of those yet, I probably won't get back on the rye project until October, starting by building a new rye starter.

Rye bread has a much longer time for the starches to gel, wheat starch gels much faster.

[Mike Nolan]

I wound up with 7 quarts of tomato juice that are in the boiling water now, plus another 2 cups that we'll have tonight. I also wound up with 2 large bags of seeds, tomato peel and a few par-boiled tomatoes that are already in the freezer and will be used for batches of beef stock later this year or next.

The first sample of the juice was excellent. I'd forgotten how good home made tomato juice tastes.

2 of 7 quarts don't appear to have sealed, I must be out of practice with canning procedures.

[Mike Nolan]

We are out of semolina bread, but I'm not sure I've got the energy or time to make it today and do 30 pounds of tomatoes. And tomorrow's calendar is pretty full already.

[Mike Nolan]

It's cooler today, high is supposed to be 80, so I'm getting ready to process tomatoes.

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