Bread and circuses

Jack Deatherage

(3/2024) The DW ponders the label on the bag of bread I'm about to dump on the librarians -brave souls, volunteering to be critics of the bread I'm thinking of selling at the farmers market come June.

"You're starting a food business?" She points to the mandatory line Maryland Cottage Food Laws require be on every label of face stuffing goods sold at farmers markets or gifted to friends, neighbors, family, blah blah blah, made in a home kitchen.

I ponder the line- "Made by a cottage food business that is not subject to Maryland's food safety regulations."

"Eh-hem." I reread that line. "Okay. Umm... I'll just give the bread away."

"I knew it." I hear the DW, the Oklahoma Homesteader and the Mad One hiss in unison. The latter two are only present in spirit- I thank the gods for that small favor!

"I thought the plan was to sell bread and cookies at the farmers market to raise money for the community garden?" The DW sits down at her computer and pulls up some YouTube channel about British plumbers unclogging sewer lines. That seems to be one of her go-tos when I'm being more of myself than she can stand.

Deciding to adopt a senile old fool persona and dazedly wondering off to some other room, I begin contemplating circuses- in relation to the breads I build.

Wikipedia- "A circus [may] include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists and unicyclists as well as other object manipulators and stunt-oriented artists."

Anyone unfortunate enough to see me create a loaf of bread might think I'm a one macaque circus as I bumble about the kitchen juggling bowls, measuring cups and spoons, spilling and cleaning, singing and cursing, yowling and dancing after burning myself on a 500 degree oven stone. Watching me nod off while waiting on a dough to proof isn't very entertaining unless I'm doing a series of stretches and folds- the dough gets that treatment, not me. The DW chuckles every time I manage to drift off to sleep just seconds before the timer "beep beep beeps" -if I remember to set it! I startle awake with a "Yes dear!" I go stumbling and cursing the heartless harpy someone sold me- claiming it was a kitchen timer.

Between fits of giggling the DW asks, "How much does this latest batch of dough cost us?"

"Umm... uhh..."

"How much?" Balor lurks. I wonder if I can get her to channel that monster's heat into the oven- 'cause she isn't going to like my response and saving a few bucks on the electric bill...

"I'm working with a sourdough culture so nothing for yeast. Umm... A buck and a quarter for flour and (mumble mumble) for the cheese and bacon. The heavy whipping cream was (mumble mumble)."

"Jack!"

"Yes dear!" As I beat out the Balor flames consuming my beard. I don't dare even think of calling the DW a heartless harpy! "Five dollars for the cheese, ten for the bacon, and the cream was like four dollars. Not that all the bacon and cream went into one batch of bread." I hurriedly add. Not that it matters.

For a few seconds the DW stares at me, her "good" eye jittering madly. She sighs. "No wonder the librarians put up with you if you're giving them bread like that all the time."

"Not all the time." I attempt to defend myself. "Sometimes I give them cookie experiments." Crap! There goes the rest of the beard! Fortunately the beard grows back as quickly as weeds grow in the garden.

Yeah, the garden is also a circus.

Thanks to a December order for two metal garden beds getting lost in the ether I managed to acquire four beds to rebuild the large flowerbed paralleling the sidewalk along Cedar Avenue. The DW wanted to place two metal beds there and plant annual flowers in the ground between the metal beds. After we'd argued for a few days she finally agreed to a third metal bed and four it now is. We're both trying to figure out why I'm not a heap of ashes between the shipping boxes.

I wanted four round beds for the library's use, but two of those were what got lost in December. Since then, two 100-gallon stock tanks were gifted to the community garden. I figure we might as well empty the two 150-gallon tanks we have and move all four stock tanks to the library's section.

Brian wanted to get all fancy and design the library's section artistically. I hope he can come up with something using the metal beds and tanks. I'm thinking we can bolt wire cattle panels to the 150-gallon tanks to form arches the library kidlets can grow vining flowers, small fruits and beans on. Should we ever acquire the round metals beds I originally wanted we can easily (ha ha ha) empty the stock tanks and move them to the old people's section of the garden where I wouldn't have to hurt myself tending to whatever we plant in them.

Water will be an issue as usual. First Sister is leaving the South after living there for well past a decade. She wants to garden and has offered to purchase two more 150-gallon stock tanks to collect roof run off. She also plans on helping in the garden, which is good 'cause I'm not sure the DW can handle a doubling of the garden footage with just my help. While I collected and carried waste water from home to garden, drove the T-posts, ran the wire and strings, placed and filled the compost bins, pushed the mower and played with the string trimmer, the DW did all the hard work- seeding and weeding. We split the watering.

I figure about a thousand square feet of garden was built last Spring. After Brian's hours of rototilling, the Emmitsburg Walking Group's hours of assembling and filling the raised beds, the hours the library's kidlets sowed and planted, the DW and I only averaged an hour a day tending the garden. We actually had to turn away offers of help last year because there really wasn't much to do besides water and weed. And beg visitors to help themselves to whatever we had ready for the tasting!

Two people have asked for garden plots this year and the librarians are planning an expansion of their use of the garden. Two people have purchased raised beds for the garden which frees cash from our household budget to purchase soil out of pocket rather than asking the town to buy it for us, as we had to last year. Brian was correct when he told me people wanting to help would come to the garden if we built it.

As the Cedar Ave Community Garden moves toward self-sustainability, Brian and I are turning our minds, more Brian's mind than mine, toward an even larger, grander project- years in the offing most likely. However, we're more confident about tackling a much larger project now that the community garden is a thing!