316. My 40th Birthday Q&A: Sourdough, Motherhood & Homemaking Rhythms

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CUI more than 3 million families have chosen K-12. Find a K-12 powered school near you today. Enrollment portals are now open. Go to k-12.com slash farmhouse to learn more. That's the letter K, the number 12.com slash farmhouse. K-12.com slash farmhouse. I went in knowing nothing. I don't know if I'd ever changed a diaper until it was my own newborn. You still figure it out and it's okay and it's all part of a learning and growing experience. There are a lot of things that you can't learn until you do it. You could gather all the information but the hands-on is what is going to actually give you the insight into how it actually operates. Motherhood is going to be a learning-on-the-job situation. I think it's good to read books to know what to expect but I think that there's really only so much information that you should worry about gathering beforehand. My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business courses and YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes in the description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today, I am going to be doing another Q&A episode. So this is where I dive into the questions that you all have asked over on our little Google sheet that we have. If you want to ask a question, you can do so at bit.ly forward slash capital S, capital F, capital L, lowercase questions. We'll also leave that linked down below. So I haven't even looked at the questions yet for today. Just usually answering questions pertaining to motherhood, cooking, sourdough, house building, newborns, whatever it is that you want to chat about. Typically the reason that the few of those that I just mentioned come up is because they're things that I'm currently going through. So we are currently in the process of building our farmhouse. We're trying to do a new old farmhouse. If you've been following along with that whole process, it's coming along, but I'm sure I'll be talking about that today. I also had a newborn baby in September. So that is very fresh on my mind, all things pertaining to newborn. And I just turned 40 years old. So I have like a lot of perspective from a lot of different areas. My oldest child is turning 17 in December. So we have ages 17 down to newborn, lots of little children in between. So plenty to chat about over the weekend. My husband surprised me with, and so this is coming out in a few weeks, but today is actually right now as I'm recording this, my 40th birthday. And my husband knew that he couldn't plan something surprise right in the middle of the week, because we have a lot going on during the week. And also I have a calendar where I book things like podcast interviews. And I only have a few days of the week that I do that, but that would have overlapped with the trip. And if he would have said, Hey, you know, don't book a podcast this certain day, that wouldn't have worked out. So I'm back in my office, but over the weekend, he took me to New York City, which a lot of you were like, New York City, why? I don't ever want to live in New York City when I go, we go for two days, three at the most, and I see the sites, I see the architecture. I love walking around and exploring, having great food, great coffee, but I'm always very happy to come back to the farm. So I don't love cities in that I would love to stay in cities, but they are super fun to explore. And Luke had never been to New York City at all in his entire life. And so I wanted to experience it with him. And I know I've mentioned that to him. And so he planned a trip for my 40th birthday. It was super fun. We stayed very high in a hotel. And I think we were on the 41st floor. So we had a really great view of the city and just looking at all the different buildings. I was telling you before we went, you're going to be shocked at how tall they are. Like you think you can kind of imagine how tall they are, but then when you're standing and looking up, you're like, that is just incredibly more taller than I ever expected it to be. But we had so much fun together. It was just the two of us and of course Miriam because Miriam goes with us everywhere at this point. But that is okay, because when you have nine children, a newborn is basically like you're going alone. She was in my wrap the entire time. There was a few times where she wanted to be out and look around, but we had amazing weather. It was perfectly warm. I did even wear my sweater most of the time. So I could just get her out of my wrap, face her forward, let her look at the sights and the sounds and the smells and all the things. And so she was great. She did very well. And because she's a newborn, I was able to travel very light. I didn't have to bring a pack and play. I didn't even have to bring a car seat because we did the public transportation. So we just went straight from the airplane to the hotel, walked around, rode the subway, no other forms of transportation, and then went back to the airport. So just very light traveling. Didn't have to bring any gear. When we walked throughout the city, Luke had a backpack. So he kept like a couple diapers, you know, a few things that we needed. But other than that, we felt very free. We hadn't left in a while, just the two of us. So it was very fun. I feel blessed that we were able to do that. My mom kept four of the kids, Luke's mom and dad kept four of the kids. And they all had a great time. And we had a great time. So now back to all of the house building stuff. Right now we're in a bit of a lull with the house build because we are still waiting on those casement windows. By the time this episode comes out, we should have them. And once we have them, we can march forward with all the things because the exterior is finished, it's sited. The interior has all of the electrical work. We just need to get those casement windows in so that we can start doing insulation, drywall, we're doing a lot of bead board and paneling and things like that. So as soon as those windows come in, as all systems go, but right now, because the temperatures are freezing outside, Luke can't paint with linseed oil paint anymore. You're really not supposed to paint below freezing because it takes several days to dry. And so until he can start doing insulation, there's just like a week or two break where everything just kind of stopped because the electrician was working on getting all the electrical in. But then once he finished that, really, we are just simply waiting on those windows. But luckily, that timeframe was only a couple weeks. It wasn't like we had to wait months. Really, everything kept moving all the way until about a two week period of time that we are currently in, which means that Luke's doing a lot of cleanup out there. He did a lot of prepping for winter, like making sure nothing was going to freeze that needed to not freeze. And then we'll be getting right back into it, finishing up the interior, which I say that lightly, like it's just no big deal. But that'll involve working on insulation, then the walls, then the painting, then the flooring, then the cabinetry, the trim, the finishes, the doors, all of that good stuff. I cannot wait. I'm so excited. I'm so excited about the windows. It's like a kid on Christmas morning is how I'm looking forward to those windows. I'm just so ready to be out at the farm. And that is the thing right now that's stopping us from moving forward. I still hope that we're in the house by about February. I could be being a little bit overly optimistic. But I've been saying February for a while. I originally said Christmas when I realized that wasn't going to work. I said February, but now I'm hoping that that's not optimistic. We're really looking forward to it. Okay, let's dive into a few of the questions. Were your daughters at your birth with Miriam? If not, would you be open to having them there? So I would not be opposed to that. However, they never really showed any interest in that. Plus the way Miriam's birth worked out. If you listen to her birth story, it really surprised all of us when she came to the point where the midwife didn't even make it. But we were home. It was a really warm, lovely day. And I was having prodromal labor, but I'd already been having that for a couple of days. So I didn't, I mean, I thought, I wouldn't say I didn't think anything of it. I definitely thought something of it because I knew that I was due with the baby. So at any time I was going to be having the baby, but I wasn't sure when. And that day I was still having regular contractions, but they were 30 minutes apart. So it could be one hour from now. It could be 24 hours from now. I'd been up for like three or four nights with those prodromal contractions. Probably, probably really that's not true. Probably like two or three nights. So I was very tired. And so I told my daughters I was going to go take a nap. I asked them to take the little boys on a walk. So I ended up having the baby while they were on that walk. But I had, I mean, I did not expect to have the baby when I did. That's why I didn't call the midwife in time. So even if we had planned for them to be in the room when I had the baby, which we really hadn't, but if we had, it still wouldn't have worked out because it caught me off guard. And they were out on a walk and wouldn't have been able to get back in time, because they didn't even, I don't know if she even brought her phone. My daughter has a Gab phone. I'm going to even know if she brought it with her. So we wouldn't have been able to get them back in time. Once I realized it was time, it was just too late. And so I think even if we'd planned on it, but I think that with teaching my daughters about birth, you know, they'll likely be mothers one day. The thing that they have witnessed with birth is that it's normal, it's natural, even if they didn't actually see it, they know how we talk about birth. They know kind of the whole process of it because they're there, you know, in the mix. Like they were here, they saw me, they saw what, you know, what the state of the labor was because I was with them all day. And then when they came back from their walk, there was a newborn. So they're very involved with it. They didn't actually see the actual birth. Hi, Lisa. I'm a homeschooling mom of five. One thing I really admire that it seems that you're pretty natural at is how you've guided your kids into following their own interests and improving skills that they are interested in. I think you've mentioned that many of them so cook, do woodworking, et cetera, in the afternoons after school time. I wonder if a lot of that is just natural for your family since you have that entrepreneurial background or if you've done specific things to foster that. Besides getting the materials for them when they're interested. I'm curious what kind of wording you use around it, or if you have to encourage them or give them ideas or just in general, how you've created an atmosphere, everyone working on projects and improving certain skills. I feel like my kids have the time for that, but they'd rather just read all afternoon, which I love, but I would also love to use their time wisely while they're at home and they have a good amount of it. I'm thinking, you're probably fostering this naturally without even realizing it, but if you could think of anything that you'd suggest or any helpful tips, I'd really appreciate it. Also as a second question, do you worry about them getting enough time outside or reading, et cetera, or just let them decide how to spend their free time? It's easy to stress about making sure they're outside enough. Okay, so for the first question, I really do think that it can be personality related on how driven they are to have an interest and then pursue it. So I do have some children who that's been very, very natural with who I don't even know if I would have had to do a single thing and they would have pursued their interests. And then I have some where I'm trying to brainstorm for them. What would you be good at? Because I would like you to start doing this. Now, the ones that I'm saying that about they're younger, so maybe it's just, you know, I think, I think I forget that they were older when they started to figure this out. So also, if your kids are all like 10 and under, it just might be that they're not that age yet. Because thinking back, I'm like, actually, I feel like this starts happening around like 12, 13, when they start to interact with what they are interested in a very tangible way, like something, it can actually produce something that isn't just, you know, like my older daughter, when she was eight and nine, she was sewing things. However, she couldn't have worn them out. Like they were very much sewn by an eight year old and a nine year old, whereas now, at almost 17 years old, she makes things that, you know, she could definitely wear things that are very professional and well done. And that's been a process of like nearly a decade. I think that really this does happen pretty naturally when you're given a lot of time. But I think it's also okay if they are the intellectual type who love to read, because I don't really have, I have some that do choose to read, but not to the level that some kids will read. And I think that is just a difference in personality. And I also think that that could be the thing that they love. And that could give them a lot of opportunities in life as well. So that could just be the interest. Now, for like the child that I feel like I need, I have a child right now who I'm like, I want to figure out something that would work for him to pursue because I don't feel like he's coming up with it as easily on his own. But I've suggested a few things and he seems very excited about them. And now I have to figure out like how to facilitate that. Some of it's because I feel like it'll be better facilitated on the farm when we move. So we haven't like we've only just had the discussion about it yet. But I don't know, I think it's somewhat could come naturally. It could come you helping them to brainstorm some things like based on what you see of them, like what you think they'd be good at, maybe sort of suggesting it, seeing if it lands and seeing if you could get them excited enough to want to pursue it themselves. I don't think every child will do that. But I'd be curious to hear from other moms with large families and see how that's how that has shaped up for them. But the three oldest have definitely been able to figure it out pretty easily on their own. And I think it really does just come to being older and having lots of time and having the resources, it could also be some personality driven aspects as well. Okay, hi, Lisa. I'm a longtime listener took your blogging course four years ago and I've been slowly building my blogs since then. Thanks for all you do to help support moms trying to build a business from home. I've heard you mentioned lately that you have almost exclusively switched to using stretch and fold method with all your sourdough creations. How does that work for your bagel recipes? Do you put in the same amount of flour or are you making a higher hydration recipe these days? I've had great sourdough bread system with stretch and folds, but I've recently gotten into making your bagels and they'll seem they seem to require kneading. I'd love tips on how to convert a bagel recipe to stretch and folds rather than kneading. So I do stretch and folds for everything. My KitchenAid mixer did officially bite the dust. So I don't have a mixer, even if I wanted one. I know I could just get it fixed or get a different one, but I haven't done that yet. And so I've been living without a mixer for many, many months now. And so yes, I do make bagels without using a mixer. They really don't require kneading, but it is difficult to bring the flour and the water together because of how low the hydration is. I don't increase the water. What I do is instead of stretching and folding because bagel dough doesn't really stretch and fold, I revisit the dough almost in the same way you would if it was a stretch and fold. So I mix it all up. There's a lot of flour sitting at the bottom because it doesn't all go in right away. Walk away for like 30 minutes an hour. And when you come back, when you would have done a stretch and fold for another dough, I just incorporate more flour in because for whatever reason after it sits a while, it will soak up more. It'll become, it'll just look like it can, like it can handle soaking up more at that point. It looks wetter after that. And then I do that like every 30 minutes or so until it's all incorporated in and it works great. So just give it time, revisit it, like it's a stretch and fold, but you really won't be stretching and folding it because of how low the hydration is. But it does work great. I do no longer believe that you need a mixer for any sourdough thing. I make everything with stretch and folds now. I'm looking for more information regarding raw milk, such as how long it will last in the fridge and how much is needed to have enough cream to make butter and other things. I have found a local farmer that I can obtain the raw milk from. I would really like to make my own butter, heavy cream and yogurt, but I'm not sure if my husband and I will drink a whole gallon of milk per week and I don't want to go to waste. Also don't know if only one gallon would give me enough cream to make anything with, can I save the cream in the freezer or will it have the same consistency? So the thing about making butter with raw milk is that you need so much cream. I have never been able to make butter unless I've been milking my own cow and I'm getting like an excessive amount. Also, if we don't calf share and the cow will let down more cream and you have a high cream breed, like a Jersey, and there's a lot more cream on it, like more than just a couple inches, which is what I get from the farmer that I'm getting milk from currently, milk's Holstein, which is a very low cream animal. I don't know if she calf shares or not, but I can tell you that there's not much cream. I would never be able to make butter even though we get seven gallons a week. You just need a ridiculous amount of cream to make butter and it will probably frustrate you as well that there's a lot of butter milk when it comes to making butter. So when you skim off all of that valuable cream that's going to make your milk so delicious or you could have used it for your coffee or for whipped cream, for us, cream is like at a premium. If you were to take that, skim it off, then make it into butter. You're going to end up with like this much butter and then like a whole bunch of butter milk and so it really won't feel worth it to you. So yes, you're going to need way more than a gallon if you're going to also be making butter and you probably still won't have enough cream just to be perfectly honest with you. So like right now, I'm not making my own butter because I'm getting milk from a farmer. There's not enough cream even by a long shot. Like I still buy additional organic cream from the store because I still want more cream just for like basic cream things like whipping cream, coffee, lattes, things like that. And so even at getting seven gallons a week, that's still not going to be enough. Yeah. Now I do make yogurt because yogurt isn't something that requires cream. So if you were to get like a gallon and a half of milk per week, make a half gallon into yogurt, that would be a perfect application for that. So I make about a gallon of yogurt, I'd say every two weeks, we don't we're not currently going through a ton of yogurt. We're just not in the habit of it right now, but I did make a gallon just today. And it works great because you don't have to rely on it having a lot of cream, you can strain off some way to make it thicker. But what was your other question? How long will it last in the fridge? I think about a week. Now you can drink it a lot longer than that, but I like the taste at about a week. After that, I like to make it into kefir or yogurt. I really don't like it fresh. But you can always use yogurt or kefir to extend the life of it. So if you get a gallon and a half, realize, oh, we're not going to go through this, just make it into yogurt. Then it'll last a whole lot longer after that. I'm interested in possibly getting a grain mill, but I don't know if we would like the taste of freshly milled flour goods and don't want to spend money on a mill if we won't use it. Do you have any suggestions for ways to try to use freshly milled goods, whether buying them or making them ourselves before investing in a mill? I don't know of any ways to purchase freshly milled flour. There's nobody around here that would do that because you'd have to have somebody who would do it that day and then for you to have it. Maybe you could find a friend or someone from church who has a flour mill. That'd be the only way that you could do it. I wouldn't think you could actually purchase it, but I really want to encourage you that one, you can find one on Facebook Marketplace or see if there's somebody who's getting rid of one who thought they'd use it, who doesn't. Also, and didn't, also there are a lot cheaper grain mills than the one that I have that work great. I did a video recently where I was sharing like budget friendly meal options and I have a very, very nice mock mill that I'm blessed that I was able to purchase that. I had a commenter say, we can't all afford a $600 grain mill. That's okay. You do not have to have the same grain mill to make the baked goods. I got one very inexpensive when I first started milling grains. It started my family very well for so many years and it wasn't super aesthetic. It didn't sit on my kitchen countertops, but it worked excellently. I think one thing we forget to, and I know this is not your question at all, but I'm going on a tangent, is with someone like me whose literal job is to make recipes, to share them. I have to photograph my house and my bread and film making it and all of that. For me, it's an investment to buy something like a bamboo grain mill that easily is accessible on my countertop at all times. But when I first started making freshly milled bread about 15 years ago, I didn't mind having the neutral mill. It wasn't as aesthetic, but it definitely worked great. I would encourage you, one, that you're going to like the taste of the freshly milled grains. You just are. If you like bread, you're going to like it. If you don't like it at first, you just probably have to keep practicing making it because it probably won't be great at first because it'll take some adaptations. It'll take some adjustments when it comes to you all even enjoying them. At first, it might not taste like what everybody in your family is used to, and so you might not like it, but over time, you really will get used to it, and you can learn how to improve your skills so that they're nice and light and fluffy. It won't be the same, so don't expect it to taste the same, but I think that over time, you'll come to appreciate Miriam, you're being too loud. I think over time, you'll come to appreciate the taste and the texture and the nutritional benefits. I think every kitchen needs a grain mill. I really, truly do. I think that that is a very important tool. Okay, hi, Lisa. I feel like I'm drowning in laundry lately, mostly because of all the stains I have to pretreat. I know you've always had your laundry routine under control, so I wanted to ask how you handle stains. I've got a toddler and a five-year-old, but my toddler especially gets stains on everything and it takes me forever to deal with them all. Do you have any tips or tricks or products you swear by? Do you pretreat everything or just toss it all in? I'd love to know your routine. I only pretreat stains. I very rarely do. We do a lot of dark clothing, so that way, and here Miriam's wearing this, my daughter just changed her into this light pink shirt, but normally, for most of my children, and she of course isn't like down getting dirty, so that's fine. We do a lot of dark clothing. I'd very rarely buy something that is going to show stains because, yeah, I don't have time to deal with all that. If there's a stain on something that I'm really wanting to keep for a good long while, keep it really nice. If it's light color, I think the stain's going to show. I will hit it with some OxyClean. A few of my sisters swear by PuraCy. I should probably get some. I've never really gotten into it, but OxyClean works fabulously, but it's not something that takes me a lot of time because it's really probably rare that I have something that I need to pretreat. I do. I buy dark clothing specifically for that reason, so we don't have to deal with it. Hi, Lisa. I'm 35 years old and have felt too afraid to have children despite being married for 15 years. Our lives have just been very unstable and chaotic until recently. In the next year, I hope to become pregnant. I know you have a lot of experience in this area. What resources would you suggest? I have no idea of the practicalities of taking care of a child. I've read so many books. Ina May, The Bradley Method, Hunt, Gather, Parent, et cetera. But I was wondering if you could perhaps do a podcast or video series showing how to take care of a baby, what products to use, newborn essentials, best books. I've never taken care of a baby and I do not have any in my life to practice with. This is an area where I think you could really distill down a lot of information, overload, and conflicting approaches. I love all your sourdough and building design videos and I think you'd be a great person to teach the topic for those of us who never had any exposure to babies or children growing up. Okay, so I truly feel sorry for new moms today because there is so, so, so much information and like you said, it's conflicting, it's overwhelming. My youngest sister tells me about this because, see, I am already very set in my ways. Like I've just figured out my way that I do things and I'm not super vulnerable when it comes to the amount of information overload because I can mostly tune it out just due to experience. With that being said, I did not come into motherhood with experience. Now, I do have three younger sisters, so you might say, well, you do because you had little sisters. But I also had a younger sister who is just two years younger than me who really has always been a very natural person when it comes to babies. Like any family event, she was grabbing the little cousins from my aunts and carrying them around. She was always babysitting. She just was one of those who knew she'd have kids, wanted a lot of kids, obsessed with babies from pretty much the moment she could recognize what a baby was. I was not like that. And so, when I had my youngest two sisters, mostly the one who cared for them if there was need for a babysitter would be my sister who is just below me, not me. So when I came into motherhood, I kind of have like, I have a lot of confidence and so I wasn't thinking like, oh no, do I know anything? I just figured I would know how to do it, but I was wrong. It was like very hard, like a lot harder than I expected. I didn't know like what a child demanded all throughout every hour of the day in the night. But with that being said, I went in knowing nothing. I don't know if I'd ever changed a diaper until it was my own newborn. You still figure it out and it's okay and it's all part of a learning and growing experience and so many things in life, you really can't learn and I'm not saying that children are this way, but there are a lot of things that you can't learn until you do it. You could gather all the information, but the hands on is what is going to actually give you the insight into how it actually operates. So I would encourage you that you almost just have to, I think motherhood is going to be a learning on the job situation, like so many other things. I think it's good to read books to know what to expect, but I think that there's really only so much information that you should worry about gathering beforehand because a lot of the things you mentioned are very insignificant and aren't going to make a huge difference in the well-being of your child long-term. Like which diapers you use, not a big deal. Neborn essentials, I think you'll find out what you're going to use, but almost somebody can't necessarily even tell you that because I have what I consider essentials, but then I know some moms who are like, oh, you absolutely have to have this thing and I'm like, well, it's never been a problem for me, but then I have things that I'm like, how could you ever mother without XYZ? Like how could you get, how could you like get anything done with a newborn if you don't have like in my case, like the number one only baby essential you have to have is a good baby wrap, but some moms don't even use baby wraps at all and they're fine. They are able to get through motherhood and even enjoy it. So I think that there's really only so much one could say without you just almost figuring it out for your family and your life. So, you know, I've done, I've done things like that. Like I've shared my baby essentials. I've shared what books I'm reading, how I prep for birth and the way that I do birth, but there are plenty of people who do birth very differently from me and they still have a healthy baby on the other side of it. There are people who use different products who just do sleep different. That's a huge thing and I know great mothers of large families who do sleep this way and I do it like completely opposite on the other side of it. And once they're a certain age, it doesn't matter. Like you cannot tell the difference between those kids. And so I think that in a lot of ways, it's like you need less information probably, not more. I think this day and age, man, the amount of information is just crazy overwhelming, especially when it comes to having kids because you know, you want to do a good job. You don't want to mess the children up. And so we get in this cycle of gathering so much information and then like the best years of our fertility are just gone. And I would encourage you if you feel like you're, you know, you and your husband want to have a child, I would just say go for it. Okay, again, I have, there's lots of questions that I'm not really qualified to answer. So I'll put that caveat. But you did say in this question, what would you do? So I guess I'm qualified to say what I would do. Okay, so what would you do if your doctor told you it's in your best interest to cut out dairy and gluten out of your diet? My functional med doctor just told me this, I'm having a hard time with the news, I do mostly raw milk and freshly milked flour too. So this question needs so much more information. I need to know what your symptoms are. Like are you like, do you have like two months to live type of thing? Because then I would say do whatever your doctor said. Or do you sometimes experience like a little bit of bloat and like a couple cramps and it's mostly totally tolerable. That would be the questions I'd ask because but you went to a functional medicine doctor. So I'm sure you were having some kind of symptoms. Because for me, like, if I have small symptoms that don't really alter my life all that much, like if everyone's small, I'll eat a certain thing and maybe I notice a slight like cramp or a little bit of bloating. I would just ignore that. But that again, this is just me because I don't want to have someone tell me I can't eat whole grains and raw milk. So that all just really depends on how serious your symptoms are. If it was me right now with the symptoms I have, which I don't really have any symptoms, but you know, I'm sure there are times when I could feel like better, like probably slightly better than I do right now. I tend to have a lot of energy. I well, here's the thing. I have noticed that every time anybody I know goes to a functional medicine doctor, they come away with being told they can't have something typically gluten, typically dairy. And they really don't know. I do know people who have stronger sensitivities who would actually really help them a ton. But I know also some people who have like very slight symptoms who go just to like get things checked out. And then now they're off of everything that they were eating from before. I would not be willing to take drastic steps if the symptoms weren't pretty, not I don't want to say severe because I wouldn't, I would do it sooner than severe, but it would take more for me than just like a checkup. Like I just want to see like I want to go and see what I'm low in, see what I'm sensitive to. You didn't say that that was your case. But I know people who do things like that. Like I'm just going to go to the function or medicine doctor, even though I have really nothing wrong with me, just to see what they say and kind of see where I'm at, check my levels for everything. I would never do that because I know if I did that, I would walk away being told I couldn't have things that I know I can live a healthy lifestyle with just because just just from empirical evidence, like just from observing my life. And that sounds really dismissive. But that's why I clarified that by saying, I want to know what your symptoms are first, but it would take a lot to convince me, I guess. All right, I'm going to take one more. Hi, Lisa. When using freshly milled flour to bake bread, I know you mix it with all purpose to get a better rise in texture. Have you ever considered using vital wheat, gluten, and or potato flakes with freshly milled flour? I've read online, these can improve the rise and the softness of a 100% freshly milled flour loaf, but I don't see using them often in your breadmaking. Curious to know your thoughts on this if you've ever tried. If not, why not? Honestly, I just have never really thought about it. I'd maybe consider it. I think for me, I already have access to all purpose flour and I have my system that works really, really well. And so it's just not been something I felt the need for. So what my current bread system is, and this changes nonstop because it changes on the seasons based on how much my bread's going to rise. So right now, the bread that I'm making basically every single day I just made some this morning is sometime throughout the day because it's so cool in our kitchen right now, it can rise for a really long time. I will mix up 650 grams of hard white wheat, berries freshly milled, 300 grams of all purpose flour, 650 grams of water, 20 grams of salt, and then I just pour in some starter. I do stretch and folds throughout the day and then I let that go all the way until the morning. It can go about 24 hours right now, up to 24, down to, you know, I'll do it before bed and it can be 12. If I really want it to rise a bit faster, I might move into a warmer location because in our house the kitchen's quite a bit warmer. But the key thing to know is that it can go a really long time on that first ferment because the house is cool. And then because it's already taken that long of time, in the morning, I divide it, shape it, put it into banditins, put it on top of my oven and then preheat the oven for the bread. And when it sits on top of the oven that's preheating at 500 degrees, it does the second rise super fast. So by the time the oven's done preheating, it's already ready to put on parchment paper to score and put into the Dutch ovens. So it's just really great because I can mix it up one day, do a couple stretch and folds, and then the next morning already have bread for that day. Like today we had bread with lunch that I just, you know, never put it in the fridge and mixed up sometime yesterday. It's a good daily flow because this means I can easily have two loaves of bread a day if needed. Usually after a few days, we've kind of banked up some leftovers and we have plenty to not make it that day. But it works really great because it's like a next day process because I don't, I just skip the fridge rise and use the warm oven to accelerate that second rise. It's working really well. So that is something I can maybe experiment with at some point, but I love that I can use more than two thirds whole grain and still end up with a really great result in the end. And so that's just what I've been doing right now. All right, well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode. If you have any questions, suggestions, you all put in some great guest suggestions that I'm going to use upcoming for some more interviews. You can do that. We'll leave the link down below to the bit.ly for the Google sheet where you can enter your questions. So if you're not on social media, you're able to still submit a question. And as always, thank you so much for listening. And I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband, Luke and I, and our eight kids work together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and home setters with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farmhousehombone.com. And to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course. That's all one word bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course. If you're looking to learn how we earn an income online, check out my YouTube course at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse youtube course all one word.