Letter to Senators Murray and Cantwell

This morning I sent the following letter to Senators Murray and Cantwell urging them to support Senator Obama.

Dear Senator,

On February 9th my wife and I went to our first caucus at Mt. View Elementary School. We first met when we were both eighteen, which happens to be eighteen years ago now. In all that time we’ve never gone to a caucus. We’ve always been registered voters and each election we’ve dutifully filled out our ballots. I say dutifully because there hasn’t ever been much excitement in our household about the process. That is, until this year.

We arrived at Mt. View Elementary School and were surprised to find a large crowd shuffling into the school gym. We made our way there and found our table. From what we’d read about the caucus system we expect a low turn-out. So did the folks that organized the caucus. Each table had a few chairs around it. As the crowd grew more chairs were placed behind those already at the tables. When those ran out organizers went out into the school with hand-trucks to bring in additional chairs. And when those ran out people stood instead and still the crowd grew. It was noisy and crowded. As we talked to those around us we learned that most, like us, were first-timers. Nonetheless we all managed to work our way through the process.

The entire room cheered when Representative Sam Hunt read the tallies which showed clearly that Senator Barack Obama had by a large margin won our votes.

Senator Hillary Clinton is dismissive of the results of the caucus, saying that it is “primarily dominated by activists.” If you define an activist as someone who simply votes in a mail-in election, then I guess we are activists. Maybe in other years the caucus has been dominated by activists, I don’t know having never gone before, but that’s not what I saw this year. I saw energy and excitement and a turn-out of people of all ages, and none of it was due to Senator Clinton. If it weren’t for Senator Obama we wouldn’t have gone to the caucus. We would have sent in our worthless primary ballot and simply accepted the result.

My greatest fear is that Senator Clinton will secure the nomination and the Presidency will be lost. On some issues, such as health care, I lean more towards her stance, but she will divide this nation as surely as Senator John McCain. The Republican party wants her to get the nomination because they believe that is their best chance to win the Presidency. We can’t afford to have Senator McCain win this election. Too much is at stake.

Senator Obama is this nation’s best hope. He is the most inspirational leader to come along in decades. If anyone has a chance of uniting our shattered nation, of restoring the honor and integrity of the United States of America, it is Senator Obama. I sincerely hope you will join us in supporting him in both the nomination and the general election.

Sincerely,
Ryan Williams

2008 Planning

It’s still cold out most days but I’m thinking about the garden for the new year. Right now there isn’t a lot going on in the garden.
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The garlic shoots look fine. They aren’t doing a lot but it hasn’t warmed up much at all yet. We have some greens that have been hanging on despite the cold temperatures.
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But it’s time to start thinking about what we want to plant for the new year. Tomatoes, I think. And zucchini. More strawberries too, maybe. I want to go to Baker Creek‘s website and browse the catalog for seeds.

Pita Bread

This weekend I made baked falafel and pita bread. The falafel recipe isn’t one I’ll try again but the pita bread came out great. It was really neat watching the bread puff up! It made great pita pocket sandwiches but it was also good just folded around fillings like a tortilla. A few of mine didn’t puff completely (those are the ones I used like a tortilla). They don’t puff if the rolled out dough has any folds or creases, it needs to be completely smooth. They still bake fine and taste great, they just don’t create the pocket part. I didn’t have a problem rolling them out smooth, it was getting them onto the hot stone without any folds that was difficult, practice makes perfect.

Here’s the flat disk right after I put it on the hot baking stone.
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A minute or so later and it’s all puffed up!
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They only take a few minutes to bake. Then they deflate as they cool.
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    Pita Bread

1 pkg. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 Cups warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 Cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 Cups bread flour (plus more for dusting)

Combine the warm water, sugar, and yeast in the bowl for your mixer. If you’re using active dry yeast let it proof, instant yeast can skip that step. Stir in the salt. Using the dough hook for your mixer, put it on the lowest speed and add the flour a little at a time. Until the dough gathers around the hook in a ball and isn’t sticking to the sides; about 4 minutes.

Continue mixing in the machine until the dough is smooth and elastic (or transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until smooth and elastic). Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl and allow dough to rise until doubled, about an hour and a half.

Place baking stone on the lowest oven shelf (removing others so you don’t bump them with your hand– really, that hurts!). Preheat oven to 500°F.

Punch down the dough and divide it into eight balls. Cover the balls (I lightly dusted them with flour and draped a clean dishtowel over them) and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

Work with the balls one at a time, leaving the others covered. On a lightly floured surface roll each ball into an 8-inch diameter disk. Make sure the disk is completely smooth, any creases or folds will prevent the pita from puffing up. If you think you can manage to get two disks onto your baking stone at once go ahead and roll out two. I was not that capable, so I only did one at a time.

Lay the smooth disk onto the very hot baking stone. Close the oven door and set your timer. They should puff up like a balloon! It takes about 3-4 minutes to cook, they’re done when they are a pretty golden brown. Remove them from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on a wire rack and then transfer to a clean dish towel. Wrapping them up in the towel keeps them soft.

We’ve got Snow!

For a little while anyhow. It’s supposed to turn to rain later this evening. The snow started coming down around noon and pretty soon McCoy was fussing to go out and play in it. We took both dogs over to the field to enjoy the first snowfall of the season.
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As you can see it isn’t really sticking, but it was really blowing around. Tried to get some photos of the dogs but McCoy wasn’t cooperating.
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He’s just a blur. Maybe I can get Poppy to stand still for a shot.
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Oh no, Poppy’s under attack! McCoy fights unfairly. He’s off-leash and runs in, attacks, and then dashes just out of her leashed range. Poor Poppy.
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Finally got McCoy to stand still. That is his “woobie” in his mouth. He likes to hold his leash in his mouth. Instead of having him destroy yet another leash, I took part of his old one and he holds it now instead of chewing (and tugging) on his actual leash. Even when he’s off-leash he likes to carry around his woobie, such a goof!
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Not much snow, and it hasn’t actually stuck to the ground but it’s enough to make us happy. We got snow!

Sunny Morning

The sun came out this morning so as I was coming back from testing my hammock I stopped and uncovered the plants on the porch.
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Our lettuce and kale is doing really well. The new garlic plants are just coming up now. It’ll be our second year with garlic. I planted some new lettuce and mache which came up but it hasn’t really done anything. I figure we will just keep things going as long as possible. Last year the kale easily lasted through the winter.

Sunshine

The sun came out today. I pulled back the covers to let the plants enjoy the nice weather.
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Our Fall plants all look to be doing well. The new pepper cress and lettuce has come up. I didn’t notice any mache or garlic showing yet. We’ve been enjoying the fresh lettuce. We’re leaving the plants covered at night. I’m not sure how much it’ll help but even a little may make a difference.

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