A Glimpse Of Our Weekly Rhythm-On Friday We Grind Our Flour

I thought I might share a little bit about our weekly rhythm here.  Specifically, I want to share what we do on most Fridays.  This is the day that we grind our flour in order to prepare for baking day on Saturday.  It's also the day that we have some sort of pie for dinner.  It can be pizza, or a quiche, or pot pie.  Usually it's something that requires using some of our freshly ground flour.  W doesn't like the noise of the mill particularly, but he does love to help with the grinding.  Honestly, he's more help with this than I have ever wanted!  Still, I wouldn't miss involving him in this process for anything.  Grinding our own flour helps to connect him with the source of his food even at this young age.  He knows what wheat looks like when it's growing, thanks to the wonderful folks at Mount Vernon.

And within a few weeks we'll be able to go see how they separate the kernels of wheat from the chafe in this threshing barn.

We also have been to see them operate the Mount Vernon Grist Mill where they grind wheat and corn.

Picture courtesy of my MIL.  
W was too terrified of the noise for me to get any pictures inside.

Okay, back to our home flour grinding.  This is the mill we grind on.  Someday I'd love to get one of those lovely hand powered mills too, to help W get an even better feel for the process.

Please ignore the kernels of wheat all over the counter and 

kindly remember that I have a two and a half year old helping with all of this!

We mostly grind soft white wheat for pastry flour and hard white wheat for bread flour. 

Soft white wheat on the left and hard white wheat on the right.

W helps me to measure out the grain and sort it to make sure there are not any rocks that go into our mill.   And then we fill up the hopper of our mill, turn it on and go read a book in the other room.

Then W thinks the fun begins as we bag up the flour as soon as it's ground.

Next time I must remember to put an apron on him!

What a mess!

Do you see what I mean about more help than I ever knew I wanted?

And here are my giant bags of flour with the wheat.

The hard white is on the left and the soft white is on the right.

And then of course the best part about our flour grinding day.  Making pizza for dinner.

 He is such a big helper getting that yeast to proof....

...and helping to mix up the dough with Mama's dough hook.

Sorry I didn't manage any pictures past W mixing up the dough for the pizza.  I was too exhausted from cleaning flour off of every surface in my kitchen.  You'll have to take my word for it.  It was delicious!