The Sourdough Saga

Exerting control in my little pocket of the world. Day 17 of increasing self-isolation.

On March 4th my capitulation began with troublesome emails sent in the middle of the night warning of a potential travel ban for Canadians going to Central Asia with the risk of being sent to quarantine in old USSR army compound in less than ideal conditions. While some of our crew was already en route and I was scheduled to leave 2 days later, we quickly decided to cancel our trip and repatriate everyone back to Canada pronto. At the time some thought we were overreacting. I was relieved, although sad to miss this epic trip.

The reimbursement process was a saga on to itself, but after much time, calls, and more time, it was finally resolved to 90% satisfaction.

For the next 9 days we were all in limbo. We saw what was happening in the world, and with our students returning from Spring Break, we knew where things were heading. But none of our North American leaders were acting. And of course some leaders were saying that this virus was going to disappear like magic.

Then on March 13th the first lockdown decision was made in our province. Schools and daycares were to be closed. Everyone who could work from home should. Every day since then the case count has risen (we now have 50% of the Canadian cases in our province) and sometimes doubling every day as testing increased. Every day since then our lockdown measures have increased.

Today the lockdown means only essential services (transportation, healthcare, food retail), everyone stays home but can take a walk around the block, certain regions are barricaded, hotspots are identified with signs, police are out enforcing quarantines, and the schools will be shut down at least until May 1. Anyone over 70 years old should stay home, and nobody is allowed in or out of senior residences. Nobody is allowed in hospitals. All surgeries are cancelled.

The good news is that the hospitals have freed up 6000 beds and we have less than 200 covid patients in the hospital system. The good news is that our new cases only increase by 400 a day, despite testing 5000 every day. It seems that the two weeks of austerity measures are working. But we probably need to keep it up for another 2-3 weeks and then we can progressively open things up.

I have been flip flopping through the emotional roller coaster of this scenario for what is now almost four weeks. I have lost all of my consulting contracts and took a bit hit to revenue. I still teach at the university and am learning to work online with zoom which actually has been very educational albeit tiring and stressful.

so many emotions ... from grateful to accepting to anxious

Meanwhile, my buddy Q who I have been officially prevented from visiting since March 24 and for the foreseeable future is living his best life. He has been put on all-day turnout with his three best buddies and a new friend (a 2 year old colt). He is getting groomed and lunged twice a week by the barn staff, and is in excellent care. Not seeing him is but a tiny fly in this ointment.

But it does free up about 20 hours of my time per week that I would have otherwise used to ride, commute to the barn, or just hang out with my barn family. Thats a lot of time. And I realized that using that time on social media ... or worse ... the news media .... is driving me bonkers. The tone, the panic, the neverending loop of videos showing people going crazy over toilet paper at walmart or the kids at the beach during spring break being oblivious ... these things do not help.

What I have seen, on the streets, in the stores, in my town, are people being patient, respectful, and nice. Respecting social distance, dispensing purell, helping out. The kids paint rainbows and put it on their windows with the message "its all going to be all right". They paint the sidewalks with pictures and nice messages.

And, we are all taking a collective pause. For the first time in history, the whole world is in this boat together. Not like tsunamis, earthquakes or fires. This time we are all facing this together at the same time.

So, I need a new hobby. Had a few packets of stale yeast in my pantry and decided to make some bread. The first batch tasted yeasty and too dense (like hockey pucks). The second batch was amazing and the crust was crisp and crunchy, but the texture was a bit dense for my liking. We went to the store to buy more flour and yeast.

No more flour and yeast.

Well, I still had some flour. It really was the yeast that was my problem. Google told me that I could make my own, by building a sourdough starter. One part spring water, one part flour. Let sit for two days.

But by the second day I realized I needed to feed this starter. With more flour. So I started the online hunt for flour and found that certain chains were selling it (only some had sold out) and that pizzerias and bakeries were also selling it at cost. Ended up buying a 20 kg bag at costco.

So now I can feed my sourdough for its first meal tomorrow. I have five more days of progressive feeding before I can make it, although I might test a first batch with some discarded starter in three days just to see what happens.

And my trusted dutch oven has been enlisted to provide the great crunchy crust of that second batch. After all this is said and done, I might not ever buy another loaf of bread again.

I wonder what other behaviours I will have adopted and discarded from this moment in time.