In Montana you can pay the Forest Sercus five bucks for a permit to go get yourself a tree on public land. In never got much above 5 below with the windchill today, but we headed out anyway.
The immortal Sven Saw works as well as ever. Firewood, furniture building, whatever you want, the beautiful design gets the job done.
We’re still waiting for a good amount of snow, not that it would do me any good right now. I’m not done yet.

(Holiday) Pizza Crust for Eric:
-I don’t measure stuff, so this is pretty inexact.

-Put some (~2-3 Tbs) yeast and a somewhat greater amount of sugar (white sugar, brown sugar, honey, doesn’t matter) in a mixing bowl.
-Run tap water until it’s hot, but you’d still hold your finger under it indefinitely. Add 2-3 cups water to the bowl. Swirl vaguely, let sit for ~5 minutes.
-After five minutes, the yeast should be frothy and aromatic. If it isn’t redo above. You either killed off the yeast with two hot water, or didn’t give it enough food (sugar).
-Add a heavy pinch of salt, and a good shake of olive oil (for flavor). Some spices, like oregano, dried basil, lavender and so forth can be nice, too.
-Add flour. I prefer a 1:2 ratio of whole wheat to unbleached all-purpose. The higher the whole wheat content, the longer you’ll need to let it rise (to avoid it being too heavy). Keep adding and stirring it in with a spatula until it is just past the point of being really sticky and gross to handle with bare hands.
-Turn it into a lightly floured surface and knead it thoroughly. Add flour as needed. 3-4 minutes is adequate, usually. The texture should be altered, uniform, and nicely stretchy.
-Clean out the mixing bowl, dry it, add some olive oil, then plop in the dough ball. Turn to coat, than cover with a very damp cloth and let sit in a warm spot (sunny window, top of the oven). Not a hot place, as you’ll kill the yeast.
-Let rise for at least 45 minutes, and up to 2 hours.
-Preheat oven to 430.

Pick a crust type: deep dish or thin crust. Deep dish requires a 8-10″ round nonstick pan, thin requires a baking sheet (ideally non-stick).

-Deep dish: fill bottom of pan with a good layer of olive oil. Roll crust into bottom of pan, spread out to a uniform thickness, pre-bake for a few minutes, add toppings, Bake until done (~12 minutes).

-Thin crust: Now comes the most important part: lightly flour your hands, grab the dough, and let it stretch down over your fists, rotating it as you go. You want to stretch it out to a thin, uniform thickness, without holes. Tricky to do, feel free to patch. Try to handle it as little as possible. Pre-bake for 3 minutes, add toppings, cook until done. (~5 minutes)

Eat. Nothing says Christmas like pizza.