Operation: F.E.E.D.T.H.E.D.U.C.K.S.

You know what the trouble is with store-bought bread?  It takes forever to mold.  For instance, I left half a loaf sitting in my kitchen while I was away hiking and rappelling in the deserts of Arizona over Christmas break, and when I returned to Provo there wasn't a single speck of mold on my loaf.  Zip.  Nothing.  Not even a suggestively stale odor to recommend disposing of it.

 Most agree slow-molding bread attests to the wonders of modern food preservation, but all this lack-of-mold did was foil my month-old desire to feed bread to the freezing ducks at BYU's duck pond.  You see, I can't in good conscience feed bread that I paid good money for ($2.13 good to be exact) to lower aquatic life forms, which is why I was banking on my two-week absence to give the mold fairy enough time to visit my already month old loaf of bread.  Surely that would be enough time to render it unfit for human consumption.  Alas, the preservatives in the bread were too powerful, and I was forced to change tactics.

Operation:  F.E.E.D.T.H.E.D.U.C.K.S.

By virtue of the scientific method applied during a 7th grade biology project, I discovered that it takes about four to five days before homemade bread starts to mold.  Were it not for this experiment, I never would have known this statistic because homemade bread back home never lasted longer than a day or two before it was eagerly devoured.  So I baked two handsome looking loaves.  One for me, and the other a sacrificial loaf set apart for the sole purpose of growing blue and green spots.  Operation F.E.E.D.T.H.E.D.U.C.K.S was going splendidly until I found myself drizzling honey on the second heel of the the second loaf of bread before the five day mark.  I let out a regretful, yet simultaneously content sigh, and baked two more loaves of bread.  This time I made sure to let half of the second loaf go bad.  I just had to feed the ducks!!

And so today I've never been more pleased to discover gross blue and green spots decorating my bread.  Go Time.  And thus I was able to check off one of the less formidable items off my bucket list for this semester.

And here are a few more things I've been able to check off my bucket list:

Visiting Horseshoe Bend on the way home for Christmas break.  A nice break during an 11 hour discussion about quantum physics, relativity, and the merits of veganism vs. vegetarianism.

Rappelling in Bulldog Canyon. 

More rappelling.

My #1 running buddy, Taylor, and I on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. 

Running six miles uphill both ways :)

Snowshoeing around Mt. Timpanogos.

Eating brownies with Carolyn on her birthday after successfully summiting a small mountain on snow shoes.

King of the Mountain!