I'll Grind Your Bones to Make My Bread

I decided I wanted to make homemade bread.  Hahahahahaha  It sounded so simple in my head...it wasn't.  I emailed a woman from my church asking for her recipe but saying that I didn't want to grind my own wheat because really who does that anymore?  She responded that grinding your own wheat makes all the difference.  She is a wise woman so I bought wheat buds.  I put the wheat buds in my chopper and learned two things.  1:  My chopper is a piece of crap.  No wonder it was $5 the day after Thanksgiving.  2:  Even when chopped in excess of five minutes the wheat buds remain completely intact.  They don't become wheat flour at all.  Plan B.

I took the wheat buds home (this is really like Plan D because I tried to crush them with a rolling pin and dried heating them before chopping them) in hopes of this woman grinding them from me.  Mom decided it would be easier to get a grinder of my own.  Yeah right.  She obviously wasn't the one about to grind.

Yesterday the grinder arrived and while Josh was getting ready for work I started setting it up.  He stepped in when I started dropping stainless steel pieces on the tile.  It was loud.  It was especially loud at 7:15 on Saturday.  I was glad he did because all the instructions were in Spanish.  Q'est que?  Parlez vous Anglais?  Parlez vous Francais?  I didn't take Spanish.  Here the fun really got going.

Here is the monstrosity.  It is attached to the grill but it wouldn't work there because the plastic was too weak to support the force required to turn the handle.  I had to attach it to the back steps.  In the removing and reattaching elsewhere process, I see blood.  The stupid thing had sliced two of my fingers open!  Poor fingers!

The grinder is crazy loud and it's about 7:30.  Suffice it to say that my neighbors really love me now.  Yeah.  Not so much.  I thought "no big deal, you put in the wheat, you grind, you get flour".  Pssssh!  The grinding process takes muscles in weird areas, like calf muscles.  I ground forever and two days, okay maybe not literally but it felt that long.  The sun wasn't even up and I was already sweating like Seabiscuit.  This is a workout!  Notice there is no picture of that.  I was afraid when I saw myself in the mirror, you don't need that horror added to your life.  You should thank me. Even after all the grinding you don't really get wheat flour so much as smaller wheat chunks.  Begins to beat head on countertop.  At this point I'm determined.  I don't like to be beaten and this bread is not going to beat me.  I'll save you the next few grueling steps and show you the finished product:

Isn't it beautiful!?  (Let me help you with the correct answer:  Why yes, Sierra, it is lovely.  All that hard work was worth it.)  Ohhhh, thank you for your kind, non-coerced words!  My house smells wonderful!  I want to make another loaf but with less sweat and blood.

P.S.  Kneading dough is my new favorite hobby.
P.P.S.  If we are reading children stories with lines like "I'll grind your bones to make my bread" can we really blame all the school age violence on video games?  Just something to consider.