First attempt at baking bread

School today. Elizabeth read a story (the Little Mermaid) and after she read it to the class, she gave me the book. While the other kids were working on proper nouns and common nouns, I took out my handy-dandy dictionary and looked up every word I didn't understand. It was a great exercise! Then after my two hours, I came home and succeeded in building a fire in the wood oven. Since it burned for about an hour, I thought I'd try making some bread. The dough raised quicker than I expected. I thought at high altitudes it takes longer to rise, but perhaps it's the reverse? Anyway, I punched it down and let it rise a second time, then pushed all the embers to the back of the wood oven and placed the dough on one of the racks from the toaster oven that exploded the first week we arrived. I saved the racks, figuring I could probably make use of them. I'm sitting here waiting for the bread to bake. Martin said to leave it in there with the door closed for about one hour. I'm not all that hopeful, to be honest. It's been awhile since I've baked bread from scratch and I have no idea how hot the oven actually is, so who knows what this little experiment will yield. However, I expect to fail a few times before I get it right, so best start failing so I can get over that hump and start succeeding. Waiting for perfect conditions seems futile so I'm making the best of what I've got. We'll see what happens. An hour later...I checked on the bread and it was almost as flat as a pancake. The oven, although smoke was coming out of the chimney, was not hot enough. So, not being one to accept complete defeat, I scooped the flat bread and fried it up in a pan. I made bannock bread instead. It was quite nice with butter and maple syrup. I'll try again another day until I get it right, or until we break down and buy an electric oven.