SSDreamin Blessings and curses

[Denim Deb]

I feel for you! And bad storms are the biggest reason I don't want a metal roof on animal shelters. I don't want any of them to get panicked, and hurt either themselves or another animal. (Or me, if I should happen to get stuck in there.)

 

[hqueen13]

Glad everybody is ok! We have the wild weather today. Ugh.

 

[SSDreamin]

More of the yucky white stuff yesterday/overnight. None of my animals are pleased, and I can relate! Highs should be in the low 30's today - oh yippee.
I received my cheese press yesterday, and began making a wheel of farmhouse cheddar. This morning, I took it out of the press - now it needs to sit on my cutting board for a few days, getting turned several times a day, to dry out. Then, I can wax it and leave it in a cool place for a minimum of 1 month, preferably 4, before I find out if I did it right!! Three gallons of milk made a rather small 2# wheel. Yikes! This will be a white cheddar. Next time, I'll try a yellow (4-6 month aging time). The guys are very disappointed that they have to wait so long to try it. I guess they thought it was like the mozzarella I can hardly wait to hear them when I make some romano!
I also got the butterchurn. DS#2 and I tried for over an hour, but didn't make any butter. I poured it into the blender, and got almost none there! Considering the fact that it was 3/4 cream, I really expected a LOT more
I am staying indoors today, mostly huddled near the wood stove. I have a shirt I need to finish, another one I want to start, and a conversion bag that just needs finishing touches that I really should work on, but then I'd either have to drag all that out to the livingroom or bundle up to work on it in the bedroom. Maybe I'll just continue to be lazy today and accomplish nothing!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Oh wow - you're really getting adventurous with the cheese making! I need to branch out - Chevre is good, but I need to experiment more!

Sorry about your weather.... ugh.

 

[SSDreamin]

Necessity prompted me FEM - I went to put the mornings milk in the frig and realized there wasn't any more room!

I decided to start hanging pictures in the hallway today, instead of doing any 'real' work. Just so you know, my hallway is 33 feet long and 4 feet wide, so it's been a perfect place to hang pictures. DH gutted it out, drywalled it, put down nice laminate floors to replace the nasty carpet, and we finally got it painted. Now that the paint is good and dry, I started arranging groupings. We punched through a wall, so there are 2- 5 foot wide openings into the hall on either end of the living room, instead of just one little 3 foot one, which reduced the wall space for my 'gallery' so I have to do some adjusting. I managed to get most of the racing wall and part of DS#1's wall done before I got flustered and gave up. Now, I'm a 'pound a nail in, hang a picture, call it good' kinda gal. Perfection bugs me; I like things to appear a bit chaotic - because it's a spot on reflection of ME DH is a very precise, measure from the ceiling, mark the distance to the hanger, use a level so that everything lines up perfectly type of guy. I swear I saw him twitch a little when he stepped into the hall after work, but he said NOTHING negative. My guess is he'll wait until I'm out of the house and "fix" my chaos!

 

[hqueen13]

Love hanging pictures! I was thinking the other day about some of the pictures that I still have left to hang since the move.

 

[SSDreamin]

The weather here flip-flopped again. It was 62 yesterday, so I hauled a bunch of horse poo out of the pastures. Also - for the first time in MANY months - I hung laundry out on the line to dry It was very windy and everything dried real quick!
Ferdi has his date with destiny - Saturday after next. DH found a guy that will come out here and do EVERYTHING, and he was cheaper than the local processor. Found him through recommendation - a friend of a friend had his buffalo done through him and was very pleased. He's done Lowline's before, and said we should expect 70%/70%, not the usual 60%/60%, as they tend to be 'what you see is what you get' types. Which means, we'll have about 500# of beef for the freezer!
Still can't find any feeder pigs yet. A nasty virus took out a huge percentage, and 4Hers have bought any that made it, so we may be buying late in the year again. Both my guys are very upset, as we've run out of bacon!

My farmhouse cheddar is drying nicely. I went to the Amish store to check on something, and checked their cheese prices while I was there - I appear to have $24 worth of cheddar sitting there on my counter! I went looking for non-diastatic malt powder, in bulk. They've never heard of it. Oh well, it was worth a try. My only supplier is so expensive, and I burn through it so quickly, I was hoping they sold it. Maybe I need to make more english muffins and less bagels - but they're so good! I am making more mozzarella and ricotta today, as I'm out of frig space - again! Not complaining, mind you, just surprised at how quickly it adds up!
Moved the buff pullets out to the isolation pen with the duck and DS#2's chicken. Now there are only 4 ducklings in the house. Will be going to visit an Amish guy this weekend, to arrange a time to drop off our meaties & the old buffs for processing. DH says $1.50/bird is well worth it, considering his work schedule lately and I agree. I am not confident enough to do all of them on my own and we have to prioritize our projects for his time off. It will work out to about 30 cents a pound - bringing the total to $1.05/pound on the meaties, including food. Not too shabby!
More outside work needs to get done before the rain comes today. I have been trying to move the old compost pile onto the garden. It looks like beautiful, black, rich soil! Yay! Can't believe we finally got it to break down like it's supposed to (with some help from my brother!).

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Dang! You are movin' right along with this cheese-making! I'll be holding off for awhile because the little bottle baby buckling is going through the extra milk....but only a short time until I wean him.

 

[Denim Deb]

Make sure you let us know how that cheese tastes. There's a store near us that sells cheese making supplies, as well as books. I'm seriously thinking of trying to make my own.

 

[hqueen13]

Mmmm cheese!