Milk, cheese and soap, the chickens are doing well, and a day to go.

I actually hate having so much milk this time of year. I do love to make cheese but as I do not have a cellar, yet, and though the refrigerator has tried to be a cave it is really a failure, not enough humidity and I don't want to ruin it as a frig.  I am giving up making hard cheeses until I can actually get one.  Son has volunteered to help with the logistics, once we get a cellar, of making a cave.  I have also found that making cheese in the spring is the best, I am not sure if it is that the milk is really that much different or the temperature that makes the difference. I do know that cheese making and bread making are not a good mix, the yeast over powers the cheese if I am not careful about keeping them apart and usually have to strain the whey in the frig to keep the yeast out of the cheese.  It is not that it is bad in the cheese it just makes holes and unless you are making Swiss cheese holes aren't a desired quality in cheese.  So I have froze a bunch of milk for future soap batches.  I am thinking I will actually offer a soap making class in the fall as I have really had a lot of interest from people.  I may do a hot process class as well if the cold process does well, hot process takes a lot longer.  I think that I will freeze enough milk to make sure I have soap milk and enough for possible classes.  I still have lots of milk,  Bubbles keeps some of it drank for me and we use it every day.  I have decided to just make feta and I may make up a batch of mozzarella, but I still have milk.  So, I have decided to can some milk. I now have a pressure canner now don't you know. hehe.  I read up on it and it is possible, it can't be drank really after it is canned. It can be used for gravies, puddings, and cooked into anything you would use milk in, but it will be there year around.  I am glad I read up on it as it will not look like milk it will be a golden color.  It was good to know that because I would have been distressed had I not been expecting it to be different.  I processed it and when the steam had gone and I opened up the canner I had what appeared to be jars of floating curdy or curdled mess.  I decide I either mess up or it was how it was supposed to be.  I also decide to try it before I made any more, it really does look odd.  I made Poppie sawmill gravy and biscuits for dinner.  The milk worked wonderfully and the gravy was very good.  Pig and Goat sausage is the best, very lean and nice flavor, okay I digress.  I hope I have solved some of my milk problems, too much in the summer not enough in the winter. 

The chickens are doing wonderfully well, sometime it is a treasure hunt to find their eggs, and we have to float them to make sure they are all good ones but the chickens are happy.  They stay with in the fences of the goat pen or the yard, I haven't really noticed them go much more far afield.  Poppie was relieved he so thought they would take up with Shinny's chickens and we would lose them but so far they stay in their area.  Poppie spent the afternoon working on the new goat pens in the barn.  He is making lots of progress.  He actually cut the door way to the goat pen so that is good.  He still has to make the feeders but he has made it pretty escape proof for the little goats not to go in to the grain room.  He is hoping to get the rabbits all moved to the old hay barn, the goats really do upset them so they will be better there and then we can put the hay and grain where the rabbits were in the barn.  Poppie is going to finish the hay area by putting in his garage door that Shinny gave him.  I think I have some fire wood to move out of his goat pen before it is finished. The girls and I will do it with the wheelie-barry-oh, okay it is a wheelbarrow but the girls and grands like when I call it the wheelie-barry-oh, makes them giggle at my silliness.  Got to have silliness to lighten up your day, don't ya?

I am going with Lady to Zootown later this afternoon, she has a dental appointment and then we are going to do a little shopping and maybe dinner.  A little get away.  I will have to make up dinner for the troops before I go so they will not have to worry about it.  The ladies are at their cousins for the night, Cubbie kept asking, she slept here night the night before so it was her turn to host.  Quiet in the house this morning, Poppie went to help his friend move a rabbit cage so just me and the animals, well I guess that would be a pretty crowded space so no I am not alone, actually ever, but I am not sure animals count.  I worked on an order of diaper covers, made lots so the client will have options the rest go on line.  I have to ship a big order of soap, a longie