summer summary

Summer, mostly over, and everything a blur of hot humid days.  Here is what we are up to...

The girls are growing so fast I could probably chart the differences day by day.  Ms M went though a shoe size in a week!  They drink about a half a gallon of cow's milk a day (thank goodness we have a cow) so that could have something to do with it.  They are in the language explosion stage and I love it.  Lu is already starting on a few words at 1 1/2 years old, but Miss M is in the accelerated growth stage of language.  A few months ago she was trying out one word at a time, and now she turns to Lu and says quite clearly, "go away now."  They have 15 minute periods scattered throughout the day of actually liking each other.  The rest of the day I mostly feel like a referee for angry territorial cats.  There is a lot of shrieking in this house.

I spent quite a lot of time this summer making cheese.  We were only milking 3 goats, but that was enough for about 5 pounds of cheese a week! I did a fun cheese swap with some facebook friends in San Pedro-- I sent cheese (by plane!  I felt very sophisticated... this is what my life has become) in exchange for some organic cocoa powder and a whole pile of fabric, most of which Miss M has claimed for "pretty dresses."  Most of my cheese I sell locally, since I am actually one of the few people in the entire country who makes and sells goat cheese.   That is not something I ever expected to be known for...

We've also aquired some new creatures, namely a pair of fluffy dwarf bunnies

and a goat named Snow who was raised in a kitchen (NOT mine) and thinks she is human.

 She sleeps on our doorstep each night and faithfully follows Daniel around the farm each morning. Whenever I open the door she walks right into the house with an attitude of absolute entitlement. She's pretty gentle with the girls, but will buck them over if they bother her too much.  So basically she fits right into the toddler mafia at this house.

dairy-ing

Our goats are producing a ton of milk this year.  Last year we had enough to drink and for the Babe's bottle, but this year we are getting 2 1/2 liters a day.  Thats a lot of milk. It's a rather fantastic problem to have.

  I finally  made some good batches of chevre, which I had tried multiple times in the past with no luck.  This year, I watched a very zen cheese-making video on youtube, and then made my first batch.  It was SO easy once I learned the proper technique.  I find myself saying that a lot about making things from scratch.

This is how you make cheese:  warm milk, add culture and rennet, let sit for 12 hours.  Drain whey, let drip in cheesecloth for 8 hours.  Done.  Told you it was easy.

This house is stuffed full of baby things.  I needed a way to hang the cheese to drip, and this mobile was handy, so....

I'm also making 2 or more batches of yogurt a week, and I still have extra milk.  So I'll be branching out to frozen yogurt, custard, yogurt muffins...  anything I can think of. 

fresh yogurt.  We add  jam for flavor

chevre

I'm kinda surprised at how much I like cheese-making, I guess it was always  a mystery, and figuring it out has been quite satisfying.  Eating the cheese is even more satisfying :)

This one has developed a deep love for yogurt.  Besides the eating part, she also likes to use it as a belly rub and hair conditioner.  Yum.