Cheese and Cows

Happy Mother’s Day! I made chevre on Friday using the milk from Maggie and Tara. The yield was really low because the curds were very runny. I don’t know if this was because of their diet or what, but I am thinking that I need to add just a little rennet to help it along next time. I was going to make another batch today, but Jerry convinced me to make something different. I will be making my first batch of feta today after we get home from our Mother’s Day lunch. The kids were all here for our annual Mother’s Day Work Day. Jordan says that a birthday lasts for a day, Christmas last for a day, an anniversary lasts for a day, but Mother’s Day lasts for a month. He is referring to the fact that when we have a work day around here, most everybody gets poison ivy and they get to enjoy it for an entire month. This year, John, Jacob and I already have it. I don’t know if anyone else is going to get it, but…well, I guess the goats should eat it down and that our chances of getting poison ivy should be reduced in the future. Yesterday, we working on getting the fence posts sunk for the cattle fencing. We got them all in. All that is left to do is string the barbed-wire and install the two gates. There will also be a barn raising…anyone interested???? The cattle will be delivered on June 1st. We know that little “Super Studley” is our bull. WD Caroline is our pregnant (confirmed) cow. We were getting Sheza Sweetheart, but after spending a year with a bull, she wasn’t pregnant and her days of breeding seem to be finished. That said, we traded her out for a different cow. The new cow is Pacific Maisie and we are also looking at getting Sitting Allie. We hope that they are pregnant (being testing right now) so that we can have lots of baby longhorns in our pasture. The big news today is that we kept the baby goats away from their mothers last night. When I went to milk this morning, we got just shy of a half gallon of milk. I can’t tell you how exciting that was to me. I guess the babies will be officially weaned starting today and that tonight I should be able to get another half gallon. That means cheese making tomorrow too!