Wow! Okay, a
lot to catch you guys up on and it is raining today so I have the time… This is
going to be more of a photo update, and less of a textual experience because even
though it is raining, I am doing a million and a half things around the house
today. (Making two batches of Chevre cheese, helping my mom make soap, cleaning
the kitchen, and I am currently way behind on homework for the two spring
classes I am enrolled in this semester –I have three books to read by Monday…)
For starters,
I have to catch you guys up on my feta making cheese experience. This first
photo is of the ball of cultured curd after it hung for about six-ish hours…
I then sliced
it into three pieces and added a sprinkling of salt. I flipped the cheese and
salted it about four more times over eight hours before putting it in the
fridge to age for a week.
We just
sliced a bit of it into cubes this morning and sampled some with our breakfast
(of homemade freshly baked cinnamon raisin bread) and the cheese was fucking
perfect. Good thing too, because I made another batch of it during the week… We
have goats milk coming out of the woodwork around here, which isn't entirely a bad problem
to have. Too much free food is never a bad thing. Speaking of which, I priced
out some feta at the store just to compare what I have in the fridge aging to
what it would cost me to purchase that same amount. And I have a hundred and
twenty-eight dollars of feta in my fridge at the moment, and it cost me less
than ten dollars to make. But, anyway, onward with the update…
Honey! We had to buy more bees
(I think I covered this in an earlier blog) but, we had all of the abandoned
hives honey to process… We got at that this week; it took three days to
accomplish, but in the end we salvaged about a hundred twenty pounds of honey.
Back to the store I went to price out what local Michigan honey was running,
and it was $5.59 a pound… meaning we put up $670 dollars –and about three years’
worth- of honey this week. Not bad for just salvaging some abandoned hives. We
also have the new order of bees already living it up in their refurbished
homes, so we will probably get close to that amount again this year.
I showed you
guys the repair work I had to do on the clothes line earlier in the spring, and
I just wanted to let you know that it was put to good use yesterday. The sun
was warm, the breeze was beautiful… we washed about ten loads of laundry didn’t
have to turn the dryer on once.
Our chives
are already starting to turn to seed. It seems like just a week ago I was
sharing a picture of the first of the chives popping through the ground…
My garlic is
making a huge comeback… I love garlic!
The rhubarb I
planted a few weeks back is growing like weed (and that is awesome).
The newest
addition to our semi-orchard… a honeycrisp apple tree. I just planted this
about three days ago, and it is doing great!
And finally,
some geese that landed in our field that I noticed while writing this blog
entry.
This was only
about one third of what I got started this week… SO BUSY… I hope I can find
some time to give you a more thorough update soon (must read three books in the
next forty-eight-ish hours)
P.S. I love
the farm life. Good food, good booze, and it is frustrating/challenging/infuriating/fun
as hell. Check back soon for more updates.
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