Mmm, color - I mean, colour.

So many of my favorite things have come to me through Jane Brocket.

I love her book The Gentle Art of Domesticity, which resides on my bookshelves with a favorite sparkly-yarn-tasseled bookmark in it.

I love her blog, which showcases her love of family, eye for color, and incredible photography.

And I LOVE THESE PENCILS *, of which I would never have heard, were it not for Jane. Thank you, Jane.

*Pssst - run your mouse over the pencils.

The Dawn of Cheddar

I opened up the two cheddars this last month, and on the whole, it was a good experiment. I shall definitely make more this next summer, at least six, I hope.

The wine cooler worked well to keep the temperature even, but the humidity was an issue. I think I let too much water stay in there - I changed out a wrung-out damp rag daily, but shall try out aging the cheddar on boards (clean hardwood) and putting a bowl of water at the bottom.

There was mold under the wax. It wasn't a problem, and made the older cheddar taste almost bleu, but I don't want to set up a situation like that again.

The 2 month cheddar was the best. Light, creamy, flavorful, with a smooth texture, it was everything I want in a cheddar, with just a bit of mold. The 3 month, OTOH, had more mold, and I had to sacrifice more cheese as I pared the mold off. Most of the cheeses, BTW, are now bagged, labelled, and in the freezer.

Waxed cheese, ready to be opened like a pumpkin! You can see the dark mold on the top, beneath the wax. I think that my wax application technique needs improvement, too - that may have set up entry points for mold; also, I need to be sure the cheese is completely dry before waxing. I had thought it was, but perhaps not!

Mold - ugh!

Post-wax, post-mold - isn't it lovely? On the whole, a great little experiment. I feel like a real cheese-maker now, though with many improvements to be made. The journey of a thousand miles, etc. - the perfect cheddar cannot be reached without many (delicious) wheels of imperfect cheddar on the way.

The cheese press that I used, BTW, is awesome - click here to examine it. The site's like SuperThrive for plants, or Dr. Bronner's soap - despite all the hype, it's a super product.

Yikes!

Omigosh - a teenaged boy just ploughed into our big back gate and fences this morning at about 7am and knocked ‘em down with his truck!

Nice boy - responsible - his dad and brother came out and after many photos and exchanges of information, they helped us prop up and jerry-rig a temporary. No goats were lost (coulda lost dairy bucks and angora wethers) bc Daphne the Wonder Anatolian and Baxter the Basset stood in the gap and barked until Mom came, and they didn’t lay a paw outside the fenceline. Fantastic. I managed to get the boys all up and safe.

It’s been raining, and teen boy (a fine upstanding lad who apologized) hydroplaned, hit the sopping wet clay, and couldn’t stop. We had a pile of logs for this very purpose, and it broke the momentum, but went right through the fence as well. Bent his wheel and broke his front light, but was able to park truck. It will be towed later.

GOLLY! But all is well, praise God.

This text is primarily copied from my post in Ravelry - a friend (hi, Gabrielle!) wanted pics, and I'm still a wee bit too frazzled to think or write much on the subject. All is, however, still well. Of all the people you want ploughing into your fence, it's a member of a family with money, insurance, and a sense of responsibility. Phew!

The first pic at the top (I'm having trouble with Blogger today) is the jerry-rigged fencing we set up so that animals can still roam the yard. Thank God we still had the panels from a chain-link kennel!

Q & A

Yes, my children, I have come, like Venus Flytrap, to answer your questions.

Q: How did the county fair go?

A: It was a mixed bag. I had a hard time keeping my sense of humor on the knitted items - in fact, I didn't keep it at all, which is ridiculous, since I knew going into it that as an Auslander, there was no way the tight little group that controls the Handiwork division would actually look at my work (unless they spit afterwards). But it still hurt. Le sigh....So my socks were hidden among the afghans and, though the second of only two pairs of socks in the division, didn't ribbon. Incidentally, the little lady who finally found them for me when I went looking, and who had checked me in and who was docent-ing for the first time this year, was FURIOUS - she actually moved my socks to better show them off, bless her. My dyed/carded/blended mohair was in Misc., so I didn't expect much, and, interestingly, it got a third, which it shared this position with the most awesome cushions ever (above), so I don't mind. My heartbreakingly awesome Habitat hat got a second, and my knitted baby hat got a third - and there were no other hats. Yipes.

On the upside, my cut zinnias got a first and a second (whee!) and my handspun yarn, for which I actually found a category, got a first! So much fun. There are way more entries in those divisions, and they're way better organized and administered, so it's less of an I-didn't-see-anyone-working-on-that-at-the-coffee-klatch kind of standard. So the moral of the story is that next year, at most, I do one knitted item, so fabulous that it merely serves to highlight the Yarn Nazis - and go crazy on cut flowers, and enter a skein of yarn. Hey, works for me.

Q: Have you created a Flickr group for Insane Fair Crafts?

A: Yes, I have. Click here.

17 little acorn squashes

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fall Garden: it's coming!

Yay, it's September! We've still got some really high daytime temperatures, but the mornings are cooler, and there have been some lovely overcast periods. In July, I always doubt that I'll ever garden again - and by September, I'm making lists in my cell phone's notepad function (I'm determined to stop wasting paper by making tiny notes that I leave in my pockets in the wash, or pull out and drop, unnoticed, when I put on lip balm. Anyway....).

One of the great benefits to working at a nursery is the possibility of free plants. I just bedded out some rejects that might yet live, but look awful, and then there are plants that reproduce well by seed, and that have taken root in the mulch on which the for-sale pots are kept. Add the regular water, and bam, baby plants! I dug up some lovely little rudbeckias last week, potted them up, and have been thrilled to see them thrive in partial sun. I plan to put them out sometime in the next month, after I move the giant Henri Martin that I, strangely, put in the front of our main garden bed so that it blocks our view of everything behind it. Weird.

I emptied the ComposTumbler this morning; one of the chickenyard beds needs prepping if I'm going to be starting greens in it at the end of the month. Lettuces? Spinach? Probably mustard greens.

And we have baby acorn squashes! Wow! They are SO cute. I've never grown acorns before, and had no idea how kawaii the darned things are.

Tomorrow I plan to move my desert willow tree - I love it, but foolishly planted it near the wellhouse (where it might grab onto the pipes, etc.), and we've also started all these veg beds where it will soon be shading. And I need to pull bermudagrass out of the front yard squash bed. And prune the roses and fertilize everything. Argh, it's starting - but it's awfully fun.

Long awaited baby goat pics, news, and cheese

Thought these were lost, but they're not - yay! These were taken in early July, so there've been some changes (girls bigger, for one).

This is Cupcake, one of Blossom's daughters.

In the hay rack, the position of advantage, is Devon (Curry's daughter), and in front are Biscuit (Blossom's other girl) and Cupcake again, and in back is Crumpet, who died in mid-July - yeah, I know. It sucks. Coccidiosis sucks - she got pneumonia as a result.

And in the back of the tub is Tussah (look at her little tongue!), Anabel's daughter, and there's a better view of Devon to the right there.

We're so sad to have lost Crumpet, but so grateful for the five girls we have left. Biscuit has a bit of a cold right now, and some chest congestion, and I'm dosing the hell out of her and praying hard; hopefully it's just a summer cold and not a result of the bout of coccidiosis that they've all had. It's one of those diseases that can wipe some animals out while leaving others standing, and I don't want to short-circuit the process by trying too hard to save the weak, but it isn't fun, no sir.

I've moved to once-daily milking - it's been such a stressful summer with the record heat, and the girls have finally rebelled - it was all I could do to get Sesi and Maud into the parlor! I need to keep them in milk as long as possible, into a second year if I can, so I took them down to once a day to reduce stress and improve their appetite (since that's the only time they get grain). I plan to milk Sesame, Maud, Curry, and Anabel through next spring at least, and dry Chamomile, Blossom, and Nougat off in winter when I also plan to breed them (plus Chloe). Hard to believe that Cham is on her first lactation still, and into 13 months! What a trooper.

I also am leaning towards mini-Nubians again - we had a scare when the local extension agent said in the paper that one acre is legally required for livestock, and fortunately he meant in the city limits, not in the county, but it was a close call. We have written promises now that if we do get annexed we can grandfather in all our animals (city law is only one goat per acre - imagine!), but we do need to maintain a certain number at all times. If we're annexed with 17 goats, that then is our max allowed, so....Anyway, I really hope to get a girl out of Chamomile this spring - eventually I may look for two Nubian girl-kids to breed to our Nigerian bucks, but we'll need more land for that; I might not even like what I get out of Chamomile, but I want more milk - these little girls just aren't very big. We'll see - it's a balance of space and effort.

I only got two cheddars into the cooler this summer, which disappoints me - I'd hoped for three or four, but it takes 2 gallons, and now that the milking's only once a day, the milk's reduced by a bit - just as well, I guess. Take these as learning cheeses and be ready to try again next year. I did, however, discover the yummiest cheese, thanks to my sister riffling through my copy of Home Cheesemaking, and let me tell y'all: it's fabulous. I'm going to go ahead and share it in my own words, since it's just a variation on Queso Blanco and Ricotta that's common as all-get-out.

1/2 gallon fresh milk

about 1/4 c fresh-squeezed lemon juice (I'm trying lime this week)

Bring milk slowly to 185 to 200 degrees, remove from heat, and slowly stir in most of the lemon juice. Curds should immediately separate from whey - if not, add all the juice. Cover and set aside for 15 mins. Line a colander with butter muslin and pour in the curds; tie ends together and hang over sink (or whatever) for 1 to 2 hrs or until stops dripping. Remove and mix in salt to taste and herbs if desired (cheese won't keep as long if you add herbs, but heck, this cheese didn't last 12 hrs in our fridge). Refrigerate up to two weeks (if no herbs).

I'd been making 1 gallon batches of Ricotta with vinegar and it was awesome, but this Lemon Cheese beats it all hollow, plus it's with a smaller qty of milk, so will fit in between all the fresh milk we drink just fine.

Share and enjoy!