Milking

I've been a pretty busy woman. I mean, always, but especially the past couple weeks. We started milking (meaning Son and My Man). It takes a lot of work for Mom to keep all of the equipment clean; jars and lids, milk pail, filtering funnel, cloths for cleaning her udder. We have a Dexter, which is a dual purpose breed, so we aren't getting as much milk as a dairy breed would give us. But we still get between a gallon to a gallon and a half per milking, and that's 2-3 gallons daily to handle. I guess she's giving a bit more than that, but they are keeping a certain amount out for bottle feeding her calf. We are sharing milk so far with my brother-in-law's family, and with dear friends who have shared with us several times in the past. We still have way more milk than we need. Milking began on monthly grocery day, and we don't have an extra fridge. So we've been having to move milk fast.

I think I've decided that if I make a batch of mozzarella each day, we'll probably keep pace. I tested how the homemade mozzarella freezes, and it does fine. Son wants to make butter and whipped cream, so I've begun skimming the cream before cheese-making. We bought an "antique" countertop butter churn around the time we had to stop milking last time (because she'd gotten a bad wound on her udder and couldn't handle the milking). My Man and Son used it for the first time a few evenings ago and it worked quite well. That night, we ended up with a big slab of butter, a quart of buttermilk, and 2 mozzarella wheels. That consolidated 2 gallons of milk plus some additional cream from an earlier cheese making session. I may attempt converting the whey into whey powder, but we'll see how it goes. It's supposed to be pretty easy, but... I've been a pretty busy woman.

Monthly Groceries Day

 Yesterday was a busy day.

 I started on 3 hours of sleep, and didn't eat anything until 3:00 pm (except two slices of canned peaches). My Man took Punkin and Sweetie out for breakfast. He also took Son, Sissy and Honey out to Walmart and Ace (we had a broken toilet seat that needed replaced). And then he took the big girls to the library. He and I (and Little Guy) visited the local secondhand stores, looking for Corelle dinner plates. And My Man was looking for something else, but I don't recall what it was. Neither of us were successful. Then Little Guy and I went for our monthly grocery orders. That took longer than usual for various reasons. I also visited Goodwill, but still no luck finding dinner plates. I picked up Burger King for my super late lunch. Once home, our wonderful children unloaded everything and helped me put away, but we only got the perishables put away this time. Then My Man left once more, this time going to visit some out-of-state friends who were staying with their family, other friends of ours. He did take Sissy and Honey, but I stayed home and started tackling meat preparation tasks. I cooked and froze 30 lbs of ground beef, separated and froze about 12-13 lbs of raw ground beef into meal-sized portions (about 2.5lbs), seasoned, formed and froze around 7 lbs hamburger patties, chopped/sliced and froze 25 lbs of chicken. I also put a 10 lb roll of ground beef into the freezer, and a 5 lb package of chicken in the fridge to deal with later, because it was getting late. Other things that I did during that time, were to unload and reload the dishwasher, give Punkin a bath, put Precious down for bed, nurse Little Guy more than once, and take the sleeping Sweetie up to her bed. I had Son complete some other tasks for me, and he also watched some episodes of History in the Dark and took a shower. Honey also bathed after they returned. It was very nice to go to bed, although late.

 And while writing this post, I see that Little Guy (who was pretty cranky with the events of yesterday) is truly mobile now! He's enjoying rolling and scooting along to get whatever he wants to play with next. Super cute! He's a very happy little guy!

Braids

 I've been fixing Honey, Punkin and Sweetie's hair in braids to keep it out of the grasp of Little Guy. And Precious gets upper pigtails. Punkin and Sweetie aren't very happy about this, but I told them it's temporary. They have been losing hair to their little brother like crazy. And he's been getting hair in his mouth sometimes. And I've NEVER had so much hair in the vacuum cleaner before. So braids it is.