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.