Unpleasant...

Yesterday was just unpleasant.

At 5 am the dogs woke us up.  They were in the living room barking in a blind panic.  The noise they were making was unreal.  All I saw when I stumbled into the living room was red.  My window was glowing red like it was sunset.

Confused, I looked out the window and gasped.  Across the street the house was up in flames.  I must have said something because in a flash hubby was at my side asking what was wrong.  Thankfully, a police officer was standing in our driveway so we knew fire trucks were on the way.

In the light of day, and under a think blanket of smoke, we found out no one was in the house at the time of the fire, so I was thankful.

The morning chores went as usual except for a bit of agitation from a few of the rabbits and the chickens.  The smoke, the sirens, and the fire made for a scary morning for them.  I gave them all extra pets and left for a few hours.

When I came home, I had the biggest disappointment waiting for me.

Approaching the rabbits to replace the frozen water bottles, I was greeted by all but one.  I knew before I even opened the door that my lovely Big Bunny had passed away.  She had been fine in the morning; playful and cheery.  We are uncertain what the cause of death is, but I fear heat stroke.  Hubby thinks old age since it appears she passed peacefully and she was fine for most the morning and afternoon.  He also pointed out that her hutch gets the least amount of sun in the day (a privilege for being a pet), so it would be more likely if one of the others got heat stroke.

Whatever the reason, it's sad to see my pet bunny is gone.  Now, instead of a happy bunny standing at the cage door to greet me, all I have is an empty hutch.

She will be missed, that is for sure.

This Moment...

The idea is inspired by Miranda Creates.  Join the fun!

How Laura Do... Cheese!

So, here is the promised post. 

Today, I discuss how I make cheese.

I did not use the directions found on New England Cheesemaking Supply's site, but I wish I had.  I used some other directions that I can no longer find.  We will reference New England's directions though, and point out all the mistakes made.

First off, April came over and we bought our gallon of milk each.  My sister let me borrow her citric acid, liquid rennet, and cheese salt.  We had everything we needed to make our 30 minute mozzarella!  Little did we know the disaster that was to follow...

We started off warming the milk slowly in a big pot over medium heat to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  Since I don't have a milk or candy thermometer, we used my meat thermometer.  Don't recommend doing that.  Mine only went in 50 degree increments, so that made gauging the temperature a bit difficult.  We will call this mistake one.   

While we waited for the milk to warm, we diluted the citric acid.  Then, we remembered we were doing a double batch, and measured it out again.  After double checking that I wasn't screwing up too badly, we poured it in the milk and gave it a bit of a stir.
 

After adding the citric acid.

While it continued to heat up, we measured out the rennet and diluted it as well.  This time, I remembered we were doing a double batch.  Once the milk reached 90 degrees, we did not remove it from the heat when we added the rennet.  We did not let it sit for 5 minutes, covered.  Instead, we added the rennet, stirred the whole pot, and skipped ahead to heating it to 110 degrees.  Call this mistake number 2.

Adding the diluted rennet.

At this point, you can start laughing at my inability to read directions.  However, I defend myself by saying that we followed a different set of directions to the letter.  I swear on that.

I digress.  Let's continue with the fail.

So, we slowly heated the cheese to 110 degrees, all the while checking for curds to form.  If we had followed the New England's instructions, we would have known that the curds should have formed when the pot was resting.  Instead, what we were doing was destroying every attempt the curds had of forming.  We heated to milk too soon, I stirred the pot (more than once), and to boot, I over heated the milk by allowing the temperature to get up to 120 degrees.  At this point, the milk was separating into curds and whey, but not forming the nice, stiff curds like they should have.  It looked more like curdled milk.  Yum. 

We will lump all these mistakes into mistake number 3.
 
In an attempt to fix this, we allowed the milk to rest.  (Yes, I'm laughing too.)  I read that sometimes the rennet just needs more time.  Hindsight tells me that it was too late to save my curds.  All the stirring had broken the curds up too much for them to form together, and over heating the milk killed what was left of the rennet.  My poor mozza was not looking good.

Where are those pretty curds you see in the pictures?

We strained the milk/curd mixture through some cheese cloth.  We ended up with a mass of soft, unformed curds.  If we had followed some good directions, than at this point we would have had nicely cut, thick, tofu-like curds.

When the curds were done straining, we divided them into 2 bowl.  We heated the bowls in the microwave (as per our directions) to try and get the whey to move out of our curds.  It did not work.  We only succeed in making hot curd soup.

After repeated warmings and attempted strainings, it proved hopeless.  I poured all the curds and whey into some cheesecloth and hung it up to drip out the whey.

Straining the whey from the curds.

After about 3 hours, we had ricotta.  Or cream cheese.  Who knows. 

Strained cheese.

After 24 hours of hanging, the cheese was nicely firm, but very crumbly.  We divided it up into 2 lumps and we each made lasagna out of it.  So darn good.

So, there you have it.  That's how Laura makes cheese.

I will be making cheese again.  I really want to make a good mozzarella.  I'm going to be purchasing a mozzarella kit from New England Cheesemaking Supply.  Hopefully next time I have a nice cheese to share.

Have an idea for what you want to me to demonstrate next?  Let me know!  In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the ride!

Oh How the Garden Grows...

So, on July 2nd, I took a bunch of pictures of my garden for everyone to enjoy and never posted them.  Life got in the way and retreated into my hermitage for a while to adjust to the many changes happening.  This created a very real problem.  My photos have become out of date.  The garden is growing crazy fast in this heat, so the photos are useless if you want to see how my garden looks at the moment.

Knowing how sad everyone would be at not seeing some pictures, I decided to do a sort of before and after.  Below I will present to you what my garden looked like, and what it looks like today.  This way, all my effort will not be wasted and we get to see how quickly a garden can change in such a sort time.

However, I took less photos and didn't realize most of them were blurry or too dark to use until after I got inside.  Oh well.  We can deal with that.

Before: Potatoes!

After: Potatoes + bonus shot of Jack's big bum.

The potatoes are huge.  They are so large now that they have fallen over in their towers.  I'm hoping for oodles of taters!

Before: Corn!  Look how tall it is!

After: Corn with many ears almost ready to eat!

The corn is huge.  Its about 6 feet tall and many stalks have multiple ears!

Before: Peas!

There is no after shot that is not blurry.  The peas are mostly dead but with some new growth that is producing a second crop of peas!  Hubby is very excited.

Before: Broccoli

After: Broccoli

We were able to harvest all the heads of broccoli and are waiting for these new ones to mature a bit more.  Turns out, we harvested the last batch a bit late and they were a tad bitter.  I love (raw) broccoli, so I will definately be harvesting these ones sooner.

Before: Spring, yellow, and red onions

After: Spring, yellow, red onions in reverse order and different angle

The spring onions are ready to be pulled and eaten!  I can't wait!  The red and yellow ones all had their stems fall over, so I figure they will be ready soon as well.

Before: Carrots

After: Carrots

We pulled all the carrots shortly after the first photo was taken.  Hubby is in charge of the carrots and he was picking them one by one based on their estimated size.  As a result, he left them in the ground to get larger and ignored that his only mature to about 6 inches in length.  In the end, the extra time in the ground made them a bit woody.  I've planted 2 more rows since then and the first of those is sprouting.

Before: Pumkins

After: Pumkins!

 The picture does not show you how massive the pumpkins have become.  They are taking over the yard.  Their tiny pumpkins are now larger than a fist and only getting larger.  They are taking over everything.

Before: Lonely radish

After: Massive, but lonely, radish

For some reason, only one radish grew from my last plantings.  He's big enough to eat, so I guess that's what I will do.

Before: Cucumber

There is no after shot.  They were all too blurry.  The only cucumber on the plant is a few inches long and looking tasty!

Before: Celery

No after shot of the celery, but it really hasn't changed.


So, there we have it.  I will do this all again next week, but only to show the massive size of a few of the plants.  Hubby doesn't like these photos and gave me some good ideas for what to do next time.  If you want more photos and almost daily awesomeness, check out my instagram.  When I'm not on here, I'm there.  I take my instagram semi-seriously you know.

Now that we are done marveling at the fact that I kept all these plants alive for more than a week, lets move on.

In an attempt to post more frequently, I have added a few new ideas to my blog.  First, over at  Miranda Creats, she has started a series of posts every Friday that consists of a single photo capturing a moment from her week that she titles "This Moment".  I ripped off her idea (didn't even change the title of the post) and I, too, will post a photo on Fridays.  I think this is a lovely idea.  I also think you should check out her blog.  Her kids are freaking adorable.

As well, I will be trying a new Thursday post that should be interesting.  I got the idea from April who likes to satisfy her curiosity by asking a lot of great questions.  On Thursdays, I will attempt to answer them in my own way.  Since I don't like telling people how to do something and I never will claim to be an expert, I will set these posts up more as a run down of how I do things over here.  I will call it "How Laura Do".  Flawless!  Don't forget to go check out April's blog.

I hope these new changes will get me on here more often and give everyone else an idea of how my life operates.  In the meantime, have a great week all.

This Moment...

A new Friday ritual is gonna start here.  I single photo to describe my week.  I stole this one from my instagram.

I stole the idea from Miranda from Miranda Creates.  Check her out.  Her blog is awesome-sauce.

Darn this heat...

I really hate this heat.  We have record highs around here and its not going away anytime soon.  Though I don't care for Summer, its not because of what the weather does to me that causes me such anger.  I'm fine in shade with a fan, and if I have a cold drink, even better, but my poor animals. 

I do what I can for the outdoor animals, but its tough fighting Mother Nature.  Even my best is nothing against such high temperatures.  Knowing I'm inside with the AC cranked and they are outside makes me so sad.  Rabbits do not do well in temperatures above 25 degrees, so they have frozen water bottles in their cages as soon as temps get that high.  Still, I can see its affecting 2 of my rabbits.  They are panting away looking beyond miserable. 

The chickens are under shade most of the day thanks to the pear tree, and the pigeon sunbaths all day anyways, so I'm not too concerned about him (her? it?).  Poor rabbits, always on my mind.  I'll just keep on what I'm doing and hopefully I brainstorm some new ideas to try as well.

Oh Summer, you are relentless.

Short Garden Update

I have nothing new to write at the moment, so have a short, pictorial update of the garden!

Pumpkins are huge!  Can't even see the tiny cucumbers.

Sad radish and happy celery.

Earl's carrots on the left, my rainbow carrots on the right.

2 types of onions, broccoli with green onions hiding behind.

Super large corn.

Lettuce hiding in the corn and peas.

So many potatoes.

These photos were taken over a week ago, but I had huge problems with my internet and couldn't get them up sooner.  That being said, everything is bigger now since we had a few good rains.

As well, hubby is making us a new shed to put our garden supplies!  He's using reclaimed wood from small barn he helped tear down.  I'm pretty excited!

 

How is everyone else gardens growing??