say *CHEESE*

It feels so improper, posting so soon after the last. Am I being too forward?

I'm sorry, but I just can't help it. I am positively giddy. Not a bone in my body is Not dancing right now! And all because the yogurt turned out terribly!

Really bad. Not that I know anything about this, but I'm guessing it was over-done. It was whey with chunks and caused crying and tears this morning at breakfast. It wasn't me that wept over the imperfect result. It was someone a few decades younger than me, but I wouldn't put it past me. It just happened to not be me this time. I did think, for a moment, that maybe I do believe in factory farming and in mega food corps that can turn out huge vats of yogurt and cheese with the flip of a wrist on a couple of controls. Mad cow be damned, let's conveyor belt 'em and get efficient.

But the chunks gave me a cheesy idea. And it is sooo good. Like a chevre. I'd post a photo, but it's all full of cracker crumbs now. I don't even know why I have crackers on hand today. Usually I eschew anything prepared so that there have been times where my kids whine: "Moooom, I'm hungry." And all I can say is, "I'll whip up some brown rice and we can have a little snack in only 45 minutes!" It's just a small step up from having to chaff the rice first. Sometimes I get sick of this, and yesterday I bought 6 boxes of crackers. And I've tried them all on my cow-chevre. And they are all delicious accessories.

I'm so stoked, I had to share this with EVERYONE! The news, that is. The cheese is mine.

Teeter totter, bread and butter

Wins: X
losses: X + y - y = X again!

The gains are lousy long shots and the losses luckily don't out weigh them.

I tried making butter today. Today, and not yesterday, because today was the first day I had enough cream, separated, to try for butter. I felt so clever with my sun tea jars. Just strain off the milk from the bottom! Right?! Unfortunately, there's that last full inch of milk and cream clumsily sloshing around. So I poured my several days worth of cream in to a jar. And then I actually syringed the errant milk from the bottom! Syringed. It took a long long time because the syringe only holds one tablespoon.

The directions said to let the cream sour for a day on the counter. Easy! Then it said to put the cream in my blender. I have the world's best blender. Not only does the carafe perch upon a chrome beehive with retro perfection, it's also very powerful. Don't mess with my blender. They said it would take five minutes, and butter is nothing but over-whipped cream. I turned it on, removed the lid, as per directed. And sat back. If you recall my spring smoothie incident, you'll know that I kept my hand securely on the blender. They said it would outgas a little. So I took it in stride when curls of gas began to spiral up. But when the gas became gray, and took on a more billowy shape, I stuck my nose in to investigate. Yes, after five minutes, my cream was still cream, spraying up my curious nostrils. And there was smoke.

When my kitchen experiments become (unintentional) disasters (see below for Huck's contrasting disaster), I dive into avoidance and denial like the deep inexhaustible lakes they are. I just put everything back. The disobedient cream is in the fridge (still in the carafe) and the blender butt is right where it belongs. Almost like Nothing happened.

I'll freeze a fiasco for MONTHS before tossing it, just to burn off the humiliation and waste of it all first. The curry where I accidentally increased the toasted cardamom seeds by 10 fold: that sat in large bags in our freezer for 6 months. Took up the whole thing. No ice cream could even fit. But how could I trash the 4 hour dinner that ended in pizza? Eventually... but not immediately.

Huck looked in the fridge, saw the blender carafe filled with cream and said, "Oh! You made butter!" He saw my face and said, "Oh! you tried to make butter!" We'll call that a shoot, in the dairy game of life.

Not entirely put off by the experience, I plugged in my new yogurt maker. Scoff. Scoff, I know you will. Yogurt maker! HA! What kind of woman needs a special appliance to let something sit around for four hours?! Well... I have tried it without and it was a 2 quart disaster. So I decided to set myself up for success, stoke my ego, get me a maker and some starter and see what I could do. With my accessories in hand and my failed past behind me I achieved total success...so far it's a ladder! My yogurt looks right at least. I'll find out more about the flavor in the morning.

This fresh milk thing is sort of a wash. Financially, it could be years before we recoup anything. Ladder! today, I got my first massage in 7 years. Shoot: because my arms are really getting sore from squeezing out teets. Ladder: I'm visibly buffer too. It was only a 15 minute massage, on a lark, at the local natural foods store, but it was GREAT! I got to keep my clothes on, which helped me relax, a lot! Aromatherapy was used and all day people have been telling me that I smell like the natural food store. Shoot: I just spent two weeks worth of milk on a massage.

Shoot: forgot to muck the stalls for two days. Had to do it tonight after putting the kids to bed. Ladder!: stood out for a long long time admiring the stars and the silk of a late summer evening on my skin.

Ladder!: fresh milk. Shoot: had to milk these last two days while sick, with a fever. I hadn't anticipated that. I had imagined cold, dark mornings, snowy mornings, drowsy mornings, etc. But not sick mornings. Even so, it's better than a third kid, I think.

Pickle Chiffon Pie!

What better activity to busy yourself with on a singular day off than making infuriatingly inedible food? There are those among us, neigh, even under our very roofs who would, and indeed, have already done such. One, Huckleberry Husband, perpetrated this dastardly deed. After many days of long hours, in which 70 hours of work were accomplished in six days, the man got a day off.

And he took to the kitchen.

A favorite children's book, Pickle Chiffon Pie (found at http://www.chinaberry.com/prod.cfm/pgc/11200/sbc/11202/inv/8962), has been the source of years worth of pleadings for such a kitchen atrocity. My response has always been a look of disgust and a quiet shake of the head indicating: obviously NOT!

Huck on the other hand always said, "Maybe some day."

Just a few days ago was some day, apparently. Huck had been tied down to his job, to work, to engineering, to things making sense and being useful and practical. And he'd had it. My interpretation of this crazy endeavor is that he just needed a grand moment of frivolity. He needs a regular dose. This is likely one of the best reasons I married him eight legal years ago, today! (That and we'd already had a kid.) He's got this surprising streak of grand and silly gestures that keeps a gal on her toes.

So he actually spent half a day in the kitchen, over double boilers, whisking egg whites to snow peaks, and Frankensteining recipes from our 1950's American-International Encyclopedic Cookbook.

What emerged at the end of the day was sublimely perfect. A white whipped topping over green chiffon. It sliced liked heaven. The texture was cumulonimbus. And then we took our bites.

Tears.

Coyote hung his head in utter dejection.

Blue tasted and spewed.

I drew it in to my mouth, laid one part of my tongue upon it, and withdrew the intact piece immediately.

The most perfect and beautiful thing to appear on our table in ages was totally disgusting.

"Did you know it was going to be horrible?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Obviously Pickle Chiffon Pie is not going to be good."
"You...you...you spent all day in the kitchen making something so perfect and no one can eat it?" As the woman of the house who's role is now suddenly also to be the constant cook, I could not, cannot, will not (on principle) understand this.

So I threw my piece at him. My aim was true, by the way.

Chocolate? Vanilla? Lemon even. But dill and vinegar? A grave injustice indeed.

This isn't his first inedible pie. He once mistook flowering quince fruit for fruiting quince fruit and made pie out of it. My response was the same as this one. But he stubbornly ate an entire piece and spent all week puking. But that pie was an accident, a mistake. This pie was a piece of intention, a willfully wrong whimsy.

Indignant though I may be, I am amused. I do understand the requirement for an unnecessary flourish, a foolish trick, a waste of time, a glorious, perfect waste of time. Especially in the midst of too much work. Ah... Huck, a man who knows the value of play.

And yet I still feel I am owed a really really good chiffon pie.

Foam on the top!

I am so thrilled right now, giddy to the bone, and I can't help but tell the whole freaking world! I got milk! Got milk, baby! Yes! The Milk is in! I am the freakin' merriest milkmaid ever! Yep, you guessed it, I squeezed a big old bucket of milk from my crazy heifer this morning!

Everything was finally in place. The stanchion over-built as per specs. The girls comfy and familiar to life here. I'd developed the knack for that peculiar finger wave curl involved in milking without damaging teets or creating mastitis. The tools were assembled. It was time to wean. I actually forgot to the night before, but then I remembered last night. Sukey locked in to one stall, with tons of hay. And Hendrika went in to the other, with tons of hay. And neither did they moo or wine or fuss. No big deal. I think Hendrika was probably ready for this moment... if I know anything about it, being a woman who nursed for 6 years straight herself. Regardless of readiness, I anthropomorphized some sweet sadness on to them, knowing this was the beginning of the end of their tight, nuzzling relationship. I felt a little bad too, for my role in that. But I consoled myself with the fact that Hendrika will likely have 8 more babies, give or take a few. She'll get over it.

The loudest bellowing on earth awoke us at 5:30 AM. It echoed across the prairie and I couldn't pinpoint where it was originating. Was that ours? Or the Angus herd across the street? I bumbled into my polk-a-dot barn boots, and stumbled out with buckets to see if it was Hendrika and if I should milk. Huck and Blue bounded behind me. Everyone (except the snoozing Coyote) was very eager to see the results of the night.

We've been getting a teaspoon every morning. It hasn't been rewarding, emotionally or lactically. But I was practicing, and getting all used to the routine. Cows, they tell me, are ALL about routine. I'm not, really. But since kids are ALL about routine too, I figured I could handle it. I was a little worried about her milk production. We'd seen Sukey nursing periodically but had no idea how much she was getting, so we didn't know what to expect this morning.

The bag, as they call it, looked as if it might pop like a balloon. I didn't know if I COULD get anything out of that rock. But 10 minutes later, I had a good half gallon with foam. FOAM! On the TOP! And that's when my jelly arms gave out. And Hendrika decided to lay down! I grabbed the bucket, but once she felt it on her side, she stood back up again. And there you have it! The bag was still stone hard, but it wasn't hot, which would indicate mastitis.

I've been to the ER for mastitis before, which included tracking down my arms! The elderly woman upstairs had come down to check on me, and I was bizarrely out of it and she asked what was wrong and I showed her and she threw me and Blue into her car and sped us to the ER. Thank goddess for elderly, experienced, and caring landladies!

Anyway, my over-abundance of breastfeeding experience certainly comes in handy here. Who knew breastfeeding was preparatory work experience!?

So... there you have it. I let Sukey have the rest, assured she'd empty her out. I'll work up my milking stamina before I wean her entirely. My hands stung from my labors, and I even developed a blister!

I hastened to the house to strain the milk into my spigotted sun tea jar. This way, the cream will separate in the fridge and the milk will get siphoned off the bottom. Listen to those words: cream, milk. YES! And butter and yogurt and cottage cheese and mozzarella and marscapone and ICECREAM! Oh lordy, it's the land of milk and honey!

It's the land of damn good milk! Hot diggity!