Itty Bitty Hooves

Taking The Cheese Plunge Once Again

I’m about to go in the kitchen and try my hand at mozzerella again. I think one of my problems doing this is that I have the confidence that comes with experience, but it’s ancient experience.

Here’s what I mean. Last time I tried it fell miserably flat. The first time I made it a week or so ago it was good, but not really quite right. I couldn’t grate it. I had rushed it.

You see, a beginner would be oh so cautious. Making sure everything was done exactly the way directions state, and reading the directions very carefully due to their nervous fear because making cheese seems like it should be so hard.

Someone with experience making cheese knows 1) It’s not really that hard to do. And 2) most cheese receipes are the same with a few small variations, but the process is incredibly similar with each kind. and finally 3) even if you botch it up, it’s usually good for something.

I learned my lesson last time that 3 isn’t always true.

MY problem is I have past experience that tells me 1 and 2 are, and gives me the confidence to boldly go about what I’m doing even if I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to carefully measure each and every ingredient, and so on and so forth. Relying on memory for the amounts and steps rather than pouring over the recipe cards that I may as well look at since I have them, but am doing things to fast to bother.

My past experience gives me plenty of confidence… but it’s so far in the past that my ‘memory’ isn’t always as accurate as I’d like to think it is.

Now I’m not so old that my memory has totally failed me. Many of the recipes, those I’ve printed here over the last couple weeks, worked out just fine…

My favorite of all though–Mozzerella eludes me.

Maybe today.

New Life Never Gets Old.

I just spent some time out with Polly in her stall. She’s my Alpine dairy goat that’s due on the 28th. All signs are coming close to ‘go’ now though. It’s not too early so that’s fine. I do think she has a bit more time, but things can also progress quickly, or at a snail’s pace. It may take her 2 or 3 more days, or 2 or 3 more minutes, and with maiden goats, just like maiden mares, they don’t always read the book and do everything you’d expect, the way you’d expect it. So I am on yet another stare. The final one of the spring. I have two goats due in September/November, but for now, this is it. All my mares have foaled, and my one goat due in the spring is about to pop. It will be nice to be able to rest easy again… and at the same time, a little sad because one of the great joys of living on a farm is seeing all the new life come into the world. They are treasured moments, and each one is a new surprise. It never gets old.

Getting Used To It

Can you tell I’m ready for a vacation? It’s been a long late winter, and freaky spring, and now hot summer coming on. Just the other day I put my youngest kid (goats) in with the slightly older kids just to save myself a few extra footsteps during feeding times. They’re not terrifically happy with the idea. Not only are they not happy about it, they’re vocal about it and now they’re right outside my office window. It’s not that they’re doing any damage to each other. There’s nothing violent going on, goats just don’t like change. It takes them a long time to adjust to new herd situations. It probably doesn’t help that it’s raining today–something else goats don’t like at all. So they’re all stuck inside the houses together. Sort of a crammed in way of ‘getting to know you’ up front and personal. They’ll settle down, but it probably won’t get any quieter–the two very youngest kids are Nubians and have the biggest mouths on the planet. It’s just that before they were far enough away from the house that it wasn’t a constant chorus of come out here and play with me–resuce me. I guess I’ll be the one that has to ‘get used to it’.

It’s A Girl—Again

Mark is definately the filly producing machine… but now he’s proving himself as a color maker too! Our final mare of the season foaled this morning. A beautiful, flashy silver dapple LOUD pinto. I knew Mark had it in him to throw flashy color. Last year all of his foals were solid except for socks, or maybe a small dot of color here or there. This year three of four were pintos. He had one solid with socks and a big star, one with high socks and just a few small spots, and now two very boldly marked pintos.

The weather is too yukky today to get pictures, and she’s just new and unfolding, but I’ll try hard to get some pics over the weekend of our newest flashy baby.

Goofed Cheese

Well, I tried again today to make mozzerella and it kicked my butt. I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong, but I do know I was rushed. Cheese is such a delicate thing. There are so many ways to make it, and most of them are easy enough, BUT they require enough concentration and time that you don’t just throw something in without being sure of what you’re doing. Usually even ‘ruined’ cheese can be used in some way. For instance my mozzerella that I made for lasagna last week. I rushed it and it wasn’t perfect, but it still tasted great in the dish. Sometimes, however, like this morning, it is just ruined. It didn’t even firm up like cheese. Now like I said, I was rushed. I put in too much rennet. I really didn’t think too much about it though, figuring it would just be ‘harder’ than normal. If that was the reason though… no, it wasn’t.

Sometimes you’re going to goof, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Weather isn’t the only way Mother Nature tends to kick us when we’re down… and sometimes even when we think we have the world by the b@lls. My friend Ellen called me this morning and asked if I could spare a few minutes to come look at her injured calf. The poor thing was completely down, breathing laboredly, bleeding from one nostril, although not heavily. The vet seemed to think the little girl got kicked at some point. She was out in the pasture with several horses and mom and the bull, so it is certainly possible.

I took a look at her, and it really doesn’t look good, although nature can throw a wringer in that direction too and she may get up as though nothing happened. It’s so hard to tell what’s going on inside though. It’s easy if you can see a cut, a break, something, but even when you can’t see visible signs there can be lots going on internally. Internal bleeding can be worse than a broken bone. Ellen was so hoping to keep this calf for a second dairy cow and as a replacement for her mother who suffers from arthritis.

The Sign Of Nature

Have you ever felt like Mother Nature was giving you the finger? I have proof that it actually happens!

It has felt like that since mid-December last year. A super strange winter. Hot weather in February followed by the biggest single day drop in temperatures in over fifty years that lasted longer than any other cold spell in over a century. More hot/cold, hot/cold, etc… lots of rain, then no rain at all, high winds. Tornados all over the country…

Yep, Mother Nature sure knows how to put us in our places.

Spare Change

If you get tired of spare change lying around on desk tops, dressers, and counters like it does around here sometimes, you’ll love this coin sorter. It’s just the coolest thing. It even does the wrapping for you so you don’t have to mess with loading them cylinders yourself. I end up spilling half of it as I try to funnel it in there when enough change builds up that I can wrap it up. It makes keeping the change easier too, or taking it to the bank to cash in for paper.

How Sweet It Is

I love when Bob is home. He got back from running his errands and taxing our son around and had stopped at Walmart and bought me two new t-shirts (the uniform of the day, always) and even stopped at Dairy Queen and brought home milkshakes for both of us. How sweet it is.

Super Me?

I’m not making any cheese today, or anything else. I’m taking the day off… sort of. I still have to do all the chores, and I had to play taxi cab for my daughter this morning. Bob even had to join in the ‘Country Haven Ranch Taxi Cab’ service and drive my son as they both had appointments at the same time, and … well even if my daughter says I’m ’super mom’ and should be able to, I just can’t be in two places at once. It did mean getting up an hour earlier to get the milking and feeding done before I left. I guess that still qualfies me in Super Mom catagory.