August 9, 2009

Jennifer and Katie arrived in Chicago this morning around 10:00 local time. They got on the train at 4:45 a.m. (ET) in Sandusky. They're traveling with Katie's girl scout troop. They'll be home early Wednesday morning but we miss them already.

Here is some cottage cheese that I made Friday draining:
It's a pretty simple process. The room temperature milk is clabbered by adding a mesophilic starter and is ready to cut curd in 12 to 18 hours. Raw milk can also be clabbered without the addition of any starter at all but it may take several days. The cut curds are drained for a couple hours, washed and drained for another half-hour.

Here is a not-so-good photo showing an open flake of the hay I bought Saturday. $4.00 per 60+ pound bale of second-cutting alfalfa (delivered) is a very good price and I was lucky to get it. I feel sorry for those in parts of the country where alfalfa doesn't grow and hay like this is $6.00 or more a bale shipped in. This was grown about half a mile from my farm.