Got Milk?

Got milk?

We do and lots of it!

It must be a couple weeks ago now, that 4D15 cow had a late calf. She was one of those cows that we never expected to calve this year and was on the "gotta sell" list. She surprised Dave one day with a small calf at her side. She was tame enough for Dave to look over the heifer calf (Dot is her name) and that got us to thinking...would she be tame enough to milk?

Last year we purchased two Dexter cows, with the intent to milk them for our personal consumption. They're a small breed of cows, perhaps the size of a yearling calf. They are marketed as a tri-breed, for beef, milk and as a work animal (to pull a small plow, etc.). Well they never did appreciate being milked by hand, so after just a couple weeks we gave up on that adventure.

So when 4D15 calved this fall, we thought maybe we'll try it again. Dave was raised on raw milk from the farm so I'm not too worried about any health concerns. (heck, you can buy tainted produce right from the grocery stores!!)

The biggest difference between Dexter milk and this new cow momma is the cream content. The Dexter milk was very rich, with a cream content of nearly 30% it seemed. However, our current milk cow is a hereford/angus cross (best for beef) and the milk is closer to a store-bought whole milk. Very little cream separates from the milk. Which makes it difficult to skim off the cream and make butter or ice cream.

It took me over a week of milking daily, to accumulate a sufficient quantity of cream to make a batch of butter. I collected just under 4 cups of cream from nearly 4 gallons of raw milk (see I told you it had very low cream content!!).

I googled for the how-to using a KitchenAid mixer, the easiest method that I know of. The hardest part of the process is milking the cow, then skimming off the cream, then keeping your kitchen clean while the mixer does all the work.

First you pour the cream into the mixing bowl and turn it on to whip, as though you were making whipped cream. Be prepared to drape towels over the machine, unless you feel like washing walls and floors afterwards ;)


We've been whipping the cream for a few minutes now, and it's starting to change appearance. You can see the small globs of butter forming.


You can really see the butter starting to form together. The liquid is actually the buttermilk separating from the butter. You can use the buttermilk to make pancakes or muffins. Some people even drink it straight from the glass.


In the bowl is the unwashed butter, and the buttermilk is in the measuring cup. You can see that from the 4 cups of cream that I started with, I ended up with 2 cups of buttermilk.



The butter needs to be washed, to get as much buttermilk out as possible. If left unwashed, the buttermilk will sour the butter and spoil the taste. You can press the water out with a spoon, or knead it in a bowl. When the water gets cloudy, drain the water and start again with cold water. Keep kneading until the water runs clear.

After washing the buttermilk out and prior to drying you can add a bit of salt or spices. Mix in the salt while kneading.

I didn't get a photo of the next step, but you need to dry the butter before storing. I used a clean tea towel to dry the butter, kneading it for a couple minutes. Once the butter starts to stick to the towel you're done.


Out of 4 cups of cream, I ended up with this much butter. Not a lot. But so very yummy! Now we need some fresh-outta-the-oven bread!!

What An Experience

Well, yesterday was a day I'd really rather not repeat ever again. I was at work, nothing new about that. I've been covering for Michele, our M-F daytime gal. She had her first grandchild just last week (congrats!!) and had taken some time off.

It was about 2:30pm when I first noticed my wallet was missing out of my purse. I keep it on the counter in the office. Out of general sight, but still accessible. Cindy had just arrived, for her afternoon shift. She & I spent quite a bit of energy looking high and low, inside and out, for that darn wallet. It was a leopard print clutch style wallet. I thought at first, well it's just misplaced. It was probably sitting somewhere in plain sight, made invisible by our frantic searchings.

But soon I came to think maybe it was stolen! I called my local financial institution to ask them to stop my debit & credit cards. Oh, the phone calls I would be making, it's a painful process to remember which items were in the wallet, and then to find all the appropriate contact information.

In all, 7 different pieces along with some cash was taken. I've made most of the calls, but it was getting late in the business day yesterday to complete them all. Guess what I get to do this morning!

Both credit cards were used yesterday too, confirming my suspicions that it was indeed stolen and not just misplaced. I filed my report with the RCMP as well, so maybe they'll find the person(s) responsible. Who knows.

I spent most of the evening unable to focus or concentrate on much of anything. I was replaying the day's events in my mind, trying to determine which customer it might have been. When was I most vulnerable at work? Was I with a customer at the till? Was I on the phone with a supplier?

I feel angry, mad, frustrated, irritated. I want to cry, scream, hit or break something. I want to find the person(s) involved and get my revenge, some way some how. I feel violated, even though I didn't realize it was gone, until hours after it happened.

I know I'll never get the cash back, even if some Good Samaritan finds the wallet. The cards and ID will be replaced, it just takes time. And I'll never have the trust back again either. I will forever be leary of strangers (although it's remotely possible it was someone I know).

I have learned a hard hard lesson yesterday. And being a victim sucks.

And so harvest begins again...

Well Harvest 2010 has begun for the farm. Finally. I honestly didn't think we'd ever see this day. It's been a cold & wet year, the last time we had normal temperatures was back in April. And just today the weatherman is predicting a week of sun and normal (?) temperatures. Maybe, just maybe, the farmers can get back into the fields to finish up haying and get started on the crop harvest.

The past few days have seen us hauling bales, for ourselves and for the neighbor. It never fails, this time of year has the cattle wanting to come home. Never mind they have PLENTY of green grass in their pasture. Never mind it's not snowing and blowing. Never mind they don't NEED to come home just yet. They just want to. Simple as that. And fences be damned, they're persistent. Just tonight as I was headed out to attempt some moon photography Dave had to hop in the truck and chase 'em back to their side of the fence. Ugh. (btw, the moon photos did not turn out....much to my disappointment, and the long distance call to my brother Rod for camera tech advice)

Here is a great shot, of Dave in his tractor, and a CP Rail train headed east towards town. It was your typical freight train. We live just a short distance from the CPR mainline, so trains are a very common sight here.

I love these shots, focusing on the foreground with the background blurry. Besides, they're easy to do on the camera ;). It's the more difficult night shots (see moon photography, above) that get me stumped. Perhaps I should dig out the manual. Perhaps I should enroll in a digital camera course. Perhaps I should spend more time on Google, searching for practical camera tips instead of recipes. LOL

These are oat swaths, btw. They'll be combined in a couple days, if Dave can repair the swather knife and get the rest of the field cut. With the weather forecasting sun & warm temperatures (well, 18-25C IS warm for this year!) we can just pray the combine holds together long enough to get this year's crop into the bin. And if the cattle stay on their side of the fence long enough to get the bales moved home.

Only time will tell.

Sunday Morning Chores

It's been a few days since I last posted, life has gotten busy around these parts. I had a week off and it zoomed right by. We spent an afternoon at Douglas Park, on Diefenbaker Lake and visited with some relatives at Mistusinne (a small resort community on the Lake). I booked the week off to go camp somewhere, but time ran out on us. Maybe we'll get away for a couple nights in September, the parks should be a lot less crowded now.

A couple from the Main Center Hutterite Colony was in Chaplin on Friday, selling frozen chickens and garden produce (corn, beets, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes). I purchased 3 dozen peaches & cream corn, 2 dozen super sweet corn and a small bag of beets. I cooked the beets yesterday and today I sliced them and got them into the canner. It's my first attempt pickling beets and so far so good. I have corn in my garden but it's not ripening very quickly. So with the corn I bought I cut the kernels off the cob and then bagged them for the freezer. The corn husks went to Nanny, our goat. She loved them!! I don't blanch the corn as some recipe books suggest, I just straight freeze them (I do the same for garden peas).

Speaking of peas, my garden peas are done for the season. We didn't get too many pickings this year, way down from last year. I blame their dismal production on the wet spring and the sporadic heat and moisture during the summer. But that's the chance you take when you farm!

Our egg production is down too this past week. We had picked up 18 Leghorn Hens from a farmer near Rosetown a couple weeks ago. They did well the first week here, I didn't think they were stressed from their relocation. However, this past week our egg numbers are hovering around 15 (we had 13 laying hens before the newbies arrived). So the new gals have slowed way down in their production. I have plenty of customers wanting fresh farm eggs, so they better get used to us soon!! We're feeding them plenty of layer diet (from our local feed supply store) and mixed grains. Dave thinks it's their time to molt....gee great timing!

Dave is finally done cutting the hay crop, he just has a day of baling to finish up, then it's onto the grain harvest. However, weather has a way of putting a kink in the harvest schedule. We had a bit of rain last night, so no baling to be done today. And our weather forecast has 10-20mm coming tonight with an additional 25-30mm for Monday. The rest of the week's forecast has showers on a daily basis. Guess Dave will be around home for the week. Time to get started on his honey-do list ;o)

While Dave has been in the field, I've been homeschooling the boys every morning. My work schedule has me gone in the afternoon/evening hours, so I've taken on the responsibility this fall to do what we can in the mornings. The boys are doing well so far, but it's only been 2 weeks since we started. The Moose Jaw Homeschool group has organized swimming lessons again, and have booked lessons for 5 weeks starting in October. And gymnastics should be starting up again soon, through the Morse Gymnastics Club.

My beets should be just about done in the canner. I'll let you know how they taste!

School Is Now In Session :o)

Well, it's that time of year again, the start of a new school year. David is still in the field, trying to finish bringing in the hay crop, before he starts on the oats. Since I'm off this week (we were originally going camping this week....but plans change), I thought I'd start the homeschooling.

Today isn't the official kick-off to school, as Mitchell did a short report on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That was Monday. He heard about the Tower a few days before that, and so he and Dave did some research. Mitchell wrote up a short report and even drew a picture of the Tower. Did you know it used to be a Bell Tower? I didn't!! And they removed the bells to reduce the weight-load of the tower, to hopefully slow down the leaning. See, even at age 39, I've learned something new!!

Today we started with some spelling words (I searched the internet for "grade three spelling"). I'm not really sure what words he can and can't spell. Some of the easy ones he has trouble spelling, yet some of the more difficult words he spells without mistakes. Today's words are: about, across, add, afraid, after, afternoon, again, age, ago, air, almost and also. We'll review them each day and then have a spelling test at the end of the week (which is my plan, we'll see what happens).

Our science curriculum is a combination of life learning (what goes on around us and how humans interact); Read & Understand Science; and Evan Moore Daily Science. We had a short review of the solar system before my cell phone chirped. Life has a way of interrupting us and we had to go retrieve Dave from the south hay field (he had moved the tractor and swather this morning, and needed a ride home to get his truck). On the way home, I quizzed Mitchell on his spelling words. (See? Learning never stops, even when life gets in the way!)

Towards the end of his grade 2 year, we started Mitchell on Cursive Handwriting. We didn't get very far, so I thought we should pick up on that again. Mitchell had a couple melt-downs but he took a short walk around the house to clear his mind and came back to continue his handwriting.


Here's a picture of his handwriting, practicing "add" and "dad" and "gad" and "gag". He did pretty good I think.

We're using "Handwriting Without Tears" that we purchased at the 2010 SHBE Convention. It starts with the "magic c" which can be transformed into an "a" or "g" or "d". We start with the book, learning how to form the letter, then we do extended practice in a notebook. I don't find the workbook has sufficient space to practice the letters, so we just supplement with the notebook.

It's nearly lunchtime so perhaps we'll leave Geography & Map Activities (Rand McNally) until the afternoon. He really does well in Geography and even asked to do some today.

I haven't started any homeschooling with Matthew and Micheal yet this year. As you can see in one photo above, I'm also sorting out our books and curriculum. I have a pile for them, and then sorted out completed curriculum from last year and then this year's books. Perhaps in the next day or two I'll have them start up again as well. We have Numbers, Alphabet, and two different Printing workbooks for them (as they're at different stages academically).

The great thing with Homeschooling is we can tailor the curriculum to suit their abilities. Even though the boys are twins, they differ in their skills, vocabulary, speech and comprehension. The public school system would keep them at the same skill levels, so Matthew would likely lag behind and Michael wouldn't be using his full potential, when being taught the same curriculum.

Well, lunch is eaten and the fixings are put back in the fridge. The boys are getting big enough they make their own sandwiches most days. Today was ham and cheese. Simple and yummy.

Mitchell loves geography and learning about maps. Today's lesson is on South America. We are learning about the countries and their respective capital cities. And did you know some people in Brazil like to put bananas and cinnamon on pizza!! (again, I'm learning something new even at my age!!) Llamas live in the mountains of South America. Watch out, they spit!! (eww, yuck) Jaguars are large spotted cats that live in the forest or grasslands where they can hide. And toucans are colorful birds that live in rain forests (a forest that receives at least 100" of rain each year).

Well, that's all for today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed learning with us!

2010 Harvest Kickoff!

Today is the first day of canning for this growing season!!

A local lady has connections to the fruit truck deliveries from British Columbia each summer and into the fall months. Every couple weeks or so now there will be a different fruit on their truck, and we preorder about a week prior to delivery. This week's delivery was BC Cherries. YUM!

My boys absolutely L-O-V-E canned cherries. They'll eat them fresh too, but if given a choice of any home canned fruit, they pick cherries every time. I bought a 20lb case of cherries last night, and today I canned 14 pints of cherries, 2 quarts of pie filling and even had a good bowlful leftover to munch on fresh. I'm thinking now I should have ordered 2 cases, as I know how fast these will fly off the shelves!

These aren't my own recipes but ones I've gotten out of published cookbooks, so I will post specifics regarding the books.

Cherry Pie Filling

(Company's Coming Preserves Revised Edition, pg 102, c1994)

2lbs fresh pitted cherries (about 6 cups)
1 tbsp water
1 cup white sugar
2 tbsp minute tapioca
1/4 tsp almond flavoring

Place all 5 ingredients in large pot. Stir as you bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Pack fruit into hot sterilized quart jar to within 1" of top. Fill with juice to within 1/2" of top. Secure lid.

Process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Makes 1 quart, enough for one 9" pie. Repeat for as many jars as you like.

And for canning cherries in syrup, I use the Medium Syrup below:

Hot Pack Syrup

(Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving, pg 38, c1995)

Medium Syrup, approx 30% sugar:

7 Pint Jars requires approximately 4 cups water + 1 3/4 cups white sugar

I typically Hot Pack cherries so they have a longer shelf-life. "In hot packing, the prepared fruit is added to the boiling syrup or liquid. The mixture is brought back to a boil and simmered for a few minutes." I go one step more and process the pints in a boiling water bath for about 5 minutes. It's not in the original recipe, but since I have the canner full of boiling water to sterilize the jars, it couldn't hurt to process for even 5 minutes. Usually within 20 minutes of removing the jars, I can hear the seals "popping". I love that sound!

I really should have taken pictures throughout the process but Dave was in the field (and don't forget the repair shop too!) today so my photographer was busy elsewhere. If my hands weren't dripping with cherry juice I would have taken them myself ;)

2010 Summer Vacation

Well we are finally off on our summer vacation We bought our holiday trailer at a recent farm auction. It ain't pretty, it's extremely heavy to pull and the fridge doesn't cool. But it's ours :)

As we roll down the highway the engine temp is a bit warmer than we'd like. So Dave is driving slow about 80 kph. The trailer was made in 1973 and I'm sure constructed with cast iron and oak! It's a heavy pull for our 1997 GMC Sierra 2500. I'm glad we don't have a smaller truck. Now I know why the new trailers are "lite".

The boys and Bella are in the back seat asking "when's lunch?". Oh I remember back in the 70's on my own summer vacation with the family. We had the lunch eaten and water drank before we got to Hart. (You need to know that Hart is only 6 miles from Coronach!)

Upon our arrival at the park we ran into some road construction. The park access road suffered a lot of broken pavement and it was past due for repairs.

It's official now! We are on vacation. We have our park pass and Maple Vale #26 is Home Sweet Home for the next few days.

It took Dave a couple tries to get the trailer into the site. Unaccustomed to backing up the trailer tho he did better than I would have done.

Our trailer is ready for living. It's warm inside so I hooked up a small fan to blow the cool park air into the interior. We even have our own patio lanterns up and ready to plug in tonight. I can't wait!!

The boys are relaxing after a snack of jelly beans and sunflower seeds. They are in their canvas lawn hairs playing their Nintenso DS games. Dave is texting with his sister on his Blackberry Storm. I'm enjoying the park sounds while I type this out on my iPod Touch using the Notebook app.

We don't have wifi coverage in the park but Dave can access the cellular network. Perhaps when I'm out of the site down by the lake I will be more successful until now I'm disconnected and loving it :o)

We've had a bit of rain tonight. And the requisite thunder and lightening too. Wouldn't be a proper camping experience without some rain! Thankfully we have a fairly rain-proof trailer. There is a bit of dampness at the table through the side window. But considering the age of the unit it's faring rather well.

We had a family game night in the trailer while listening to the rain outside. We played UNO for the first time as a family tonight. I taught the boys a few days ago and tonight we taught Dave. I rather enjoyed the family time.

We did manage a fire about 8:30 to cook up some hotdogs. We barely finished when the rains began again so we hustled back into the sanctity of the trailer.

It's 9pm now and the boys are showing their weariness. Or perhaps it's my weariness coming out in them. In any case the rain is back and I think the fire is almost out so no s'mores tonight. I'm saddened as I really wanted them our first night. But there's always tomorrow.

We made it through the night rather well. We had a bit more rain but the ceiling didn't leak much if at all. I woke a few times as usual and by 6:30 had to pee. I took Bella out with me and left the menfolk behind. I crawled back into bed upon my return and Bella joined us. We snoozed for a short while until the boys woke up. Dave took them all for their morning pee and when they returned we put away the bedding. It was time for coffee!!

We fried bacon on the firepit and the eggs in the electric frying pan. The kids didn't care for the bacon but I really savored that woodsmoke taste it had. We cleaned up breakfast dishes and headed out to go exploring.

We started at the playground and then made our way to the lakeshore. There is a rule of no pets on the beach so Dave and I took turns wading through the water. It wasn't icy cold but it wasn't warm either. More like refreshing.

The kids were picking through shells on the beach and found a clamshell still intact so I checked and there was a clam inside! We took a few pictures of it and then returned it to the water to live another day.

We made our way back to the playground since that seemed to be the boys' favorite spot. I'm enjoying the sun's warm rays as I relax on a bench watching the boys on the playground equipment.

Our lunch today consisted of the finest frozen dairy products the Park had to offer...namely ice cream! It was a hit with the boys that's for sure. The boys each had a single scoop of chocolate on a cone. Dave had 2 scoops of hokey pokey, which was a toffee flavored ice cream with chunks of toffee. My cone was topped with mint chocolate chip. We shared with Bella and I'm not sure which flavor was her favorite, she wanted them all. Back at our site we are enjoying the sights and sounds. Dave is surfing the cellular Internet while the boys and I munch on some chips. We hope to head down to the trout pond to do a bit of fishing. Here's hoping we have fish to fry up at suppertime.

Well fishing was a bust. The trout pond wasn't stocked this year, probably due to the road construction adjacent to the access road. So we headed out on Hwy #2 and up to the causeway to do some fishing. Lost a couple hooks in the rocks and caught enough seaweed to feed us all. But no fish :( I hope we can get out more often now that we have our fishing licenses and the knowledge of what to do. Poor kids really wanted to be the one to haul in the fish with the net. LOL

We came back to the campsite to find there was a water break and no washroom facilities. Of course that was after I roasted our Jumbo marshmallows. Hard to wash sticky fingers without water. I took the boys to Elm View campground to wash up while Dave stayed behind with Bella.

We grilled some burgers for supper, starting them on a foil pan called Grill Buddies. It's a rectangular shaped foil pan with drip holes on the bottom side. Grease doesn't drip thru completely as the bottom has a ridged corrugated shape. Once the burgers firmed up a bit I grilled them directly on the park's BBQ to get that outdoorsy woodsmoke flavor. Mmmmm supper was yummy! I sliced some potatoes and grilled them with butter, seasoning salt and black pepper in foil dishes. They cooked up way better than using tin foil alone. I'll be sure to keep stocked up on cheap foil dishes from now on.

(In the picture are our Flat Friends, Alex & Evie from Ohio, enjoying some bbq burgers with us.)

The boys made some friends next door to our trailer. Hartley and his younger brother came over in the evening to watch Toy Story 2 and munch on some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I made us all some hot chocolate to drink while the movie was on.

It started to rain again too. More rain to make it a soggy evening and overnight. The rain continued into the wee morning hours and by morning I was chilled. I haven't had my hoodie off much this camping trip due to the cool damp weather. But like Dave said it hasn't been excessively hot and unbearable either. Good point Dave.

I cooked some breakfast sausage over the fire this morning. We purchased a cast iron frying pan this season and it worked perfectly! We boiled the sausage first then grilled them to give them that woodsmoke taste I've come to enjoy. Dave scrambled some eggs for the kids in the trailer with the electric frying pan while I fried some eggs (rather slowly tho) in the cast iron pan over the fire. They took longer than I expected to fry up but they were worth the wait.

We stayed inside this morning due to the cool weather. I was feeling the chills settle into my bones and didn't want to catch a cold. Dave made lunch today: gourmet mac & cheese with hot dogs, cooked over the open fire. I opened a can of beans and heated them on the grill.

I'm sitting here on my lawn chair enjoying the warm sunshine do it's magic getting the chills out of my bones. Dave took the boys to the playground. I expect they'll be awhile as he took his novel and bb. Bella and I stayed behind for some girl rest & relaxation.

Time for my novel and a beverage. TTYL!

We took the boys down to the boat launch. I had hoped to do some fishing off the dock but a sign was posted prohibiting it. So we went to play a round of mini golf.

We started out keeping score and once we finished the first hole I knew scorekeeping was not necessary. The boys handled the golf club like a hockey stick and if we had been on the ice they would have done very well. But on the golf course not so much. (Notice Alex & Evie helping the boys aim their shots through the tunnels?)

Up until the afternoon the weather had been very moody. Lots of cool damp weather. But it improved dramatically as the day wore on.

Supper was burgers and hotdogs again. As soon as the boys were done they wanted to go play with Hartley and Kelmin. It looked like they weren't eating so I sent them over to ask. Well nobody returned so I assumed they were welcomed. Dave & I finished up supper as Doug popped over asking us over for a drink. We cleaned up supper and headed over. It was nice to finally talk with other adults! Doug & Tracey live near Pense and both work in Regina. David lives near Saskatoon (he's Doug's brother). Tracey's parents were also staying with them. David and the grandparents had tents while Doug and his family had the trailer. It's a classic like ours. Built in 1975 and Doug says the manual has it at 5400lbs. No wonder ours is so heavy too! The modern trailers are a lot lighter in weight and can be towed with just a SUV. We did admit tho that our trailers will survive a tornado or rollover and won't need to be reassembled. LOL

We brought over our Jumbo marshmallows and made some s'mores. They introduced us to "bush pies". You use a bbq sandwich maker (available in any camping department). Spread margarine on the outsides of two slices of bread and then fill them with whatever combination you desire. A few minutes on the fire and voilà! Tracey made them with cherry pie filling between brown bread. Mmmmmm they were tasty! Forget the s'mores, I want bush pies from now on.

I didn't sleep well again mostly due to my sore lower back. Perhaps the mattress or pillow is to blame. But I was up at 3:30 and again at 7:00. Time to start the day as we're going home today. And just when we made some friends. Typical.

Took some effort to build the fire this morning. But its going good now to get breakfast on the go. Breakfast was bacon and eggs again and then cleanup. The boys helped by playing at the neighbors while Dave and I got the gear put away and the camper repacked.

I was sad to see the campsite in the rearview mirror for the last time as we pulled out of the park. But I really enjoyed the short holiday at Buffalo Pound. Our family really needed the time away from all responsibilities and just enjoy life again, without all the schedules and appointments.

Until next time....