We're in the News

Emily went to her first night at Vacation Bible School at our church last night. It is every night this week. She has talked non-stop about how much fun she had. She made a lion mask, and has been wearing it all morning. She's looking forward to tonight!
I had our table in our sales room at our cheese house all set up for a customer the other day, and Emily wanted to help set the table up too, so I posed her with some cheese and took a picture. Good advertising!

Our awards were mailed to us and we received them recently. We're excited about it! Our local newspapers have each run an aritcle on us and our awards. You can see them at:

http://www.barnesville-enterprise.com/news/article/4631934

and

http://www.monroecountybeacononline.com/July_2009/July_23_2009_news.htm

We have finally had some good rains this past week. Thankfully our cistern is now just about filled. Making cheese starts back up on Monday and again on Friday. I will not be at the Cambridge farm market next week, so that we can take that day to make a batch. Our cooler is getting very low on inventory, demand has really been keeping us busy selling! Yesterday was a very busy day for us, several customers stopped in here at the farm to visit. We are very pleased with the wonderful job both the Monroe County Beacon and the Barnesville Enterprise did with the articles.

Mmm....Strawberry Jam

I came across a recipe in Prevention magazine the other day for making Freezer Jam. I have heard of doing freezer jam, but never have tried it. But it sounded so yummy! So, today we went to the store, and I saw the stuff I needed to make a batch. Very easy, and to my surprise very YUMMY! I was surprised because I had never done jam or jelly before, so didn't know if it would even taste good.

Here is the recipe that I followed from Ball Plastic Freezer Jar package:

No Cook Strawberry Jam

4 cups crushed strawberries
1-1/2 c. sugar or Splenda
1 (1.59 oz. pkg) Ball Simple Creations Freezer Jam Fruit Pectin

Stir sugar and contents of package of pectin in bowl until well blended.
Add 4 cups of crushed strawberries. Stir for 3 minutes.
Ladle jam into clean jars to fill line. Twist on lids. Let stand until thickened, about 30 minutes.

The Plastic Freezer Jars and the Freezer Jam Pectin can be found with other canning supplies at most stores. Very easy, and yummy! And I love that I can use Splenda (cup for cup) in this recipe.
Now I can't wait to go and get some blackberries and try out some blackberry jam! With this recipe you can use different fruit. Just as long as it measures out to 4 cups. One recipe I want to try also is strawberry and raspberries. YUM!
Tomorrow I'll have to make some homemade bread to go with this jam...can't wait!!

2009 North American Jersey Cheese Awards

We shipped three wheels of cheese to Syracuse, NY last week for the 2009 North American Jersey Cheese Awards. We are very excited about how well they did! Especially since we've only been making cheese not quite 2 years, and this is our first competition we've entered.

Dixie Swiss, it won Silver in it's class!

Hill Folk Jersey won Bronze

And our Boeren Kaas Gouda won Bronze as well!

Milk Testing

Once a month, we do "milk testing". One morning milking and one evening milking we measure how much milk each cow produces for those milkings, and pull a sample of each cows milk. Most cows right now are averaging about 40-50 lbs. of milk each day. The milk sample is then tested, here at the farm, for the Protein %, Fat % and Solid Non-Fat % (SNF). We keep records on all of our tests for each of the cows. We have a large, green record book that I log all the information in. We multiply what the cows total milk weight for the 2 milkings by the number of days in the month. That gives us an approx. idea of how much milk she is giving us each month, and her record is kept from the date she calves, until she is dried off, approx. 60 days before her calving date. This helps us have a good idea of how her daughters will do, and we can keep track of any breeding problems by keeping records. We also use test results from the fat tests and lactometer tests that we run on the milk, and use a formula including that months milk weight. That will give us the F% and SNF%.

This is me pulling a milk sample from one of our girls.

The milk comes from the cow, runs through stainless steel pipes into

our milkhouse and into the glass receiving jar. When the jar is filled, it then pumps

the milk into the bulk tank where it is cooled.

Milk in the bulk tank. It is stirred every so often,

and cooled and kept here until our milk hauler

picks it up to take to United Dairy, a milk plant.

This is our cart that holds the sample cups.

Each cow has a number, and her number is wrote on top of the cups.

I also write down the milk weight in our notebook. Emily likes to "help" as well!

My job, after the samples are pulled is to run the lactometers.

My figure that I measure is added to the fat% that Al comes up with

when he runs the fat tests.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful July 4th! Happy Birthday America! I was watching fireworks with Al and Emily last night, and as I sat there watching, I thought about how blessed we have been to experience what some in other countries may never know, and that is freedom to basically live life! We can go here and there without worry for the most part. And that made me think of things that I am thankful for this weekend, and most of these are things that I am constantly thankful, but the thought crossed my mind last night.

*I am thankful for our country in which we live.

*I am thankful to be able to go and watch fireworks, with hundreds of other folks, and enjoy sharing the evening with those I don't even know.

*I am thankful we have our own farm, and I don't want to take a single day for granted, that we do something I enjoy everyday, because I know there are laws and organizations who in this coming year, may make it impossible for us to continue the life we know and love. Sad reality.

*I am thankful for holding my husbands hand while watching fireworks last night, with Emily laying across our legs, not comfortable for our legs, but well worth the cozy, family feeling!

*I am thankful for our furbabies. Princess, the hamster, Miss Kitty, Annie our dog and of course our newly adopted girl, Pinky, who I am loving the new attitude she brings to our already crazy, circus like life! lol

*I am thankful for my diabetic A1C test coming back at 7.5, 1 point lower than 6 months ago. Yay!

*I am thankful for the sight of lightning bugs flickering, the smell of our fresh baled hay and the sight of the beautiful sunset tonight.

I love the simple things of our everyday life. I am content with what God has blessed us with, and things that He has blessed us by not allowing us to have.

I am hoping and praying that we are able to face, and accept the challenges that we will be facing in the coming year.

Pickin' Berries

The berries around our fields are just now getting ripe, and yummy! Looks like it will be a good berry year, even the blackberries are showing up, still very green, but in a few weeks we'll be getting those too. We took a walk yesterday to see what was ready, not too much, but it looks like in a couple of days or so, there will be a bunch! Now, if I can get to it before the wild turkeys eat them all!

Emily with a Blackeyed Susan, and ended

up licking the raspberry juice off of her lips!

Amber & Emily

Mmm...

Eating more than she put in the "take home" container!

A few berries, not many made it home!!

Welcome to our Family, Pinky

Emily and I have been enjoying our evening "adventures". I did take my camera the other day, and snapped some pictures of her playing in our creek that runs through our pasture. Lots of snails, crawdads and tadpoles to be found! Haven't seen any snakes yet, so I'm thankful for that!

On Friday we took a ride to our vet's office to pick up some boxes and ice packs that they save for us, and ended up bringing a cat home as well! Miss Emily has named her Pink Flower (????), so we are calling her Pinky for short. Our vet's wife found her awhile ago in their field, pretty sickly with kittens. They found homes for the kittens, and had Pinky fixed and helped her get healthy, but needed to find her a home. So, she now lives with us. Our house is becoming quite full! Emily is thrilled to have another furry friend living with us. Pinky seems to have adjusted just fine, she already has the attitude that she owns the house. Thankfully, she and Annie, the dog get along just fine, but Miss Kitty isn't so sure about sharing her humans with someone else! Hoping they make up soon.

Emily and Pinky hit it off the first day!

I missed the farm markets this past weekend, and really hated to! But, our vacuum sealer quit sealing, so I think that the sealing element went out, ordered it, and I'm hoping to have it in this week, and hoping that is what the problem is. So,until that is fixed, I can't cut and pack any cheese. June has not been our month for working with the cheese! Tomorrow I will be waxing 2 batches of the Gouda, and hoping by next week be making cheese!

Tonight we'll be taking the milk weights and in the morning we'll be pulling milk samples, and I plan on running the lactometers right after morning milking so they don't get to warm and spoil, like last month....yuck!

We're up to milking 56 cows, soon to be more than that when we have some more freshen. Thankfully not too much trouble with milk fever this year, but we're not calving the majority during these hot, humid months. That seems to make a difference. We're going to get the water line run to our water tanks on the paddocks that we just made hay on, and begin rotating the milk cows on those paddocks for fresh grass. Give the paddocks that they've been on a rest. Hoping to start mowing the pastures to get rid of the ironweed and thisles.

I am now working on the kitchen, as usual, and going to get something put together for our dinner tomorrow.

Wishing that I could drop some pounds a little quicker, but I keep telling myself that I've changed my eating habits and doing the walking for just over a week, so that is just too soon to really see a difference, but still working on it, and feel a lot more energy!!

Changes

Well, they say that change is good, and I am really making some changes. And, I actually feel good and am enjoying some energy!!
First, I have changed the way I eat, which is something I have been struggling with for some time. The past week I have started portion control and reading those labels on all food! Amazing what I have been eating! No wonder I felt like crud! Yesterday, our lunch was Italian Salad mix, topped with Balsmic Viniagrette (sp???), grilled seasoned chicken breast, with a touch of cheese and a little bit of hard boiled egg, with some lowfat cottage cheese and watermelon. A nice, healthy cool lunch. Perfect! And that is kind of what I'm going with for meal planning now. And I'm eating a lot less! I'm finding that most of my eating was out of boredom, or stress. So, now I take a walk when I feel like munching, or I find something that needs to be done and do it instead of procrastinate.
I have also recently read that, being overweight, even a bit, is just has harmful to your health as smoking, or taking in second hand smoke. Hmm.... so I can't really criticize the smokers out there, huh?? Not until I drop about 50 lbs. or so.
Second, I'm moving on in life from things that stress me out that is not necessary. Sticking around awesome friends that I have around here where I live, and love the community feeling with them. Getting more into doing the farm markets, and finding that I have some really wonderful and dear friends that I get to hang out with each week! That is totally cool!
I'm putting a lot into the farm and getting back into doing some of the feeding of the babies, and love how relaxing it is to bottle feed those baby calves. Emily is thrilled she is able to feed the babies when the bottle is half full (or half empty, depending on which way you look at it! ;) ).
Emily and I have been taking walks each day, to a different part of the farm each time, or up our road a ways. Finding treasure each trip out. Right now we have water snails, tadpoles and some other critters living in my kitchen in all my plastic containers that I bought for food. But, she is learning so much by getting out there and doing. So, I figure this is just like having a field trip everyday. She loves it too, except for the little honeybee that accidently snuck into her book while we were walking today. It stung her "little piggytoe" as she said. Ever carry a 40 lb. child, a pair of muddy barn boots and a cup full of tadpoles and water? In 90 degree heat with high humidity? I felt like passing out!!! Worked some weight off on that walk home I'll tell ya!
Will be skipping the Cambridge farm market tomorrow, not that I want to, but we're a little low on a couple of cheeses, at least for another few weeks, so I'm trying to make it last a little longer. I do have to go up tonight and cut up 5 wheels for tomorrow evening, to fill an order. I'll at least cut part of it tonight, and the rest in the morning, when it's cool.
Our coating finally came in!!! Yay!! Time for more cheesemaking, soon, when we get the hay work on schedule, or if we get some rainy days. I'm anxious to get back at it. Feel the need to get that cooler filled up! We have just over 200 wheels of cheese, but really need to have about 250 more before the end of October.
Now I'm off to cut up some cheese and relax to some music while I'm doing it! :) And maybe turn Emily loose to find some bugs.....