Miss Muffet

Exhausting work this masonry is, and this farming is! I had a vision of a beautiful brick patio completing the illusion that something about the barn was level, and finally completed my project. I estimate it took me about 15 wheelbarrows of concrete bricks and another 10 wheelbarrows of sand. My sand pile (left over from leveling the floor inside the barn) is slowly dwindling as I cart it off for projects. Also, I now can't go to Ace Hardware without all the employees looking at me with horror. Over two days, I made quite a few trips back and forth until they were worried they would run out of bricks, though I've been their only brick customer this week, and I even made Tim stop for 50 more bricks on the way home from work one day. Though the dream was to have a level patio on the barn, I would call this 'level enough'. Doing any sort of precise work with 14 chickens, a pig, a puppy, and Esther the Very Helpful Goat watching doesn't end up so precise and trying to lock Esther out of the way made the crying unbearable.

Speaking of goats, our regular island milking goats we've been collecting milk from each week are all alone this week so I get to milk them nearly every night! They're production has been drastically dropping off and it's quite a drive, and they are sort of disagreeable goats - I think having lots of different people taking turns milking them has made for uncomfortable udders and nerves; but we do get free fresh goats milk which is a wonderful thing to have access to. I believe the way the laws are written, I can't even give my milk to my extended family or friends (legally) unless I am licensed as a commercial dairy processing facility, but if I am the one milking the goats, I can drink it. The laws are a little bit ridiculous it seems, especially compared to egg laws which have no regulations if you have less than, I think, 1,000 birds?! I've gotten rather off topic. My point was, I am milking nearly every day this week while the owners are out of town, so I have decided with so much milk, I had better learn to make cheese!

My recipe comes from Carla Emery's 10th edition of the Encyclopedia of Country Living who in turn got the recipe from a woman named Mary Simeone who was pregnant living in a tent on a mountain with two goats and a husband. She calls the recipe "Basic Farm Cheese" and it is a a recipe meant to say, "if someone can make cheese in a tent on a mountain, 9 months pregnant, surely I can do it in my well-equipped kitchen!" I like this recipe because it doesn't call for cultures (which must be special ordered) but only rennet (which you can find on the top shelf in the grocery store in an old little box that says "junket", up where no one bothers to look, near the other baking supplies - like cheese cloth! Though don't bother asking anyone at the grocery store if they carry rennet, they will ask what it is and when you say "salted baby cow stomach", they will tell you they are quite certain they don't carry it).

Basic Farm Cheese:
- Take about a gallon of milk from your favorite milk-producing animal
- Heat the milk to about 86f (double boilers help)
- Add the rennet (I think I added twice as much as I should have... oops)
- Let sit 20 minutes
- Gently stir curds and whey for 2 minutes (I don't think I was gentle enough! I don't think you're supposed to let it all clump together... but it was so much fun to play with! The milk looked like a fresh container of yogurt, then I stirred it and saw all the grainy looking curdles, then they all kept globing together like a playground game of 'blob tag'. Now it looks like cauliflower. But the curds are yummy! This is as far as I've gotten.)
- Slowly double boil to 102f
- Remove from heat, cover and let sit one hour with more gentle stirring.
- Put the curds in a piece of cheesecloth to strain out the whey and hang up the cheesecloth bag of curds for 12 hours about (over night for me). Use the whey to make bread (to be done tomorrow).
- Day 2: put the cheesecloth bag of curds into a mold and press. She suggests using a headband or belt around the middle and weights and flat plates and such. My plan is to use my spring-form pan very cleverly and press in that metal ring with space for whey to leak out around the bottom.
- Press all night (or day - again about 12 hours I think. She started the recipe in the morning and I am starting it at nigh as that is when I milk) then let air dry in a cool place (the fridge) turning frequently for a week or so as it forms a hard rind.
- Dip or paint the cheese with wax. I am generally getting my cheese making supplies from the New England  Cheesemaking Supply Company who has special soft cheese wax, though crafty paraffin will do just fine. Hang in a cool airy place to age for 2+ months. According to Carla Emery, the aged cheesemaking process is a good substitution for pasteurization as the cheese bugs kill the other bugs (and if it's not a success, I think it will be rather apparent.)