Icelandic Sheep For Sale

I am thinning my flock a little bit this year. One because I recently purchased 2 meat ewes to cross with my rams. Two to make more room for beef cattle and three I have so many fleeces waiting on me to process it's a bit overwhelming! I am keeping and retiring my old girls that are 9 and 10 years of age. I'm also keeping a few offspring of some of my favorites. If you are interested feel free to let me know! I am posting a few pics on the sheep page (link on the right). They are actually not very good since the girls scatter every time I pic up my camera.   

Busy Rearranging

I recently acquired this old pie safe from a neighbor. It was originally his grandmother's. My intent was to store some of my cast iron in it by it is a little too fragile for that. Instead I opted to store empty jars and onions, potatoes and garlic in the top. The bottom now holds all my herbs that I add to my soap.

Since the veggies used to live on top of the old wood cook stove we have that used to belong to my husband's great grandmother that made room for all my cast iron. What a pleasure to not have to plow through stacks of pans to find the one I need!

Happy Hogs!

This week I had a lot of extra milk. Not to worry. Nothing goes to waste around here! The pigs and chickens always enjoy the extras.

Peanut our big boar says milk is Da-licious! 

I spent a quiet morning in the kitchen. The fridge needed a purge(happy chickens!), bananas needed to be turned into something yummy and the pasta that I got on sale last week needed to be vacuum sealed in jars. The vote for bananas was chocolate chip banana nut bread with walnuts please, per hubby's request. I made 2 loaves. One for now one to freeze.

I only got half the pasta vacuum sealed because I was too lazy to go to the basement and dig out more jars!

I had planned to stay in the house most of the day since I had been out in the cold for the last 4 days. However it actually turned out to be quite nice and reached 55*. What a pleasant surprise! That wasn't the only surprise I had today. Apparently Hubby had watched me milk last week and was not happy with the stanchion. He said it was too far to reach and didn't like the fact that I had to duck down under the top rail. I had gotten used to it and was just thankful to have a place to keep Ms. Violet still. She has quieted down and is turning out to be an amazing cow. 

The new stanchion is pretty awesome. He had my son and one of his guys construct it. They welded it with a wide opening that is right where I sit to milk. They did it on both sides so milking can be done either from the left or the right. They also narrowed the shoot making her much closer.and easier to reach. THEN they painted it a lovely shade of green! It is perfect.

Today was the last day of dog training for a week or so. A weekend long seminar, an extra lesson plus a nose work class and I am about dogged out! Actually its more of I'm tired of driving and being cold. We had a great group of people and with the help of some really experienced trainers the puppy made great advances as did Ludovic.

As I did chores today I noticed one of the goats looking like she was starting to bag up. I am sure she is nowhere close but with the threat of freezing rain in the forecast it would be Murphy's law she'd pop a baby out tonight if I didn't lock her up. I brought most of the girls in to keep her company. I fed the milk to the chickens for the third day in a row. They can't wait for me to pour that warm milk into a bowl! I hurriedly gathered a load of fire wood and got in the house.

The reason I was in such a big hurry? I was excited about  supper! Tonight I was making stuffed shells using the cottage cheese from last week and deer meat from the boys hunt this past Fall. It's the small things that can bring great pleasure.

They were delicious. 

Busy Morning In The Kitchen

Ms. Violet is blessing us with lots of milk. On the top of my to-do list was to make cottage cheese for stuffed shells that I plan on making Monday for supper. I had hoped to get yogurt made but that didn't happen. I also had more mushrooms to can and dehydrate and this go round I planned to canned the mushroom stock.
The first thing I did (besides drinking coffee and rotating dogs ;-)) was to rinse the mushrooms and put them in the dehydrator. I had enough for 7 trays.

Next I started the cottage cheese. I heated the milk to 90* added some buttermilk and rennet and set it aside to do it's thing.

Then I started on the mushrooms to be canned. Since I was keeping the stock this time I washed them really well. I sliced...and sliced...and sliced. I was just getting mushrooms ready to go in the canner when a friend that wanted to visit and learn about homestead stuff arrived. Her extra set of hands came in handy.

While the mushrooms were processing we strained the stock and I put her to work bringing the cheese up to temperature and stirring it until it was done. I jarred the stock and got it in my other canner.

We drained the cheese and when the stock was done we headed to the barn to feed and milk. She is practicing milking. Now back to the house to strain milk, jar it and get her on her way. I made butter from the cream I had skimmed this morning. At this point we have more than we can eat so I am freezing it in half cup portions.

Back down to barn to feed the chickens the whey from the cheese and butter, gather a load of firewood and I was almost ready to call it a day! Last thing to do was cook up a bunch of marked down meat for the dogs as I am attending a 3 day obedience seminar with 2 of the dogs starting tomorrow. Hubby has graciously offered to feed those days but draws the line at milking. That will get done when I get home each evening. 


Happy weekend my friends. I catch up with you the first of the week!

Old Books Revisited, Making Panir Cheese

While drinking coffee this morning I flipped through this sweet little book that I have had forever. It was written in 1991 and I refer to it often for simple dairy recipes. My fridge is now loaded with several gallons of milk and I need to use some up. My favorite recipe in this book is for Panir cheese, sometimes referred to as fry cheese because it doesn't melt. WHAT? A non-melty cheese? Absolutely. I like to season it and fry in a little butter (sometimes I go so far as to bread it too!) It is nice to crumble in salads or toss in a veggie stir fry. The best part is that it is so easy to make.

I skimmed the cream from the milk (butter tomorrow) and measured 2 gallons. In a large pot I heated the milk stirring occasionally until it reached 185*. Then I slowly poured 2/3 cup of white vinegar into the milk while stirring slowly. It will curdle almost immediately. Once it curdled I ladled into a mold layering the curds with salt.

Then I placed a heavy bowl full of water on top (primitive but it works!) and let it sit while I finished evening chores. 

 After a couple of hours of pressing I unmolded it and there was my beautiful block of Panir cheese.