New Lessons Learned About Yogurt and Buttermilk

A little reminder, using a dry erase marker on your glass jars helps you remember the date the milk was taken. This way I know which milk to use first and which to give to the chickens. The oldest of course. Feeding milk to the chickens saves financially as I do not have to buy as much oyster shell to increase their calcium levels. Egg shells are mainly calcium and we like hard egg shells. If I have an abundance of old milk then the garden gets fertilized with it.

I also label my buttermilk cultures and yogurt with the date cultured since they are in glass jars. When you do something like this week after week the brain gets muddled or mine does as to the exact day you did it last. Of course if you had a nice calm life you could do it on the same day of the week. What would that be like? 

Yogurt and buttermilk I've done quite well keeping going. Not perfect but pretty good. In doing so I have learned heaps. My yogurt quality has increased. One gal asked me when I first blogged about it if our goat yogurt turned out slimy like hers. She had quit making it. Ours was indeed a bit slimy but I've learned the solution to that problem and it wasn't through research. It was experimentation and time. I have learned that you need to warm your milk very slowly. I put my electric stove, I wish I had gas, on 2 and the milk takes nearly an hour to come up to the 180 F it has to reach. The length of time it takes depends on how much milk you are heating at one time. Then I either cool the milk quickly or slowly according to whatever is happening around here at the moment and when it reaches the proper temp, I add the culture.

I usually make yogurt and buttermilk at the same time, something new from the first blog post on the subject.  One pot holds all the milk. I pour a quart worth of the heated milk into a sterilized quart jar to cool as the buttermilk needs to be 85. The rest of the milk I let cool in the pan to 115 before adding the yogurt culture, mixing it in, and putting it in the yogurt maker jars.

The buttermilk jar when cooled to temp., I wrap with an old heating pad that does not have an automatic turn off switch. Mine is set on medium. I can do two quarts if I plan on making lots of recipes that week with buttermilk. My family LOVES homemade buttermilk pancakes and biscuits.

The texture of the goat yogurt done this way is smooth and creamy. Time spent culturing varies with the particular milk I'm using. This varies as to the period of time we are in the goat's lactation as the cream level changes. And what the goat's diet is also makes a difference. Right now they are getting orchard grass hay but later it will be a orchard grass alfalfa mix for later in their pregnancy.

 Sometimes it takes longer to reach the desired thickness and sometimes shorter. Keep in mind that store yogurt has gelatin or powdered milk to thicken it but I can do it pretty well with fiddling with incubation times. Greek yogurt is thicker because of the additives or some strain the liquids off of the yogurt to desired thickness.  Right now the cream level is really high at about 1/3, which seems to equate to a thicker yogurt. I sometimes make yogurt with milk that has run through the separator and then the cream runs through again once more which gives a heavy cream.  The lighter cream run off is then mixed back into the milk. 

Did you know that 2 percent milk sold in the USA is only one and a half percent less fat than whole milk? Yes, it was a great sell campaign that made it popular - not the facts. Buy whole milk and add water if you want 2 percent. You are just buying more water with 2 percent anyway. Better yet get a milk goat. 

I can use yogurt instead of buttermilk in many of my recipes and often do. Depends on how many fruit smoothies or buttermilk pancakes were made whether I have more buttermilk or yogurt in the refrigerator.

The other thing I have not done is to freeze buttermilk and yogurt. The learning just never ends. This is handy when the goats are dry as you just freeze milk and then culture once a month to keep things in reserve. Or better yet if you have the freezer room you just keep thawing milk and culturing.

The other thing I want to try is on this site where you use a powdered milk to mix with a culture and it keeps for a year in the freezer. This is often used to ensure a pure culture. http://www.leeners.com/yogurt/how-to/yogurt-culture.shtml
Things to learn just never ends. The problem comes in on how to keep everything going not just trying it once.

Tradtition dicatates that the story of Jesus's birth is told by Kirk on Christmas Eve. The story, though centuries old, gains a new twist each year as family takes hold of it and adds their own flavor. 

Maybe I should explain.

Our youngest grand daughter was getting a bit cranky by evening, having spent a no nap couple of days at her father's house.

She wanted no part in our Nativity story but everyone else dived into the costume containers and chose a role.
We had Joseph in our middle daughter's old fairy godmother's robe from the play Cinderella, along with a beard I'd made for the play Hillibilly Wedding.

Our oldest grand daughter became Mary in a sparkling dress and an old shawl of her Great, Great Grandmother's.

We aren't too wise so we could only come up with one Wise Man–our step-grandson.

With just two little sheep to watch over, our oldest daughter dressed in Noah's wife, Sarah's dress from another school play.

We had the cutest donkey too, complete with tail and ears played by our middle grand daughter.

Our middle daughter donned several different wigs in her dual roles as King Herod and the Inn Keeper.

 And all would of gone well despite laughing so hard the actors and actresses could barely play their roles but the youngest grand daughter refused to allow any one of her three dolls to play the part of baby Jesus. In the end, she decided that she would He, baby Jesus.

And she comfortably settled into the part despite the confines on the cardboard box.

We are off to see the Grandparents today and our oldest son who had to work on Christmas, but before we go, I wanted to share a little of our Christmas with you. I hope that your weekend was as memorable and delightful as ours.

UFO's and Frogging

I hope your Christmas was wonderful. Our was. How could it not be with three little ones. We were missing our son this year and there was an empty space in our hearts but we will get to spend the day with him tomorrow along with Kirk's folks. And so we will extend the Christmas season on for another day, opening presents with ones we love.

Besides the children's nativity, where each night the kids would act out the Savior's birth with the figurines, we had a plastic jug that housed gifts for him. After all we get gifts, how could we not have gifts for the Savior. It's His birthday. On slips of paper we wrote acts of kindness that each had given to another. In the scriptures it says, "If ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." So when the kids or Kirk and I did something special for another, someone who notices brought it to my attention and I wrote out a slip naming the gift.
One of my favorite presents was the little stuffed dog for our youngest grand daughter. She loved it, petting and hugging it just as she does our live cat, Reginald.

For her birthday, in a couple weeks, she will receive a grey stuffed cat made by the same company as the dog (Think they'll fight?), along with her first quilt for her grown up bed at her mom's. This is the quilt completed. Yes, this quilt was originally suppose to go on one of the twin beds at our home, but... I didn't get this one finished in time to work on another for a birthday present for our youngest grand daughter and so this one became her present.

I'm always thinking I'll get more accomplished than what I do. I did start this one in September and I thought it would be done the end of October. Yeah, right, oh well, I have one older than that still in pieces that I started last winter. It's about half done. It will be the next sewing project and then I 'll finish the sweatshirts I've three-fourths done for Kirk, that I started the winter before last. My oldest daughter calls them UFO's or unfinished objects. I'm probably not alone in having a pile of them. Every January I pull some of them out and work, completing a few more and moving a few more forward toward completion before they are tucked away again. Such are the sweatshirts for Kirk. I had bought a stack of of this special heavy flannel fabric. It's made in a foreign country now and so I can no longer get factory bolt ends of it. I figured I'd assembly line the shirts and get all the fabric sewn up. I'm almost done, just three or four to put the ribbing on. Then they were buried in favor of a more pressing project.

You know how it is. I'm determined not to have the double thick mittens I started the beginning of November to end up in the UFO pile. I worked on them again the other day, BUT
our oldest daughter came home for Christmas and there is this scarf I want to make and I can't read a pattern worth a hoot. She can. So not to miss an opportunity, I started on the scarf. Since I've done so much frogging, (Don't you just love that word?) it will be a while before I'm done. WHAT?, a few of you may be saying. Frogging is when you—rip it, rip it, rip it ( say it out loud). Remember, I learn by doing everything wrong before I finally figure out how to do it right. Hence, stubbornness is my greatest asset.

A Visit To Ole Saint Nick

Our grand daughter's Sunday school teacher took me aside Sunday evening at the music concert at our church and told me how much she enjoyed having our middle grand daughter in her class. She said she was the only child in her class that knew what the nativity was. She said she told her about the one at Grandmas, referring to the children's set on the bookcase in the hallway. I was a little surprised she remembered our role play with the child's nativity set from last year. We've talked about Jesus's birth this year but we've not played with their set yet. We will begin tonight and each evening before bed we will act out the story. It has become a tradition.

You can imagine how pleased I was that she remembered what the true meaning of the season was. But then I recalled that last season she was the one that insisted that the donkey, after taking Mary to the stable, go after the shepherds giving each shepherd a ride to the stable to see baby Jesus.

I asked our grand daughter's teacher if she called it an activity set? She looked surprised and laughed and said yes. "Yep, that's our girl." I replied. Now I'm really looking forward to tonight to hear the story from our grand daughters.

We did make a trip to see Santa at the church's Christmas party. The oldest grand child informed her sister that it wasn't really Santa. Panic rushed through me. How was I going to fix this blurb. It was my cousin that informed me there wasn't a Santa. I was heart broken for weeks, not yet ready to give up the belief. As magical as Santa is, I didn't want her to become a non believer. Then I thought maybe she just didn't believe that this was Santa. Not that there wasn't a Santa. Sure enough, that was the problem. That's why she insisted that she would not sit on his lap. Santa having had six children of his own and many grand children coaxed her to take a stocking full of goodies. Knowing our extremely analytical grand daughter she probably noticed the string holding on the beard and that each Santa she sees looks a bit different. She's a smart little whip.
So I told her that these were Santa's representatives and they reported back to the real Santa at the North Pole who was busy getting ready for Christmas. That fixed the problem. And when they are ready to stop believing in Santa, I'll do just what we did with our children. We'll talk about Santa being a part of the spirit of Christmas and how he helps us to be more giving. They will then get to take part in becoming Santa Claus, filling stockings and helping to choose presents from him to their siblings; along with dropping off gifts to others on their doorsteps, ringing the bell, and running to hide. Our kid's said that being Santa was more fun than when they just received his gifts. If your wondering if the black on our youngest grand daughter's face is chocolate, it's not.
Her mom got off from work early enough to stop by sharing a little of her dirt. Our daughter's job is power washing the coal mining equipment at several of the local coal mines. It leaves her greasy and black from the dust. This is a somewhat cleaned up pictures of her. She's been mistaken more than once at work on a particularly dirty job for one of her co-workers who's from Africa. They are very dark skinned before they begin crawling around in the black grease and coal dust.


Best go and make breakfast and then I hope to blog later about the goats. Romance is in the air, kind of.

I'm Back! Yeah!

I'm back!!! Oh, how I missed blogging. We dropped off the computer in Spearfish, South Dakota and then a snow storm burried the town. I think they said they recieved over thirty inches of snow fall and with the wind blowing, I-90 to Spearfish was closed for several days. I'm a big chicken and won't travel on icy or snowy roads if I don't have to despite the fact I am a Wyomingite. Maybe, it is because of the fifty years of harrowing experiences on Wyoming's roads that prompted the healthy respect. If your curious read about my adventure just trying to get across town to take my husband to his work bus stop last winter.

Making gingerbread cookies for Santa. Our midddle daughter told me years ago that Christmas was not a passive noun but an active verb, otherwise it's boring. Since then, I've tried extra hard to fill it full of meaningful activites. Christmas Eve, with the wind howling outside and the snow swirling in drifts, that meant indoor activites.

And am I ever glad we waited, for as we meandered through the walls of snow trying to peer over the tops to find a bright blue house it was a bit nerve wracking, especially the intersections. You could see a four wheel drive truck but a car was pretty iffy. So we cautiously slid into the intersections hoping there wasn't anyone coming. I wished I'd driven our four-wheel drive truck instead of the car but I'd chosen the gas economy of a four hour trip in a fuel efficient car versus a diesel truck.

Toni brought home these cool crayon markers for glass and everyone (but me - since I'm taking pictures) went around the house drawing on the windows.

The little grand daughters love the large area to draw on.

When we spotted the little bright blue house of Jon's, there was no place to park. There were several others picking up their computers also so we stopped in the middle of the road. Then I couldn't find the emergency flasher button on the car. Ever resourceful, Toni grabbed the car manual out of the glove box and did a quick search. Another reason I wished I'd driven the pickup as it is my usual mode of trasportation as Kirk drives the car.

Most importantly we got out the children's nativity set and acted out the sacred story of Jesus Christ's birth.

But it was worth the trip as it feels so good to have the computer home. I can't believe how many times I became curious about something and went to look up the answer on the computer and then remembered it was in Spearfish. That's when I realized just how big a information junkie I am.

I did read a fatastic book on gardening we bought at a health food store when we dropped the computer off and I'll share some tid bits from it next week but for now we had a wonderful week filled with family and I want to share a few of the things we did. Then later this week I'll begin some informational blogs on the many different things I've been studying. One major one is gardening as it is time to get those seeds ordered if you haven't already. Most of mine are already here. And I've some serious changes for our garden in the planning stages. I've also got lots of new goat things I've studied. My how I've missed this blog and conversing with you. Not to mention reading what's happening in your world on your blogs. But if I don't be quiet I'll never get all those pictures off my cameras and on to the computer for up coming blogs.

Wyoming Sunrise

While working in the kitchen on our Thanksgiving feast, I glanced out the window to see what appeared to be the fiery lights of Hades spilling forth upon the horizon.

I scurried for my camera, threw on my chore coat, slipped on my shoes, and ran. Behind my hastening figure, my camera gripped in my right hand trailed as I leaped over cactus and drought shrunken sagebrush. For a brief moment I thought, 'What will the neighbors think?' as I imagined how bad I looked in my chore coat, my hair disheveled, and a good chunk of white leg showing below my shrink not to fit any more light blue pajama pants. I figured if they were shocked it was because they missed the time years ago when I locked myself out of the house and had to tip toe through the snow in my bare feet to find help while clad only in a nightgown. The neighborhoods should at least find it good morning entertainment watching the crazy lady dash up and down the fence line snapping pictures.

But if they were paying much attention to me, they were missing this incredible light show.

For the sun's rays rose forth as if with sword in hand and dispelled the devilish light.

It was a memorable Thanksgiving!!!! In fact we had two, one on Thursday at Kirk's brothers and another at our home on Friday so that our son-in-law and some dear friends could join us. ( This light show occurred on Friday.) I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Christmas Village

(My favorite time to gaze at the village is at night when the warm glow of the lights radiate out from the houses.)

I couldn't help it, I just couldn't wait. A friend and I went to the Festival of Trees where individuals or groups donate a decorated wreath, small tree, or large tree. These donations are then auctioned off and the money goes toward charity. Walking in the wonderland listening to Burl Ives sing Christmas carols while we peered between the branches of the trees to gaze at the ornaments, filled me with a longing for Christmas. It was more than I could resist and I did succumb. Up came box after box from the basement as I put up my Christmas village. You who believe one holiday must past before embarking upon another, please forgive my weakness. I know Thanksgiving has not yet arrived so I kept up the pumpkins and fall leaves decorations. Alright, only because we're having company for Thanksgiving. But don't judge me too harshly, decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things.

At Church a couple weeks ago, as my new role as children's chorister, I was checking to see what Christmas songs the children knew so I could make up plans for December. A gentleman asked incredulously if I knew all the Christmas carols. I don't, but don't be surprised if you hear me singing Silent Night under a starry night while I'm milking the goats even if it is hum... summer.

(Or, is it when the shadows accent the ripples in the white fabric like the clouds when they emphasize the drifts in the snow?)

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I remember when my grandma Jones use to sleep with me Christmas Eve. We'd wake up all night long checking the clock and whispering, wondering if we dare get up yet.

But I don't understand. A doll house has never held any great charm with me but this village has me transfixed. I spend hours arranging it, tweaking the figurines until it is just so and every year that means things are arranged differently. My husband then spends the rest of the holiday taking one figurine at a time and moving it to a new location. It may take me a few days before I discover. Without saying a word, I put it back. Then usually a few more days lapse for him to notice and move another figurine. Kirk started the game years ago and it has spill over to other areas like the screen saver on the computer. This past week he put up, one at a time, the worst pictures of me he could find and upon discovery I'd did the same favor for him. The advantage has been mine as I've a rich supply of funny faced photos of my sweetheart.

( Note the fall foliage in the evergreen boughs.)

The Christmas village goes up in this antique kitchen cupboard that sits in the living room. The top shelf is the ranch. On the second shelf is the school, Finney's forge, and the livery stable.

Not quite like the one Kirk's great grandpa had back east but a livery stable non the less.

(Kirk's grandpa is the little boy holding the horses by their halters and his great grandpa is the one with the carriage. )

We of course had to have a forge. The Finney's Forge shop my husband said wasn't enough. He couldn't figure out what the men inside were doing. He insists it isn't forging. I searched and searched, then a year ago, I discovered this pair. I say they're making horse shoes, my husband says a knife.

(Kirk posing in his black smith shop. The two hundred pound anvil does not usually rest on the two by fours. It was raised for photography purposes and later the boards were cropped off in the photo and lots of sparks added. The sparks were caught on film in another photograph of him forging and photo shopped into this one or maybe another almost just like it. I'd have to go look.)

Then what do you expect of someone who has aspired to the rank of mastersmith in the American Bladesmith Association.

On the bottom shelf is the church, clock tower and a grand home with one of my favorite figurines. A child in a tree trying to reach a cat stuck on a limb and another calling helpful instructions - or are they?