Catch Up

Now that I am back to teaching full time, my weekends are for catching up.  Last weekend, I had to do copper in the goats again.  I still prefer the peanut method.

copper hidden in the peanut shells

Some goats cooperate with that.

Cupid

But there’s a whole lot of them that make me use the pill pusher.  I’m not a fan of this new pusher, but at least it can’t come apart and end up in a goat stomach.

The goats were not very cooperative (shocking, I know), so I swear I was catching those stragglers all week.  I just finished with Benji and Frodo today.  But it’s done!  I’m caught up with copper for a little while.

The garden is another thing I have to catch up on.  I’m struggling to get it picked.  I have to pick the tomatoes when they are just starting to turn or the bugs get them.  The bugs are horrible this year.

I already spent Friday evening canning tomatoes.  This is a box ready to go to my mom.  I have one more batch, and then I’ll be done canning for me.

This is my plan for tomorrow.  That is more than enough to finish my canning.

Of course, I am still planning on doing a lot more canning for my family.

Now that I’m milking again, I have to play catch up with it on the weekends too.

Thankfully, Heidi and Simon drank a lot of milk, so I can just freeze it and throw it in the big freezer for next summer when I’m busy during the week.

Heidi coming to see if I brought a bottle.

The weekend is for making Mozzarella cheese and yogurt.  I’ve already done one double batch of mozzarella and plan on doing another tomorrow.  I also hope to get a gallon of yogurt incubating this evening.

grating mozzarella

This weekend, I had to do something with my yard.  I haven’t mowed in probably three weeks, and with the drought, it’s mostly just weedy, but I had to do something with it.

dormant grass; weeds everywhere

So Saturday was a catch up day for the yard too.

Sky (I can’t get him to pose for me)

It’s not the best, but I did get a lot taken care of, and now I need to get back to tomatoes!

The Dairy Days of Summer

I am still milking my four girls: Astra, Ava, Caroline, and Joy.

Caroline

Now that I’ve finally gotten Perdita to quit nursing her mom, I’m getting right at five quarts of milk per day.

I’m making yogurt and some buttermilk and chèvre. I am making lots of mozzarella cheese for the next year.  I want to make more mozzarella sticks again this year because they were delicious, and they make a nice treat at family get togethers.

heat treating and stretching it

I am also making soap.  It’s been way too long since I made any, but everything is so uncertain since the farmer’s market shut down and then the pandemic stopped me opening my soap room to the public.  I’m not even set up for it anymore.  I still have the bed in there from when I lived in it after the derecho.

oatmeal and honey and plain soaps curing

I’m restocking.  So far I’ve made six batches.  I have a list of fourteen more that I should make.  I’m not sure I actually have enough supplies to make that many, but we’ll see what happens.

Hopefully, I can continue my little soap business, but with rising shipping costs and everything else, I’m not sure.  If you’re interested, you can check out my soaps HERE.

Jasmine Dreams, Kentish Rain, and Lavender

When I get all of the cheese and soaps done, I need to refill my freezer for any bottle kids I might have next year.

Pretzel (every picture of her will be running to see if I have a bottle)

Pretzel has nearly emptied my freezer, and she’s still getting bottles.

I Quit

The second reason I did not take many pictures this past weekend is tomatoes and milk.  Seriously.  I’m not getting much milk from the girls right now, but it still adds up.

That means, I started Saturday by making three batches of mozzarella.  I also had to deep fry the mozzarella sticks that we made last weekend.  They’ve been in the freezer all week taunting me.

Then I switched to tomatoes.

This is my canning total for Saturday: 13 pints and 2 half-pints of roasted sauce; two pints and four quarts of cold pack tomatoes; and six pints and three quarts of tomato juice.

My basement is full. I’ve already given away two dozen pints of sauce/salsa.  I quit.  I refuse to do any more tomatoes this year!

That means I moved on to other garden items!  I chopped and froze some okra.

I started preparing and freezing butternut squash.  I did some for me and some for my uncle.

Someone had to check out the squash after I put the skins in the birds’ bucket.

Sky and Snickers

Snickers decided that it tasted yummy.

I pulled the last of the beets and shared them with my nephew.  I roasted and froze mine. Since my peppers didn’t do well, my sister sent me a bucket.

I’m still working on getting the peppers done.  I did take a break though, and made three batches of soap Sunday afternoon.

That includes a new fragrance–crisp apple rose.