On Thursday evening, Tom brought the milk order with our first batch of cream for butter. On Friday morning I set it out on the counter in hopes it would warm to 64F which is perfect for making butter. It made it to 59F by the time my helper friend arrived at 8AM to start butter making. This is the first time in 3 years we’ve made butter.
The churn’s cover has a lot of metal fatigue and I hoped it would make it through this batch. I don’t know if I have another cover that will fit. But he set to churning the first jar but it didn’t seem to want to finish, it was just a sticky lumpy mess, not butter and buttermilk. He tried washing it with cold water but that didn’t work.
So he put it back in the churn and started churning. And after a few minutes, it became butter and buttermilk. But because the buttermilk had water in it, we didn’t keep it this time.
There’s probably 2 lbs or so there. The color is so deep and inviting. It will sit in the fridge until hardened through and on Saturday morning I will cut it into sticks, wrap it, vacuum seal it and freeze it.
Throughout the process he was showing my general helper what he was doing and why. She may have to finish off batches each week because in the past he had 4 hours to do the 2 gallons of cream, but now he only has 3. We only did 1 gallon of cream this week to ease into the process. I hope to have 2 gallons each week through June, aiming for 50 lbs for the year.
While he was getting set up she and I went to the barn to load the truck with mulch hay. It started right up and I brought it down to the Big garden. I hadn’t gotten close enough but when I tried to start it, the starter wouldn’t engage. So there it sits. We got the hay unloaded and moved onto the next job.
In between trips inside to monitor butter making, she and I were trying to get the seedlings in the cold frame fed before it got too hot. By the time we finished I was hot and sweaty and itchy from the hay. So I got a shower and cooled down.
Clivia with 2nd round of flowers starting
She finished the inside seedlings and started feeding the house plants. My helper friend finished washing the butter and we got it into the fridge.
These seedlings will be ready to go out next week, once the cold nights are past. It’s to cool down Friday night, only 60’s during the day Saturday, and slowly warm up during the week.
Then my helper friend and I went down and got the remaining squash, which had started to rot, out and cleaned the squash boxes.
Back in the early winter I had gotten 3 tubes of sand for icy conditions. They had sat in my old entry way ever since. So we got three 6 gallon pails and emptied the tubes into them.
Little catalpa with flower buds
When we got all our jobs done my helper friend left and my general helper and I headed out to the Registry. At 11AM it had hit 91F outside. After an hour and a half wait, we finally got to see someone and he discovered the insurance company had a date on the form from 2 years ago. It had to be within 30 days.
RANT: We have had USAA for almost all our money and insurance needs for nearly 40 years. Ten years ago I was still praising their customer service to the skies. They had always been above and beyond. Then things changed and the service got worse and worse.
After my husband died, I’d had enough and started closing accounts to open local accounts. All that’s left there are the insurances and credit cards. The reason I have had to go to the Registry so many times is really poor attention to detail on their end.
I’m really close to trying to find local auto insurance because three trips to the Registry is 2 too many.
RANT DONE
The thunderstorms started rolling through the valley early afternoon but as usual they went around us. This one has gone north and east of us.
In the woodshed alcove, a robin built her nest right when the contractor started work again. They don’t seem to be much fazed by his noise. There’s 2 babies in the nest.
While thunderstorms boomed around us, the contractor got all the metal roofing cut to size and pre-punched for drilling. It’s stacked behind the woodshed. I hope we don’t get high winds with the coming storms or we will be fishing these out of the swamp.
Saturday I empty the trash shed and my brother will take me to the dump. Then I hope to get the mulch hay we brought up put around the plants in the garden. My brother plans to work on the rider mower, changing the oil, replacing the blades and filters, etc.