Rear view of the Week
This has been a busy week. Yesterday morning I realized I had a couple of gallons of milk I needed to use. Let me explain a bit.
Many years ago—between 35 but less than forty years—Old Fuzzy (who was a Young Fuzzy at the time) was working as hard as he could wage wise. I was being as frugal, and doing all that I could making those dollars stretch. However, it never seemed to be enough. On every dollar we earned a goodly portion went to the government. I decided that in order for ends to meet we must learn to live cheaper. So we purchased a pony. (I was aiming for a milk cow, but I missed). We tried again and got a Morgan horse.
Well, I liked the pony, the horse, the cats and the dog, but this wasn't my aim. Finally, I did get a milk cow. A beautiful brown spotted Ayrshire named Molly, who was due to calf soon. Which she did, and we ended up with almost eight gallons of good rich milk per day. There is a story here which Old Fuzzy has used in several of his sermons, which should be titled, 'Beauty and the Beast'. I digress.
This was about learning to live cheaper. And learn we did. My grandparents were farmers, Old Fuzzy's parents were farmers, these people knew how to feed and care for milk cows. We did not, but we learned.
We had been gardening for years and that was nothing new. During the summer we ate what grew in the garden and froze or canned the excess. We even did some of our own butchering—think Little House in the Big Woods.
All in all we learned quite bit about living cheaper. I didn't know about feed and care of the cows, that had been grandpa's realm, but I did know how to churn butter, and off of the five gallons we saved for the house there was lots of butter. Later I learned to make cheese. I tried cottage cheese but that never has turned out well.
We no longer have an Ayrshire, we've went through a procession of Jerseys in the last number of years. For several years after all but the last child was gone we just bought milk. I don't remember why we got back into the cows, but we did. I no longer have five gallons of milk to skim cream from, but anyone who has priced butter in the grocery store lately knows how expensive it is.
Anyone who has paid attention to dietitians and doctors lately also know how the swing has come back to old fashioned fats as being much more healthy for us. These fats are no longer anathema, but they are actually touted as healthy. (Yes, I have a quarrel with the people who try to tell me 'milk is the same as puss', because it isn't. That story is believed by unsuspecting people who don't understand the agenda of those who are spreading it).
The top picture is of a small plate of butter I made yesterday. Rather sad compared to the years I made several pounds a week, but it will help with Sunday dessert.
This is a plate of the Farmer's cheese I made yesterday morning as well. The milk had gotten ahead of me and I made two chunks of cheese, one gallon at a time. This chunk weighs in at 12 ounces. In the future I'll try to put up a simple explanation as to how I churn butter, how I made the cheese, and more on the tomatoes.
Sometimes these pictures and this computer tend to make me angry, but above is part of this mornings work. We have only this last week begun getting tomatoes. So, this was exciting.
These are some of the topics I'm planning, God willing, to cover next week.
