Closing the gaps

Kupa has developed a fixation for the milking machine. Every time I pop my head out of the milking parlour to turn off the pump he is perched on a barn gate staring at the it.

He swishes up and down the corridor when I am trying to pour  the milk into the bottles and containers and pots, stirring up dust with his tail. I have a feeling he is tasting the milk when I am not looking but will not accept a bowl. It will not be long before you see a picture of a peacock and a cat drinking milk out of the same saucer.

Daisy is still giving over three gallons of milk in the morning and just under in the afternoon.  She is in a field with all this good feed.  So her milk is very creamy.

From 4 gallons of milk I get three pints of cream. And from three pints of cream  (about 1 and a 1/2 litres) I get nine and a half oz of butter. I cannot think what that is in grams, about 200?  It is very early in the morning to be doing this equation though.

I am not sure if that is good on the dairy scale of things but it is good enough for me!  A dear friend sent me a Dazey butter churn. It is much bigger than mine and makes butter very fast.  I took a shot of it and cannot find it this morning but I do want to show you the butter. Tomorrow we will make more and then I will show you this magnificent heavy old churn. It is wonderful to have a bigger churn, so I do not need to make butter every day. If you collect the cream for a few days it makes tastier butter, the old people say.

Sheila and Charlotte are getting very good at coming out to play then going back into their pen on command.

Much to the surprise of the new Bobby. 

Good morning. Yesterday after I had finished fencing for the day, I checked the bees and they are right on schedule and have multiplied again . All the boxes are full to the brim with bees and honey and brood. So I have added another honey super to both of them.  Although the clear dry warm days are hard on the fields, it is great for the clover so the bees are having a good strong  year so far.

After I have milked Daisy and cleaned up the milking parlour. Then fed all the animals and birds. I wash up and filter the fresh milk, then set it to cool. I skim last night’s milk and bottle it. Then wash all the milking dishes and buckets.  I will start the bread and hang the yoghurt or work with the jars of milk that are busy at making other milk products. I will bake a cake today with my own butter and eggs and cream. Then I will hang up my Spanish Pinny and turn to the dirty work.  Mucking out the pigsty. Shifting the Plonkers to a new part of the field they are turning over. Watering  and weeding the garden of the day. Feed the weeds to the chickens.  Picking the vegetables for dinner while they are  still crisp. We ate our first tomato last night.

As I finish  my morning chores I notice that all the animals have settled down for a sleep in the late morning. Even Daisy will go right out the back of her paddock and lower her vast body into the long grass for a nap. I have become a cog in the wheel of the farmy. We have begun to close the gaps in our cycle. Creating a unit. So I am sorely tempted to do the same thing.  I feel my own body adjusting to their pace.

We have hot gale force winds in the forecast again, and I think that this eternal wind blowing in our faces is what is wearing us all out.

I hear Kupa calling. He is such a good bird.  Occasionally now I find a long tail feather of his in the fields.  It lays caught in the grasses, like a startled glittering exclamation mark.

Have a lovely day

celi