Hot chooks and their companion trying to catch a breeze. Kupa always looks like he is wearing boxers!
Here is an old shot of me -just out of interest. I came across this picture again yesterday. It was taken around the time I ended up sat in a basket of wet washing. I was pregnant with the youngest of the mud splattered sons when Dad took this photo. 
It puts it into perspective doesn’t it. You know I don’t usually show pictures of myself but it did make me gasp. We forget how young we were! How much we were dealing with so young. And how truly bad our hair was!
Yesterday my fresh cheese separated when I added the rennet. I don’t know why it does that sometimes. Once again the pigs eat well! John said I should have just made sour cream with Daisy’s bad tempered milk. She was quite the sour puss yesterday morning. She stomped into the milking parlour, not even wiping her muddy feet (horrors), she stood to milk with a very surly manner, whipping her tail about and then she whirled around and stomped back out. Yesterday evening was much better. 
The wildflowers are bleaching. Summer camouflage seems has become the norm. The only real colour anymore is the endless summer sky.
It has been decided that the big pigs will go on to their noble purpose at the end of the month. They are now very big. We dragged the stock trailer into the pigs paddock so that they could get used to it. I will start feeding them in there soon, so that they will walk in and out without being stressed. And get used to their transport. I do not want to have to battle to get them in on the last day. I am working towards a smooth transition. 
They spent all yesterday afternoon sleeping in the cool shade underneath it!
I sat down with the Tall Teenager and told him that the pigs day would be at the end of the month and asked him if he was going to Ok with the pigs going. He is a vegetarian you see. He bridled and said that of course he was Ok. He knew it was coming. He is not a baby. He paused. Then searching for his words, he said that if everyone raised their meat the way we do, he would not have become a vegetarian. But I am not changing back, he glared. So I said good, well done and left it at that. I think we are all on the same page.
The rest of Daisy’s grumpy milk was sweetened, soothed and gently stirred into the most wonderful ice cream. Virginia from Bel Ochio’s Blog showed me how to make her Sublime Vanilla Ice Cream. She has set it all out in beautifully photographed steps. This ice cream was made in her restaurant for years so it is simple and proven. From now on this will be the number one ice cream for us. And if you want to make icecream without eggs look in the comments section as that recipe is in there too!
A vine within a vine.
A naughty pea hen. Snapped while trying to creep out of the tomato plants that fill the gaps in the flower beds. These are tiny cherry tomatoes, planted by the grill. 
But they have not been producing any red tomatoes like the others, now we know why, they are a perfect peacock snack size!
Good morning. The day is already heating up and it is only 5.14 am. Another scorcher is on the way. Shortly I will scurry all over the house and close the windows to keep the cool in before I go out to begin my days work. Actually there was very little cool last night to even keep in.
In the deep night TonTon went outside to investigate a noise. When he wants to come back inside he sits at the bedroom french doors and thumps his tail on the wooden step. Later I heard this tail knock, got up, but oh dear I could smell him through the screen door, he had been tangling with a skunk. So he spent the rest of the night lying confused but obedient on the step outside. The skunk smell is not the worst smell I have ever encountered. But it is thick. Insidious. It seems to take over every other scent of the night. If it were a visible smell it would be very dark and opaque. Very individual. Your nose cannot help but wrinkle away from it. Bathtime for dogs after the milking.
Daisy was quiet all night so I think that episode is over.
Have a lovely day.
celi
On this day a year ago. Here is the first recipe – Breakfast Potato Cakes. I had forgotton about these. I think I might make them for my own breakfast this morning!
The Kitchen's Garden 
88 responses to “Curdled cheese from grumpy milk”
Great idea with the pig transport. We did the same with our last pigs and it worked a treat. Unfortunately we only used that method the one time as it was a borrowed trailer and it wasn’t usually available for more than 24 hours. But it gave our brains plenty of excercise coming up with ingenius ways to persuade a pig that a trailer was the best place to be or disguising the thing altogether!
Christine
P.S. Great photo! I had the same hair as did the bulk of the world’s female population apparently!
It is the irish hair !!! All our old people came from ireland! c
i hate the smell of skunks! ewwww! we turn the air on here during the day, and turn the air off in the evenings and turn the fans on during the night that are placed in the windows. i love fresh air more than cool boxed in air, but our heat has been near 100 for so many weeks, we have to use the air conditioning. we need rain badly here in indiana. we haven’t had rain since the first week of june
fresh air at night is so lovely i do agree, I don’t have AC, so i just blow in the cold and close it up for the day and hope for the best. Since i work outside where it is dreadfully hot and dirty, coming back inside, the house always feels cooler.. No rain since the first of june is harsh indeed.. morning terry! c
i remember when people didn’t have central air or portable air conditioners, and i so remember being outside more, playing or working on the farm, and then coming into the cooler house. yes, i remember well, and i could save so much money turning the darn thing off, but for Al’s sake i run it through the day, as his medications cause him to sweat terribly. good morning to you young lady!!!
Very clever familiarizing the hogs with their trailer like that.
I hope so. This is my first year with pigs so I am feeling my way.. c
So wonderful to be with you on the farmy each morning Celi. And I love your young picture. It’s so interesting how often I think of the stories you’ve told of your life back then and your family. You write so that I feel as though I was there. I keep picturing the boys with their muddy clothes on their heads dancing in the mud puddle from ‘Sitting in a laundry basket of wet washing – a story’ while you were overwhelmed by sorrow. Such a contrast of human emotions. And also of your stories of the littles, like your little brother burning his eyebrows off, and I think the same little brother riding down the path out of your yard, across the road and into the ocean. Pretty incredible! And fun, fun stories! Thank you for all of them! Di
You have an excellent memory Diane, and you have been with me since Day One! those old stories still make me laugh in the retelling too! c
Dark hair and blue eyes… a lovely combination. And I love the hair!
Morning honey! c
Sounds like you are doing everything the right way for your pigs. That´s the way it goes and they couldn´t have asked for a better life, and I know the end will be calm and as it should be. I love that photo of you – I have similar ones of myself and wonder now why I ever bothered getting my hair permed in my youth when it´s so damned curly anyway if I let it do its own thing!
Maybe you are like me and realised that if you don’t brush it all over it looks much better! c
I agree…don´t think I even know where my proper hairbrush is 😉
Wait..is that your twin sister? The lady that stops in at my work has blonde hair! 🙂
Will you text me or email me what you charge for cream. (I need a couple pints I think…well 3 cups) Hubby just bought me a new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker …no ice …no salt…so easy…no cranking a handle…wonderful ice cream..we love it!!
I have always heard tomatoes work well for the skunk spray…poor TonTon..
Don’t feel guilty about your hogs..they have had a great time living on your farmy!
From Connie..not sure why it didn’t post my name..
Our rain is still here and my yard, the corn and the pinto beans are delightful and green. The cut hay is not, but …I guess that is what it is.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
You are beautiful c.
thank you rosemary, it was a few years ago now! c
hmmmm….isn’t it funny how your hair bleached out as you got older? hehe!!! i love that photo of you. it is hard to remember how young we used to be! that ice cream sounds good though i am not an ice cream eater. i should make some for the family though. here comes another heat wave! when will it ever cool off????
I must spend too much time in the sun.. AND weirdly sometimes it is quite straight and sleek.. who knew!!! c
It has already been a long hot summer, hasn’t it? You were lovely, back then, lovely now! Although you expressed this photo was taken during a very busy, sad, and stressful time in your life; there is a serenity, a sense of equanimity about you.
Be well, C.
I have been struggling with time, time to read posts, time to write posts, time…
I thought that it was interesting that the photo was taken during a period that my mother was so ill.. But I was so young.. I guess we never quite believed it would get that bad.. c
I knew Cinderella had long, red, curly hair! What a beauty!! 🙂
Beautiful eye color Miss C….not piercing blue but a rather fall into’ blue !
I think Daisy had a “sitting in the wet clothes basket ” day and I have had
a big chuckle picturing her folded up in the basket, legs and udder
sticking straight up with a disgusted with the world look on her face !!
I think the heat is getting to me. Have a peaceful day C.
nanster
Green is a color.
I love that photo of you, especially your hair. Bith dark and curly suit you, and show your eyes.
Skunks smell like death to me. I am writing a character who is a synesthete. I think skunk would have a dark, rotted, purple smell.
Pretty girl with pretty hair and eyes then, pretty woman with pretty hair and eyes now. 🙂 We smelled a skunk in the mtns this weekend past, but fortunately weren’t close enough to BE skunked. Poor TonTon!