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Hi Everyone,

               Last week Papa did a lot of Get ready, Get set, so that by Friday we were ready to GO! We haven’t processed chickens since last December. While we had a three month break from processing, we only had a two month break from raising chickens. It takes eight weeks to raise a chicken, and so while the last batch was processed December 9, the first batch of chicks for this year arrived February 1. Eight weeks have now come and gone and we are back in the swing of processing chickens every other week—and will be until November or December. Having not used the Poultry Kitchen for two months (well—we have used it to juice lemons, make peanut butter and as a greenhouse during the great freezes) it needed a grand cleaning. Papa scrubbed the floors and the walls, serviced the vacuum sealer and the scalder. Mom mowed around the building and come Friday we all pitched in to wash the sinks, tables, tubs, and barrels. I ordered 70 chicks, but to our dismay only half the batch survived (I think they hatched during a nasty cold spell). So with only 31 chickens to process we didn’t have our usual help come in, but a family from church that will be getting their own meat chickens in a few weeks wanted to come up and help so that they could learn. We were more than willing to share the knowledge that we have learned over the years in order to help their first experience go smoothly. No one taught us how to process our first chickens. The only idea we had to go by was: “Make the chicken look like a grocery store chicken”. If it wasn’t on or in a chicken at the grocery store then we were supposed to remove it. The father of this family brought his two oldest: a son and a daughter. They arrived a little before noon and they pitched in to help us get set up and then they followed the process from the trailer to the bag taking time to work in each stage and learn the “How To”. 

               We managed to spend one day in the garden last week and we made the most of it. The truck load of dirt that I had got the Thursday before was used to fill in a low spot in “Martha’s Vineyard”. I confiscated a few wheel barrow loads to cover the ginger bed—the ginger bulbs were starting to pop out of the ground. Plus I needed it along the sides of the ginger bed where we have trellises so that we can grow cucumbers in the semi-shade of the oak tree. Thankfully I didn’t have to pull any elderberry plants out of the ginger bed this year, but I did pull back the mat in the walkway in order to pull up the roots that were creeping their way toward the ginger bed. I did take the time to pull up six or more out of the flower and herb bed that borders the ginger bed—what a nightmare that plant can be! Once I got the cucumbers planted I headed over to the East Tunnel and finished weeding a row where the last batch of lettuce was growing before we harvested it all. Then Steve layered some chicken compost on it and broadforked it in so that I could run the tilther over it and plant some yellow squash. Then I headed over to the West Tunnel and picked the last of the broccoli from the middle row and then we pulled up the plants and Steve shoveled a layer of chicken compost on the bed. Then I broadforked it and ran the tilther over the row and it was ready for me to plant some zucchini seeds—of which as of tonight they have sprouted.

               Have you ever wondered just how many things can be made from milk? Well last Tuesday I spent my day being creative with milk. Of course the day started out with Mom and I milking the cows—and that gives us 100% whole milk—cream on top! On Sunday we had taken that whole milk and poured it into a jar and added kefir grains. It then set out for 24 hours until it had thickened and we then placed it in the walk in cooler for 24 hours—whereby the kefir was ready to bottle Tuesday morning. The Friday before we had creamed—we took the whole milk and poured it in a cream machine and it separated the cream from the skim milk. The cream we used in our oatmeal, or ate it off a spoon dripping with honey, or on top of an apple crisp. You could also make whipped cream and butter with the cream. The skim milk was used as fertilizer on the pastures, but some of it was set on the table to separate into curds and whey. That is an art I promise you—and it only works when it is hot outside. I tried it back in February, but it was a flop. So when I saw that the temps would be in the high 80’s low 60’s for a few days I decided that it was worth a try again. The jars of skim milk separated nicely and on Monday we strained them into a tea towel in order to drain the whey off of the cheese (quark—a soft cheese used for dip, icing, bread rising, etc.) We hung the towels from a rod and placed then in the walk in cooler so that they could drip until Tuesday. So, after I milked the cows and bottled the kefir it was now time to package the quark and bottle the whey. Now if I had all the ingredients—and the time, I could take some of the skim milk and make cottage cheese. The whey is great for fermenting oatmeal and vegetables, or it could be added to drinks for some extra protein (it is the real “Whey Protein”). You could also heat up the whey and add vinegar or lemon juice and make ricotta cheese. Once the milking, kefir, quark and whey were all taken care of I then headed inside to make some yogurt. Then of course if you wanted you could strain the yogurt and make a cream cheese substitute—yogurt cheese and get some whey from that too. These are all the easy things that you can make with milk—I have even mentioned “cheese”. There are many different varieties of hard cheeses and soft cheeses—cheeses that are ready to eat right away (mozzarella) and those that have to age for anywhere from three months (Jack and Cheddar) to one to three years (Parmigiano Reggiano). It is truly amazing what all can be created from milk, but while a gallon (four quarts) of milk will make four quarts of yogurt, and a gallon of milk will make a gallon of kefir the math gets tricky after that. It takes five quarts of milk to make one pound of cheese. I was once told that a five gallon bucket of milk will make a five pound wheel of cheese. In order to make butter you have to cream the milk. If you are creaming by hand you may get two to four cups of thin cream from a gallon—of Jersey milk. If you run it through a cream machine it could take two gallons to get a pint of real thick cream. Then from two cups of cream you will get 1 stick (1/2 cup) of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk. Well that is a lesson on milk and its many possibilities. I think that I shall go get me a bowl of yogurt and top it with some almonds and honey. Yum! Yum!

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare