Momma's Maids.

I love my maids. They work hard. They wash dishes, make bread, cook supper and keep our clothes nice and clean! One makes butter, another dry's fruit, yet another keeps the kids entertained while I milk the cow. Some days they all work together and other days none of them work. They all work hard to keep us tidy, well fed and looking nice. There was a time I would have had to pay them but these days it's a one shot deal. They eat very little and I rarely have to supervise them. I find them at yard sales or Walmart, 5 came with the trailer we live in. Live in Maids. Very cool. Some days I try and see if I can get them all working at once. They are quiet and normally well behaved. Every once and a while one quits or breaks down and we have to replace it. They never sleep and work even when I'm asleep. They are the only way I can keep up around the house. I love my maids. Just think there was a time when we did not have washers and dryers. Dishwashers and toasters. Breadmakers and electric butter churns. Stoves and fridges. Freezers and dehyrators. Mircowaves and computers. Furnaces and fans. Hot water tanks and electric fences. I'm very thankful for my wonderful maids. And I bet you are thankful for yours:) If your not you should be!!

Yogurt; How to make it the easy way.

I have a couple of hot/cold packs for a zippered pan traveling kit. Comes in very handy for housechurch potlucks. Anyway. I also have a small cooler. And the other day when I wanted to make yogurt agian I realized that the hot pack in the bottom of the cooler would keep them the perfect temp to make yogurt. And it does. I heat my hot pack in the mircowave for 4 minutes. While this is heating I take 4 quart jars and put about a tablespoon of yogurt starter (I buy yogurt that says 'live cultures' on it and use it as my starter) in the jars. Then fill with fresh milk that has not been cooled. Ididn't even have to stir it this way as the milk pouring in stirs it. Then I put the hot pack in the bottom of the cooler (heat rises), put my 4 quart jars of whole milk on top. I do put plastic wrap on the top of the jars. Then I pack towels in around and above the jars and close the lid. The next morning I take my cold pack which I keep in the freezer and I put it on top of the jars. That will cool the jars off enough that they will set. The nice thing about the cold pack (which I have to admit I did not think of. It was Papa) is that you don't have to move the jars at all which gives you a better consistancy of yogurt. Then I took the jars out that night, should have probably done it in the afternoon as the cold pack was barely cool, and put them in the fridge. YUMMMM. We add homemade jam to taste or strain it overnight to get a thicker greek style yogurt and then add jam or syrup to taste and dip fruit or what have you in it. Very good.

Bringing home the Bull

and other fall prep work.
Papa had two days off this week and we made our 'To do' list and went at it. The potatoes got dug up and are drying on the trampoline, the calves went visiting for the winter at a friends house, pretty much all the winter fencing is done, the feeding area is figured and fenced, both the pigs and chickens got moved to new areas (the chickens are cleaning up after the cow). And we brought home the neighbors bull. He's a beaut!! A smaller red bull that may have been Bobbies papa last year. Looking forward to seeing what the will calf look like. I'm kinda hoping for a heifer as we would love to raise our next milk cow from the ground up. The neighbor had him penned when we got there and it was no big deal to get him into our borrowed horse trailer and drive the 5 minutes to our house. But I'm a bit scared/leery of bulls and of course I was the one who had to keep Bindy close to the unloading spot so that our borrowed bull wouldn't head for the hills thinking he was all alone. Oh joy. We had strung up a two strand electric fence so we just pushed the insulators down and backed in the trailer over it. When the bull came out I was suppose to stay in there until he saw Bindy and she saw him. Which made me very nervous. Then I was suppose to hop out and run turn the fence on. Well for all my fears it happened just the way it was suppose to. Bindy took one look at him and rushed him. Which was fine because he was rushing her. They met in the middle and I was already over the fence, pushing up insulators then bolting for the fencer. Papa ran to move the trailer forward and push the insulators back up. Then we stood there and grinned at each other for a moment. LOL. Then we loaded up the calves that we had locked away in the milking area and headed out again. Well no. We stood there and watched the bull, whom so far we are calling Buddy, and made sure he was going to stay put. He does know electric fence a bit and he was very leery of it and is behaving himself nicely. He is people shy so he and I stay away from each other. Which suits us both just fine.


We have started to milk Bindy 2x a day, starting this weekend. Sunday Papa milked almost 8 gallons. I still can hardly believe it. Hopefully Papa will no longer be in camp so we can each milk once a day. Now with the calves gone I will have no backup milkers. This morning I got about 3 gallons. Which is more or less what we thought she would do. My hands must be getting stronger as I only had to stretch them out 3 times this morning. I enjoy having the extra milk as now I can make soft cheeses and yogurt when ever I want. I made yogurt Sunday night and finally found a great way to make it without a lot of hassle. We had yogurt and Basberry Jam this morning. Yum. Basberry, raspberry/blackberry jam is wonderful and I think the new favorite. Even Baby R had some and loved it. Thanks Grandma Griggs!! It's amazing we go thru about a quart per breakfast. The older kids drink it straight from their new cups: spiderman and princess that they got from M's birthday party. J wanted the princess one but E, being a girl got 1st dibs. We are giving any extra milk to the pigs and they love it. They are growing like crazy on milk and whole wheat. They also get garden/house leftovers and weeds. Lucky piggies. This morning I milked straight into a pig bucket as both fridges are full. This afternoon I'll have to go out and empty some jars and feed them as well.


The only big thing left on the list is firewood and that is more of a haul from here and there to bring to the house as we did a lot of that this sping when we cleared two acres. We do want to cut some more dead stuff, pine and spruce, down from the front 2 acres for a better burning wood but that won't take long and will hopefully get done in the next few weekends. Oh and we have to get hay but that we're going to do on Sundays when we housechurch at Millers. We'll just pull our little trailer with us, get loaded up, and unload it during the week. We only need 6 bales and we are at Millers every couple of weekends so it should work. Besides I have a feeling we'll be there more then just Sundays when B&B return:) 15 days to B&B. :):):)