New Alpine Does here!

I haven't posted in a while, as I have been super busy!

Monday we got two new Alpine does - a new breed for us! Aruba is 2 1/2 years old, is in milk and just recently bred. Honey Bun is 1 1/2 years old and is in milk (she kidded in June). They are both beautiful does with nice, easy to milk udders, and come from some great Alpine lines - some does in their pedigrees were Top Ten milkers, and National Grand Champions.

They were only being milked once a day, but we are milking them twice a day and their production is picking up very quickly!

Well, here are some pictures of them (they have empty udders in these pics).

Bar-Jon Hershey's Aruba,

Bar-Jon Honey Bun,

We've been busy - gone in town doing things, but not too much other than that really! Everything is looking very much like Fall, very quickly. Seems like all the leaves turned different colors just within a few days. . . very pretty though. I'll have to go out with the camera later today and get some photos before they all fall!

Well, I don't have all that much else to update on. Have a great day!

Suriyah

Cheese Time (pictures)

I made regular vinegar/Queso Blanc/Ricotta/soft cheese/whatever you want to call it cheese this morning, and decided to take pictures of the process, like I did with the butter making blog post. So here you go!

First, put 1 gallon of milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally.

While you are waiting for that to warm up, get 1/4 cup of Apple Cider Vinegar ready.

Once your milk reaches 180 F degrees,

stir in the vinegar.

If it does not separate pretty quickly, add more vinegar. Once it separates, remove from the heat.

Let it set for 10 minutes.

While you are waiting, get a bowl or saucepan with a strainer lined with cheesecloth.

When the timer is up, pour the cheese through the cheesecloth.

Let it drain for a few minutes. It will be very hot, so be careful.

The liquid left over is whey. You can use in it soups, bread, any kind of baking, etc. OR, feed it to the dogs and pigs :).

Now take the cheesecloth with the cheese in it, twist the top (so the cheese does not fall out) and rinse it under cold water for a couple of minutes. This helps make it tastes better, IMO.

While you are rinsing it, kind of "massage" the cheese with your hand to really rinse it well.

Now put your cheese in a bowl. You can either eat it like this, or flavor it. If I flavor it or not, I always salt it.

This batch I flavored garlic/italian, and these are the seasonings I used.

And this is the cheese seasoned and packaged.

Well I hope you enjoyed that!

Have a good day.

Suriyah