I got the pumpkins in the ground today. I planted four mounds of sugar pumpkins along the barbed wire fence to the pasture next to the house. Hopefully, they are close enough to the house, the varmints will stay away. I have read that you can dust the pumpkins with cayenne and it will keep the pests away. I welcome any other suggestions.
I also started a compost pile this week, I harvested some fat earthworms from the soil while digging my pumpkin mounds that I added to the compost pile. I was delighted when digging the pumpkin mounds to find the soil full of grub worms and earthworms. Great protein for a flock of chickens. I just read Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow, and am seriously considering acquiring chickens. I would love to have a beautiful multi-purpose flock, that provides meat and eggs, but I can’t commit to that at this time.. sigh, one day. So we are considering raising a small flock of meat birds to supply ourselves with chicken for the year. I guess I will soon see if I can handle the emotional side of farm life.
I also just read Home Cheesemaking by Vicki Carroll and have sourced raw goats milk, so hopefully we will have cheese in the near future.
I have picked back up my yogurt making. Sadie was demanding it in the grocery store and the laundry list of awful things added to serve one milk that has been heated and cooled with a culture is sickening. This week we made plain and honey with fresh plums. I always keep plain, you can add it to salad dressings in place of olive oil and it makes a great creamy dressing.
Honey Yogurt with Fresh Plums
3 cups of whole milk
1 cup of cream
1 packet of yogurt starter
Good quality local honey
Place a small amount of milk in a dish and allow it to come to room temperature, stir yogurt starter into room temperature milk. Bring the 4 cups of milk and cream to 180, remove from heat and put in a cold water bath. Add milk with starter to milk and cream when mixture is between 108-112. Add honey to taste to the bottom of the yogurt cups, about 2 tablespoons. Pour milk mixture into cups and put in yogurt maker for 14 hours. Place yogurt in refrigerator and allow it to cool. Chop ½ fresh plum and stir into yogurt just before serving.
Cook’s Notes: I found a fancy Waring Yogurt Maker at Tuesday Morning for $39, but if you don’t have a yogurt maker, I made lots of yogurt before I had a maker. It is easy to make a homemade one. Put a hole through a canning lid and insert a thermometer into the hole, place the lid on a sterilized quart jar, wrap the jar in a kitchen towel and place in the warmest place in your house. I have an old stove with gas pilots, the stovetop over the pilot makes a great place to grow yogurt. Monitor temperature on the thermometer if it is dropping below 108 add yogurt jar to a warm water bath to bring temperature up. You can also wrap your jar in a heating pad to hold it at temperature. Don’t worry if your yogurt got too cold, it is still alive, you just slowed down or stopped the starter. If you add the starter to the milk when it is too hot or heat the milk higher than 112 once you have added the starter, you will kill it. The longer you allow the yogurt to grow the more tart it becomes but also the thicker it becomes. You can make a nice thick yogurt with low fat milk and powdered milk. You can also add powdered milk to any milk and it will produce a thicker yogurt.
When making yogurt, reserve one ½ cup serving as a starter for the next time that you make yogurt, when you are ready to make the next batch, take the ½ cup serving out of the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature and add it when you would the starter.
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