Say Cheese!

It took all day on the 13th, and then the 24 hour press through the 14th, but on the 15th my very first batch of cheddar was finished and waxed and stored away to mature.

It won't be ready to try for 3 months yet. I plan on letting this first batch be a testing batch. Basically we'll open one every so often to see how we like it at that age. The plan is Three months, Six months, Nine months, One year, Two years, Five years. I've also made some yogurt and some squeaky cheese curds for snacking/poutine.

The goats are doing well. I gave them their vaccine booster on the 17th and Star's neck lump hasn't gotten worse yet so we likely just have to wait it out for a few weeks.

Isabella still isn't laying and Lilly's eggs come out wrinkled. This is likely because I have to keep putting the chicken food away for most of the day so the goats can browse. They're eating bugs and plants and they get a breakfast and dinner of pellets, but they likely aren't getting all the vitamins and such they need for this stressful routine. Hopefully I can get that barn divider up soon and they'll have a goat-free place to eat. We've run into some hiccups with the living-room window so that isn't going in yet.

The greenhouse is doing well and pumping out.... mostly spinach right now lol. I know I got a late start but the carrots are almost ready and I'm hoping the tomatoes will start doing their thing soon. I do need to get some more seeds in like beets and turnips. The radishes are good but we don't eat them regularly. I might do one more big planting of them to have enough to make radish pickles.