On Saturday, we had a day of sun. I have been slow to decorate, trying to figure out what is really my style, what lovely things deserve to be out, and what should be taken out on occasion to enjoy, and then put away again.
Friday I hung up my three suncatchers in my bedroom window, and Saturday morning, I had my first rainbows.
Phil did the morning milking and it took him only about half an hour! (The cleanup of the massive milk pail and all the ancillary hoses and such took another half hour.) He described the whole routine: catch one, rope off the other so the milking cow can enjoy alfalfa pellets in peace; wash udder, hook up hoses, wait eight minutes, strip by hand, release, repeat. Phil loves the milking machine, and, for him, it really is faster.
And we got a full two gallons in the morning! Four full milk jars. Our milk consumption will need to skyrocket ... or something. I've done cheese once or twice, and I am not a big fan: so much milk for the quantity of solids, and then I don't really want to keep a pig to drink the whey, but I don't want to toss it, either, so out of the gallon, I have a cup of cheese and almost as much whey as I once had milk. And I've spent an hour. Boo.
We're thinking ice cream, in quantity. That's an easy thing to share with friends, too.
The cows produced over a gallon and a half in the evening. And by this evening, they were down to just over a gallon for the both of them. So perhaps we don't have a huge problem with oversupply.
We do need to order more half gallon jars, though. Out of the 200 we bought three years ago, I think we have 80 accounted for. Have we broken 120? That seems hard to believe. Maybe I tucked them away somewhere. But every jar I can find is now in use. What to do with any milk we can't easily store? I am thinking that maybe we will pour it into five gallon plastic buckets, store the buckets in a chest freezer, and, when we have enough, spray it on the fields and orchard. Our land is so lacking in calcium: it would be excellent to have a bioavailable source!
The afternoon held a pleasure and a frustration. It was time to put Phil's bench in place. I moved the horribly muddy entry mats out of the way: one had standing water underneath. Too much snow melting this week without attention. It was enough to warp and discolor the bamboo flooring.
We both looked at it in befuddlement: I know we talked about putting tile in the entryway. Why didn't we? What were we thinking?! (Probably we assumed we would do better with maintenance?) That isn't a vitally important thing in the immediate future, but the constancy of maintenance begins already.
We needed to raise the coat rack. We had initially hung it so the boys could access their jackets easily. But with the bench in place, that was no longer prudent.
Phil spent a few minutes and raised it about a foot. Better.
It was a pleasure to have the front entryway done, at least for now.
During a diaper change, Caleb suddenly grabbed a fistful of Phil's beard.
Phil has been growing his beard out, inspired by the "Man Beards" of Duck Dynasty. Caleb had a good grip, and hung on for probably close to five minutes. He would giggle, and Phil would moan, but since Phil didn't pry the baby's fingers off, I'm assuming it didn't hurt that badly.
I'm glad I caught those photos. As of this writing, the beard is no more. It was a good experience, and Phil definitely felt like he fit in more in this part of the county. But with the occasional warm day, he could tell that his chin was extra hot, so the beard had to go.
As an additional benefit, shaving off the grizzle returns his youthful looks.
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