I thought I would post my cheesemaking process for this batch because it's going slowly enough that I actually have time to take out the camera as I go.  Usually cheesemaking is doing some short steps (cleaning my work area, putting the milk in the pot, stirring in the culture, etc.) that aren't exactly photo-worthy.  Quite honestly the entire ( Read more... )

This morning I stopped over at my friend Anita's house and picked up a little over 2 gallons of fresh, unpasteurized goat milk.  She's got 5 goats in milk right now and is banking about 1.5 gallons a day ( Read more... )

Our oldest cat, Ahzi, is now 12 years old.  She has been losing weight since December and has been incredibly hungry and thirsty.  We took her in for a check-up several months ago and then again last week.  Turns out she has a hyperactive thyroid, which isn't all that uncommon in an older cat ( Read more... )

Super nosy neighbor that lives across the street is moving!  It's gotten so I hide inside the house or in the backyard if I see him out and about, and I love to sit on my front porch.  Hopefully the next neighbors won't be such busybodies ( Read more... )

So it's not really a pity party, more of an "I'm miserable" post.  No, it's not related to any kind of morning sickness.  That, thankfully, has been fairly minimal with the odd queasy times when I allow my stomach to go empty for too long.  Instead it's thanks to a headache that started out on the mild side late yesterday afternoon.  Overnight it ( Read more... )

I've been feeling productive lately and I wonder if it's because I'm getting used to a slightly more stable work schedule.  I've been getting primarily the day shifts; i.e. 8:30-5/9:30-6, with the odd outlier.  Today I work 1:30-10 and am off tomorrow.  So thanks to this more sane schedule I actually seem to have some energy when I get home.  Last ( Read more... )

Yesterday I took Mini in for her annual service.  Some of you may recall that a year ago she had major issues and they ended up re-machining her head gasket, it was a manufacturers defect.  Anyway, since then she's been burning about a quart of oil a month and just running a bit rough.  You could hear the air getting sucked into the engine (the ( Read more... )

So, as I mentioned, we had a perfectly marvelous time on vacation.  But aparently my larger than life sister in law did not.  She feels that she offended Kirk in some way and had been the butt of his jokes for much of the week.

This came as a total shock to me when I recieved the phone call from my brother last night.  Checking with Kirk I informed ( Read more... )

Our trip was wonderful, and I wish it had been longer.  For me, the highlight was the trip to Chichen Itza.  We caught the 6am tour shuttle out so that we would miss the worst of the crowds and heat.  Our van was the typical big passenger van that seemed to be quite comfortable at first, but then we hit the highway and spent the next hour and a ( Read more... )

Tomorrow we pull out our passports and head for sunny weather.  We are spending the next seven days enjoying the sun and sand in Cancun with my parents, uncle, brother and sister-in-law.  My parents go every year a couple of weeks before spring break and this year offered to share their time share if we covered the flight.

I dropped the cats by a ( Read more... )