Still miserable and muddy

Yup, the same old story, LOL. It's raining again, of course. One small bit of happiness tho, Halloween is supposed to be dry but cold. Looks like that cold front has finally made it's way here. I hope it freezes all the mud up for me so I can quit sloshing thru the barn lot!

Moo cow had a brush with death yesterday. Found her laid out flat in the barn doorway yesterday morning. It looks like she had been trying to get up but the barn doorway is slightly sloped and she wore herself out and gave up. She had a small bit of froth in her nose, I'll have to watch her carefully and possibly give her some medications. I was hoping to not have to give her any more but that's life I guess. She's still eating and drinking like she should and has occasional periods of where she tries to get up. Since I'm willing to tend her as long as she's still trying, she'll be okay I guess. She may not ever get back up.

I've got 2 ducks setting eggs! I guess the temps staying in the 60s during the day tricked them into thinking it was spring instead of fall. The Rouen has a nest with no telling how many eggs in it and the Muscovy cross has 9 chicken eggs and 5 duck eggs under her. Since chicken and duck eggs have different hatch times, I'll have to watch for the chicks hatching so I can grab them up. If I don't, she may get off the nest and not finish out the duck eggs since they need a week longer to hatch.

Speaking of chickens, I'm finally up to full egg production and we're picking up 35 eggs(not counting duck eggs) a day. I need to pick up a couple more egg customers!

I've been working on making cheese out of store bought milk but it's not going along as well as I'd hoped it would. The commercially processed milk is junk as far as I'm concerned and it's not good for anything, not even ricotta cheese making. The cheese, even with extended cook times and press times, comes out soft and slimey every time. I will not cave and go back to getting milk from the neighbor. To top insult and injury, apparently my (expensive) temperature control box for the cheese cave has mysteriously disappeared! Hmmm, they asked me if I had it. Well, duh, why would I have it? Last I saw it, it was on a fridge in their garage that contained 3 wheels of cheese aging......... Ah, I better quit on this subject or it will turn into a useless rant.

Anyhoo...... I'm working on finding a couple young milking heifers for the farm. I don't have any money to buy them yet so I'm just looking around. I figure I need something small with good milk production and reasonable butterfat content so I'll search for Jerseys. The goat will also be in milk come March so we'll be trying the goat cheese too.

Somebody the other day asked me for a Colby recipe that would work for their excess goats milk. I have one now but I can't find the email... if that person woudls end me another, I will send that recipe and directions to them........

I found a book at TSc the other day, it's got a bunch of old timey recipes in it. Several nice ones I'm going to try this weekend in the bread section. I will of course share the results.

Well, I must get back to the mud and the rain and finish my morning farm chores. Nothing big, just tending all the animals. I have to look at each one every morning to make sure they are all healthy and injury free while I'm feeding them...