Yesterday was Farmhouse Cheddar, today is Gouda.  Oh, and Friday was Ricotta. :lol:

Friday was also sort and box soap day.  I have...more soap than I thought I did, and I need to update the webstore (soon as I label the boxes.)  I'm not as out of some scents as I had thought....I had a bunch curing. :grins:  I also pulled a back muscle during the great soap reboxing.....but it's healing.

It's been pretty quiet around here - hope everybody is staying cool this Summer!

Let's see....Sunday I made a quick batch of Queso Fresco - Herself says that when it's about a week old it's her favorite cheese.  :lol:

Today was Swiss - the last one looks OK, but it has no holes.  I didn't see the step where you refrigerate it before setting it out to dry...:sigh:  We'll try again with this batch.

I heard a loud goat earlier...turns out it was Spock.  Somehow, he had gotten out, and wasn't happy.  Herself went to put him up, and started yelling.  He was bleeding profusely from his horn buds.  :sigh:  I went out to look him over (he's fine, just looks like the victim of a mugging or something)...and noticed that all the does were NEXT DOOR.  :sigh:

They had managed to knock over 1 of the fence panels, and waltzed over to eat the neighbor's mesquite trees.  The neighbors don't mind...but I do.  We did get things squared away....life with goats is never dull!

Yesterday was Ricotta.  2 batches - the first one flopped.  Instead of 2 pounds of cheese, I got 2 OUNCES.  For 6 hours of work.  :sigh:

I got mad, and decided to try again - but this time, I cranked the heat up, added more water to the bath, and let 'er rip.

2 hours later, I had 2 pounds of lovely, soft Ricotta.  :mmmmmm:  Which promptly went to its requestor. :lol:

Today is Caerphilly.  Never heard of it, but what the heck - it's different.  It's new.  Not like I don't have the milk, right? :wink:

Bad news - my digital thermometer died.  Good news - I have an analog that goes below 80*. Just means I have to keep getting up to check the temp.  :shrug:  It works - and the cheese is now in the press.

Tomorrow is another day...wonder what cheese it will produce? :lol:

We went on a Field Trip today, and ended up at Half-Price Books.  I have a love/hate relationship with them - it is very hard for me to go in and NOT buy a book or 10.  Today was no different.....I had no intention of purchasing anything.  But then......they actually had a book on making cheese.  I've gotten bored with the recipes in "Home Cheesemaking" - I have 32 pounds of cheese in the fridge (not counting the 2 pounds of  Manchego and the leftovers of Queso Fresco and Chevre) and 6 more pounds in the china cabinet (my "drying" cabinet - the door is propped open so the wheels can dry before being waxed.)  Most of it is cheddar of some form or another....but really, I'm BORED.  the new book is "Making Artisan Cheese" (or something like that) and it has at least 5 recipes my other book doesn't have.  :bounce:  I need to make more Ricotta tomorrow (for a local guy - he asked, and I don't mind.), then I think I'm gonna try Caerphilly.  Then Romano.  And maybe Swiss again....:lol:  (Hey, the Lord has blessed us with all this milk, it'd be wrong to let it go to waste, right?  Right.)


Herself loves the aged Queso Fresco - and it's fast, so I'll probably be making another batch of that this week - but it's a semi-hard cheese and doesn't last long.  I need more varieties of hard cheese - it stores longer, and - to me - makes better use of all the milk.

Soaping:  I de-molded the Rain Forest log, but haven't cut it yet.  It's pretty solid, and looks good - from the outside anyway.  I washed up with the scraps from the mold.....no zap, so it's a good bet it's a good batch.  I'll cut it tomorrow.....here's hoping it looks as good inside as it does on the outside.  Not that it matters - this is MINE.  :heheh:

I need to read my new book....see what else I can make!

Only, I think we're headed for a fail, here.  Today's batch is supposed to be Whole Milk Ricotta.  I started it at 2...and it's STILL not up to temp (185*), it's STILL not separating into curds, and I'm not sure it's gonna work.  :fingers crossed:

Cut the batch of Marrakesh - it's pretty.  I LOVE this bar - a 3-color swirl, the scent is wonderful....it's just a pretty, good-smelling bar.  I think I need to make another batch, just for us.....

The shaving soap is stuck in the mold.  I use a 3" PVC pipe for this (and my shampoo bars), and normally there's no problem un-molding it.  The screw-on lid has an air nozzle on it; you hook up the air compressor and USUALLY the bar slides right out.  This time?  Nothing.  :confused:  Guess I need to find some sort of follower that fits, so I can manually push it out.

Not much else going on...it's too hot to do much outside (except swim), the goats are all lounging around, and the rest of the animals would prefer to nap instead of move.

Oh - we made 2 more batches of ice cream:  Cookies and Cream (with the Oreo choc/vanilla double stuffed.  Can you say YUMMY?) and Banana Pudding (tastes EXACTLY like 'nanner pudding.  :mmmmmmm:  I'm supposed to be on a diet....this isn't helping.  Need to hit the pool more often!

Tripp didn't make it.  I HATE this part of animal-ownership! :sigh:

And I found something interesting in the Dragonsblood:

Do you *see* it?  That's the coolest swirl I've ever done - I never would have expected to have a DRAGON in my soap!!!!!  Unfortunately, I have no idea how it occurred, and it's the only one....and no, this particular bar is NOT going to be sold.  Or used.  :lol:

Here, let me give you a view of the rest of the bars:

The yellow-and-green is Cedar and Saffron (we need to come up with a name for it), the red-and-green is Dragons Blood (soap name:  Chimera, because a chimera is a goat-headed dragon. :wink:), and the solid rose is Rosehip-Jasmine (soap name:  Grandma's Flower Garden) - it was supposed to be a rose-in-natural swirl, but, well.....stuff happens.  It's sill good soap, just not as "pretty" as I wanted.  (Huh.  In the photo, I can see a faint swirl in the front one.....guess I need to reserve judgement until it cures.  Sometimes the colors shift a little bit.)

Today's cheese:  Wensleydale.  The first batch of Wensleydale I did kinda flopped - it didn't press into a nice, coherent block; it was just pieces of curd squished together.  Not sure why - usually 50 lbs of pressure makes a nice, solid block - but there was no way I could wax it neatly, so it got tossed and I started a new batch.  :shrug:

Yesterday DH made me a lovely batch of chocolate cherry ice cream.  :mmmmmm:  8 oz of Penzey's Dutch Process Cocoa, 2 oz of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate, 2 bottles of Marashino Cherries, Fresh Goat's milk, Cream......:mmmmmmmmm:  It's yummy!  And all MINE, since no one else in this house likes cherries.  :heh:

Tripp is hanging in there - he took a little more milk this AM.  I've got a lady coming out Wednesday to look at the  2 Alpine bucklings; she's told me she's got her crate in her car, so she's pretty sure she'll be taking one home.  :yippee!:  I got an email last night from someone else looking for a buckling......I HOPE they both sell.  That'll leave me with 3 boys to re-home....

I need to go work on labels.  Fun stuff!

We have a sick goat - a buckling.  Unfortunately, we have too many boys, so I'm not going to do anything heroic for him.  It's a sad part of this life - the boys aren't needed, and they aren't worth as much as the girls - even though they are half your herd!  :sigh:

It's one of Risky's...the pretty one.  Jordie (we call him "Tripp") has runny poo, isn't eating, and has lost a lot of weight in a very short amount of time.  I'm thinking it's dehydration - the waterer was FILTHY (my son has been chastised - it's his job to keep the waterers filled and clean, and he's been slacking) and I think Tripp decided it was too nasty to drink.  We've moved him into the kid area in the barn, with fresh water; I've given him a dose of Banamine (for any pain), a dose of Oxytetracycline (in case it's a bug), a couple of doses of Thiamine (for his appetite...and just in case it's polio) AND I treated him with Baycox again (it's 1 dose for cocci......but just in case.)  We're now in wait-and-see mode.  (DH said he just took another 1/3 of a bottle - yes, he's weaned, but we're still giving the boys 1 bottle/day - because we have the milk.  This is a good sign...I hope!)

Cheese:  Today is Manchego.  I just ordered the culture for Swiss, so I'll be making some of that soon.

Soap:  The dragon's blood is AWESOME.  The Cedar and Saffron is nice....but Grandma's Flower Garden kinda flopped.  It's still good soap, but my swirl...didn't.  I have a lovely batch of rose-colored soap.  :lol:  I know what happened - as I was getting ready to swirl the rose into the natural, my left hand lost it's grip and I ended up kinda dumping the whole container of rose into the rest.  So....no swirl - but it's a lovely shade of rose, and it smells great. :lol:

Today it was Monterrey Jack - but I think (no, I KNOW) I screwed it up.