Holy Smokes she's 8!

Yep, we had a birthday girl at our place this past weekend.  Jaylin turned 8 today (Monday, March 26) but the gifts came rolling in early in time for the weekend.
We went shopping with her and got her some "little pets" from Toys R Us and a new bathing suit. This gal is growing fast and she has totally outgrown the bathing suit we have for her.  Not fun when you are swimming with a wedgie!
The gifts she opened are from her Auntie Shelley & Uncle Bill, Auntie Freda and Grandpa, Connie & Cam & family...

After lunch, and on the ride home in the car, we over heard a conversation between her and Nicholas (a neighbor boy who is 6 years old).... Nicholas: "I have bad news Jaylin."   Jaylin: "Oh, what bad news?"   Nicholas: " Spring break is over and we have to go back to school tomorrow, I mean Monday!"  Jaylin: " I KNOOOW and its my BIRTHDAY!"

Bye Bye Window

Our living room Bay window was not doing so well after 20+ years.  It had lost its seal and it was becoming very difficult to see out of.  We love the view so it was time to change the glass. 
The guys removed the big Bay and the bottom left window.  The slider was still fine and so were the two windows on each side of the Bay.  The one on the bottom left (the guy is removing in the picture) had a 1/2 inch of water in it! 

 Wow is it ever clear with the window out!  Only the frame of the window is there... Jeff came up from his room and said "why is it so cold in here?"  I chuckled and said "Cause we have no glass in the bay window!"  You can see the fellas carrying away the foggy glass they just took out.

This picture was taken at night but this is the new glass in place and sealed.   In the day time it looks just like the upper picture with no glass at all - its THAT clear... although we have had some birds christen it already :(

Big Red Barn Reno's continued

The doors of the barn are complete now - all they need is some paint when the weather gets good.  The flashing has been put up over the doors and the 1x2 has been nailed into place for cosmetic purposes.

Down the side of the barn is the grain bins.  The large grain bin, for years, has been the heifer/calf  grain.  We have always had to fill the carts outside in the weather and then open grain carts sit unprotected in the barn... that is when birds, rats and squirrels find their free meals.  Well, Karl has now eliminated that.

Karl has turned the auger around and if you look close you can see a white pipe (auger) coming through the window (far right corner) and it heads over to...

a sealed wooden grain bin.  Here you put your bucket under the bin and lift a little trap door to fill the bucket.  The "animals" have been missing the open grain bin so much that my FIL has been catching many of them quite easily in a catch-em-alive trap... using grain as the bait.   Our dog, Shadow, quite enjoys his "treats"... yes, we do the hunting, the dog does the deed.

When we turn around from this picture and face the big new doors - looking to the left of the doors used to be 4 computer grain feeders... the cows would wear an electronic collar and walk in - it would read the micro chip ( who the cow was, how much grain she was allowed) then dump some grain into the feeder and she ate it up.  This was when we had milk cows here.  There have been no milk cows in this barn since 2008.   So Karl figured after 4 years it was time the old rusty computer feeders came out.  There are now nice new home made gates put in its place creating a large holding pen for if or when it may be needed. 

More work and clean up has been done since these pictures... I will have to get over to the Big red barn and take some more photo's.

Listen to Shadow

Last night when I was doing chores in the sheep barn Shadow was growling and barking just outside the door.  He does this fairly regularly but usually he looks to the East where the coyotes like to yip and taunt him.  He lets them know to keep their distance and that he is by the house if they try anything.

But last night was a little different.  He was looking North and actually ran across our driveway facing the dairy barn.  I couldn't see or hear anything and thought maybe he heard a coyote cross the field or the wind was carrying in a scent. 

Once I was done I said "lets go, its all right, the sheep are safe in the barn now."  He gave one last look and "woof" North and followed me into the house.

Nothing more thought of til morning.

Karl came in the house after milking and asked "Was Shadow barking last night or was I dreaming?"

I said "Shadow barked but I told him to be quiet cause I couldn't see or hear anything."

Karl:  "Well we had some extra work this morning". 

Me: "Oh?".  

He then explained,"Yesterday I moved some calves and got interrupted and forgot to go back and make sure the gate was latched proper."

Me:  "ooooh".  

Karl went on to describe " The cows got into the calf barn knocked over buckets, stomped down the round bale we feed, broke the wooden ramp that goes up into the parlor - got into the parlor and bent some doors that the milk machines sit on and broke a few candles that wash the machines and of course CRAPPED everywhere!" 

Me: "Oh boy.. and?"

Karl: "and?"

Me: "Well, I know ALL the doors get left open.......did they get into the office too or the machinery room?"

Karl: "No, they had far too much fun in the first two areas and it looks like they had lots of time to party cause a bunch were laying down when we went to get them for milking - they had a busy night and was trying to catch up on sleep"

Silence......

Karl: "Oh yeah, they turned on the water and there was about 6" of water everywhere - they are like Houdini with their tongues."

Moral of the story:  "Stop thinking Shadow is just barking at the voices in his head - he probably knew there was a party going on down there!" 

For those itchy spots

Today I managed to get down to the barn after being very very sick for the past, well, off and on, 2 months.  Particularly the last 4 days.  I have had a 40 degree fever and could barely lift my head off the pillow, muscle spasms, headaches, coughing, sinus pain, you name it I was (rhetorically speaking) run over by a truck.   After a Dr visit and some prescribed meds I am on the mend.

It felt so good to walk through the cows with Karl when milking was finished.  I had been missing the fresh air all cooped up in the house. He even had me laughing... that felt good too!
One of our cows (#1471) loves to get the inside of her leg scratched.  She is very friendly and it definitely had me laughing.   It took a little bit of convincing for Karl to let me video it but he finally did. 
I will apologize up front that my video is on its side and I am unsure how to edit it so its turned up the correct way.  Also, sorry for my laughter throughout the video - it kind of overpowers... go ahead and mute. 

Cheese the next day

Today I took apart my make shift press and pulled my cheddar cheese out of the mold.  I then unwrapped it from the cheese cloth, salted it and set it on a wooden board to "dry" with a clean towel over it.  I will turn it over regularly for the next 2-4 days.  Once it is "dry" I will coat it with wax and let it sit (age) for 30-60 days. I got 11.2 oz (317grams) of cheese out of 4 litres of milk.

I did use Raw milk (milk straight from the cow that has not been pasteurized or homogenized). This means there could be some bacteria in the cheese that could potentially be dangerous if eaten too soon.  There are 2 ways to kill bad bacteria... one is Aging the other is pasteurizing the milk first.

   Pasteurization is when you heat the milk to 145 degrees, hold it there for 16 seconds, then plunge the pot into ice water and stir to cool the milk down very fast to 40 degrees. This kills dangerous bacteria but leaves good bacteria to help make good cheese.     It is imperative that you don't over heat or it kills both good and bad bacteria and you won't get good curd and if you under heat you won't kill all the bad bacteria.

The next time I make cheese I will pasteurize our milk first then we can eat the cheese sooner!
Footnote: we could eat the cheese now as our bodies are used to drinking unpasteurized milk but to have someone who is not used to it we wouldn't want to take the chance of serving it until it is "ALL people" ready.

I had also made Whey Ricotta - this is how that turned out! I got about a 1/2 cup of Ricotta out of that BIG pot of whey.  I put it in this container... added some sea salt for preservative and its now ready to eat.  I could add some herbs but decided to keep it "natural". 

My plan next time is not only to pasteurize the milk first but to skim the cream off the top of the raw milk... make butter out of the cream and make a lower fat cheese out of the skimmed milk.



Cheese Please!

Today a friend came over and we had fun experimenting with cheese.
She works at a winery and her place of work sells cheese kits, rennet, culture, molds etc. 
We had a great time and even though this wasn't my very first time making cheese ( made very soft cheese with rennet tablets) it was definitely a learning experience cause I haven't dabbled in it much.
Here you see our colander of curds. We started with 4 litres of milk and are making a harder cheese (cheddar). We are about to add salt and break them up to help drain more whey off the curds.

Here we have added 50lb weights to compress the curds and get more whey (liquid) squeezed out.  Dumbbells are good for something!

I had to change my weight.. now it is set at 30 lbs... after an hour the 40lb dumbbell placed on top fell and damaged my sink.  Yeah, I wasn't too happy.  It is a lot more secure now but not as much weight. I need a cheese press...

This is the excess whey that came off the curds.  We are reheating it to 200 degrees, will add vinegar and it will break away more protein and we will make Ricotta cheese. 

Here is the Ricotta cheese hanging in the Muslin bag draining the excess whey.  Once done with the whey you can feed it to animals or dump it.  One suggestion we read was add a juice powder to it (such as Koolaid or gatoraid) and drink it.  Great energy and high protein drink!

Tomorrow I will take the weight off the Cheddar and pull the cheese out of the form (mold), rub some salt on it, sit it on a wooden board covered in cheese cloth for 2-4 days.  I will then "paint" or "dip" it in wax and let sit for a month before eating.

As for the Ricotta cheese.  It is a softer, crumbly cheese and I will make sure it is drained well and put it in a Tupperware container for good eats!
I'll try and remember to put pictures up of the end result.

The Latest Project

If you have been waiting to see what Karl is doing next... well here you have it!
He is renovating the hip roof barn at Charlies.
This view is from the inside... they have removed all the siding off the East side of the barn and opened it up.  Two very large sliding doors have been made and put in place.  They did this first so that they can work inside and keep the weather off of them.  The weather hasn't been too cooperative with blowing rain, snow and hail.

Here is a view of the siding taken off and the new doors in place.

The full view.  The doors above the new ones cover the hay mow opening.  Those doors used to be the ones that hung below.  The top doors show the original size of the opening to the barn.

More renovations are in store on the inside... photo's will follow once they are done.

New Sheep Barn

I have finally gathered my pictures together to show you my lovely Christmas present that Karl built for me.  Gary and Jeff did a lot of work on it too :)

It all started when I was talking to Karl about expanding my existing shed.  I was measuring up for posts and was going to get Charlie to cut me some on his Mill.  Jeff would then give me a hand to increase the size of my shed.  Heck, I have increased it myself so not a very difficult task.   Well, I was needing some expertise from Karl before I placed my lumber order.  But Karl wasn't being so willing.  Then one day  Jeff commented "Dad we forgot to bring over the posts!".   I said "oh, what posts?"  Answer being "the ones for your barn."  I was quite baffled cause I hadn't placed an order.  Eventually it came out that Karl was not planning to build onto "that old thing" and was going new.   Wow, didn't expect that!

So the building began:
area was cleared -

fences removed and changed temporarily - my rock pile removed -

measuring up - placing stakes - making sure its square

Digging the holes for the posts



4 foot hole... and yep I stepped backwards when taking a picture and fell right IN!  The guys said they wished they were holding the camera at that point!  ha-ha!

Posts in place but not level (obviously!)

Our wonderful soil... blue clay sticks to everything.  Eventually you feel like you are walking on stilts!



Eyeballing (leveling) the posts - gravel to level the "floor"

Framing

more framing

 Pens

All done.. the outside and he even put a window in it!

The front side... sliding door... looks like I have some painting to do when it warms up.  Those trees are perfectly spaced.

My view inside... i can feed round bales now! yay!



The sheep and alpaca view...

Fencing complete. this fence separates the two sides.  I am standing beside the gate that gives easy access to either side.

Last rabbit cage down...

...and out.  Yep, no more rabbits.  When the weather gets good again its time to landscape the east side of the house yard.

What a NICE Christmas present! He was going to put a big red bow on it but couldn't find one big enough LOL

Our Special Day

On February 27th it was Karl and my 24th Wedding Anniversary.  Two days before, we decided to take a nice scenic drive into the USA.  We haven't crossed the border is several years but the farm equipment places in Lynden have intrigued Karl so that was one reason for our crossing.

It was a "short" wait to cross (about 30 minutes) and we headed through Lynden passing the John Deere Equipment yard... yes we did pop in... but only for a drive around the lot, found nothing interesting and continued on... the next farm equipment place we passed was just that... we glanced and kept going.  I have to admit I was surprised Karl didn't want to investigate further. LOL

The weather wasn't completely cooperative so we stayed in the car for the most part... we had hail, rain, snow, wind... its the wind that gets yah.  But the drive was still beautiful.

With the Bay on our right and the "hill" on the left... it was straight down and many times we went by stone walls that were put there to stop people from taking a trip in the wrong direction.

There were homes with majestic views... this one was hard to take as there were very few pullouts - if I could have taken the picture from another angle you would have seen how fancy the architecture was.. this shows some but the staircase was incredible lower down.

Managed to find a place to get out and stretch our legs... This was the 3rd attempt to take this picture so we look a little gorky! lol

 Chuckanut Drive is mainly about oyster farming.  I don't know if you can read this sign or not. you may have to enlarge it.   There were a couple of restaurants along the way but Karl is allergic to shell fish and we didn't want the day to go bad on him.

Can you see the posts in the water?  Its very shallow and they are oyster farming here.

More scenery looking towards the water.

A bridge we crossed over... it gets you across Oyster Creek.  There is a restaurant on the other side hidden in the trees to the left (not seen in this picture).  This picture was taken off the internet as there was no place for us to pull over and snap one ourselves.

On our way home... we went into Burlington and had lunch at Applebees (never eaten there before). Then we headed to the I-5 to make a quick trip back up North towards Blaine WA

Along the way we saw a fair bit of farm land... the land is at sea level and... well... not much thinking about planting going on in this field!  Yes, that is a farmers field under water.

About 30 minutes later we reached Blaine and decided to visit my niece!   Well, I guess when you don't let someone know your coming... they weren't home.  :(  So we said hello to their very anxious dog in the back yard... bouncing up and down trying to look over the fence... and left a note at their front door.

When we went to cross the border back to Canada they asked the typical questions... Where do you live? (Langley) What brought you down here?  (sight seeing) What are you bringing back? (nothing)  NOTHING? (nothing)  NO SHOPPING?  (well we bought & ate lunch does that count?) So you didnt' buy ANYTHING? (nope, just went for a drive)   Hmm, oooookaaaaay... have a nice day...

And we got home in time to milk the cows.  :)