June 28

Set up chevre last night, but it never set up. Not sure what I did wrong. Maybe it was the pot I used. Haven't used that one before. Set it up in my small crock pot insides today. It doesn't hold a full gallon, but it is ceramic and shouldn't react with anything if that was the problem, even if I have never used IT before either.

Finished my first Halloween puzzle yesterday afternoon. It's called Midnight and it's by Alan Giana. It's only 300 large pieces, so it was a quick put together. The next one will not go nearly so fast, 500 small pieces. I have the edges sorted out and that's it.

We had about an inch and a half of rain last night and a lovely cool day today. I don't feel like I made efficient use of the day, but I did get cracking on cleaning up the garden some. I did not get bread or cheeseballs made, both of which were on my list, but such is life. I have this whole problem with cleaning up the garden. I keep going "I don't need it, so why push it?" but then I will hit fall and need it and it will be a complete and utter MESS and I will NEED it. *sigh* I will try to do better this year. Should be some easier, right? I'm not doing much with most of it. If I get it all ready and mulched, it will be ready to rock and roll with this fall when I need to plant the fall garden.

Ordered a cheese press today, and rennet. Getting rennet locally has been a real pain this year. Not sure what is up with that. I'm not actually sure I NEED the press yet, but I will eventually. I'm giving roughly 7 quarts a week to the wildlife rehabilitation center for a fawn. That has put a dent in my milk supply for cheese making - not that I'm complaining since I have been having trouble getting rennet. But there's only so much you can do with chevre, ricotta, and labana. Of course, now I have kefir to play with for cheese too. Gonna try to do a "cottage" cheese made with kefir cultured milk tomorrow, assuming I have enough milk leftover to do it after I haul stuff off the the wildlife center. I think I will. Uni has gotten to where she gives me 4lbs 5 ozs pretty regularly, with occasional forays off into more. OTOH, she also occasionally manages to let her kids out of their locked stall, and when she does that they drink about half. She had been only giving me 3.5 lbs, it's amazing how much more that extra 13ozs a day adds in terms of milk to use. If only I can keep the kids locked up. ;-)