Making churn butter from fresh cows cream

  

 Me milking Hershey! *grin*

One of my most pleasure when comes to processing Hershey's milk ,is  to make fresh churn butter. 

The butter is so nutritious  naturally colored and tastes nothing like  store bought butter.

Here is a quick  way I  can show you how I make our butter.

The picture above shows the cream that I have already separated from the milk and it is very cold after couple days in the fridge

 

 Here you can see how thick the cream is.

One can make butter using a electric or manual churner.... but I will tell you this, I can taste the difference when I use my hand churn.... it is ...mmm... heavenly!

 Churning  takes time... nothing like things of now days...grin.... but it is wonderful to see the separation from the whey  and the butter been formed

 

It is done. you can see the butter already, can't you?grin

 Now I drain the whey and rinse the butter with cold water... then I add salt.

 Most of the time I press  the butter into  my butter molds. I collect these molds  as i adore the different designs... I have made some from pottery too.

But today I did not press as we were ready  to eat it!*grin*

 I hope you enjoyed it!

It is a wonderful farm life!!!:)

It is a wonderful life....

I must say a "blessed life"!!!*grin*

Indeed, God has always blessed me with way more that I ever expected. I get lost in my thoughts to think that I am the 'daughter of the king'...wow... what a magnificent thing to meditate upon... what a privilege!!*grin*

I was up early, I mean REALLY early this morning. my sister ordered a large quantity of Goats milk soap about 2 weeks ago and because I was busy with a miniature show, I kept leaving for afterward until last night I got a call from her :(!

The soaps were ready at the soap room , but I need to re-mill and add scents. A job that take few hours. The children will later on cut , wrap and add labels .. all requires a bit of time.

I also planned to make a nice breakfast, after all today is Saturday. This is a day that we don't have school and the children after their chorus are able to spend their free time doing what ever they want.*grin*

i can not tell you in words what spring means to me. i am often thanking my Heavenly father for all His blessing upon me and my family , however the animals are a big part of my life too.
I specially remember to thank for each one of them this time of the year . New life is coming almost daily.

Three days ago , our chiauau gave birth to 3 healthy puppies. Momma and puppies are doing great. Hershey gave birth to a calf that we named Penelope, just couple weeks ago . kittens were born... and TODAY as the sunrise, I spotted a baby lamb... a brand new baby lamb , born last night..ohhh.... what can i say? *smiles*

Sheep are very fussy about their babies so I walked to the pasture but kept a good distance . In few days perhaps i can get some better pictures.

One time, years ago, i went to pet a baby lamb and the momma did not want him back. i cried tears of regrets and after almost all day she decided to take him back. I learned my lesson.

I know it has been a long time since I did a post . Sorry about that!
I hope you enjoy our farm pictures!
lovingly~

Tilling my garden

One of my true pleasures is to plant a veggie and fruit garden. Below is a picture of my garden from few years ago. It was late spring and most of the strawberries were picked already.

Every year I try different things.... that drives my husband crazy sometimes,because I LOVE veggie and i like to try new ways to make it and also to plant some different ones. Mark is not much into vegetables although he eats some . I *try* not to make things like * eggplant casserole surprise* !!!!*grin*... Okay ... some times , I DO! Here I am tilling the garden. I will have to till few more times to make it a real nice and smooth bed. I am anxious to plant the potatoes but the ground is soaking wet .....

I love old fashion tool ** That works** but boy, how I LOVE my modern tractor! It is so powerful and easy to handle!

I had go go over and over few times to break all the weeds root system...

Not a very nice picture of my final tilling job but you can have an idea. I plan to take pictures when the children I am start planting.....soon!*smiles*

Lovely evening

Every Sunday evening Mark and I enjoy to go for a stroll around our pastures. We hold hands ,walk and talk and enjoy ourselves and the animals around us.

Many times we are blessed to see wild ones and one thing that I *love* to do is to count how many wild rabbits we spot. It is so funny how they stay still as we pass them. I ,of course , LOVE to see the babies.*grin*

We didn't see too many yesterday but the sheep was so active and play full.... grin.

We have a momma sheep that had triples and they are white as snow.... so precious!*smiles*

I thought you would enjoy to meet *Cheddar* . This is our miniature horse and belongs to my younger daughter...

The sunset is always very special to me... I can just cry looking at it.... I don't know why , but it just moves me to tears.

I am wishing you a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!

Sunflowers heavens......

Few years ago , I told my husband how much I love sunflowers and when it comes to flower planting I like to make a *splash*!!!!!!!!*grin*

We have tree pastures in our farm , a total of 20 acres. Mark reduced one of the pastures , only by tree acres where he and I have planted 11 pear trees, 11 apples trees. We are planning to add this coming fall , 11 cherries trees, and 11 peaches and that will complete our small orchard .

Well, mean while , he planted all this sunflowers... isn't it wonderful?

I was out of town for almost a week . I got home feeling very sick. I have been sick for while and instead of getting better , I got worse. The hotel I was staying must had some kind of mold because I had such a hard time breathing.

I got home and start to feel better..... oh , how I missed my family and my farm!*grin*

Gabriela, my daughter , made an amazing supper tonight ... roasted herb chicken, homemade mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, fruit salad.... yum!

After that, Mark called me to go for a walk.... little did I know about the sunflowers..... smiles.... I have learned to take my camera every time I go for walks close to evening time because I never know if Silvano, the fox, will surprise me!*grin*

I much enjoyed our walk and I can tell you that I am breathing much better now.....

Isn't it pretty?

Oh.... this was my last surprise.... blindie , our blind cow, gave birth while I was gone...... doesn't her baby looks just like her?

Garden and drawings.....

I have been wanting to do a post with some of my garden pictures but some how I miss placed one of my SD card that contain these pictures. It is actually a funny thing. Katy and I had planted some beans , peas, and something else earlier spring ,then we had a frost and decided to plant only green beans on the same spot since it looks like everything was dead. Well, that did not happen like we thought grin.... we have now all kinds of greens and because we can not tell what they are , we pick and cook all the same way...*smiles* - living and learning!

I will be participating to a doll show next month. I am now painting my dolls but I have been very busy preparing everything leaving me no time to blog or to visit those that i so much enjoy. (((Thank you)) for visiting me anyways and for your kindness. I have much desire to share my life with you and all the wonderful things that the Lord bless me daily.

I didn't go to church today as I am recovering from a sinus problem but I picked *beans* , grin, this morning and cut some flowers to bring home. I was thinking how wonderful the Lord is and what a bless it is to see things growing from the earth. With the past events around the world a great sadness came to my heart to and one thought .... any men can have everything in this world but if he does not has Christ in his heart.... he has nothing!
I will bid you adieu with this drawing that I did from a picture of Becca and sugar , our pet goat... Love in Christ.

Milking Hershey's video

Hi there~

I want to share with you a little video that we did here at our farm. It was recorded in 2 days because I wanted to have kate milking Hershey too. My editing job is in much need of improvements , but you will have an idea.

Take a look on the right side all the way on towards the bottom. I will be uploading more videos in the future under that one instead of doing a post.

My next post is about painting.

Making tea , like momma did.

Greetings to all ~
I live a very busy life but it is full of simple and relaxing pleasures. Coming from a humble beginnings , has also been a blessing for me. I take joy and many forms of things that I do but also that others do too. I love to learn new things.
My momma made many natural remedies and most of them work wonderfully. I was very ill as a child and I think if I had all the medications that most people use , today I would be suffering.
One of the simple things we always had - no matter what or where we lived - was a herb garden.

Momma used to say, " if you have to live in the city make sure you have some pots with herbs by your window". I live here in this farm for the past 9 years and before that we live in Homestead ,FL .We had a small avocado grove and yes, plenty room for a garden.

This is one of my herb garden. I have here cilantro, parsley, thyme, savory, rhubarb, sage, mint, oregano, rosemary, lavender , basil , chamomile and lemon balm.

I have other herbs on other areas too. Herbs are fairly easy to grown and they don't need much of weeding ,*if* one mulch it well.

Gabriella , my middle child, is picking some lemon balm... you can see that we have *helpers* ! *grin* .... it smells divine!

One can dried this lovely leaves by leaving it in a basket for a week or so. The herb when is dried develops a more intensive flavor but you can make tea with fresh leaves too. I like to blend it with mint and chamomile.

Just heat your *cold* water to a boiling point! *grin*

Now, here is the secret: Gabby is holding my filter. This is how momma made coffee and tea. It is a funnel made from broadcloth. I have many of these , one for each purpose. I have been turning pottery lately and made a point to turn some handles to insert where Gabby is holding. When they are ready, I will post some pictures here.

oh ... now I am ready to enjoy a lovely cup of fresh tea just sweeten enough with honey from the bees harvested from my eldest daughter, Sthefanie,grin, and enjoy the physical and ( much needed) spiritual rest the I find in word of God and in His day !

May His goodness be with you. Thank you so much for coming and sharing this *tea* with me.

Tenderly,

Patricia