a look at our tiny garden

I tried something new this year, my garden is planted in straw bales. It is actually doing better than I expected and we have enjoyed several cucumbers, green peppers, yellow squash, several cherry tomatoes, and 1 zucchini so far. I can see the bigger tomatoes hanging on the vines, so I am patiently waiting for them to ripen. I also can see a few spaghetti squash growing. Above is a couple photos of our garden. I am hoping to make this garden bigger and better next year!! I also have 2 patches of mint/spearmint planted that has done really well this spring. I dehydrated several mint leaves to enjoy this winter in tea.
I have visited farmers market several times already this year enjoying all kinds of wonderful produce but I hope to grow more of it myself next year. I also have had a couple wonderful friends give me zucchini and yellow squash so I have been able to put a few bags of it in the freezer to enjoy this winter.

First attempt at making butter from raw milk

Do you remember making butter as a project in school? I sure do... I was in Kindergarten and took we all took turns passing around the jar of cream shaking it like crazy. So any of you that knows me, knows when I get a random idea I usually have to see it through or at least give it a try. So a few days ago I went to a local dairy farmer and got some raw milk. I let it set in the fridge to settle the cream to the top, since then I have been removing the cream into another jar, or two as you see above. I am now letting them get to room temp. One of our very good friends Cody is planning to come over for dinner soon with his 4 kids and then the fun will began!!

 Here is a couple photos of the kids shaking the jars of cream. (top photo is my daughter, Saundra. Next is our friends son.)

Here is the jar after about 15-20 min of shaking

Then I poured out the buttermilk left in the jar, I placed the buttermilk into another jar for later use.

Next I poured out the butter into a cloth that is inside a strainer bowl.

Then you rinse the butter with cold water to remove all the buttermilk that is left.
After the butter is rinsed a couple times then I placed it on some papertowels to remove the water.
At this point you can add salt to the butter for more flavoring, but we are trying to decreased our salt intake so I am not adding it to this batch.

Here is the finished butter.
We got a full pint jar tonight. I started with 2 gallons of raw milk then over a couple days poured off the cream into the 2 quart jars half full of the cream.
The kids was so excited to place "their" butter onto the ears of corn tonight for supper!!

figuring this all out...

Hello,
I have decided to venture into the world of blogging. I thought this would be a interesting way to document some of the things that I enjoy about small town living and some of the things I don't enjoy so much. So lets see where this takes us...