Foggy Days

I've lost track of how many dreary, foggy days we've had lately.


Here's an article from today's Fargo, ND Forum newspaper:

BISMARCK (AP) — Fog is becoming commonplace in parts of North Dakota, and even meteorologists think it's strange.
Fog was reported in Bismarck on 54 of the first 68 days of the year. On 17 days the fog was considered "dense."
The National Weather Service doesn't keep records on fog, but meteorologist Nathan Heinert says officials think this year's fog is unusual.
Heinert says the constant gray curtain hanging over the area is the result of a stagnant air mass and constant melting, which puts moisture in low levels of the atmosphere.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

We are all looking forward to a nice sunny day!

Mud Season

MUD. We are already having mud season. I suppose things will cool down again, but that means a second mud season when it actually warms up for good this time. What a mess!

The boys have said the car may make it out of the driveway, but not back up. So, the truck will be our mode of transportation until things freeze again.

We have plans to change our driveway a bit, so the entrance begins at a higher spot of ground. Today the man who agreed to do the work stopped by (we were surprised at a knock on the door this afternoon, since we didn't think anyone would chance trying to get up the hill), and said it was too foggy to take measurements. He will come back another day.

What's Been Happening

Jim has been busy installing a couple of windows in what will be our main floor kitchen. Makes the area so much brighter!

It will be so great to see above ground, rather than at ground level. The stove will be under the left window, the sink under the right window.

Jonathan has been working with the brooder he will use this year for his chicks. Looks like some electrical work is being done.

Leah is very pregnant, and due in April.

Jonathan named this little kid Lady Jane. She is the one we had in the house overnight when she was first born. Her mama doesn't care to stand still for her to nurse, but she seems to be doing okay with snatching milk when she can get it. She must be getting enough, though, because David was offering her goat milk we had frozen from last fall to supplement but she is no longer interested in it.

Jonathan's laying hens look pretty healthy, and are doing a better job of producing eggs. The red ones are what Jonathan had as chicks last fall.

Samson was enjoying yesterday's sunny day.

He is pretty tired at night, and will tolerate Henry sleeping with him for a tiny bit, then gets up and moves to a new location to escape him.

This is David and Calliope, our Pony Express. David had just gone down to get the mail.

We still have a lot of snow.

Peter snapped this photo, because they looked like twins! Amazing how Andrew is now almost as tall as Jonathan.

The best part is they are also good friends and work very well together.

Peter has gotten milking down to a science, and we are still enjoying Sandy's wonderful milk and milk products.

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong when I made 30 Minute Mozzarella: My thermometer wasn't correct! The cheese is turning out much better after I switched to a thermometer that was accurate!

This is Jim's baking ... He is sterilizing dirt to mix for potting soil. We've had a real mess in here lately.

The temperature was rather moderate today, and Andrew sat outside mixing the actual potting soil. A dirty job, but someone had to do it! He was a blessing, and went about the work cheerfully.

Finally, this is what Jim posted on the back of our toilet. The thing malfunctioned again yesterday, and refused to flush. They checked out the tank, and it was full once again -- only two weeks ago they pumped out the liquid. Looks like we have a problem on our hands.

Positive Results

It's such a good feeling to know our family is working to provide good food for people who are sincerely looking for something better than what is offered in regular stores.

Last week the local retreat center presented the possibility of providing garden produce for their summer camps. I don't know what would be involved, but it's great to know that chemical free fruits and vegetables are starting to be recognized as important.

Last fall I went with my son when he had his eyes examined by the local optometrist. The doctor's wife works there as receptionist, and she explained they were given one of our chickens by a friend of hers. She sent it with her husband on a hunting trip he attended with some of his friends, and they came back raving about how good the chicken was. I think Jonathan received a real boost from hearing something positive about all of his efforts in raising the broilers.


Today one of Jonathan's egg customers stopped by to pick up some eggs he had available (thankfully more of his chickens are starting to lay eggs), and dropped off his order for another half of pig. He said his wife was never a pork eater until she tasted some of ours, and now is an avid fan of pork. That is truly a blessing.

Well, spring is just around the corner, and we'll see how the farm orders roll in. Thankfully we have a while yet before harvesting raspberries!

A Work in Progress

Jim and the boys are currently working on the cabinets that will be installed in our main floor kitchen. It's amazing to me that these cabinets are over 20 years old, yet look like new. Friends of ours pulled them out of a kitchen before it was to be remodeled. They were installed right to the wall of the other house, so the guys have had to repair some slight damage from taking them out of that house. They also put backs on them and stained areas that will be exposed. The other house had a galley style kitchen, so it was a challenge to figure out how to fit them into our kitchen. I think they've done a very good job.

Jim has also been installing drywall in the kitchen, and even installed a window above where the stove will be located. Imagine cooking supper and looking out over our garden area!

Jim was thrilled when he went to Menard's in Minot on Friday and found just the ladder we needed! We haven't had one that could reach to the roof of our house, and this one will be much safer to use.

By the time I got the camera out, Peter was coming back down the ladder. I handed him the camera and he went back up to take some photos.

Jim and Andrew making sure the ladder didn't slip. You could certainly pick Jim out in a crowd if he wore that fluorescent jacket!

We'll have a whole different view of the lake when we move upstairs ... From the rooftop, Peter could see above the trees!

We'll have to take more photos when spring arrives.

Getting Things Squared Away

It's nice to have our septic system working again. We've had trouble with it just about every year since it was installed, and it's getting a bit old. The toilet wasn't flushing, so we had to resort to the "flush and plunge" method.

Jim checked the tank, and it was full. We have yet to figure out why the liquid portion hasn't been flowing into the drain field, and are very open to suggestions. The first time this happened one winter we called the local man that pumps out septic tanks, and he mentioned there seems to be no action in the tank. It cost us $100 to have him pump it out, so the next time we had trouble Jim devised a way to do it himself. Probably this summer we'll have the man back to pump out the solids, but we can handle the rest. I was amazed that all the man did with what he pumped out was to go into our big field, and at one of the edges he pumped out his tank!

Someone accidentally unplugged one of the upstairs chest freezers, and my bags of raspberries placed in there last summer when I didn't have time to make jam had been thawing. So, I was up very late last night to complete the jam process.

I've also been putting in extra time to help prepare for the upcoming homeschool convention. My job is to receipt all registrations into our accounting system, and Jim has more than a few projects for me to do with all my "spare time."

If you look closely at the hill behind Calliope and Sandy you will see snowmobile tracks -- and they weren't from us. Brian gave us a very good suggestion in a comment he made a couple of posts ago: Snowmobilers get a bad reputation from a few bad apples. Might I suggest that instead of a "no trespassing sign" --which will be ignored anyway-- put up a "Trail use for customers of the farm." That way they know that you know they're there, and they can gently take a hint. Plus you might get some business to boot.

Great idea, and now we just need to get the signs made!

This is another of Andrew's photos. I think he has a real eye for beauty.

Cheese and Other Things

I find it's been tough to get a post in these days. Usually winter is a time to attempt to catch up on all the things I've let slide over the summer and fall, but this year we added a milk cow to the mix, and her milk has kept me pretty busy.

I'm amazed at how good tasting homemade butter is. Even when David makes chocolate chip cookies, you can smell the butter in them as they bake. As Jim commented at lunch today -- the more you eat the butter, the more you want to eat it. And we are learning moderation in everything!

I started out making an easy cheese, which was just heating the raw milk and then adding vinegar to make what I guess is called Queso Blanco. This weekend I decided to try the 30 Minute Mozzarella recipe.

I don't have any photos of the process, but it's very simple and tastes very good. I like it best when eaten warm, but we've also grated it and had it on pizza. I think one gallon of raw milk (not including the cream we've skimmed off the top) makes about 12 to 15 ounces of Mozzarella cheese. On Sat. I actually made 5 recipes, so that took care of one day's milk!

I now have the ingredients to make things like cream cheese and sour cream, but it takes quite a bit of cream and we need to keep up a supply of butter, so I haven't tried those recipes yet.

Yesterday I used the actual buttermilk from making butter for the liquid portion of my whole wheat bread recipe, and that is very good as well. Little by little I am learning to use as much of the milk as I can. For the time being we are storing what I don't use of the whey in a barrel that will be frozen and used for our pigs when we get them in the spring.

I have also learned that recipes don't always tell the whole story.

I've been using Ricki Carroll's book, Home Cheese Making, and sometimes I really don't understand what she is trying to convey in her recipes. Finally after making about 4 recipes of the 30 Minute Mozzarella from the book I had an "aha!" moment, when I quit stirring and just watched what happened to the milk before it was heated to 100 degrees and time to take it off the stove to scoop out the curd. Then I understood what Ricki Carrol was trying to explain in the recipe.

To me, cheese making is not an exact science. When I started to make a batch of Mozzarella yesterday afternoon I was thinking of the Queso Blanco recipe and heated the milk too quickly and did some other things incorrectly -- and it turned out to be the best tasting of the bunch. I am constantly learning new things.

Last night I finished up a batch of Mysost. I've done quite a few batches of this type of cheese, but after I added the cream I sat down for a couple of minutes to check email messages and almost burned the ingredients in the pan. It must have been the cream that turned dark brown and formed chunks. I was upset with myself, since the stuff was cooking for a good part of the day on the back burner. I quickly strained the chunks out of the whey, cleaned up the pan, and placed it back on the burner. Thankfully the Mysost was salvaged, but it made me realize I haven't arrived yet and need to pay more attention to what I am doing.

For anyone that reads our sons' blogs this will be old information, but I'll tell you about our newest member of the Bartlett Farm.

Last week one of our younger goats kidded. It was another one of those very cold evenings, so we ended up bringing her into the house to warm up. We were up almost all night with her, taking turns holding her up to the blower on the wood stove to get her body temperature up.

Instead of using the syringe all the time, Jonathan and Jim got her to drink the freshly milked colostrum from a bowl.

She is very cute, and at birth wasn't much bigger than our almost full grown cat, Henry. He thought she was great fun. The next day she was brought back to her mama, and has been with her ever since. It took a while for the kid to figure out where to get the milk, and for the mama to stand still for her to suck. But things are going well now.

This time of year the sun sets over our lake. I am definitely enjoying the longer days, and nice sunsets.

Catching Up Once Again

It's time to catch up again.

Winter is our "down time," but this winter certainly hasn't felt that way. I still have mountains of mending to do, jam to finish from last summer's harvest, and various other things that need to be done before we start seeds again.

On Friday we had friends arrive for a short visit. They were in the area to check some farm equipment that was for sale near here. Andrew B is a friend to all of our boys, so they were thrilled to have him visit. David was especially excited, because Andrew B has a knack for fixing things, and helped him work on his snowmobile. That old 1970's vintage thing keeps getting resurrected.

And off they go! At least, until something breaks once again.

This winter we again have snowmobilers running through our land. They seem to have figured out a trail that goes from our mailbox through our smaller field and then onto the lake and away. It never ceases to amaze me, how people are so indifferent to being on someone else's property.

This was what it looked like during the last storm that came through last week. We had over a foot of snow, and then the next day the winds were clocked at around 50 miles per hour. Definitely blizzard conditions.

The power was out for a couple of hours. That meant no well water or ability to cook food. Our wood stove is right here, but the top does not become hot enough to heat even water. We need to think through a few things about what we could do for cooking before we lose power again.

Samson loves it when anyone tosses him snowballs. On this occasion, someone let him in and he decided to bring in his snowball -- in case someone would throw it for him!

A couple of days after the storm the county plow came through to allow us to get out of our driveway. Peter had to go to his vacuuming job and there was only one pass through with the plow, so Jim had to back down our quarter mile driveway to get out to the gravel road, since there was no room to turn around. The next day the grader came in and cleaned out the rest of the driveway and yard.

Peter turned 16 on Wednesday. Jonathan created a series of creative clues for Peter to follow in order to find his birthday present from the boys. It was a lot of fun!

The clues Jonathan gave were quite interesting!

One clue was even found in the barrel stove my Dad had recently given us for our wood shop. The next clue brought Peter to the location of his present.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Time to skim off the cream. Our cow gives almost a pint of cream from every gallon of milk. Thankfully we now have an old electric butter churn that someone found for us. Sure saves a lot of time, since previously we had to shake the cream in quart jars to make butter.

Just look at how thick that cream is! It's wonderful in coffee!

Our family has a new website to advertise all of our products.

Another Weather Report

When I can't think of anything else to write about, there's always the weather ...

Looks like we'll be hit again.


ONE TWO PUNCH WINTER STORM FRIDAY THROUGH EARLY MONDAY.

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR ALL OF WEST AND CENTRAL NORTH DAKOTA, FROM FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH EARLY MONDAY MORNING.

THE FIRST PUNCH OF A POTENT WINTER STORM WILL AFFECT WESTERN AND CENTRAL NORTH DAKOTA FRIDAY AFTERNOON & FRIDAY NIGHT, SPREADING SNOW FROM SOUTHWEST TO NORTHEAST. THERE MAY BE SOME FREEZING RAIN MIXED IN, ALONG & SOUTH OF THE INTERSTATE FROM BISMARCK TO JAMESTOWN FRIDAY NIGHT.

SNOW TOTALS FROM THIS FIRST WAVE ARE EXPECTED TO BE AROUND SIX INCHES, ALONG & NORTH OF A LINE FROM WILLISTON TO BISMARCK.TO ELLENDALE. SNOW AMOUNTS OF 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED FROM BEACH THROUGH DICKINSON, TO FORT YATES ON SATURDAY.

SNOW WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE NORTH, BUT WE EXPECT THAT A BREAK IN THE SNOWFALL WILL OCCUR ACROSS THE SOUTH. THIS LULL IN THE STORM COULD LINGER INTO SATURDAY NIGHT.

THE SECOND PUNCH WILL OCCUR SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH EARLY MONDAY, AS THE LOW MOVES EAST. NORTHERLY WINDS WILL INCREASE, ALTHOUGH SNOW AMOUNTS WILL BE LIGHTER WITH THIS SECOND PUNCH. WINDS WILL BE STRONGER, & THIS IS WHEN NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS COULD DEVELOP. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS FROM THIS ENTIRE EVENT WILL RANGE FROM 8 TO 14 INCHES.

Learning to Make Cheese

I'm still trying to catch up from last week's processing of homeschool convention booklets. We had milk in every refrigerator, since I didn't have time last week to do anything with it. I've attempted to make some sort of cheese every day as soon as the morning milk comes in.

I have a lot to learn when it comes to making cheese.

Since I hadn't ordered ingredients for making real Mozzarella cheese, I used a different recipe to make a mild cheese that still melts like Mozzarella. The ingredients are milk, vinegar and salt. I heated the milk to 140 degrees, then add vinegar -- and there is cheese! A day or so later the boys grate it for me, and we use it in pizza and lasagna. It tastes great!

I went on to heat the leftover milk product to 180 degrees and added a bit more vinegar, and the next product I got out of it was something similar to Ricotta. Sometimes it's drier than other times, so I have added some cream to it, and it worked in the lasagna just like the real stuff.

Last summer I helped in the kitchen of a local retreat center when they were hosting a Sons of Norway Norwegian camp. It was there I tasted a goat cheese called Gjetost. There are different spellings as well as names for this cheese. The Norwegians place it on bread (just a very thin slice) along with raspberry jam, and it was delicious! I determined then and there I was going to learn how to make it.

The lady that introduced me to it stated that the process needed both goat and cow milk, but I have since discovered there are three cheeses that can be made: whey from just goat milk, a combination of goat and cow milk whey, and whey from only cow milk. Our goats are dry now, so I will use cow milk until our goats are milked again in the spring.

I found a recipe on the Fankhauser cheese website, but it seemed hard to follow. About a year ago I purchased Ricki Carroll's book, Home Cheese Making, and found the recipe in there. I had lots of questions after reading her recipe, but forged ahead and made a batch.

Mysost (another name is Primost) is the result of taking the whey byproduct from making cheese and slowly boiling it down to where it carmelizes and thickens. Cream is added towards the end of the process, but that's all there is to the ingredients. This whole process has taken me from 6 to 12 hours. I can see why it's recommended that a wood cookstove be used instead of a conventional stove top -- that's a lot of electricity!

The first time I made a batch the end result was grainy, but that has only happened one other time and I think I've cooked up 5 batches. Each batch has given us approximately 30 ounces out of about 7 quarts of whey. Jim, Peter and I enjoy it on toast for breakfast, along with our homemade raspberry jam. It's easy to make if you have the time to spend in the kitchen close to the stove.

We'll Be Burning a Lot of Wood Tonight ...

I've been spending quite a bit of time processing our state's home school convention booklets, and this afternoon Jim and I drove to town to get them to the post office. We saw the most beautiful sundogs I've ever seen, since they almost made a complete circle around the sun. Too bad I didn't have my camera. The only problem is that sundogs indicate very cold temperatures.

This photo was taken by Andrew back in January 2009.

Once again, from the Weather Service:

DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILLS THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING AREA WIDE.

FRIGID ARCTIC HIGH PRESSURE WILL CONTINUE TO BUILD INTO THE NORTHERN PLAINS, RESULTING IN BITTERLY COLD TEMPERATURES AND DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS AS LOW AS 55 BELOW TONIGHT & FRIDAY MORNING.

TRAVELERS & THOSE DOING OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THESE WIND CHILLS. EXPOSED SKIN COULD FREEZE IN AS LITTLE AS 10 MINUTES WITH WIND CHILLS OF THIS MAGNITUDE. CARRY A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT. STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE IF STRANDED, & ALERT OTHERS OF YOUR TRAVEL PLANS.

I am very thankful for a barn to keep the animals out of the wind. Hopefully they will do okay.

Here We Go Again

I just wrote a post that disappeared ... Slightly discouraging when one is in a hurry.

Anyway, this came tonight from the Weather Service:

DANGEROUS WIND CHILL TEMPS AS LOW AS 45 BELOW WILL OCCUR TONIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING. A WIND CHILL WARNING MEANS THE COMBINATION OF WIND & VERY COLD AIR WILL CREATE DANGEROUSLY LOW WIND CHILL VALUES. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE & LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA OR DEATH IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN.

I think I will quit here before I lose another post!