Do I Remember???

Good evening to all my friends and family. How is everyone? We are still trying to recuperate from Thanksgiving dinner and Black Friday to boot!

I kind of slept in this morning. I got up by 7:30. Nathan and Jordan left to go pick up Duane so they could drive Grandmother and Kathy to the airport. They left at 7:45. Jordan almost didn't go because someone needed to milk the cow and the goat. I offered to do it for him and he said he didn't want me to do it. I think he wasn't sure if I remembered how to do it!!!!

I went out to the milking parlor and prepped the room for milking our goat, Lucy. She freshened for the first time this past spring and so my older son Aaron had to break her and train her to be hand-milked. She kind of kicky. She will do her best to "wipe" you off or put her foot in the milk pail. She's much better now than what she used to be. I don't know if we'll ever fully break her. Just to be absolutely clear...I totally hand-milked her completely by hand! Jordan was shocked when he heard I actually milked by hand and not with the machine! I guess I still have it! I managed to not get wiped and no feet in the bucket, so I will count that a success!

I let the goat out and went around the back and let the cow, Ebony, into the parlor. I was surprised how easily it came back to me. The first thing I definitely remembered to do was to hang up the poop bucket to catch any accidents. Fortunately for me, we didn't need that little commodity! I milked her also without any incidents. She produced about 13 pounds of milk this morning. She was down about 3 pounds from yesterday. We've weighed the milk and there's about 8 pounds per gallon. As soon as I finished milking, Aaron showed up to feed and helped me carry the milk up to house so I could process it and pour it up. It all came back to me as if had been milking every morning of my life! You know what the funny thing is? My Mom thought that my husband "brain-washed" me since I done seem to mind this lifestyle and that she KNEW that I was NOT raised that way! She wondered how on Earth I could actually enjoy this way of life! I was pretty proud of myself for getting the job done and poured up in about 35 minutes. We pour the fresh raw milk into clean, sterilized half-gallon milk jars. We then put the jars into the refrigerator to cool them down as quickly as possible.

I spent my afternoon picking up the house. I made 9 miniature old fashioned fried peach pies and 9 miniature old fashioned fried blueberry pies! I've never had a fresh fried pie, it was pretty impressive if I do say so myself! My brother-in-law, Gabe, had never had some of my Agave Kettle Corn that I make with cinnamon, so I made a double batch!

Natalie and Ben cooked dinner for everyone tonight. She made Mexican Stackers. It's kind of like taco salad. It was very delicious. She also made a fabulous chocolate sheet cake.

My other brother-in-law, Chad, is getting into roasting his own raw coffee beans. We had FRESH home roasted coffee tonight...what a treat! Thanks for spoiling me Chad...I think you've created a monster!

Well, Nathan is ready to go home, so until tomorrow...God bless!