I will try to get to this over the weekend…. we had a lovely model to show off all the stuff she got to take home. :)

Hugs,
Vyx

My milk curdled just fine, it set up into a big giant curd just fine. Sliced it up like they tell you, spooned it out into a big cheesecloth lined colander.

I did a good job of straining the whey out. Maybe too good of a job.

But I could NOT get the cheese to get soft and pliable, nuking it didn’t help at all. I’d burn my hands on boiling bits of whey still trapped in the cheese, but the cheese would be just crumbling. Kept trying… recipe said to nuke it for 30 seconds or so, a few times…. That was plenty to get tiny pockets of whey super boiling, but not long enough to melt the curds so that they’d be pliable.

Finally I gave up and decided that we just have crumbles of mozzarella instead of nice smooth balls of it. The texture is still wonderful, as is the flavor… I got just the right amount of salt mixed in. It’s not as smooth as it could be but still chews just fine like fresh mozzarella should.

I will try again… perhaps with a better recipe. I wanted the short version, where you have Mozzarella cheese in about 1.5 hours. The other recipe I found took 6 hours to get the cheese. That’s more time than I want to spend on some fresh cheese, even if a lot of that is hanging it to drain whey. But if the short version doesn’t work for me… I’ll have to try the long version.

Dogs and cats all got whey mixed with kibble for dinner… and I still have a quart of whey. That’ll probably end up in the dogs food again, because if I try this again I will have another supply of it.

It’s all sort of shocking to me, because I’m good at stuff. LOL! What a blow to my ego here today… I can’t make fresh mozzarella! Oh, I’m sure there are lots of things I can’t do first time perfectly, but cheese is cooking and I can cook. Plus, cheese falls into the category of “crafts” and I’m good at that too. Oh well, live and learn as they say… and I know other failures will come to mind if I think on it.

Yes, popping up in my brain right now. Wanted to make a cake. Couldn’t find a recipe in the cookbook where we had all the right ingredients… except for a chocolate cake. Except I didn’t add the chocolate or cocoa, because I didn’t want a chocolate cake. It was bad. Probably a good base for a fruit buckle type cake, but without the chocolate in that cake it wasn’t very good.

I’ve burned stuff… I’m the only person I know who has burned boiled eggs. Boiled them dry and only realized it when they started exploding and sending egg and eggshells all over the kitchen. Being hearing impaired I just sort of heard a funny noise a couple times… why is it raining in the kitchen? :)

Anyhow, I will report back if I actually make some mozzarella that is like it’s supposed to be.

hugs,
Vyx

First up, this rather blue grey tabby. Has a really precious face and is the biggest kitten in that litter.

I dunno about this.

Hmm, can I make a break for it?

Oh no, I’m in the sky!

Then a pure grey kitten, there are two, but I chose this one to photograph.

Notice the claws hanging onto my hand.

Look at those CUTE pink toes!

This little guy did NOT want to be in my lap.

I’m gonna make a break for it.

Mad ears. :)

But what a sweet belly!

Busy day today, I’m making tomato jam. LOTS of it. Plus some fresh salsa (pico de gallo) later, to take to work tomorrow.

Enjoy….
Vyx

I’ll be taking sacks of them to work Monday.

I’ll turn all the Romas into tomato jam. I don’t can tomatoes, I think it’s too much trouble when you can freeze them just fine, skins and all.

hugs,
Vyx

The first weekend we had a lady show up wanting a boy grey tabby. Don’t have any grey tabbies, so she said well, color isn’t important but being male is.

So we started looking at kittens. I was positive that ALL gold (orange) cats are male, even if they have white on them…. just like calico and tortise shell cats are always female. I don’t remember where I heard this lore, but it’s WRONG. Orange cats can be girls. Lionel is a female, and so is the little Milo kitten. Sheesh! I don’t really notice unless they start getting dangly bits or all of a sudden have kittens… just not that attentive to the barn cats.

But the black and white kitten that I was sure was female… was actually a boy, so he went to a new home. Hey, he looks just like his momma, well that tuxedo cat look anyhow.

Then last weekend, I have the sign out again. I’m in the house doing something, I actually heard the knock on the door before the little dog did. I go out the door and a couple are standing there… with the gal hands full of kittens. She wanted TWO and had already picked them out She had both the calicos, which were both very cute kittens, not same Momma, so I mentioned that. Just in case one of em turns out to be a boy… but those people didn’t care what sex the cats were, because of the cuteness. I was cracking up, this gal was just GUSHING over how cute these kittens were and her hubby was rolling his eyes. They drove away with her still holding them up and looking into cute kitten faces and talking baby talk.

Now I’m down to Satin’s minions and a gold kitten with white paws. We still have four black kittens. I’m not sure if anyone will take the black ones, although I’ve always liked black cats. I don’t really care what color a cat is… the personality is what makes a cat. So I’m sitting out there tonight and one black kitten gives me this look that just reminds me of my sister Cherie so much… OMG, this cat has got the family evil eye look! So I pick it up… dang it, I’ll name it Cherie if it’s a girl… but of course it’s not. His name is Frank. And yes, even with 4 black kittens I can tell who Frank is. :) (Frank is my Dad’s name, and he’s the one we all learned the LOOK from)

I am getting a tiny kick out of calling all my black kittens Satin’s Minions. I’m sure it would tick off a former co-worker, good thing she doesn’t work there any more. I put all the black kittens into a bucket and took a photo… and said, see, I have a bucket of Ebil. Tonight I had a Satin tree, instead of a Silk tree. All the kittens were climbing the walnut tree… and yes, I spelled Satin like I wanted to. :) Not Satan… they are too cute to be evil or even ebil.

More kitten stuff… after the two calicos left last weekend, Patches decided to bring her kittens out. Patch is the one who kitten napped the little gold kitten a while back…. I was just sick, that one kitten disappeared. He wasn’t gone, he was just being held hostage. Er, SHE. Milo finally escaped, and Patch tried to take him back under the house, but I rescued him, poor kit. He was starving… had been eating food but all he’d had was milk for a few days. Patch said well, if I can’t have that one, I’ll take another. She grabbed up another kitten and took it with her, but that one escaped within about 30 min. So, she brought her kittens out a week later. They are all on the porch now, all five of them… so I’m back to TEN kittens even after giving away 5. Sheesh.

However, if anyone wants a grey kitten now… well, I’ll have one ready in a few weeks. Heh.

I’m sort of still in shock about the gold cats. I was positive that was a genetic trait that was tied to sex. Like calicos or tortiseshells. Orange meant MALE. Now I’m wondering if the thing about calicos and tortiseshells is true…. I guess I should google some info.

Oh well. It won’t matter for my naming cats anyhow. I usually decide on names without looking to see if they are girls or boys. Personality is what earns the names. Or my quirks. I have decided that all the black kittens are now named CAT names… even Frank. He gets to be Ducati Frank because my dad rode a motorcycle. The others are Catepillar, Catapult and Catatonic. Nicknames: Pillar, Pult, and Tonic. Ducati can just remain Frank, lol…. but if he purrs really loud we’ll stick with Ducati.

I think my mind has just wandered right off the planet… it’s been a long day as usual. I’m for bed…. HOPE to get some dye work done this weekend. Mowed for a few hours after work today, usually I don’t have the energy to do anything… but I want a head start on mowing because I have plans for us this weekend. We need more fun, and less work, on weekends.

hugs,
Vyx

First of all… I accidently left the soaker hose going overnight on the berries a couple weeks ago. It was really dry and they needed water, but probably not quite that much. Thing is, though, that the right amount of water at just the right time will make the berries HUGE when they ripen. Huge as in monster sized!

Not a very great photo, and they weren’t all that large, but most are at least as large as my thumb. A few are monsters. :) We are way overloaded with berries again, I think next year I’m going to put a sign out for “U Pick Thornless Blackberries. Cheap.” They are starting to wind down a bit, and the bugs are getting them…. so we are being more selective of what we try to pick. We get japanese beetles, but now there are also Big Green July Beetles. 4x the size of japanese beetles, and love fruit. Will fly out and whack into me so hard that they almost knock me down. :)

Seriously, though… I am tired of picking berries and washing them and etc. The neighbor who promised me he’d come pick berries has never shown up. Pfft! No jam for him! Of course I haven’t been real great about helping pick his garden, either… but I can only use so much squash and cukes. I have yet to make pickles, just hope the cukes in the fridge will be okay until this weekend.

Anyhow. All of my lilies bloomed this year, including for the very first time my tiger lilies planted from the bulblets that they grow on the stem. I’m so happy… those weren’t that old and I wasn’t expecting blooms for a few more years. They are so pretty, always have been one of my favorite kinds of lily.

I had planted stargazer lilies last year, but they didn’t do well and didn’t bloom at all. This year, even though the grass got away from me in the flower bed… and even though it’s all full of dillweed… every single stargazer bloomed, from the ones I thought I’d killed last year to the new ones I planted this year. I really love the pink stargazer lilies and they smell good, too. (and I’m sure I’m going to be really sorry about the dillweed next year when it =really= takes over!)

Plus! One of my stargazers is an albino! Or almost an albino. It’s supposed to be that brilliant pink like the others. I thought the buds looked a little pale, and they were for a reason.

None of my sunflowers are what they are supposed to be… it’s like someone swapped the seeds in the packets. I planted Apricot Splash and Cherry Rose… and what I have are plain yellow (but multi-blossomed and pollenless) and a yellow with red at the centers, also multi-blossomed. I know darn well what Cherry Rose looks like, and it doesn’t look at all like these two. It’s a double sunflower, and dark pink. Hmmpf! My volunteers look to be Russian Giants… tall, huge stems like tree trunks and just your basic yellow sunflower with a single blossom. I’m thinking some of these fancy sunflowers I grew last year must be hybrids that went back to parent on the seeds. Oh well! No good photos of the sunflowers, I tend to get out there too late in the day with the camera. One of the giants is a bug magnet… every sort of bug is on it drinking it’s sap out of the stem. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen… wasps, bees, beetles, ants, butterflies, all hanging out together on the stem of the sunflower. I have taken a few photos of that, but the EW factor of bugs keeps it off my blog, lol!

Speaking of bugs, last night I got to watch a cicada come out of it’s shell. I’ve never seen that in person before. Cicadas have to be one of the ugliest bugs ever… and the beetle type shell they emerge from isn’t very pretty either! I documented that with camera… took out a good halogen light so camera could focus and not use up the batteries on flash. It was quite interesting. Newly hatching cicadas are beautiful colors of green and white! Bright dayglow green! I had to move him before his wings got stretched out, so that he wouldn’t be run over by Ron leaving for work. Tried to take one more photo and the cats finally saw what I was looking at. Sorry bug, you just became a cat snack. Just like the sphinx moths that come to feed at my Four o’clocks every night… cats get em.

Well, it’s time to eat, feed the pets and get this uploaded. My daughter left Tuesday morning, and arrived on the coast of southern North Carolina this evening…. she text messaged me to tell me she got there okay. I was worried… it’s a long drive to do in 2 days. Wish she could have stayed here longer, we never got to make pickles or do tie dye, both of which I need to get doing! This weekend for the pickles, maybe will fit in some dye work, too, hot as it is. :)

hugs,
Vyx

So, here is a photo from Easter a gazillion years ago. Sarah is 3 years older than Richard, and this photo is probably from ’87 or ’88. No, wait… it actually says on the back of the photo! 1987. We don’t have a really great scanner, I did the best I could…

My kids in 1987

I am sure there is a better version of this photo, but I couldn’t find it. One where part of Sarah’s head isn’t cut off. That’s one really nice thing about digital cameras, you can always see what you get.

Between this that and the other thing… I almost didn’t get a photo of them again. Today Sarah reminded me, as Richard was going home to Tulsa this afternoon. So I went out quick and snapped a few… and then set the camera up to take some of all three of us.

My kids today, July 6, 2010

Sarah and Richard went out with buckets yesterday and picked blackberries…. they brought me TWO gallons! I bet they could have filled another bucket. (we use ice cream buckets for picking) I ran the berries through the food mill thing that takes out the seeds and piths yesterday, and then poured it all into one big pot and stuck it in the fridge. That was all I had time for yesterday.

Stayed home from work today and made jam. 3 batches: 9 pint jars and 4 half pint jars. I was afraid I was going to run out of jars! That’s a lot of jam, and the blackberry is no where near to being done, but that’s okay… we’ll pick em and freeze them. If I can figure out a way to get the juice to my sister in Virginia, I’ll send her frozen juice so she can make wine.

So, this last photo is of me and my kids, and I look fat and sort of tired. But I was just done with all that jam making! :)

Sarah, Vyx, Richard.... me and my kids

Sarah went off tonight to visit with a local friend, Richard went home to Oklahoma. I need to go back to work tomorrow…. so this is all for tonight!

hugs,
Vyx

Above photo… the good luck flag I tie dyed last year. I finally got a pole long enough to display it this year.

No, I don’t leave it out all the time… the sun will fade it and make the fabric deteriorate if it’s out all the time.

Briar with damage

I sprayed a huge briar with roundup. The herbicide dripped off and killed everything underneath… but I’ve still got a huge and alive briar. Oh, sure it did some damage, but not nearly enough. This photo is the evidence. That’s at a rate of 10 oz of roundup to a gallon of water. Ron has threatened to just douse the thing with gasoline. (and then set it on fire)

I seem to be getting mixed up with captions and titles. Oh well.

Lots of photos in that folder… on to more!

The rose bush in full bloom. It’s a lot bigger than it was… and needs pruning of dead stuff, but it sure looks lovely when in bloom!

This is a wild sensitive plant, mimosa family. They get really cute little pink puffball blooms and I didn’t even know we had any here. I found a bigger one out in the hay field that I’m going to try to move to a flower bed…. This was a great photo from my camera, hope it comes out as good after the resize.

Just to give you an idea of how large the blackberry hedge has grown… It’s going to be really hard to pick some of those berries with the canes so tall.

Well, I didn’t even make it out of the May 31 folder, but I need to go fix dinner… so this is all for tonight.

hugs,
Vyx

The dog catcher came to get him. So, it’s out of my hands now and Mom doesn’t have another doggy mouth to feed.

I was getting attached to the little punk, too. Local animal control guy keeps dogs at his house, he’s in a much better position to find the little guy a new home.

Oh well. :(

Vyx

Came over, and rolled over on his back at my feet. Let me rub his belly. In OUR yard. Whoops.

Guess who my new little buddy is? Braves the Momma cats to follow me around like a shadow.

So, last night I’m holding the little guy and he’s being all sweet on me and I say to Ron… well can’t we…

Ron said NO. No more dogs. We already have 4. So I had Ron take some pictures and then I sent one to my Mom… and called her on the phone to tell her she had an email.

Mom said yes, even though she’s already got 7 dogs over there. I now get to buy flea control for all the dogs, that’s what I promised if Mom could take him. That’ll mean spraying the yards, treating the dogs, and probably setting off bug bombs in Mom’s house, too. I’ll let Mom do the bombing thing, but I can do the rest (even though I can’t really afford it right now, it’s the right thing to do).

My Mom really likes little dogs, and most of the dogs there are NOT little dogs. Puppy is a huge.. er, not a St. Bernard, but a dog that looks very similar. Then Bruno, the 60 lb foxhound mix. Leia, boxer mix, Tucker, pit mix, Daisy the basset hound, Silky the chow mix… and finally the little crippled pomeranian named Foxy. Little black dog is about 9 lbs, won’t get any bigger… That’s smaller than my rat terrorist who weighs in at 13 lbs.

Anyhow. The plan is to take the little dog over there tomorrow and see how it goes. If Smitty is totally terrorized by all the big dogs I probably won’t be able to leave him there with Mom. In which case I’ll have to find him another home.

For now the little punk is hanging out here… he’ll go home later to sleep, but only if cats run him off. Parks himself on one of our chairs when we come in the house. I hate to send him to my Mom’s but only because she’s got so many dogs that aren’t HER dogs already. I know she’ll love having another little doglet. Better yet… he’s an outside dog.

Will update over the weekend… in the meantime, here is a photo of a very unhappy looking me holding little black cutie….

Hugs,
Vyx