Blueberry Hill Farm

It is 11:30 in the morning and I am sitting here STILL IN MY PAJAMAS!!  On a farm that is CRIMINAL!!  Lest you think, however, that I haven't done anything yet today, I would have to correct you and tell you that I have done a number of things, the biggest among them being to CHURN BUTTER!

I shared in the last blog entry that I had gotten some REAL milk in Gaffney from Milky Way Farm.  I have since become addicted to it and on Friday, when I realized the gallon I purchased was almost gone, I went into panic mode, especially when I realized how long it was going to be until the next milk pickup on September 30!!!  I called Fox Hollow Farm, where the dairyman came from Milky Way to deliver the milk, to see if, by chance, they had any milk in their farm store.  I was relieved to find that they had, in fact, TWO gallons of whole milk.  "Put my name on those two gallons -- I'll be coming from Charlotte and I've GOT to have them!!"  As Fox Hollow's farm store closes at 2:00 on Saturdays, I burned up the interstate from Charlotte to Gaffney, screeched to a halt in front of the store at 2:10, and ran in to get the milk.  OK.  I'll be able to make it now until the 30th.

Anyway, I had purchased 1/2 gallon of REAL cream at the milk pickup with the intent of making REAL butter.  Well, that required that I purchase a butter churn, which I did, from Lehman's.  Lehman's sell loads of non-electric items to Amish folks in the Ohio area.  The churn I ordered was a one-gallon glass churn that has a gizmo attached to the lid on top with a crank that turns a paddle in the jar.  Came with a nifty instruction booklet telling how to make both sweet cream butter and sour cream butter.  I opted for the sweet cream butter to start with.  Oh yes, I also ordered two wooden butter molds into which I will put the butter.  (Goes along with my "making a mountain out of a mole hill" disorder that I suffer from.)  The reason I'm sitting here at this computer telling all about the experience is that I'm soaking the wooden molds for 30-minutes and letting the remainder of buttermilk drain from the butter.

As the cream had ripened in the fridge for the past several days, I decided this morning when I got up, that TODAY was D-Day, or I guess, in this case, B-Day.  So, at 8:00 this morning I began churning the butter.  I was fresh and excited when I began.  My plan had been to spend a half hour churning butter, drain the buttermilk, and do the other preliminary stuff required, then at this point (soaking the molds, etc) I would dress, go out and take care of the ducks, then come back in to finish up.  WRONG.

After an hour and a half of constant churning, I was about ready to add this experience to my list of "not-so-fun-ideas-I've-had" -- making crab apple jelly is on that list.  My mother asked if she could help, and I passed the churn over to her while I went out to care for the ducks, still in my PJs.  Right after I got in, I looked out the kitchen window while washing my hands and saw the alpacas interested in some happening at the big hen house.  Looking down that way, I noticed a hawk after my chickens, so I ran for my gun and headed down to the coop.  (I will digress here to let everyone know that I know it is a federal offense to shoot a hawk, so no one needs to send me a comment with what a horrible thing it would be for me to shoot one.  I'm sure that ordinance was written by some Washington bureaucrat or some other bureaucrat somewhere that has never owned free-range chickens.  It's a wonderful sight to see a hawk soaring high in the sky with the knowledge that he's eating someone else's chickens, but another thing entirely when there's a constant battle to keep them from eating your own!  And just so you'll know, there's a good 2000 acreas of wilderness behind our place, full of other wild edibles.  Everything wants a free chicken dinner, though!)  If I could have gotten a good bead on that hawk, I'd have shot him.  I couldn't, though, so I didn't.  I did shoot enough that he was scared off.  He'll be back, though.  Poor Clancy has his "hands" full looking after those girls!

When I came back in, mother was still churning, but she'd had just about all the fun she wanted.  It reminded her too much of the churning days of her youth.  Anyway, all at once, there it was!  Yellow lumps of butter!  It was like having a baby -- all the pain is forgotten once the prize has appeared!

So now I have a large lump of creamy, yellow butter, just waiting to go into the butter molds.  With the buttermilk, I'm going to be making some whole wheat bread later this afternoon.  Is this something I will do again?  You bet!  Might try sour cream butter next time.  Then there's yogurt to tackle.  And boy, am I ever enjoying that REAL MILK.  It is the best EVER!!!