Before I first moved here I thought about the possibility of eventually getting a few sheep (they would help with some of the brambles that's for sure) and a few chickens. Neither grace my property these 6 years later. Can it really be six years!? It will be so at the end of April; the time has flown. I haven't completely given up the idea of a few animals, but I'm well cognizant of the work involved and I'm not sure it's a good idea right now. But it's an appealing thought to have a few sheep to keep the wood/field barriers well kept, and to harvest their wool for spinning. Perhaps in a year or two.
I worry about predators, especially as regards something as small as chickens. The other night I got back from rehearsal at about 10:30 pm and as I got out of the car I heard dog-like sounds in the woods right above my house. A long 50 foot walk in the dark from the car to the deck... I didn't linger. Probably coyotes or wolves I imagine.
I am doing homestead-y things though, despite my lack of domesticated fauna. Last Sunday afternoon I drove down to nearby Laconia to browse around the antique mall with something very specific in mind: a butter churn. I found one! And it was not cheap. But it's an old Daisy glass jar butter churn and it works. In anticipation of finding one, I had picked up a quart of heavy cream while grocery shopping last Saturday. From the one quart I got 12.5 oz of butter and a pint of buttermilk. I used the buttermilk Monday morning to make pancakes. Oooh-la-la. The butter is lovely! I hope to start keeping myself supplied with hand churned from now on. It costs approximately $6 for a quart of heavy cream. 12.5 oz of good butter (I usually get Kerrygold) plus a pint of buttermilk would come close to $6 if not over, so I'm probably not saving money but I have the satisfaction of making my own and there is something to be said for that. I know exactly what's in it and I can salt it as little or as much as I want. Besides which I can control the water content. This may become more important in the future if I decide to make my own croissants! See video below.
The churn:
The smaller bottles behind the churn are filled with some hand/body lotion I made this afternoon. I purchased all the raw materials a few weeks ago and had a bit of spare time today so here's my firt attempt at making lotion. The ingredients are quite simple: oils (this one is made with almond oil), stearic acid (thickener), vitamin e oil (antioxidant to prevent the oils going rancid), emulsifying wax, distilled water and scent. I scented this with wisteria-lilac oil. I also added a preservative (Germaben II), otherwise it would have to stay in the refrigerator and would only last 10 days before spoiling. It's got a very nice consistency to it.
Like so many people these days, I'm jumping on the "reduce plastic" bandwagon. It really is appalling how much single-use plastic is generated and tossed away to linger in landfills for a very long time. I haven't managed a whole lot yet, but a few small steps: I bought a safety razor last month and that will alleviate the toss-away plastic things I was using. I'm trying to bring my own bags when I go grocery shopping; it's going to take a bit more effort to remember them every time! I'm trying to avoid buying products in plastic bottles if possible. But you know, it's impossible to go completely plastic-free; it's everywhere. Almost everything is packaged in plastic and within the plastic there are individually plastic-wrapped items so much of the time. Oh dear.
The quilt has progressed amazingly well. I only need to make 2 more corner squares and I can then sew all the blocks together and sew borders on. I may well be taking this down to the quilt shop for quilting by end of week.
We had more snow today, all day long, but it amounted to only about 3" probably. We are under a lot of snow, 2.5 to 3 feet at least. And I keep watching gardening videos from the UK where they really have started to enjoy spring and are working their gardens already. It is now an endurance test over here... it has been a long winter. I have decided I will build another garden bed this spring out back where the previous owner had hers. That space gets more sunlight than any other location on my property and I'm thinking of putting my tomatoes and cukes and squash down there this year. One potential problem is that the ground there stays quite damp, but I think it's worth a try. It's always very hard to mow the lawn there anyway, and it won't be awful to alleviate that chore!
Much music lately. I signed up to play at the next UVMC salon which will be on the 30th at a private residence in Hanover. I will play Debussy's Prelude #4 from Book 1. This week I am finishing up work on the 3rd Cello Suite by Bach on the cello and played the 1st Bouree in class Thursday for my fellow classmates. I'm also working on several Cappricios and Intermezzi by Brahms on the piano. Hope to record some of them one of these days.
Croissant? Did I mention croissants above? I had some good croissant last time I was in NYC. There is a very good patisserie on Broadway between 13th & 14th Streets and I had a real croissant. Oh, they are good!! Very good croissants requires good butter so that's why I was thinking about croissants when mentioning my new butter churn. This guy, Alex, has a wonderfully inventive Youtube channel which I subscribe to, and in this episode he visits a Parisien bakery. What's not to love about this!?...
