Farfaraway...

My cheese making kit came today!

 

This kit was a steal--I got all the supplies needed to make THIRTY batches of mozzarella and ricotta, along with a book and DVD, all for $59, including shipping! It came with rennet, citric acid, cheese thermometer, cheesecloth and cheese salt. And how cute is the little box that the supplies come in? I think this kit also makes cream cheese, but I have to sit down and read through everything. All I need to buy is the milk, and I'm ready to start my first batch! Woo hoo!

Now that I'm done with school, I'm getting all sorts of stuff done. And I'm back to playing in my hobbies and interests, too. I've never thought of myself as a domestic goddess--my house is pretty much always a disaster--but what else can you classify this stuff as?

I made strawberry jam a little while ago. I made the quickie version for the freezer because I haven't yet learned how to can (I'm going with my sissy to a canning class next weekend, and afterward we're going to make our own raspberry jam). The strawberry jam smells heavenly! I can't wait to try it on a piece of toast...made from homemade bread, of course. Also, it was really cheap and easy to make, too; the organic strawberries were on sale for $6/2 lbs., the pectin packet was only a couple bucks, and it made 6 half-pint jars. Normally, I'd pay $3-4 for a half-pint of organic jam at the grocery store, so this is a great deal! I want to try making peach freezer jam, too.

I finally got Patrick to hang a clothesline for me. I've been begging for one since last summer, because I wanted to save both money and energy. Patrick insisted on a retractable clothesline because they're not unsightly; it's actually pretty cool, because it just retracts like a dog leash into its housing when it's not in use. I need to wash our bedspreads and blankets and get them out to dry.

I have baby Cherokee Purple and Stupice tomatoes in the garden. They're awfully cute, about the size of a nickel. The two pea vines are producing beautiful pods but they're not making it far; I have a nasty little habit of shelling them and eating them right in the garden. I've never tasted such divine peas.

Next on the list...cheese making. Ever since I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle last summer, I've wanted to try making my own cheese. Soft cheeses like mozzarella, ricotta and cream cheese are supposed to be pretty easy. Because school made my life too nuts, I've been waiting to order the beginner kit from Ricki Carroll's website for over a year. I'm ordering this week!

I pulled my first carrot (heirloom called Scarlet Nantes) from the garden a few days ago--WOW! It was about finger size, so it wasn't fully grown, but it was both tender and crisp, and so flavorful. They taste nothing, and I mean nothing like grocery-store carrots.

I also pulled my first scallions from the garden, Franz Evergreen heirlooms. They're sweet and spicy, not at all sharp. I immediately went out and sowed more seeds because I had only sown about 6 scallions, and now I want more! Everything's small-scale this year while I'm learning. I wish so badly that I had more than 32 square feet of bed space (I have 16 square feet planted in strawberries). Next spring, or maybe even this fall, we're adding a nice long bed, at least 4x50, so I can do even more next year.   

This is the worst I think I've ever seen mosquitoes. They're swarming me and the dogs the instant we step outside...I've been putting a natural bug spray on the dogs, but the mosquitoes still follow us inside. I'm finding them on the walls, landing on the dogs, and even on Patrick's shoulder! I have to shower twice a day because I absolutely have to wear bug spray to step outside. I wonder if they're this bad everywhere?? We've had a lot of rain this June and it's just insane, like they've taken over the world. I'm trapped in my house.

I finished this book yesterday, about 24 hours after I started it. It is a compelling and eloquent read; I highly recommend this memoir.

Hall's story details her accidental pregnancy at sixteen years old in the late 1960s, and how she was shunned by her family as a result. The writing is beyond beautiful; it's poignant and very honest, and she leaves no stone unturned. It's definitely a dark read, but I think that makes it even more beautiful. I felt emotionally exhausted when I finished the book, as if I'd lived those years with the author and been a part of her family.

I had planned on saving this read for my retreat in a couple weeks, but it didn't make it...once I started it, I couldn't put it down. She never lets up throughout the entire book, and I found myself marking up the pages with a pencil because of her gorgeous prose. Hall closely examines the prisons we live in, both those imposed on us and those we impose on ourselves.

The only downside is that the timeline of the book is unconventional and sometimes hard to follow, but once you understand during reading that she is not attempting a complete chronology, it doesn't detract from the book at all.

Hall wrote her memoir with a $50,000 grant from the A Room of Her Own Foundation, which gives grants to women writers and artists in the form of financial freedom for one year.

Buy this book.  

"There are a lot of us, some published, some not, who think the literary life is the loveliest one possible, this life of reading and writing and corresponding. We think this life is nearly ideal. It is spiritually invigorating, says a friend, who converted at eighteen from Christianity to poetry. It is intellectually quickening. One can find in writing a perfect focus for life. It offers challenge and delight and agony and commitment. We see our work as a vocation, with the potential to be as rich and enlivening as the priesthood. As a writer, one will have over the years many experiences that stimulate and nourish the spirit. These will be quiet and deep inside, however, unaccompanied by thunder or tremulous angels."

--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

I am hot and cranky today. Sunny, 86 degrees.

My peonies are in full bloom.

That is all.