Sitting at the bay window in the back of the house, it’s cloudy this morning, and I saw what I thought at first were birds swooping down around the eaves of the house, but then realized they were bats finishing up their nocturnal travels. Always something new to discover here! The last couple of mornings, I’ve woken up with swollen hands, particularly my right hand, which I think is from milking the goats. My right hand is stronger than the left and tends to do more work. I can also feel a little bit on my forearms. It went away after I did the morning milking yesterday, so I’m assuming the same thing will happen today.
After the morning milking, chores and breakfast, I went with Valerie to the fromagerie and saw the process of actually making the cheese. The milk initially goes into a large metal storage container after the goats are milked, where it stays cool until it is ready to be processed. From there it goes to the heating tank, where different enzymes are added, and the cheese is heated to 30°. Soon the milk starts to separate into curds and whey. A big fork-like instrument is used to gently break up the curds. After they sit for a while and start to become rubbery, we put our clean hands and forearms in, and with our fingers opened slowly moved them through the curds. While I continued to do that, Valerie took a bucket and scooped out the whey, which gets pumped into a holding tank by the pig pen. I got to try some fresh curds, right out of the heating vat. It was the freshest cheese I’ve ever had, excellent! After about 15 minutes the curds had heated up to 40°, and were ready to go into the molds. They are large round molds, and Valerie packed in the cheese which at that point looked like more solid cottage cheese. Once the cheese is in the molds they are stacked in two’s then after a few minutes, switched around. After 10 minutes they were solid enough to be popped out of the mold and turned upside down within their own mold, restacked, and in another 10 minutes we switched the molds again. 35 minutes after that it was time to salt the cheese. I put a tablespoon of salt on top of each mold and rubbed it in. Later today Valerie will go back and flip the molds again and salt the other side. It is so cool to be able to see this whole process. I have even more respect for people who do this labor-intensive work that doesn’t have a lot of room for error. Too much or too little time, too hot or too cool of a temperature, an infection in one of the goats, just about anything can create a problem that then means the cheese has to be thrown away or can’t be sold.
Besides getting to help a little bit with making the cheese, I spent a good amount of time cleaning milk buckets and the mats that the cheeses age on in the cave. This morning while we were milking, Rafael said that a large part of cheese making is cleaning – cleaning things before you use them, cleaning your hands, cleaning everything afterwords, and that is very true. It’s meditative though, especially if I don’t have anything else that I need to rush off to. But even if I wanted to I can’t really rush, I just do the job until it’s done, then move onto the next thing.
There was sunshine after we finished with the cheese making, so I made my lunch – apples from the farmers market, cheese from the Fromagerie and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using fresh homemade bread – and sat outside with my book to enjoy the sunshine. I didn’t end up staying out there as long as I wanted because there were lots of flies, so eventually came inside and sat in a comfy chair in front of the bay window with the sun streaming down on me. It didn’t take long for Mignon Un to hop on my lap. Before I knew it we were both asleep in the sun, I guess that’s exactly what you should do on a Sunday! Later, I went for a wander down to the river and having remembered to wear my Tevas this time, actually got down to the water, sat on a big flat rock and put my feet in. It was cool, but not cold, so very comfortable to just sit, feel the breeze and enjoy the view of the river and trees and clouds in the distance.
My body is tired, it is not used to this much constant physical work for long stretches of time every day. It feels good, I’m not really sore or anything, but definitely feeling the effects of milking twice a day, hauling hay and corn with whey, etc. It feels good to do something so different from my regular life (if I really haven’t had a regular life for the last year!), to pass my days in a very nature-oriented way. There is no TV here, not sure when anybody really have time to watch it anyway. When people aren’t working, they tend to be sitting around the kitchen table having a meal, and while the eating portion doesn’t tend to last a long time, everyone lingers to chat. Definitely a civilized way to live, I’m sure some of the lingering is putting off going to do more chores, but it’s a good way to get to know other people and for me to work on understanding others French better. There is constant change on the farm, even the permanent residents here are often gone for extended periods of time for travel or other purposes, and there are often workaway volunteers and others here to help out. My French skills have not advanced much so far (and yes, I realize I’m only been here six days!). Because I’m still very much in the learning phase about the animals and cheese making everyone speaks English because it’s easier and more efficient, but I try as often as I can to either speak in French, or ask the French words for different things. It has led to some interesting discussions, like when I told Valerie today that the word for the plastic thing that the curds are put into that creates a wheel shaped cheese is a mold, and that is the same word for the green stuff that grows on the cheese when it’s in the cave! Even though they are spelled exactly the same, they are completely different things. We also talked about the fact that the French word salad, means both plain lettuce and what Americans would call a salad. Not at all confusing!
As I was skimming through the New York Times app, I saw an article title that intrigued me, ‘When the Favor of a Beloved Schoolteacher Turns Sinister’ and clicked on the link, only to find it was a book review for a book written by Catherine Chidgey, Brendon‘s cousin! She’s just a couple of years younger than me, I met her when she was a university student and aspiring writer. She’s now written at least seven novels and is very well known in New Zealand. I’ve read three or four of her books and they’ve all been fascinating, usually on the darker side, but full of interesting history about New Zealand, the holocaust and other subjects. So I’m excited to read this new book, Pet. I found it in the Libby app, of course, there is currently a 20 week waiting list because there are only two copies available, but it’ll be something to look forward to read in the future.
When I went to do the evening chores the teenage goats were all out in the yard so I spent a little time with them. They were quite affectionate and we had a fun time taking selfies. I think I may have gotten a little too friendly with them, because when I went to give them that their grain, some tried to rush out of the gate as I was coming in and one of them actually managed to get out! Luckily, all I had to do was distract the others with grain and then she couldn’t wait to get back inside. Whew!
I got to use the milking machine by myself quite a bit today, which was an interesting experience. I’m not very agile or quick with it, and you only have a certain amount of time to get the cups on the goats teats before the suction stops. But I figured it out for the most part. I also got to shuttle the goats in and out of the milking room, which can be really easy if they all take the initiative and go where they’re supposed to go or it can be really hard if they’re fighting each other to get in or out of the door! Valerie was very patient and supportive, I’m glad to be working with her.
I gave the the pigs their evening meal around 730 and the sky was a beautiful pink color with a big moon hanging over the valley, what a gorgeous sight. I helped Rafael make stuffed zucchini for dinner, which involved a lot of chopping. My hands have definitely been getting a work out while I’ve been here, between milking the goats twice a day and chopping lots of vegetables for meals, slicing bread, etc.
