New blog location

I've decided to migrate my blogs to one new combined location. To that end, all new posts will be appearing there and all old posts have been archived there.

Additionally, I've decided to open up the topics, since I was feeling limited by having separate blogs focused on only one thing. This means that sometimes I'll be talking about movies, sometimes gardening, sometimes cheesemaking and sometimes family slides.

Or anything that strikes me. If you like what you've read here, I think you will also like the new blog as it develops.

Please come check it out: http://bravetiger.wordpress.com/

Week Two

Thanks to some helpful readers, we've identified the Mystery Bush (actually, bushes plural, since there are two in the yard) as a Pussy Willow. Most of the blossoms have fallen off at this point, but the leaves were catching the setting sun this evening as I sat on the back porch with Dante.

I haven't got much in terms of a story to tell this week, so I'll pretty much just stick with showing some photos.

I did want to mention an article I read in The New York Times by Michael Pollen called "Why Bother?" The article addresses climate change and whether or not it's even worth trying to make small scale changes in our day-to-day lives. In the end, Pollen suggests that the best thing we can each do, the thing that will have the most impact -- even more than swapping lightbulbs and driving a hybrid car -- is to start a garden of our own. It's a pretty interesting article, actually. Pollen has a number of books in print, several looking at food and gardening. I may have to check them out.

Here's a quick excerpt from the article:

"A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. ... This is the most-local food you can possibly eat (not to mention the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious), with a carbon footprint so faint that even the New Zealand lamb council dares not challenge it."

So, I guess we're doing our part to help the climate, by trying to grow stuff to make our own pickles, pesto, and pasta sauce. Who knew?

On to the pictures ...

The garden is pretty bare still, since it's still too early to plant most vegetables (and besides, the seedlings aren't available yet), but it still needs weeding and raking. In this photo above you can see the long rows on onions and shallots that go from the bottom left corner to the middle-right side. Above those, the beets and cilantro.

It rained all day yesterday and half of today, so the beets are covered in dirt and muck. They do look like they're growing though, which is exciting.

The chives have blossoms on them already. Like I said last year, supposedly you can use these flowers, once they open, in salads. I've never tried it though. Maybe this year ...

The cilantro's growing, so there's probably some salsa and guacamole in our future.

Can anyone clear up for me whether this is mint, returned for another year, or actually just a weed?

Outside the Garden, Tangent One: Down in the opposite corner of the yard, the blueberry bushes have quite a lot of flowers on them.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Two: On the banking along the garden, the fiddlehead ferns have popped up. These, too, are supposed to be tasty. I think you boil or steam the heads, but I'd have to ask my grandfather for more specifics. He loves them.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Three: These blue flowers have popped up in the yard, which are an indication that it's pretty much time to start mowing. That ought to be a blast.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: The flowers on the pear tree in the front yard (which might be the back yard, depending on how you look at things) are in various states of openness.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Five: The lilacs, which run all along the borders of the property, are getting ready to open up.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Six: The hostas on the banking went crazy this week.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Seven: The forsythia are all open.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Eight: The bleeding heart that is tucked in along the house, behind the pussy willow, is opening up.

Garden Blog, Year Three: The Beginning

I wasn't going to have a garden this year.

Last year's efforts had gone pretty well, up to a point, before the garden grew completely out of control and we got discouraged and overwhelmed. The most important lesson learned was: "Don't try to do more than you can handle."

After the first year of the garden, we felt like we wanted to expand, adding a wider variety of plants and seeing what we could accomplish in our second go-round. The way it turned out, though, is that we got busier and busier as summer marched on and the garden was neglected more and more, especially by me. I blame it on the rain early in the summer throwing off the balance of the softball season and causing games to be rescheduled into the second half, just about exactly the same time as vegetable plants were needing attention. Towards the end of the season, it seemed like we were having games just about every day. With work, then softball, and band practices on the off nights, add the garden to the mix and it was too much for me to handle.

Once mid-July hit, I wasn't spending any time in the garden at all and the more it got overgrown the less I wanted to go out and deal with it. Cucumbers rotted on the plants, or if they got picked they were thrown in a bag in the fridge, until they were eventually thrown out. Tomatoes swelled, cracked, and fell to the ground. Pea plants toppled over. It made me sad and frustrated.

As as result, I wasn't going to have a garden this year.

And then, the weather turned glorious. We worked outside all of this past weekend, tidying up the property -- raking, trimming bushes, rebuilding a gate, moving dirt around. The garden was like the elephant in the yard. It was there, waiting to be tilled and the family tiller was available. On a drive through Hadley, the Garden Center's parking lot was packed with cars. We had to stop and just "see what they have." And what they had were seedlings.

I wasn't going to have a garden this year, but the weekend got the better of me. After much hesitation, we decided to try a significantly scaled down attempt, at least in terms of variety.

Onions, cucumbers, a couple tomato plants, some squash, and a few herbs. That's it.

When I started tilling the soil and saw how rich and healthy it was looking, I admit: I got excited again. So, now it's year three of the garden (and the garden blog) and we're at it again. Though, hopefully, on a much more controllable scale.


The plants we picked out at the Hadley Garden Center were red onion, shallots, cilantro and beets. We also found in the garden a parsley and mint that came back on their own and the chives we planted two years ago are back for more. Also, the garlic I planted last year is growing green, but I dug a couple up to check on them and they were all mushy. So, I think they'll have to go.

Last year, in addition to our own garden we also had a membership at a local farm share. While we were decidedly underwhelmed by the whole experience we did learn that we really love beets. So, when we saw that the Garden Center had seedlings we snatched up a tray. We didn't really know how to plant them, but the Victory Garden book that I own suggested to plant the beet seedlings 3" apart in double rows 6" apart. So we made two sets of double rows and pulled apart all of the seedlings carefully and got them in the ground. They look pretty traumatized, but we bought a new sprinkler ($15.99 at Wal-Mart) to replace the two-year older sprinkler that broke ($7.88 at Wal-Mart) and hopefully they'll perk up with a few days of good watering.

Here's the parsley that came up on it's own, left over from last year.

The onions (shown here) and shallots also look a little bit overwhelmed by their planting. I'm pretty confident that they'll get over it before too long, though. Last year's onions were Walla Walla, a yellow onion. This year we've gone with Red Onion, just to see what happens.

Outside the Garden, Tangent One: Three peony plants are growing quickly. Here's how one of them looked last year: Peony 2007.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Two: I have no idea what this bush is, but it's rapidly growing these crazy, hairy buds and probably will do something even more dramatic before too long.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Three: The lilacs are budding nicely. They're going to look really nice, but after they bloom we need to do some serious cut-back to get rid of all of the old, dead and thick growth and encourage the plants to send up a bunch of new shoots for next year.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: The Hostas on the Hill. They'll be opening up before long.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: And finally, the lone daffodil in the yard. Last year, he was also the first one to show his colors, although about a week later: Lonely Daffodil 2007.

I'm going to try to stay on top of things better this year, but it's going to be difficult.I know I have a tendency to start things that I never quite finish or follow-through on.

And besides, we have our first softball practices this coming weekend.

INTERMISSION, Part Four: Waxing the Cheese

Well, here's cheese #2, the "Stirred-Curd Cheddar," out of the mold. I stayed up until 2:00 am on Saturday night / Sunday morning to take care of that. It looks superb, an even better looking cheese wheel than the first.

I can't wait to try them both.

*****

Below: photos of waxing the Farmhouse Cheddar on Sunday night. There must be some trick to waxing the cheese that I haven't gotten the hang of because it was really tough to not have it just be a big mass of lumpy wax. I tried dipping, but the cheese slipped out of my hand and splashed wax, which is no good. In the end it was a combination of dipping and brushing. It's kind of funny looking but should seal it nicely for the aging.


So, into the micro-fridge they go, set at the highest setting and with a container of water to help the humidity. My hygrometer clocks in at 45 degrees and a humidity of 82%.

*****

I waxed the Stirred-Curd Cheddar tonight (no pics, since it looked exactly the same), so they're both in now and aging.

Check back in 60 days, when I'll be cutting into them both.

INTERMISSION, Part Three: Stirred-Curd Cheddar

Last night I made a second cheddar, inspired by what I hope will be the success of the first. I started when I got home from work and was up until 2:30 a.m. working on it. This is a different type of cheddar, referred to in the book as "Stirred-Curd Cheddar," as opposed to the Farmhouse that I made a few days ago.

The process was a bit different, and lengthier. Most of the difference came in after the curds had been cut, heated to 100 degrees, and drained. In Farmhouse I had to hang them up in cheesecloth at that point for an hour. For this Stirred-Curd cheddar, after having the whey drained off the curds are returned to a pot and maintained at 100 degrees for an hour.

Also, just a physical difference, for this recipe the curd gets cut into 1/4" cubes rather than 1/2" as in the previous batch, so the curds are finer. That first shot above is of the curds being loaded into the press.

There's the cheese starting to take shape, after the first 10 minute press.

Here's after the second ten-minute press, with increased pressure.

Then ... a two hour press at even higher pressure after which I snapped the photo above. Looks pretty darn good.

Currently this cheese is in the press at an even higher pressure, which will be sustained for 24 hours. That means I've got to set an alarm for 2:00 a.m. to get up and unmold the cheese.

Oh, one other noteworthy bit: I intended to use 2 gallons of Mapleline milk again, but the grocery only had two half gallons, one in glass and one in plastic (another $2.00 deposit on that glass bottle! ouch). I bought both of those and then mixed them with two half gallons of Our Family Farms milk purchased from a different store. As a result, the yield seemed slightly smaller than the first cheddar I made. After the two hour press, this new cheese was about an inch and a half tall while the Farmhouse wheel is closer to 2 inches. I also want to try to get a small scale so I can better quantify by weight exactly what the yield of cheese to gallons of milk has been.

I'll check back in with a photo when the cheese comes out of the mold (although I may not post at 2:30 a.m.) and also hopefully a photo or two of the Farmhouse Cheddar and it's progress.

The house smells cheesy, but I like it.

INTERMISSION, Part Two: No Pressure

The Farmhouse Cheddar that I made last night came out of the press today after 12 hours, and it looks great.

Now, it sits for 3 days or so, air drying and getting flipped over a few times a day.

At the end of the work day, I came home and flipped it over. It's starting to feel dry on the surface and develop a lovely yellowish rind (see below). I don't know if I'll be able to wait the full 60 days for curing, but maybe if I keep making cheese I can keep my mind off of it.

INTERMISSION: A cheesemaking adventure

Well, as you can tell from the last post, the garden really got away from us towards the end -- not the least of the reasons being that the softball season got busier. I regret neglecting the plants, and hope to do better this year.

In the meantime, I've finally revisited my cheesemaking interest, largely thanks to a birthday gift from my Aunt and Uncle. They took me to a Cheesemaking 101 class this past weekend, held at The Hitchcock Center in Amherst. During the class we made, as a team, Farmhouse Cheddar.

I decided tonight to try to make a batch at home.

I started off with two gallons of Mapleline Farms whole milk, purchased from the health food grocery store around the corner. At first I bought two half gallons, in glass bottles. Mapleline is charging a $2.00 deposit on each bottle now, which was kind of shocking, in an effort to get people to actually return them. When I got back home and looked at the Farmhouse Cheddar recipe a little more closely, I realized I needed two gallons, so I went back and bought two more half gallons, this time in plastic.

Heating the milk, in the sink with hot water, up to 90 degrees.

Then you add the starter culture and wait a while. Then you add rennet, the coagulating agent, and wait a while.

Checking for a good break in the curd. This was a little soft, so I gave it another five minutes.

Cutting the curd into 1/2" cubes, or an approximation thereof.

Heating the curds to 100 degrees, and stirring and further cutting any remaining large chunks.

Here, I think I was at about 97 degrees. See how the whey and curds have separated very well, and the curds have gotten smaller and harder.

Draining the curds in a colander lined with cheesecloth.

Close-up of the curds.

The curds again, after squeezing out more whey.

Strung up for draining.

After draining, I dumped the curd mass in a stainless steel bowl ...

... then broke it all up into "walnut-size" pieces and added cheese salt.

Then, the curds get loaded into the cheese press (a present from Christmas 2006 that I used for the first time tonight ...).

The press is lined with cheesecloth and the curds are loaded.

Under pressure.

After the first press.

After the second press.

A close-up of the cheddar after the second press. I flipped it over again and put it back in the press with increased pressure.

And that's where it sits as I write this. All in all, I spent about four and a half hours working on this cheese. It went into the press for the third time at 11:30 pm and needs a whole bunch of hours.

I'll check back in with photos when it comes out of the press.