Week 45

This weekend I went to a cheesemaking demonstration with the Farmers Unlimited group we belong to. One of the members has been making her own cheese for about six months and gave us a demonstration of what she does. It was by no means a course or tutorial. However I learnt a lot.

She showed us the steps in making a cheddar style cheese. Between steps we sampled some of her other cheeses (all sorts of types) and had a look around their property.

It was relatively simple, but time consuming. Not that you had to stand over it constantly but you did have to get the timings and the temperatures right. You couldn't just go off and start the laundry, get distracted by children and not get back to it for an hour. If you heat it too rapidly, or cool it too slowly, or leave it too long, it gets crumbly or some other problem.

Although it looks achievable, I don't think I'll start making my own cheese any time soon. Partly because of the time involved but mostly because of the cost. It takes 10 litres of milk to make 1 kilo of cheese. She gets her milk direct from the farmers, paying up to $1 a litre. Making her cheese a max of $10 a kilo. I don't know any dairy farmers. If I were to buy it from the supermarket it would be $1.50 a litre, or $15 a kilo. And given I can buy a kg of cheddar from the supermarket for around $10 I don't think it is particularly cost effective. If I were to make the fancier cheeses it would be worth it as they seem to be about $50 a kg in the supermarket. But since I'm not really a big cheese connesieur and we only buy the fancy cheeses for a special occasion, I don't think it would be worthwhile.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, we had One Fine Day this week. It has been raining a lot lately. Good for the water tank. But the grass has been getting very, very long. Yesterday was actually fine so while V had a nap I went outside and mowed 3/4 of our lawn. Today was forecast to rain and it held off long enough for me to finish off the rest of the lawn.

-M