Jamie made this necklace for me for mother's day....so sweet...he made sure to draw my attention to the pattern of the beads on the necklace! (I'm proud to finally say that one of the boys has a trait of mine!)Sunday afternoon, while I was finishing my mother's day projects, the boys played in the bank parking lot. Corey has never really been interested in bikes...he liked his training wheels and was satisfied to just go at a lazy pace as the other two rode circles around him. Last year the training wheels broke, leaving him totally miffed and bike-less. Jim tried time and time again to get him to ride....."I Hate Bikes!" was the normal response. I don't know what happened, but there I was bent over the glue gun when Jamie ran into the house yelling "Corey's riding a bike all by himself!"....What?!?!?
Yep, there's my little Mr. riding all on his own...no coaching....no pleading...just got on the bike and rode! I don't know if it's coincidental or if the diet somehow helped this, but WOW! This weekend was really great with Corey---he read All of the produce boxes at the market (yes, that says Grape King....uh huh...yep...those are peppers....) We got our first honest to goodness organic raw milk on Friday. I've let it settle in the fridge so that I can skim off the cream and make yogurt tonight...Cross your fingers and say a little prayer if you think about it! I've been complaining a lot about the quality of our produce in the local grocery stores. We travel 45 min to get to the next big town, usually because they have a Woodman's...I am/was in love with Woodman's. I can remember traveling up to Beloit as a kid just to go there. They have everything, in multiple brands and usually have a decent selection of local...ok...Wisconson products. But lately, their produce has stunk it up...literally....I about passed out walking past the potato bins! What is up with this? Is it that we are smack dab in the middle of no where and all the fruits and veggies get shipped from Ca or Mexico?
So now I'm on a new mission----find good food locally---we have the beginnings of a garden, but will have to wait for the fruits of that labor. There are a couple of CSA's, but do I want to spend $600 when in a couple of months I'll be harvesting my own? I finally found a decent little produce market (that has a good selection of organic and local) in the downtown area of the Big City and a few miles down the same road is a pretty good meat market....both are very quaint, old neighborhood places so it makes me feel good to buy from locals instead of big stores. We'll give this a try and see where it takes us!
In other news, Jamie had his first baseball practice last night. It was Faareeeezin'! He did good, and has a couple of kids that he knows on the team, but last night was even more evident that I am not at home here. I don't know what it is, obviously me, I've just never felt settled here. The other kids and parents all know each other (and for those of you who know me, I'm not one to shy away and I pride myself at being pretty adept when meeting new people). Jamie was a trooper and jumped right in, which I am thankful for!!!! It was hard enough watching and praying-----catch it, catch it, catch it!----he really did good for never playing in a league before. Jim was adamant about Jamie not playing on a team that was machine pitched....and Jim's schedule for the last 2 years was pretty nuts. One of the huge disadvantages of homeschooling (or even private school for that mater) is that we have no idea when to sign up for the organized sports. Unlike Cinderella, they don't send invites to all of the eligible kids in the valley! Anyway, I was a nervous wreck all night----I don't want Jamie to be known as that homeschool kid and I really hope that he builds some good friendships through this. Maybe I'm thinking about this way too much! Jamie will be fine, he'll get dirty, makes some runs and have fun...right?
I've got pictures for a tutorial on what I made for mother's day, but just can't seem to get in the mood to actually think enough to write it out...oh, well...maybe next week!
Shoosh away.....
See how the milk solid and liquid have separated? I think I went a smidge longer after this point, just for kicks.
If you read up on butter making, they'll tell you to squeeze the milk out of the butter. You do this by "washing" the butter in clean cold water, squeeze the butter, wash, squeeze, wash, squeeze....UGH...are you fed up yet? So here's the trick I learned at my yogurt class the other morning: put the butter back in the bowl (or food processor) with about a 1/2 cup clean water....pulse it a couple of times...strain (into a different bowl than your buttermilk!)...repeat until the water comes out clear. (milk liquid in your butter makes it go bad quicker, so try really hard to get it as clear as possible) I think I did the repeat about 5 times.
OH MAN! I can't even begin to describe how yummy this was!!! Give it a try....the whole thing maybe took us 20 min! If you're going all crazyon this and plan on storing it...weigh it out into 1/4 lb balls and freeze :) 
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