April

This post is completely backwards...oh well...you have a perfectly good scrolling finger, scroll down to the bottom and read your way up :)

Last night we had visitors for supper - they helped us celebrate Trevor's birthday and we had a nice visit! Here is me and Lorelei with the youngest of the E family! Lorelei wasn't so sure that I should ever hold anyone but her...so we had to compromise by holding both on my knee at once!
Here is my rigged up hitch - this took me about half an hour rummaging in the shop and testing out ideas - first is a good sized bolt put through a small triangular hole in the frame near the back axle of my bike - I had to take the wheel off to get it in there, then I added an oversized nut that was large enough to slide over the smooth neck of the bolt as a spacer to clear the nut on the actual axle. Next I added a big loop thing (Trevor called it a lifting link...I dunno where it came from I just found something in the shop that looked like it would work!) that had a hole at one end for my bolt to go through and a loop that angled back from that. I added a washer and a nut to hold the whole assembly tight, then I started on the trailer part of the hitch - I eventually found an old hitch pin, which, once I sanded off the rust, fit perfectly inside the hollow arm of the hitch, currently there is a bent nail through the hole in the hitch and the pin, but I need to get a cotterpin to replace that. To connect the two pieces together I found a cable clamp that was the right size and connected the handle on top of the hitchpin (which conveniently pivots) to the link on my bike - Voila - now we have a bike trailer which Lolo loves! Thanks Tannys! Here is my "new" to me bike trailer, courtesy of a friend who heard I was looking for one and said she had one that the hitch had broken off of that I could have for free if I wanted to rig up some sort of a hitch.

Other than making cheese, we've celebrated several birthday this month, mostly culminated in one party at the cousin's house last weekend in conjunction with Easter. Lolo and her cousin worked off their supper by riding bikes!



Mmm, beautiful smooth, moist cheese!


2 of the three balls I ended up with, sitting in salt brine to get some salt flavor!
According to the book - I let the mozzarella curd sit in the fridge overnight and then the next day I tried to work it in hot water as directed....nothing worked! So - internet to the rescue, this is the first set of curds before I microwaved it - it worked very well! I now read on the internet the way to make it more stretchy is to add citric acid at the beginning, then you don't have to let it sit overnight...
Here is the finished product I came up with....I wish I had boiled it longer, it only got as thick as peanut butter and I would have liked to have it harder, oh well, it made good dip!


"when the mixture thickens, pour into a blender carefully and blend until it is a smooth consistency - be careful because the liquid is very hot" Really?? Lets make it easier - I love my immersion blender!Its starting to thicken, YAY - its almost bedtime!
Its slowly boiling away - see how much more opaque it is and how it is getting a nice bit of brown to it?
Time to bake more cookies while the whey boils!
Next step was the Mystost - you basically just boil the whey down until it is reduced to a VERY thick "sludge" Here is what it looked like at the beginning - a pot full of fairly transparent liquid whey...
We finished making cookies! Lorelei was very happy to clean the paddle for me!
After cutting the curd, I turned it into the cheesecloth and let it drip...meanwhile...
Here is the mixture resting at 90 F, the curd is just forming, you can see the whey coming to the surface.
The recipe I started with was the Mozzarella cheese recipe out of my older edition of the Cheesemaking book by Ricki Carroll - I ended up not following all the method described though, because I couldn't get it to work! I ended up coming online and finding several videos and recipes that said to microwave the curds and work them that way, and it worked quite well.

One Thursday I decided that it was time to make cheese...after much deliberation I decided to make Mozzarella and attempt to make Gjetost - actually Mystost (because it was made with cows milk not goats milk) with the whey. We started with 2 gallons of milk (three days worth of milk from Daisy), some plain balkan yogurt for starter and some rennet.
Lorelei is learning and changing and imagining so much more lately, one night while I was cutting something into a pot on the stove and she was playing with playdough, I looked behind me and saw that she had taken a big lump of playdough over to her pot on her play stove and was breaking it into little pieces. It was quite cute, and I had to snap a picture!
The weekend of the 16th brought a trip to Regina to attend my Uncle's auction sale - he was the last of the Aunts and Uncles that was still farming, so quite a few of us cousins made an effort to come. It turned into a bit of an impromptu family reunion with 11 of the 21 cousins there and 10 of the 21 grandchildren there at some point during the day! Above is Becky, sporting the winter gear needed to stand the day - it was cold and snowy, but we still had a good time. Becky and Amy and Luke had driven up from Idaho to be there and to help dad celebrate his 60th birthday which was actually yesterday. We got to visit with Harriet and her family too and spent a bit of time with Trevor's Grandma.
Here is CeeCee the adopted heifer calf from Uncle Jack.
Daisy had a calf on the 6th of April - BeeBee is his name...he's a really pretty chocolate color, but he is blind. So far he's doing ok, but we had gotten another calf from Trevor's uncle because we didn't know if he would make it, so now Daisy is feeding two calves plus giving us 2-3 litres a day of milk
The chickens continue to hang out inside their house....


April started with a snowstorm the first weekend - yucky wet, heavy snow!

March

March was a really busy month! I worked 3 days a week for the first two weeks and in between those two weeks, we took a spontaneous trip 5.5 hours north to see two different Allis Chalmers that Trevor wanted to see and managed to see my childhood friends - the Olson family- and my Aunt Mary and Uncle Gordon along the way! It was a bit of a whirlwind, but fun none the less!

Throughout the month we had had issues with the radiator fan on the van, Trev replaced the fan relay, no dice, then he ordered the whole fan assembly, and decided to put it in before we left for our trip up north - still no dice! On the 16th we drove down to Grand Forks to start our trip to Idaho via train to see my family. The fan still wasn't working, so Trevor grabbed a couple wires to direct wire it if needed and we were off!
We made a quick stop at Cabelas in Grand Forks, had supper at Jimmy John's and checked into our hotel for the night - a short night it was to be - we had to board the train at 5 am. We got up at 3:45 and headed to the station, the train didn't actually come in until 5:30 - but we got on board and thankfully, Lolo went back to sleep.
I had reserved lower level seats because it was closer to the potty for my potty training girl - but there were no lower level seats available when we boarded, so we were on the upper level - it was ok, the view was great from up there and for most of the first day the train was quite empty! It was a SLOW trip though, as the water table was high and was affecting the signals and the track, making stops much more frequent than they had planned. We were already almost 4 hours behind schedule by the time we reached Minot...man, we were really wishing we had gotten on in Minot instead of Grand Forks!!
We enjoyed Breakfast and Supper in the dining car with a great waiter who kept Lorelei entertained and really did the best job of any of the staff on the train as far as I could tell - Kevin - you are amazing!! The food was pretty good - nothing amazing, but it filled us up in spite of the somewhat inflated prices! At supper, Lolo was pretty tired and crabby and got rather upset while we were waiting for our food - the waiter brought us "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss and said if I would read aloud from it, he would give us a free ice cream dessert. So - I read aloud and we got a free Hagen Daz peanut butter chocolate ice cream for dessert - very worth it!!
In the middle of Montana we picked up a group of around 40 high school kids, which added a lot of noise and commotion to the trip. They didn't get off until 1am, and the closer they got to their ski-trip destination the louder they got, I was pretty annoyed by this point!!
Not long after they got off the train, Lorelei woke up and threw up...poor kid! There had been no announcements during the trip hardly at all, and we didn't know that there was no way to call the attendants between 10pm and 7am (they announced this on the return trip). So I pressed the call button and a stewardess just happened to be coming through the train (turned out to be a total coincidence!) so she helped clean it up the first time, but Lolo threw up two more times and we had to just do our best with baby wipes. I was very thankful that I had packed a few changes of clothes for Lolo and more than one blanket, because she soiled her favorite. Eventually she fell asleep on top of me and slept until 7 am...I slept pretty fitfully because of her being on top of me and the seat not being the most comfortable, but it was ok. We ended up not getting into Pasco, WA until 9:30am instead of the 5:30am ETA. By the time we got a taxi, rented our car and headed to Boise, the day was ticking away fast!
We made a quick stop in Pendleton at the big western/saddle shop there - Hamley and Co. it was a really cool store, but hard to enjoy all the stuff cause I had to keep Lolo out of everything!! The prices were CRAZY high...oh well, it was fun to look at everything and stretch our legs! A big part of this trip was to see my grandparents, my grandpa has a brain tumor and is terminal, so I wanted to see him before he totally lost his ability to communicate and enjoy company.
We reached my sister Becky's house about half an hour before people were scheduled to arrive for supper - St. Patricks day traditional corned beef with potatoes and cabbage, etc. Almost everyone was there- it was a delicious supper and nice to visit with everyone. We even got in a good family game of Apples to Apples.

Here is Casey, Amy, Luke and Poppa hanging out while we wait for supper!
After supper, Lorelei and Luke went out to play in the yard - so cute!We stayed with Becky and Lance for the first couple nights of our trip. On Saturday we went shopping with Becky at D & B supply - what a great store! I got a couple pairs of jeans and a few shirts to try and revamp my very sad- ill-fitting wardrobe. Then we went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Becky before heading to my grandparents place for an afternoon visit with them and Aunt Bonnie.
We managed a little walk out to the creek behind their house with Grammy, Aunt Bonnie and her two Mastiffs. They're really sweet dogs!

Lorelei loved walking with them!

Aunt Bon even read Lolo a story - using Poppa's wheelchair for a seat.
Later, Lorelei had a nap upstairs while we visited a bit more.
We ended the evening with supper and Rock Band at Becky's.
Lorelei even got to play Becky's real drum set - she thought it was pretty neat!
On Sunday morning we took my grandparents to church and then went out for lunch at their local cafe - it was an hour wait for our food, but we managed ok. In the afternoon, my three sisters, two aunts and I went shopping - what fun that was! I still had some money to spend on myself for clothes and Becky, Amy and Bon each contributed to my wardrobe for birthday presents - it was fun! We hit up Kohls, then headed to the Mall and after it was all done we went out for Sushi and back to Aunt Judi's for some wine. Trevor had taken Lorelei and headed out to Amy and Casey's later that afternoon, so I went home with Amy and we stayed the next few nights there.
Lorelei and Luke enjoyed throwing rocks in the creek - in spite of the rainy cold weather! We had a great time hanging out with Amy and Luke - unfortunately Casey was rather under the weather until Wednesday, but we enjoyed some visiting time with him and Luke on Wednesday and Thursday!

It was so nice to have my sisters in my life for a little bit...wish we weren't so far away! On Monday evening we took Luke and Lolo to meet Jody and Daniel's kids at an indoor bouncy playland place - they loved it! On Tuesday we went to a hot springs pool and Lolo got her first taste of swimming in a pool - it was nice and warm and relaxing!
Luke and Lorelei watching a movie.Luke and Lorelei riding "Spur" Luke's cousin's horse.

Aunt Bon came out for a visit on Wednesday too!We toured a couple of western stores on Thursday and then our little family headed out for Baker City Oregon to visit my friend Rachel, her husband and her little girl. We had a nice supper and a good visit with them and left the next day before noon for Walla Walla, WA. Here we visited a farm and looked at a couple Allis Chalmers Crawlers. It is really neat country - they farm huge hills - thus their need for tracked tractors (with a lower center of gravity) instead of wheeled ones. We spent a couple hours visiting and seeing the sights on the farm before heading to Pasco to board the train at 9pm.
Waiting for the train!
Family self portrait time! Getting settled on the train took a bit, but after giving her some anti-nausea meds, Lorelei was asleep and slept quite well until morning - I didn't sleep THAT well, but it was better than the trip out! The next day felt rather long. We just ate lunch in the dining car and snacked on food we brought along for the rest of the trip. Lorelei had a friend in the car for a few hours of the trip - a little boy around 2.5 that she played with and talked to a bit. We were in the lower level this time, and there weren't very many people (only 12 seats total) so she was free to walk around and have fun.
This is a shot of what a seat looks like on the train - leg rests fold out from under the seat and there is a foot bar on the seat in front of you with multiple positions too. Seat back trays are similar to those on a plane, and the seats recline too. She even got to watch a video with him on his mom's laptop - they both thought that was quite fun! We were sad to see him leave the train half way across Montana.
Lorelei is settling down for a nap here! We slept again that evening for a while but got off the train around 1am - much to Lorelei's disdain, she threw a royal fit and screamed like crazy when I woke her up - it was rather embarrassing and at this point all the other seats were full and she woke everyone up - I was glad we weren't upstairs where she would have woken up 80 people instead of 10!! We got home around 4:30 am - it was good to be home!!

February

I had to go to my camera to see what we did in February it is such a blur to me! The first week of February should have been my due date with William, so in honor of the date I've finally put up a picture of my little boy. Here's the picture of the picture - the little disk is what I was originally sent when I ordered a custom memorial necklace to wear, but I had specifically requested copper, which the maker did send to me, so I had this brass disk with Willam's name on it, and I found a frame that matched it and converted the "best" of my 4 lousy pictures to black and white. So here is my precious little boy, who is now perfect and beautiful in Heaven:


On the long weekend, our assembly hosted a fun weekend for young people and young families at our local rec center. It was a fun time of fellowship and recreation - skating, sledding, board games, etc. It was also Lorelei's birthday on Saturday, so we had a little celebration for her. Unfortunately I didn't take a single picture that weekend!

On the Monday of the long weekend, we butchered our steer and spent the following weekend (all day saturday, a couple hours sunday afternoon and a couple hours monday evening) cutting and wrapping and making burgers. I was quite happy with the amount of fat that he had on him, and the meat has turned out to be VERY nice! Here's a shot of some rib eye's just before I cooked them!

For Lorelei's birthday I made her a cute little nightgown:


We celebrated her birthday with our family the next weekend - Grandma made her a very cute cake!

I even attempted to french braid her hair for the first time!

She had fun playing with balloons with her two cousins while we cooked supper at Grandma's house.


Then of course there were some presents!

I think that's about it for February - I was working 3 days a week and that wore me out pretty badly...too much to do!