Weekend work
We were supposed to dig the garden over this weekend and plant all the veggies we've bought in an effort to pretend we're that kind of family. But it rained. ALL WEEKEND! Horrible cold, windy sploshy rain, non-stop for the whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So all we managed was to spend some money buying a couple of little trowels & fork for the kids to help out with next weekend!
But it did mean we got on with some other stuff. We re-furbished our new butter churn, so hopefully it will actually be useable to make butter with this season. I'm going to give it a go during the week hopefully. We picked it up quite cheap a few months ago, but it was a dodgy "show" churn made in India with gaping holes all around it. When we filled it with water to test it's seal, it flooded out at approx 1 pint every 10 seconds! So Aggie sealed it with pitch, which seems to have done the trick. It only lost 2cm of water overnight. Now I have to work out how to make butter - I've had differing advice about using only cream, only milk, a mix of the two..... And I'm a bit concerned about using the modern homogenised milk that Tesco's sells. And you can't even buy unpasteurised from the farms any more:-(
We didn't cut the girls dresses, although we did mean to:-( But I did finally work out how to use the loom and made Mstr A a belt. Except it's too short, so perhaps it'll be for LMD! It's going to take a lot of practise before my weaving looks good though. It's pretty lumpy at the moment:-)
But it did mean we got on with some other stuff. We re-furbished our new butter churn, so hopefully it will actually be useable to make butter with this season. I'm going to give it a go during the week hopefully. We picked it up quite cheap a few months ago, but it was a dodgy "show" churn made in India with gaping holes all around it. When we filled it with water to test it's seal, it flooded out at approx 1 pint every 10 seconds! So Aggie sealed it with pitch, which seems to have done the trick. It only lost 2cm of water overnight. Now I have to work out how to make butter - I've had differing advice about using only cream, only milk, a mix of the two..... And I'm a bit concerned about using the modern homogenised milk that Tesco's sells. And you can't even buy unpasteurised from the farms any more:-(
We didn't cut the girls dresses, although we did mean to:-( But I did finally work out how to use the loom and made Mstr A a belt. Except it's too short, so perhaps it'll be for LMD! It's going to take a lot of practise before my weaving looks good though. It's pretty lumpy at the moment:-)
Labels: re-enactment, weather
posted by Juggling Mother @ 6:49 pm
4 Comments:
At Tuesday, March 06, 2007 4:03:00 pm,
CyberKitten said…
From a quick 2 minute search on Google it looks like you make butter from cream... not from milk.......
Seems to be *lots* of information about it out there..
At Tuesday, March 06, 2007 6:56:00 pm,
Juggling Mother said…
hmm, I know. that's where the differing opinions start! most of the people I ahve talked to who actually have done this in a re-enactment situation say stick to milk/ or a mix of the two. And they would've used milk in 1370 I expect. Although the milk was creamier....
Although, i admit, the cost of all that cream is making me somewhat biased:-)
At Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:18:00 pm,
Maggie said…
I thought that you used "whole milk", the butter forms and the liquid left is buttermilk... Of course I don't really know... But I have a full set of an early version (1920s?) of Encyclopedia Brittanica upstairs, so if you'd like me to look it up in that for you, just give me a shout!
Suspect Jersey cow's milk might be better as it has more cream in it. I don't know if homogenised milk would/will work, if you can get unhomogenised milk I kinda think that *might* work better?
Good luck!
Best wishes from sunny Liverpool
At Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:42:00 pm,
Juggling Mother said…
Hi Maggie. I tend to agree with you. My gut feeling says that I have always heard of butter being made from milk! I was intending to make pancakes out of the resulting buttermilk - with my freshly ground flour & eggs from the chickens we haven't got yet:-)
You are obviously far cleverer than me though. We also have old encylopaedias upstairs. I never thought to check them - too reliant on the internet *doh!*
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