Birthday Party

 My day started with early birthday messages from the kids and the siblings. Ruth was having a garage sale today and Joan has co-op so just Diane and I walked, although Mike joined in for a short time. We stopped at the cabin to check on Missy who seemed to be fine. 

My airbnb guest left early so as soon as the walk was over I went over to empty the tanks and bring all the laundry down to the house. He left the 5th wheel in excellent condition. I was filling the fresh water tank When my phone rang. I let go of the hose, it popped out and sprayed water all over my face and shirt. It was Gertie, her car wouldn't start. I turned off the water and took off for her house. She was needed to baby sit at Bethany church and Anna was going to be taking her home so it worked out well for me to just drop her off. When she got in the car I explained to her why I was so wet and told her thankfully it is CLEAN water!  We both had to laugh. I drove straight to mom's house to visit with mom and Diane. Ruth had come over and found a baby raccoon in mom's garage and brought it inside. 

Such a cute baby.

 The baby was put back in the garage and soon the mama collected him. When I got home instead of heading back up the 5th wheel to finish the job I started on the house. The floors really needed to be scrubbed, the dishes needed to be done and the laundry changed.  Once that was done I decided it was time to make butter since I had almost a quart of cream. That was put into a half gallon jar and then I started shaking.

After about 20 minutes it was getting hard to shake as it was thick whipped cream but just a little longer and the butter separated from the buttermilk. It is obvious when it turns.

The next step is to get a new washed knee high nylon sock. (I found that works best for this next step instead of cheese cloth) and put it around a bowl.

The jar was poured into that covered bowel.

The solids stay on top while the liquid goes into the bowl. Now is the time to add salt. For this amount of butter little less than a half of teaspoon was sprinkled on then pulled the materiel off the bowl and around the butter. 

That is plunged into a bowl of ice water and squeezed and worked until all the butter milk is out. This also distributes the salt throughout all of the butter. The butter is then removed from the sock. It comes out easily and now is when it was tasted my taste buds declared it perfect.

The butter milk was poured back into the jar. That is used for biscuits or pancakes.

Today I made buttermilk pancakes with it. 

Most will be refrigerated or frozen but one must be eaten with a cup of that wonderful ice cold fresh milk from Rebekah's cow.

It was a delicious breakfast. Do not butter the pancakes to be frozen, they can be buttered once heated up. IF anyone is interested in fresh milk from Rebekah she can be reached on Facebook under Rebekah Schwind. She has 2 Jersey cows she hand milks and sells it for $8.00 a gallon for whole milk. The cream rises to the top and can be used for coffee or do like me and make butter. There is PLENTY of cream from a Jersey cow. I bought 2 jars, both gallon size with 4 inch openings on top so it is easy to skim the cream. Fill those jars, let them sit over night then skim the cream off leaving about a half inch of cream, shake the milk good before pouring yourself a delicious glass. Fresh milk that has not been pasturaized has no aftertaste like store bought milk and is much healthier.

When I had my own cows, pickles were sold in these jars so I always had an abundance. I bought these jars from Amazon but sometimes they are for sale on Facebook market place for almost give away prices.
Diane arrived as I was shaking the jar with a birthday card from mom, written in her own hand. She had to use her right had to write as her left hand no longer works since the stroke. Mom is left handed so I think she did remarkably well.

We needed to leave tonight around 5:00 pm to pick up Phil and Anna's girls as Phil and Anna left for Bill Schick's visitation and were hoping to get through the line in time to make it back. We ordered for them and they made it before the food arrived. The entire family, all 26 of us met at Gils Supper Club at 5:15 pm for a birthday dinner.

The rest of the pictures from there are posted below.

After dinner we all came back here for cake.

Rhoda took the picture below of me holding Zeke our youngest grandchild.

The young kids all headed to the barns to play. After the party I needed to run up to the 5th wheel as it booked for tomorrow and the bed still needed to be made up. We also opened the back doors of the indoor arena so the guests coming could just drive straight in. The kids gave me some step in shoes so I don't have to bend, some beautiful daffodils and a gorgeous card.

It was a busy but beautiful day.