Random Bits from Thanksgiving Week

I've been getting caught up from all of my travels. Unfortunately, I did not quite succeed before we plunged headlong into the holiday season.



Nearly a year ago, I blogged about my first attempt to make blue cheese. What I never said later was that it was a complete bust. A couple of weeks after I started it, it had become nasty and slimy. A few months later, I tried again, with much better results. This time I used the good milk (raw milk from Guernsey cattle), and that made all the difference. I opened the first of two wheels for Thanksgiving and was pleased with the results. The cheese still needs a bit of work. The humidity in the cave was a bit too low while I aged it. I think that I can easily fix that. The flavor is surprisingly good, so I'm optimistic for future attempts at this cheese. I started another batch last weekend.


Last weekend we also had our annual seed mixing party. This year, we did not gather quite so many species, and a lot of the seeds were already cleaned, so we finished very quickly.

Thanksgiving was to have been a quiet affair for just Leon and I. At his request, we had ham instead of turkey. The day before Thanksgiving, Adam posted on his Facebook page that he and his partner Andy would be flying from Tucson to O'Hare the next morning and driving up to their farm in Wisconsin. This would take them a mere 2 minutes from our house. We had them over for pie (and some of the blue cheese). Although they were not able to stay nearly as long as we would have liked, it was great to get to see them both. Two minutes after they left, I realized that we should have gotten a photo.


The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the day we put up our outdoor holiday lights'


Both yesterday and today have been very beautiful. We went for a walk at the Fen this afternoon. We took a bag of seeds from the seed mixing party with us and scattered some prairie goodness around. Tomorrow, off to visit Gary and Gary Lee's farm to get some manure for the vegetable garden.