Productive Day in the Creamery

I'm standing at the counter, out in the creamery right now typing on my laptop. Cream is churning next to me, making butter. I can tell just by the sounds the churn makes when the butter is ready to break. I have a headache, but that's usually an aftereffect of a day spent busily working with my eyes and hands. So much of crafting dairy products is an art as well as science. I don't have great eye sight and when I'm concentrating I think I must squint. Thus the headache.
Let's see, this morning after milking I set 2.5 gallons to rise cream, made fromage blanc, several jars of sour cream, 6 more pints of cultured buttermilk. Some fresh bag cheese, skimmed cream from last night's milking, a gallon and put it in the churn to ripen on the counter a few hours before churning. Yum, I just stopped it and gave Ayla a big spoonful of whipped cream! Oh, I also made 5 strawberry and 5 plum yogurts. Almost ready to take out of the incubator.
Dante is my hero! He extended the pen attached to the barn a little, and made it so there is a gate to the pen right outside the parlor door. So the flow of cow traffic is so much smoother. Now we let 1 cow out to be milked through the traditional gate in the barn. She walks right into the parlor, gets milked, and then exits through the new entrance outside the barn right into the paddock where there is a water trough and hay to munch on. No more pile ups at the gate where I used to have to try to cram the already milked cow against the flow of eager unmilked cows waiting at the gate, trying to push their way out while I tried to push one in. It was a struggle to say the least but not anymore!
Such small gifts mean so much. Tt doesn't hurt to make SOMETHING easier in our lives does it?
We have butter, time to go wash and work all the buttermilk out. I'll pack it in glass jars after milking. Maybe Dante will wash the churn for me.