The Stoll house is busy again.  Spring is in the air, I think.  Our little haven is full of new life with more to come.  Right now we have 24 Cornish X chicks, a new calf was born yesterday, and lots of chicken and turkey eggs to hatch soon and another calf will be born soon. The calves aren't ours, I wish though.  We won't have calves for some time yet.  Hoping to breed our almost yearlings in the fall.  The goats won't be due till the end of May and early June.  Lots of activity on the ranch.  These things keep you hopping.

I finally made some whey and my first soft cheese.  The whey turned out fine, but I'm not sure about the cheese.  It sort of turned out like cottage cheese and I'm not fond of that.  It was suppose to be more like cream cheese.  The dogs will eat it.  The whey is used in making homemade mayo, and using it in baking.  It's another way of getting healthful goodies in your body.  It aids in digestion and since I have issues with all this, I need all the help I can get.  My homemade yogurt is the best.  It's really good with yellow raisins, chopped nuts whether almonds or walnuts, and raw honey.  It is sooo good..  All these things were made with raw milk.  I'm very careful on my tempuratures as to not kill off the enzymes and good bacteria.  The way I make the whey is to use a half gallon canning jar and put in the raw milk.  I put over it a cloth to keep dust and such out and let sit for a few days.  On day three it curdled where the whey splits off from the curdled milk.  I then strain it through a cloth for several hours and do not squish it.  When I though it looked drained well, I then gathered it up and hung it from a cabinet to drain for a few more hours until it quick dripping.  The whey is in the bowl and the cheese is in the cloth.  Pretty simple.  Now the yogurt is easy, too.  I heat the milk no highter than 118 degrees.  As soon as it hits that temperature, I shut off the heat and add my yogurt culture and some unflavored gelatin and mix well.  I pour into canning jars and place in warmed water in my crock pot. I keep a thermometer in there to not let it get over 118 degrees.  The pot stays off most the time.  The yogurt is usually done within 6-8 hours.  For those of you wondering about milk spoiling, well that's only milk that's bought in the store.  Raw milk sours, not spoils.    it ferments and that's a good thing.

In the garden, I managed to plant some potatoes, but that's it.  They will probably spoil since it's been so wet and cold.  I haven't even been able to finish tilling it yet since there were pockets of damp soil.  I think I need patience in this area.  I've got lots of seedlings going.  I have pansies, lavender, tomatoes, peppers, basil, lemon mint and I will be starting my cauliflower and cabbage this week.  I'm running out of room for all these plants.  I will hopefully sell some at farmer's market but that doesnt' start until May.  By then they should be a nice size.  I have been busy relandscaping in front of one of my barns.  I planted some hydrangeas a friend sent me.  I was so happy with those.  I also dug out all the hostas, which I'm also selling off.  That's as far as I've gotten.  I've bought a few bald cypress trees and a redbud for the yard.  There's also lots of fruit trees, raspberry and grapes coming, too.  I want strawberry and blueberry, but that's for next year.  A girl can only do so much a season!

We are slowly getting to the end of Weaver volume 2.  This week they are to pick an Act and write a paper on the one that they were interested in.  This is more of a review exercise since we went over these a couple of weeks ago.  I think next we'll be seeing the Revolutionary War and finally the writing of the Constitution.  The boys are doing a great job with all the required reading I've given them.  All along they have been reading historical fiction books on the different times we went over.  I think that has helped them a lot.  Ben, who is not fond of reading at all, even gets conversations going with me over what he's reading.  This I find very pleasing.  When we are finished with the volume topics, we'll spend some time going over colonial life and doing more handson projects.  I'm hoping we'll be done in June so we can change course for the summer.

For the summer, I want to use an electricity kit I bought last year for them, but we moved and things got a bit hectic,   It's a small motor and I'm not all sure what it's about but should teach them the basics of electricity.  It's definately a guy thing to do.  I also have a Bible lesson from Answers in Genesis I'm hoping to use over summer.  I think we can get it done in time. Of course, we'll continue with math and I think we'll finish our computer course.  I sort of let that drop when we started this American history chapter since it takes us a bit of our day.  So our summer will be fun along with all the gardening and animals.  I'm looking forward to it all.

In case you wonder why I do our studies over the summer, here's why.  If we take any amount of a break longer than a few days, I have boys wandering around not doing much of anything productive.  I only have so many chores to keep them busy.  It also relieves me from doing any sort of review in the fall and we can just keep on going. We take breaks throughout the year when we need them or have something else to do that day.  I just have found that a long break like that is counterproductive to the goals of our homeschool and family life.  I find it keeps us focused and on track.  It also gives them a sense of knowing what to expect most days, at least for a bit.  Our days are shorter and we don't do our lessons every day in the summer, usually 3 or so.  It all takes less than two hours usually.  We like it this way.

The sun is coming up and as usual it's beautiful.  God is good.