The Moon of Making Fat

In one of my all-time favorite books, Where Rivers Change Direction, the author tells about how the Native Americans in his area call this time of year "the moon of making fat." It's time to harvest and put up food for winter, and of course eat a lot and put on some personal reserves. :)

The smoke has been so bad that it's hard to do anything outside, so I've been playing in the kitchen.

I got some raw milk from one of my co-workers. Look at all that cream! You can see the line if you look closely.

After the cream was skimmed off:

 You can do so many things with raw milk! I'm starting with an experiment, trying to make cream cheese with kefir as the starter. I wasn't sure if store bought buttermilk had any live cultures, and of course I didn't have mesophilic starter on hand. So we'll see. It ought to make something edible.

I've also been making dill pickles, pickled garlic, zucchini bread and frozen zucchini for bread later, lots and lots of elderberry syrup, with lots more elderberries to separate from their stems and freeze for later. Hmm. What else? Going to make sauerkraut soon, and planning on getting some beets to pickle, and maybe starting some kombucha. Yummm.

As for the equines, they're already fat. Except for Bob. I am trying out a product called Chaffhaye, which is baleage in small bales, as far as I can tell. It's fermented alfalfa, so it smells wonderful. Even the dogs want to eat it. Bob loves it, and so far will not let Pedro steal it. I hope he keeps it up so I don't have to separate them.

We finally had rain yesterday! The air is clear of smoke and it smells wonderful. We're going to go hiking today, even if it is supposed to rain again. Bring it on! I thought about taking Scout and riding, but it looks like he just popped a hoof abscess, so I'll leave him be.