Wanted: a cheese press

“You got the bug again?” Lisa asked over text when I inquired whether our friend still has Nancy’s old one.

“No.  It never left.”

I have friends with small dairies producing delicious milk for a great price.  Why shouldn’t I still make cheese?  Oh, because I don’t have a cheese press!!  Easily remedied, hopefully.

Doug and I enjoyed a cheese flight along with an amazing California red blend yesterday.  A slightly tangy semi-soft cheese, a creamy brie from France, a sharp and heavenly cheese with truffles nestled in its layers, a mild gouda.  All exceptional.  I loved creating cheeses and I believe we can still do that here in our humble apartment with the same success or even more so for the constant environment and beautifully laid out kitchen.

I will still be canning this year.  I have plans for the wall behind the dining room table.  By autumn’s end it will be a wall of shelving filled with colorful spectacles of jeweled canning jars filled with winter sustenance.

Pots of vegetables and herbs will line my west facing balcony.  I am just homesteading on a smaller scale.

Someone asked at the sustainability fair if I teach homesteading classes.  I said I used to but why can’t I still?  I am just homesteading on a smaller level, the same as many folks.  Let’s start classes again!  What do you want to learn?  How to make cheese?  How to can produce?  How do dehydrate?  How to freeze?  How to garden in pots on the balcony?  How to….the sky’s the limit.  Your place or mine.  Let’s do it.

The Pumpkin Hollow Farm Homesteading School is back.