The Lazy way of making Cheese

Winter is slowly installing in Slovakia. Though our herd is still grazing outside milk yields are decreasing. At this moment we only milk our goats. Our sheep fell dry with the shortening of the days. Recently we've made our last "large" quantity of cheese. At Lazy we have a maximum capacity of processing 50 ltrs of milk a day. A true small scale holding. Making of cheese starts of course with high quality clean milk. We milk both by machine and by hand. The milk is sieved and cooled directly after milking.

When we have enough milk to make cheese, the milk is heated to 29 degrees C. Some (2%) buttermilk is added to acidify the milk. This is left for an approximate 30 minutes while keeping the right temperature.

Rennet is added according to the producers label. Slightly stirred and left while maintaining the right temperature  

When the milk has set you can obtain a clean cut with a long knife. The clogged milk is cut squares of appr. 2x2 cm.

The solid parts (curd) are separated from the liquid (whey) by stirring for about 10 minutes cutting the cheese particles to a pea size.

The curd is set to rest for 10 minutes. The curd will sink to the bottom, the whey will float. The whey is then collected. We use the whey to feed our two pigs.

Hot water is added until we have a temperature of 33 degrees C. The curd is stirred again for 10 minutes. Whey is collected and hot water is added again to reach a temperature of 37 degrees C.

The curd is left to ripen for 20 minutes while maintaining the 37 degrees C.

 The cheese moulds are filled.

The last whey is pressed out. We press about 6 hours with 3x the weight of the cheese.

According to size the cheese are pickled in a salt bath for 12-24 hours.

Cheese are ripened in our cheese cellar. They are turned and polished each day to prevent molding and to obtain optimum quality.

This cheese can be eaten after 3 weeks but we like him also at least 6 months old! With or without walnuts!

Wood!

Living on a farm does also mean cutting loads of wood to heat the house. Winters are harsh. This year we were lucky with Wim and Ellen Maas who helped us this year. Thank you!

shocking!

We finally found a solution to escaping animals. We have spent a small fortune on electric impuls devices which all proved either to weak or simply not robust enough for our animals. Goats simply jump the fence, sheep go for mass attack. We have found a local electrician who makes home made devices. Our animals are deeply impressed and stay at least 1mtr away from the fence! A nice present for the 4th of october!

mating season

Driekus, our rather particular Dutch billygoat, has returned from a three month visit to a nearby farm.  He will mate the older goats the coming months. For the first year we will try to mate the young goats in early spring so we will have kids in the summer months. Great for our camping guests, also better for the goats and kids. Question is; will they get their heat during winter?

Bob, our Suffolk ram, has also been reunited with his girls. We have a field of yellow bottomed sheep at the moment.

Drought

It has been an extreme dry summer. Our once so lush pasture has turned into a field of standing hay. Goats are disgusted. We asked our village cooperative permission to put our animals on their freshly mown luzerne fields. They agreed! Good neighborship always pays off!  Thank you Cerovan Drustzvo.

Tok Tok goes facebook!

Our most apreciated chicken Tok-Tok

goes facebook! Share and like!

Fanpage Tok Tok

no comment

no show

 

Temperatures are rising and our sheep are still in their winter coat. Time to give the shearer a call. He did a very good job last year. Easier said than done. He appeared continuously bussy for the comming few weeks. No time for a small holder. We were lucky having an experienced sheap shearer family camping at our campsite. We took out their coats by hand shearing! Thank you Aurora and mum!

survivors

One of the big egg producing farms in the area has gone bankrupt. The chickens had not been fed for the past few days in the hope that the eggs would pay for the food. Which did not happen. Our neighbour bought a dozen chickens for 50ct. We got six. What did we do to our agriculture system when the value of a living animal does not exceed 50 cents ?!

please allow us to introduce ourselves

Our organic waste recycle team 2013; Karbo & Naatje

Mangalitza x Large White

Lush green grass

The first camping guests have arrived and the vegetable garden is full with activity!

suprise

We have kept the door open for the past weeks since 

a pair of redtails decided to nest above the coatrack. 

finally

The end of April is approaching and all our animals are finally fully on pasture!

please allow me to introduce myself...

All we know is that her mother was a shetland. But we think she will be way bigger than our Pjotr. They are very happy to get to know eachother. Her name: Annabel. We got her in exchange of seven goats (and 10 kids). Welcome to Lazy!

lot of kids

A lot of kids on our courtyard waiting to get loose....

First signs of spring

Finaly the first signs of spring! We can't wait!

Snow snow snow and no grass

But we are very lucky that we got a new load of hay! Snow at the end of March is not normal and we almost ran out of feed.

Kids

It's a boy! Two boys.

First offspring of Driekus and Bep: two healthy billy goats.

Hungry

Deer now enter our stables in search of food. This winter is lasting too long!

Terminal sire

We got Bob, a young good looking Suffolk ram, to become father of our Lacaune x East Friesian sheep, we don't want to get more then 50% Friesian blood in our ewes. The Friesians have proven to be too demanding for our low input farming system. The Lacaunes however have shown to be excellent hardy animals. We are looking forward to see how the EFxLC cross ewes will perform, so far we are really satisfied, they are healthy and all which where 6 months or older got in gestation - on grass only since we do not feed any concentrated feed to them. The first offspring of Bob is expected around 25th of February and all of them will be for sale since we want to continue with dairy sheep.