Cheese and chicks ...

Move over feta because I have a new favourite cheese .... mozzarella. Mozzarella turned out to be extremely easy to make. You simply need some whole milk, citric acid, rennet and some time. I made two bars of cheese that were about 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. We ate one bar with toasted pitas ... the cheese was a little soft but it still tasted like mozzarella. I wish I had some ripe tomatoes because I would love to make some pizza.

Our egg production has dropped off significantly in the last few weeks. That's because most of our Americana's have gone broody and are hatching out chicks. Yesterday we had 5 chicks hatch and our hen, Luke, has claimed them as her own. She was such a good mom to Anakin in the spring that I'm sure she'll do a great job this time as well. We should see another 7 or 8 chicks hatch over the next week or so.

You may find this amusing ... the hen that hatched the 5 new chicks is a pure black hen named Darth Vader. We think that Luke took the chicks under her wing to keep them safe from the dark side. A couple of the chicks will likely be named after Sith's anyways ... like Darth Maul and Darth Sidious come to mind. We have to keep the Star Wars theme going ... plus visiting kids seem to get a kick out of chickens named after Star Wars.