Havarti, More Sauerkraut, Ported Prunes and the 5:2 Diet amongst other things

Just the usual morning run through all the herds to check on calving progress and food supply, moving the 26 cows and their calves onto new pasture and putting out silage for the weaners. Both groups very appreciative.

A nice fresh patch of green grass for the cows and calves

Finished making two more lots of Sauerkraut from the Nourishing Traditions recipe i.e. the Japanese and the standard Sauerkraut with Caraway seeds. Looking forward to performing a taste comparison next week.

Made three small rounds of Havarti using full cream raw milk. Filled in the waiting times with odd jobs. When there is extended stirring times it's handy to have a paperback to read and take away the tedium. We've tried building an automatic stirrer with no success. All the motor mechanisms we tried turned too fast chopping up the curd. One day when we come across a small reduction gear box or a motor that we can run at a very slow speed we'll have another attempt.

Havarti

Yesterday we picked up half a dozen packets of dried prunes at the wholesaler's. Today we made 15 small jars of Ported Prunes using our own Port. Fill the jar with prunes, top up with port and leave for a few weeks until the Prunes soak up the liquid. Goes very nicely with Yoghurt. The Port Barrel holds about 20 litres and we top it up ever now and then when the level drops below half. The topping up material is inexpensive bulk Port (flagon or box) and a mixture of types and brands. The key is variety and aging. After topping up leave it for 6 months the flavours mellow and refine. It's a handy product to use as gifts to Port loving friends. Before topping up fill a few bottles with the mature product in case any is needed during the 6 months waiting period.

Ported Prunes

Port Barrel

Now that the clean hands jobs were out of the way the grubby task of inserting a bearing into the mulcher was performed followed by a reassembly.

Mulcher Repairs

Being such a stunningly sunny and clear day morning and afternoon teas were had in the Provencal Garden along with a relaxing read but only briefly. Noticed the garden water height indicator was reading low and popped down to the dam to start one of the pumps.

Water Level Meter

Sharpened the chainsaw and attacked the overgrown Elderflower shrub reducing its height and creating some useful compost material.

A mass of potential compost material just waiting for the mulcher

Finally a brief word on out experiment with the 5:2 Diet. This is the routine of fasting or really just calorie reduction for 2 days in 7. The longer the period in which there is no calorie intake the better the result. Rather than bother with having a small  breakfast and a small dinner we decided to fast completely until dinner i.e. last food ingested was before 8 pm last night and no further food until 6 pm tonight - 20 hours. Breakfast was just rooibos tea, morning tea was coffee with just a hint of milk to cut the bitterness and make it palatable and afternoon tea was tea. Not eating wasn't that hard now that we had been practising the routine for a few weeks. There are a couple of times during the day when you feel pangs but by keeping busy they pass. We found that building the routine was important and keeping busy, even preparing food didn't cause all that much of a problem.

The objective of the 5:2 is partially to reduce weight a little but more importantly to take our bodies out of the permanent 'go' mode and stop or reduce insulin and IGF-1 insulin-like growth factor 1) production which cause metabolic change in the body. When these dominate all the time the body never has time to go into rebuild mode. If you are interested in finding out more look up Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer. They have some books and also did a TV program on their trials.