Cheese making with Wilma

So a very good friend of mine initiated me into the secret society of cheesemakers today.  And it really wasn't all that hard.  But you have to have patience.  The recipe* reads something like:  heat your milk to 37 degrees, add the culture, wait 30 mins, add rennet, wait an hour and a half, stirring three times, pack curds into moulds, leave overnight.....so that's the stage I went home!  Pip is draining the curds overnight and then putting it in a brine solution tomorrow.  Then magically, we will have feta!

It was the perfect day for making cheese - raining.  The tropical low that is coming down has not been downgraded, she is still officially Cyclone Wilma.  It was ominously still this morning when I went for a walk and the clouds were the most amazing crimson.

It started to rain about ten this morning and it's gradually got heavier and heavier until it was hosing when I got home with the kids in tow.  Only to find a torrent of water pouring under our house from a blocked drain behind, making a large puddle under the freezer that we have in the last open bay of our shed.  The electrical plug was under water and the freezer had shut off. 

I set to work and my boy and I cleared as much as we could,  then hubby arrived home and got stuck in too.  We managed to redirect the flow and clear the ditch but whether the freezer will be ok or not, well, we'll have to wait until the plug dries out. 

The photo above is taken hanging out a bedroom window.  You can see the water pouring off the overflowing water tank and the stream flowing along the ground is the full drain (which usually doesn't hold any water at all) that was previously mostly flowing under the house!

*I don't have a copy of the recipe so please don't take that as a full and complete set of instructions, you may just be a tad disappointed.

Flood Memories

Thank you everyone for the kind words about my Father in Law.  He has had some good news yesterday, but will have to have more tests and some surgery.  But for now we can breathe a little easier. 

The rain is lashing down here,  absolutely pouring.  It always makes me a bit nervous when it rains like this. 

In April 2007, Northland suffered terrible floods.  It had rained and rained, but I went out to Playgroup anyway.  I shouldn't have because I ended up hiking home, with my son and husband, through the wet and slippery bush, five months pregnant with my second child.  The roads washed out, slips came down and we were marooned at home without power for three days.  But at least we were at home, some people couldn't get home that first night.

When you got to the end of our road, you turned onto State Highway 11.  This was heading south.

I don't think my family ever saw these photos so I'm posting them now.  Lets hope the rains stops soon (ungrateful wench that I am, I've been moaning about the drought, now I'm moaning about the rain!).

This was State Highway 11 heading North.  We couldn't get through either direction.

My waterhole is almost completely full.  The driveway is like a little river and we have a creek in the cow paddock where there wasn't one before.  The ducks, however, are in heaven!  (And it's perfect weather for staying inside and quilting till my heart's content).