More dairy anyone?

Early this AM, I made a batch of yogurt and attempted the fromage blanc again. I was pretty sure that the first time around, it got too much heat. I thought about putting it in the oven with the light on to get to about 80 degrees but today was hot and I opted to leave it on the counter as we went about our day. That was a GREAT idea!!
The yogurt might have gotten a little too much heat as I noticed the beginning of separation of curd and whey (no, my name is NOT Miss Muffet and I don't own a tuffet ...).
Either whey ... hum ... way (oooh, that was bad) both of them spent some time in my nut milk bag (oh my!) which I use instead of standard cheesecloth and both came out fantastic!!

Yogurt ready for culturing 

fromage blanc in the oven, promptly removed and placed on the kitchen counter

thickening the fromage blanc and "harvesting" the whey

perfect! 

post dinner snack of yogurt and a little organic agave syrup. yum!

The boys had fun in the sun this AM waiting to go to Meadowside Nature Center for our little Celebrate Earth Day with a Tree class. They played with trucks in our rice and beans bin ... or the construction site as they sometimes call it.

churning butter, playing with old time games and instruments ... and painting pots during our class

That trip to this specific nature center turned out really well. They got to get their hands on a lot of the items in Eric Carle's book "Pancakes, Pancakes!". We borrowed it form the library along with 15 other books but Ty only wants that one and Owen loves it as well though it wasn't new to him. They read and talked about it at school while doing a session on the illustration styles of Eric Carle and Ezra Jack Keats (If I remember correctly).

This afternoon Grandmama came over bearing presents for Owen ... Bingo Grandmama, nice choice! At least he was able to enjoy these presents :)

Look at that HAPPY Owen!!

And to end the day on a fun note, the boys got clean while getting dirty tonight!! I have a little bit of rhassoul clay left from a fun swap I did a few years ago on La Tribu des Mamans Natures, a cool europeen AP forum. I tried it a few times with Owen when he was little but he HATED it. Not so tonight ... the boys were delighted!

The salad table is looking great as well, and it seems as though the WHOLE family is enjoying it (can you spot a furry in one of the pictures?) You might also notice a couple of painted pots. The boys did those today at the nature center and planted 3 pine tree seeds in the pot. We'll see how those develop ... if at all ... just like the avocado pit we just spiked with toothpicks, place in water and set by our kitchen window.