Squint, the Sequel

This is the reward for good little squirrels who wait patiently for their breakfast.  Squint is not among them.  Squint is off somewhere trying to clean sticky, warm milk from his fur.  He was absolutely drenched by the time I'd finished with the girls yesterday.  I'll give him P for persistence, for sure.  At first, he may have thought it was liquid falling from the sky (indoors, but he's a squirrel and doesn't know better).  Then he would sit up and look right at me while I squirted him in the face.  He got the idea and also got sneaky about his thievery, going for the grain at the edge of the pile where he thought I couldn't see him.  I could, and "shot" him again.  The mice think all this is great, as they get the extra milk sprayed around.  Squint has his own cheering section.  I can see this turning into "Rocky."  Squint III, Squint IV, etc.

It was a two-fer day.  Two pounds of chevre cheese, two loaves of olive-onion focaccia.  I was discussing pricing with my friend Linda.  It takes two gallons of milk to make a pound of cheese, so I charge the same price for the cheese as I do for the milk, a little more for the feta because more steps and time are involved.  I'm thinking $3 a loaf is fair for the bread; that won't cover the cost of ingredients, but a sale is a sale.  It's a good thing I really like milking goats and making bread because I think it comes out that I'm working for way less than a dollar an hour.  I laughed when Washington state raised minimum wage to $15/hour.  I seem to have come full circle.  I was working in a dress shop when I was fifteen and was thrilled when my boss raised my pay to a dollar an hour.  Those were the good old days.

I can set the dough to rise for today's bread before going down to the goats.  I'll have to wait until I get back to the house with more milk for cheese.  Wait for the sequel, Bread and Cheese III.