Our lives are constant stirring, stirring, stirring, interrupted by eating and sleeping. We decided to make some mozzarella for the local homeless shelter — getting enough protein isn't easy on the street — so we started with an hour of stirring to pasteurize the milk. We drink our milk raw and make all our cheese from raw milk, but I figured there might be someone there with a compromised immune system, so the milk should be pasteurized just to be sure. This hour of cooking and half hour of cooling in a sink of ice water sure did strengthen our commitment raw milk. Plus, we could see the milk foaming and changing as it cooked. It really is different.
Every day is full of stirring. Each cheese I make, about every two days now, is about an hour and a half of stirring. After the curds have shed a lot of whey the girls can help, but the first hour I really have to do.
Caramels are an hour of stirring. The girls can help at the first part of caramels too, but at the end they aren't quite complete enough.
None of this stirring is hard, but there is a cumulative effect from lengthy stirring every day. When you add in daily milking, laundry, kids, and middle age that makes all healing take longer, it takes a toll on my body.
My arms get sore. I don't notice it much during the day, but at night I have a constant dull ache and my arms often fall asleep. I wake up in alarm and work the feeling back into my flesh. It's a nasty feeling. Massaging Mama's arms has become a daily chore of my nine-year old's who are amazingly good at it.
Up until a year ago, my life required little arm strength. I am growing stronger but the progression is slow. Last fall, after Christina came, I grabbed a few ten-pound bags of sugar and noticed how easily I could lift them. My arms don't hurt as much as they did last fall before Christina dried up. But I'm not there yet. Maybe next year my poor children won't have to massage me every day.
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