On Yogurt And Unplugging

 (By way of introduction, I apologize for my tardiness in responding to comments.  Apparently this platform has taken it upon itself to becoming "difficult" again.)

This week I made another batch of yogurt.

I have been making yogurt regularly for almost three years now, so far as I can recall.  It is a simple process (which is why I likely keep doing it, of course):  one gallon of whole milk heated in a Crock Pot to 180 F with a beach towel over the lid to retain heat, followed by allowing it to cool to between 90 and 100 F, adding either new culture or some yogurt from a previous batch (live culture and all), replacing the lid and covering with the beach towel and wrapping with a blanket and allow to sit all night, followed by 12-18 hours of straining through cheesecloth.

Voila! Yogurt.  Strained longer, it becomes thicker and more "greek" (and I like my yogurt thick).  I have no idea how much I yield in a batch, but I easily fill up one of those 16 oz. Cool Whip containers, sometimes with a small amount of overflow.  I have not been able to calculate yield by weight, but it is certainly more than the 1.5 lbs scale will measure.  Maybe 2 lbs?  Plus, I end up with 18 to 24 ounces of whey to drink over the week.

This amount of yogurt will last me about a week - yes, I eat that much, which is one reason I started making my own instead of waiting for trips to the grocery store to get more.  That, and by making it myself I pay about half of what it would currently cost me at the store - perhaps more, as a pound of yogurt here goes for $4-6 and I am eating at least twice that.

The only times I purchased yogurt in the last three years is when I go back to The Ranch - I could make it there (I have a crock pot, and culture is easy enough to procure), but it is a solid two day process and I would end up wasting some - a crime in my book, as all yogurt deserves to be eaten.

It is a rather small and silly example of some kind of unplugging from the system - I need milk to do it of course, and there is no way a dairy cow or even a goat is magically going to make it in the toasted stubble that has become my backyard.  But it is an example, my maybe one thing that unplugs me from that system.

Sometimes when we read of changing the world or unplugging from it or unplugging from it to change it, it seems like such a daunting task.  In reality, we can all start somewhere.  It is not the size of the effort that  counts, but making the effort.  Once a thing is done - the solar panel up and feeding energy, the side of beef in the freezer that we bought directly rather than through the commercial system, the vegetables are canned/preserved/dried, the sock darned - we realize that it was not as difficult as we might have thought.  And, the process can be replicated.

The rock breaks not because of the immediate strike, but because of the thousand strikes that came before.