Solving a Pet Peeve at Breakfast

Even though Luna lost her calf, it wasn't a total loss as she's now in milk.  We are milking her one time a day in the evenings when I get home from work.  So now we have an abundance of milk.  That is a good problem to have.  Tonight we had delicious homemade ice cream. 

One thing about having all this milk is that you also have a bunch of cream to skim off the top.  Tricia skimmed a bunch of cream and made some homemade butter.

Fresh milk to drink, butter to eat, and a by-product of butter-making - buttermilk.  We'll likely use this to make pancakes.

In order to store our homemade butter, Tricia pulled out the butter bell.  The butter bell is a contraption that solves and age-old problem for breakfast-eaters everywhere.  Don't you just hate it when you try to spread cold butter that you've just pulled out of the refrigerator onto a piece of toast or a pancake?

The rock-hard butter ends up tearing your toast as you try to spread it with your knife.  There is a better way!  With a butter bell, your butter remains at room temperature and is soft and creamy.

Tricia packed her homemade butter into the top portion of the butter bell.  The top portion is the lid and underneath the lid, inverted, is the bowl that holds all the butter.

Then water is poured into the bottom portion of the butter bell.

The lid/bowl full of butter is then inverted and placed into the bottom portion of the butter bell that holds the water.

The water acts as a seal, keeping out oxygen.  As long as you put fresh water in the butter bell every 3 days, you can keep butter in the butter bell sitting out on the counter at room temperature for 30 days.  And here's the best part - the butter will remain smooth and creamy and your toast will not be brutalized any longer.