Jerri comes by weekly and picks up five to eight gallons of milk from our Cookie cow to make cheese for both households. Our homestead works too many jobs and she doesn’t have milk cows, so the arrangement works out well. She picks up the milk, makes colby or cheddar cheese and we share the bounty, providing both homesteads with a great food source. So, a few days ago she made this amazing wheel of cheddar cheese. It was about four inches thick and about seven inches wide at the center of the wheel. She was so excited about how well it had turned out that she called bragging and explained that I could swing by and pick up some in a day or two when it was finished drying.

Well, this morning (the typical drop off cheese / pick up milk day) the phone starts ringing and I figure it was milk swap time. I answer it to hear… 

“I’m so bummed….Do you remember the old adage ‘The dog ate my homework?'”

“What?” I asked trying to follow the conversation..

“You know… the dog ate my homework…. well, I have a new one for you… the dog ate my cheese!” She says, thinking this will clarify things for me. My silence must have hinting to my ongoing confusion, so she continued, “I went into the kitchen to cut and wrap up the cheese so I could bring you some when I picked up milk and all I found was the cheese cloth on the tile floor. So, I’m looking everywhere wondering ‘where is the cheese?’… I can’t image that the dog ate an entire wheel of cheese!” She explains. 

Now lights are starting to go off… the cheddar cheese that she’d bragged about a couple of days ago. Well, I start laughing because all I hear in my head is that old lady saying ‘WHERE’S THE BEEF?’ in the Wendy’s commercials from the eighties.

Jerri continues her story over the phone, “So, I’m looking all over the house wondering where’s the cheese… looking for some sort of evidence… tiny cheese crumbles… anything. Finally, I look over to the couch and see the leg blanket crumpled up in the corner. Now I know I had folded it up on top of the couch last night. I walked over and lifted the blanket off the couch and here’s this small hidden chunk of chewed on cheese!”

Now I’m really laughing! The dog was saving it for a snack!

Jerri sighs and then continues into the phone, “So, I won’t be bringing cheese over today, but I do need more milk.”

Ah, life on a homestead. Could have been worse I suppose… she could have been thawing rib-eye steaks! Here’s the picture she sent just a few minutes ago… a recreation of the events!!! See the cheese piece by the stuffed donkey… LOL