The musings of a cheesemaker. You are probably wondering about the title. "It's only in the Morning”. That is what I told my sister and a friend one day while they were cleaning the house getting it ready for company. I had cheese “aging” in the basement. I first started out aging the blue cheese in the basement until I got my blue cheese aging room up and running. But before that time I had accumulated a fair amount of cheese down there. And like all aging products it took on a certain aroma, but it was only in the morning when the smell was noticeable. Particularly in the fall when the days were warm but the nights cool.  So I was getting picked on for having “sticky” cheese that needed to have something done with it even though I assured them it was doing what it was supposed to do. Thankfully today I have a blue room along with the rest of the aging rooms behind the cheese plant and not in the house. This alleviated any potential family strife. So with that, the official title of my blog here is “It’s only in the Morning”
 
On to other things, the new cheese now officially has a name. No it’s not “No Name”, it is, after much debate and ponderings…………Mule Skinner. Yep that is right, Mule Skinner. Sure Mule Skinner sounds like it may mean something along the lines of a stubborn old guy who is grumpy, mumbles a lot and would rather keep to themselves than being the life of the party. That is what is portrayed in the media but in reality Mule Skinners were people who had a genuine love for the animals that they worked with and cared for. Those animals were their life, their family. Plus when it comes to needing a name that people can pronounce and remember, Mule Skinner just draws your attention and curiosity. “What is a Mule Skinner cheese?” Also in keeping with the canal theme that we are working off of it just fit right in there because to run a boat on a canal it had to propelled by something and back then it was mules.
 
Keeping you posted from here at Canal Junction