Making Yogurt

I purchased my first yogurt making machine this past weekend- found it on craigslist!  Crazy the items you can find on craigslist- love it!  Anyway, today is the day the machine comes out of the box and into my kitchen.  Per the directions, seems pretty easy.  Add milk with a yogurt culture or some plain yogurt from the store.  Then fill up jars with the milk and culture and put into machine and plug in for 8 hours- seems easy enough!!  We shall see- will update here later on progress.  Also, on the agenda today:  pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins.  I have two very large pumpkins sitting on my kitchen table staring at me that came from the CSA.  My boys said they wanted a break from pumpkin soup, so bread and muffins it is, and of course more baby food!  Just found a very cool local food delivery website.  It is called Kitchen Table Cuisine, and they have everything from milk to veggies to flour to meats.  Also, found out there is a local grain mill on Edisto Island- hoping to get out there Friday and check it out.  There is also a local mill in Awenda (I think) called Anson Mill- he specializes in grits, flour, and cornmeal using ingredients/recipes from plantation times.  Very cool historically!  Update on the garbage output:  so far so good, only one 13 gallon trash bag- actually last week we made it 12 days on one bag.  Recycle, reuse, or compost, or feed to chickens!  Toilet paper rolls make excellent craft projects for kids,  Start a craft box in your house, and add empty containers, tissue rolls, milk cartons, egg cartoons, etc. to it for your kids' art projects or take and donate to art teacher at school.  They always need supplies like these.
Update on female/male chicken.  Yes, he/she still is having gender issues- poor thing.  It really cannot decide what it is suppose to be doing:  it crows, mounts other hens, but still lays an egg- every day!  Go figure!  From what I have read, this sometimes occurs with all hens, but they say he/she will never be able to fertilize the eggs.  So, basically we just have a cross-dressing chicken!!  Fun trying to explain that to four very curious boys.  I am planning to write more on composting later, right now must attend to hungry boys in my kitchen!