“You need to filter the milk before putting it in the refrigerator,” Willow warned me.

“Not healthy to drink before that?” I asked.

“It probably wouldn’t hurt you, but why risk it?” Lily asked. “I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks.”

“Then let the milk sit overnight. Tomorrow you’ll need to remove the cream that rises to the top,” Yam said. “That’s important for the ice cream!”

“I thought you wanted me to go buy some cream from the village.”

“We changed our minds,” Lily replied.

“Fair enough,” I said shrugging my shoulders. I had to admit I was curious about this whole process. “I don’t have any jars to store the milk in.”

“We have a few pitchers in the storage device,” Lily said. “Could use them.”

“Works for me since they’re already here and it saves money,” I replied.

“Cheapskate!” the pixies chorused.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing!” Lily replied.

“Uh huh.”

“Focus Jase. Get a strainer out of storage and the pitchers,” Lily said.

“You’re just trying to distract me,” I teased.

“Not true. I just want ice cream and you’re holding up production!”

“Ah,” I replied picking up the storage device.

*

“Hi Marcus,” I greeted the merchant. “I’ve brought your cart back to you and the oil and cleaner.”

“Good, good,” Marcus replied. He gestured to one of his assistants to take the cart, oil, and cleaner. “I’ll test this later.” He looked down into the cart. “Where did you get these strange bottles?”

“Those are test tubes that I made from some glass tubing I have.”

“Ah.”

“They don’t leak. The stoppers do an excellent job unless someone tampers with them.”

“Excellent.”

“Marcus, do you have any half gallon jars?”

“I do. How many do you need?”

“Four,” I answered.

“Four cents for them,” the merchant replied. Lily was flying around us and held up both arms.

“Two cents,” I countered. I hated haggling. Lily nodded her approval.

“Three cents,” Marcus said.

“Marcus, cut me a deal. I might have something new when you return.”

“Hmm. What might you have?”

“A salve or jell for burns. If there is enough of the plant around, it could be used for other things too,” I replied. Lily cheered behind Marcus’ head. “I also want a pound of sugar if you have it.”

“Alright. I’ll go for that price for the jars,” Marcus replied. “Sugar is five cents a pound.”

“That’s expensive,” I remarked.

“That’s because it’s hard to get. You’re lucky it’s not higher priced.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“I’ll want to see a sample at least when we return,” Marcus said after a moment’s pause. He extended his hand. I shook it.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” I replied handing the merchant seven cents while another of his assistants got me four jars and the sugar.

*

“I just need to skim the cream from the top of the milk?” I asked Lily the next day.

“Why are you asking me? I’m not a dairy farmer,” the pixie replied. A wide grin split her face.

“It’s going to be one of those mornings, huh?”

“Could be,” Lily replied. “You’re correct though. Just skim the cream off the milk.”

“Alright,” I said. I took the time to scoop out the cream. “We have a quart of cream. Will that be enough for ice cream?”

“That’s more than enough. You only need two cups of cream to make a quart of ice cream,” Lily answered.

“Is there anything we can do with the rest of the cream?”

“You could add it to your tea or chicory.”

“No thanks. What else?”

“Aha!” Lily exclaimed a couple of minutes later.

“What?”

“You can use it to make a little butter and then use the buttermilk it also makes to make buttermilk biscuits and pancakes!”

“You looked up uses of butter on the network, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Lily admitted hanging her head.

“Chin up. I would have looked it up too if I was near the computer,” I replied sending loving thoughts to my familiar.

“Thanks,” Lily said throwing me a smile. “The butter can be used to make some other kinds of candy.”

“I should have known candy would enter the equation sooner or later.”

“Loving sweets is in a pixie’s nature.”

“Uh huh. So, having to make or buy candy is part of the price I must pay for having a pixie as my familiar?

“Yep!”

“Ok. How do I make butter with the cream?”

“Just churn it.”

“That’s not very helpful,” I replied.

“You can use the blender. It should make short work of turning the cream into butter and buttermilk.”

“What blender and what is a blender? Is that something we took from the lab too?”

“It’s a machine used to prep food and yes, we took a couple from the lab. One of them is a lab blender.”

“Neat. Help me find the one for cooking then.”

“Ok!” Lily joyously said flying toward the storage device.

*

“That’s going to be a mess to clean,” I said looking down into the blender after I took out the small chunk of butter and poured out the buttermilk into a cup. There was one cup of buttermilk and about half a cup of butter.

“Yeah. I’ll do that while you go downstairs and make an extract from the Joe Pye weed,” Lily offered.

“Thanks,” I replied. “Are you sure you got that?”

“I’m sure,” Lily said as I put the butter and buttermilk into the refrigerator.

*

Two hours later, Lily and I returned to the kitchen with a small bottle of the extract.

“Alright. Let’s make some ice cream,” I told Lily.

“The recipe I have says to use a teaspoon of vanilla extract, which we’re replacing with the Joe Pye weed extract. It smells the same, so hopefully it tastes the same,” Lily said. “Use the blender so you don’t have to do a lot of stirring yourself.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. I poured a teaspoon of the extract into the blender’s bowl. I added two cups of the cream three quarters of a cup of sugar, and two cups of milk to the bowl following Lily’s instructions. I used the lowest blender setting to stir the mixture until it thickened. “That didn’t take long.”

“Nope. Now put it in that plastic bowl with the lid, seal the lid, and then put it in the freezer!”

“Yes ma’am!” I teased my familiar following her directions. “How much do you think we have?”

“Enough to eat!” Lily cackled.

“Be serious.”

“About a pint.”

“Will that be enough to satisfy you and the others?”

“No!” Lily replied shaking her head.

“It’ll have to be for now. I need to work with the aloe, and I also want to work with the Chinese garden Trillium showed us.”

“Boo!”

“If the ice cream is good, I promise to make more. In fact, if it’s good, I’ll make a bunch at once so we can just leave some in the freezer.”

“Ok! That plan has my approval!”