Why is Cheese so Stretchy?

I came home from taking a bike ride one day when I saw my little sister eating a grilled cheese sandwich. As I sat down I saw how stretchy the cheese in her sandwich was! That gave me a good idea for a new blog post – Why is cheese so stretchy?!

It turns out that milk has proteins that are made up of coiled up chains of molecules. When cheese is made these proteins are separated out during the curdling of the milk. To make curds this process uncoils the chains of molecules and turns them into long strands, which are repeatedly compressed and stretched.

So there you have it that’s why cheese is so stretchy!

A Thanksgiving Bear Visit!

Last night a bear came up on our deck to have a snack. It tore apart our planter and bent the metal pole down that we use to hang our bird feeder on. Before it left it broke open our bird feeder to get its prize! In Virginia bears don’t really hibernate so one must have wandered onto our deck which is 10 feet tall looking for food.