I made soap! It really works! I've been reading up on this and I finally tried it. Basically you mix fat and lye and stir until it emulsifies (you better read about it before you try it-- there are lots of websites that explain how to do it. Here's one). Then I poured it into a box lined with plastic.
Once the water is heated up to 110-120 degrees turn the heat off and, using a blender or food processor, blend five cups of non-instant powdered milk (or if you are using instant powdered milk, use six cups) into the warm water. Sorry about the fuzzy picture. That's what happens when you try to photograph and work at the same time. But it does show that I'm blending the powdered milk into the warm water.
Other than water there are two more ingredients-- powdered milk and active culture yogurt. I use non-instant powdered milk. I've used the instant powdered milk and it works fine also, you just need to use more of it. You'll also need some yogurt as starter, shown here is Dannon All Natural Nonfat Yogurt. I've also had very good luck with Aldi's plain yogurt. As long as it says it has active cultures and is plain yogurt (not fruity and sweet) it'll work great. You only need a heaping spoonful and if you make yogurt regularly you can save a spoonful from your old batch to make a new batch.
I was digging new garden beds and the chickens figured out pretty quickly that the spade was opening up new pathways to worms. It felt like "party in the garden."
I've never liked dishrags, they are too big. I've always liked more sponge-size cleaning aids. At the same time I hate the sour/nasty/bacterial build-up inevitable in a sponge. I was looking at a website (down---to---earth.blogspot.com) and she was knitting (idiot easy!) cotton dishrags. They reminded me of my grandfather knitting the exact same type of dishrags after his stroke, in order to get control of his hands. So I was thinking how nice it would be to make my own dishrags and DUH it occurred to me to make them smaller. I LOVE THEM! I have a pile of them and can either throw them in the wash after use or hang them up to dry. AND they are 100% cotton so they'll just get thrown in the compost eventually. They are garter stitch, so it is a very bumpy surface for scrubbing. They work really really good.
I love low tech solutions to ongoing problems. For years I have used a heating pad for a place to set raising bread or incubating yogurt. The heating pads they now sell have an automatic off switch, so they just don't work that great as a warming pad for food. Here's a new solution-- a warming box, otherwise known as a cooler. A cooler is just an insulated box. If it has cold stuff in it it'll keep it cool; if it has warm stuff in it.... The pictures show a pot full of bread dough and a mason jar of very warm water. I put it in the bread dough and the hot water in the cooler, shut the lid and I've got the perfect warm spot for raising dough. I've also used this set up for making yogurt, it works perfectly.
I love to knit. I adore knitting with soft yarns. These are both made of angora, which is bunny fur. I spun the yarn for both of these projects. DD#3 wanted fingerless gloves. They seriously look like bear paws with claws. They are so soft and yummy to wear. The intricate cable is going to be a blanket, or a shawl, or something like that. It is a complicated pattern I've wanted to do for years and I think it is really interesting looking.
This is my new compost bin, not a concentration camp. A friend (thanks M~!) gave us a van load full of cinderblocks. Our wire compost bin was overflowing and I was thrilled to take the blocks off her hands. As you can see the chickens made themselves right at home. Eventually I will have three bins, the plastic bags are where the second bin, the dry materials bin, will be. The eventual goal is to have three bins. One active bin, one storage materials bin and one bin of finished compost. These three bins are rotated as needed (ie I throw compost into the first bin for an entire year then ignore it until it turns into compost, while I start a new active pile in another bin).
Here's my baby plants. Or maybe I should say 'here are my plants I'm babying along.' I have several trays that are under grow lights/in a sunny window (if the weather is cold outside) or (if the weather is gorgeous, like today) sitting in the sun out on my lawn. I've really struggled with starting plants from seeds. It has taken me years to get to the point where I feel like I have any idea what I'm doing. Like Thomas Jefferson said, "I'm a very old man but a very young gardener." You can see the plants are in either toilet paper tubes or in rolls of newspaper. I like to have them separated into individual plants. When they get too big for their britches I put them in a bigger pot.
