Surrounded by Suds

A while back, I asked my family if they would like some soap, since my husband was almost out, and I had to make him some.  The response was an enthusiastic "yes", so I got to work.  It took three days, but I've made soap for everyone who asked for it.  Want to see the results?

First, for my husband, I made some manly man soap.  I used three colors, blue, black and white, with an in-the-pot swirl and some decoration on top.  This was after pouring:

And this is after setting overnight, insulated.  If you're wondering what the mold is, I used an old brownie pan.  I go all out here, you know.  No expense spared, and whatnot.

It was so pretty, I didn't want to cut it, but I had to.  Sniff.  I cut into manly 7 oz chunks.  It was pretty on the inside too.

Glamour shot!!

I also made my dad and brother some soap.  Also pretty manly.  They got the same scent, but I interpreted it in two different ways, just for the hell of it.

Textured top

The scent was called Ocean something something, so I thought I would try to make it look like the sea with foamy waves.

In retrospect, I should have chunkied up the blue part a bit more, but oh well.  Live and learn.

The next one I made was the other version of the same scent.  This time I went for the lagoon look with bubbles.  Or something like that.

After pouring:

After setting overnight:

Glamour shot!!

Then I did a soap for my brother's girlfriend.  She picked the fragrance, Arabian Spice, so I tried to capture the essence of Marrakesh/Istanbul/downtown Ft. Lauderdale

Wait....scratch that....maybe not downtown Ft. Lauderdale.

I had to use a dark base for this one, as the scent she chose discolors to brown.  I'm hoping the red color stops it a bit.  I added the pink and green swirls for interest.  I'm hoping they'll pop a little more as the soap matures. 

Oh, and that's glitter on the top there, not soda ash.  It's hard to get it to be glitzy on camera.  I asked nicely, but no dice.

Last but not least, I did a tricky one for my mom.  She wanted lavender.  I entertained the thought of putting a lavender swirl into a white base, but it seemed boring to me, so I did this instead:

After pouring:

It's a double-pour, where I swirled white in the purple and purple into the white, put a piece of cardboard down the middleish of my homemade mold, and poured both colors at the same time.  Then I swirled the top.

After overnighting:

Glamour shots!!

I thought this one was pretty cool.

Close up!!

And I meant to make soap for my kids' teachers, but there's not enough time for it to cure, and I didn't want to take the risk that they'd use it when it wasn't ready (even though I would warn them not to), so I went the safe route and did some melt and pour. 

I made them all baskets with three soaps, a jar of bath salts, and a handmade lip balm. 

Glamour shot!

I think they came out pretty nicely, and I hope the teachers like them.  I don't know about you, but I don't like to just give the teacher money for a gift.  There's no thought involved that way, you know?  I used to have to explain it to my kids when they'd get the note from the "class mom", that we weren't going to participate in the money thing, but now I've got them trained.  They bring home the note, look at it and say "Well, we're not going to do that!" and chuck it in the recycle bin.  Yeay!

And those are my soapy adventures.  I like making soap. It's half science and half art, and that's just right up my alley.  I thought everything came out pretty well, considering this is only the fourth time I've made soap.  For now, it's all setting in my sewing office room, smelling nice.  In four weeks it'll be ready to give out, and everyone will smell beautiful for a long time.  Yeay for smelling nice and healthy skin!

Have a great day everyone!

Poults are Funny People

This is my first time with turkeys, and it's been quite a learning experience.  They've been pretty easy to take care of, and need similar things to chickens.  The thing I have discovered, which I pretty much knew, was that  I can't keep them apart from the chickens.  Everyone says to keep them separate, but ain't gonna happen.  I guess they'll have to build up an immunity to the bad chickeny germs and worms, or not survive.  At this point, they've been in with the chicks since they could hop their brooder, which was at about 2 weeks.  I'll go in to check on everyone, and the poults will be in with the chicks, co-mingling and whatnot.

Darned co-mingling.

What I have learned is that they've got quite the personalities.  It was a bit surprising to discover, and it seems that turkeys are, well, quite personable.  And quirky.  I like quirky, so they've got my attention.

There are five now, as I did lose one.  One is a broad breasted white, and four are Narragansetts.  The white is destined to be Thanksgiving (don't let him know).  The Narragansetts are for breeding, though I may not keep all four (don't tell them, either).  It's going to depend on how they fill out.

I'm fairly sure that out of the 4 Narragansetts, 2 are toms.  They started displaying very early in their little lives, and I know it was two of them doing it.  For weeks they would put on quite a show for me, no matter what I was doing.  I'd look at them and they'd be puffed up like a peacock and strutting around.  The males would also sit right on my hand when I picked them up and seem to want to be stroked.  If I did this, they'd make a funny purring/chirp.  Kind of like "Aaaaahh, that's nice!".  Very funny, really.

The girls (or what I am assuming are girls) want none of that.  And the white one, well, that one's a bit schizophrenic.  I think it must be all of that breeding.

Yep, you're seeing turkeys on the roof.  Apparently, turkeys like to fly.  I was surprised by that, I'll admit.  I figured that because they're going to be such large birds, they'd fly as well as chickens, which is not so well.  But no, they're fliers like guineas.  Who knew?
The poults are 6 weeks old now.  Their house needs to be put into position (more on that later), and then outside they go.  I am looking forward to it, since whenever I go into the garage-barn to check the chicks and turkeys in their brooders, there's usually a turkey or two flying right across my face.  Or doing this:

And it wouldn't bother me that they are so far above my head, but for the fact that they're -um-indiscriminate poopers and like to let it out anywhere and everywhere.  Which might mean my head one day.  Which I will not appreciate.  So yeah, I am anxious for them to be outside full time. 

On the flip side, I have discovered turkeys are trainable.  Not a one of them has a name yet, but if I call "Turkey, turkey turkey", they come running.  It's also funny to imitate their many different whistles.  They have quite a vocabulary.  When you've been listening to them as long as I have, you can recognize which call means "Where are you?", and then imitate it.  They come running when you do.

Ah yes, turkeys.  My little feathered shadows.  Where I go, they go.  They have accepted me as the head of the flock without question, and act accordingly.  Funny little guys and gals, they are.  I would definitely recommend them. 







**Oh, and if you do decide to have turkeys, I wholeheartedly recommend the book Not Just for Christmas by Janice Houghton Wallace.  It's written for a British audience, but she's had more insight into turkeys than I have found anywhere.  You can tell she truly appreciates them.  Just my two cents!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

One of the many, many jobs of the homesteader seems to be "potscrubber".  In the heat, I wind up scrubbing out feeders and waterers a million times a week, it seems.  I find the galvanized feeders to be the easiest to scrub out, but I only own a few of those.  Most of what I own are the feeders/waterers made from black rubber.  I find them indispensable--in the winter, if anything gets frozen to them, they can simply be twisted or banged and the stuff comes out and the dish is undamaged.  They're fairly lightweight, very sturdy, and very easy to move, depending on the size of the bucket, and they can take quite a bit of abuse.  The only thing I don't like about them is how dirty they get.

 
Unfortunately, over time, the rubber etches and the dirt is ground in.  It gets very hard/impossible to remove, even with scrubbing with a stiff brush under running water (ask me how I know that).  Since it's important that the dishes be kept clean, it means they need to be cleaned a lot.  Especially for these guys:

As you can see, they are standing on their feeding platform, waiting for breakfast.  They don't care if they stand on the platform or in the bowls.  Nor do they care if their feet are dirty or if they poo everywhere in the meantime.  So yep, I'm cleaning their bowls on a regular basis, because they get gross.

Well, last night as I was standing in the stream, scrub brush in hand, I had an epiphany.  If I would like to cut down on having to scrub the darn things so often, I need to get them up off the ground (that wasn't the epiphany, I already knew that).  But there was no way to do that, being as though the fence is wire and not sturdy enough to support the weight of the bowls.  Then it hit me: build a rack (that was the epiphany, just in case you were wondering).

Well duh.  It never occurred to me before, but there it was.  So I built it out of scraps, and this is what I came up with:

Taa daa! 

Ok, side shot:

Taa daa again!

All it is is a 2x3 leftover, with a cross brace on the top, like a "t".  From the short part of the "t", the two long arms project, angled slightly to hold the bowls better.  The angle is like this \/.  Then there's a little stop on the end, so the bowls don't fall off.  The whole contraption is screwed to one of the feeding platforms, which is the only sturdy thing in there that will hold it.

So now the feed bowls can be picked up overnight so they will stay cleaner.  Of course, It would help if Maybelle would stop standing in the bowl to eat,

but a girl can only ask so much, right?  Any little bit helps.

Snippets on a Sunday

Busy, busy busy!  I've sat down to post half a hundred times, only to think twice about it, since I had something else I should have been doing.  UGH!  Here's the lowdown on what's been doin':

1. Weeding.  And weeding.  And weeding.  Oh, and mulching, too.  I am determined not to have the same weed fiasco that I had last year, and I won't give in.  As a result, I am happy to say that things are really coming along in the gardens.  Yep, I will post pictures, I promise.
2. Building again.  I never seem to avoid it, do I?  This time, it's a new duck house, since the duck population exploded this year (thanks Ginger and Maybelle).  It's gotten too tight in the old house, so a new house is being put together.  I do love building, so I'm super excited about this.
3. Oh, and building some more.  The Goaty Girls are seemingly going sort of stir crazy in their pen, so I decided to give them something to do.  I built a balance beam for them, and am working on a platform made from old pallets for them to climb on. 
4. Planning the new feeding system for the Goaty Girls.  I'd like to get the bowls up off the floor and make them stations to eat at.  I'm formulating it in my head, and once I do, I'll put it somewhere official, like on a napkin.  Then I'll build it.  Oh, yeay!
5. The second batch of meat chicks are nearing 3 weeks, and about to go outside.  I don't doubt that this will come as a blow to the other chickens and turkeys in the brooder area, as they all enjoy visiting one another all day long.  Half the time I go in there, and there are turkeys flying over my head, and chickens fleeing before me.  No--no one stays in their box.  It's a free for all all day long.
6. Speaking of turkeys, we lost one this week.  There were 6, two of which were broad breasted whites.  One was always small.  This past week he/she just looked bad, with ruffled feathers and kinda mopey, so I knew it was coming.  He/she finally gave up the ghost this week.  It was sad, but not unexpected, as I CANNOT keep the chickens and turkeys apart to save my life.  Luckily, the other 5 look good.  The one white is HUGE, and the 4 Naragansetts seem to be happy and healthy.
7.  Dixie has gone to her new home, leaving just Milo and Thor here.  They don't seem to notice her absence and have been doing their normal kitteny things.  Their mama, Ellie, is healing very nicely from her spay and should be ready to go back outside full time soon.  Won't that be a surprise to her??
8. Milo and Thor seem to have gotten the hang of the litter box at last, making me think I can put the curtains back up in the living room.  Maybe, baby.
9. It rains here.  Every day.  Everydangday.  It's getting old, and it's been hard to get really into projects when I have to stop for rain all the time.  I've pretty much resigned myself to getting wet when I work, that way I don't have to stop.  But it has been a challenge to stay motivated when it's grey and dull out.
10. The ducks and geese are molting, making it look like someone was attacked all over the yard.  Pretty!
11. The class chicks that were raised for the incubator lesson are possibly the dumbest chicks ever.  It's been 2 weeks since they were moved out of the brooder and into the coop.  Though they no longer think they live in the brooder, and don't try to get back in, they don't seem to realize that they live in the chicken house, either.  Instead, they get stuck in limbo every night and go nowhere.  Usually I find them huddled in a duck's food dish or along the path, like they have no home.  Every night I carry them to the coop.  I've never had a batch not get it like this batch isn't getting it.  The last record for figuring it out is 8 days, which they've blown past.   I'm going to start taking bets on how long it will be until they figure it out.  Anyone want to wager? 
12. I ordered soap supplies weeks ago, and Fedex still hasn't delivered them.  It's amazing to me, how slow they are.  The last status update was that the supplies were sitting on a truck, waiting to be delivered, which was 3 days ago.  Stupid Fedex.  Anyway, my husband is almost out of soap, and I was going to make some for my family.  I thought I'd do it while it was raining, but I can't without the supplies.  I am very eager to do this.  I feel soapy creativity coming on! 

I think that might be it.  It looks like possibly the sun is coming out, so I will try to get something done before it rains later.  I will be back!  Have a great day, friends!

Frum Tor

Heyo Bad Man.  Tor heer.

'Smee, Tor!

Iy borroed Bad Laydee's cumpyooter compootur   majik bocks to rite yoo a nowt.

Bad Laydee says dat Fryday is a big day for us threee.  Shee says its the day dat Iy has to go outsied.

Wy Bad Man, wy?

Dis my wy face

Shee also says dat its the day dat Dicksee gowes to hur new home.  That ok wif mee, Bad Man.  Shee bited mye tayles too much.

OUCH!!

And shee aslo attakd atakked jumped on mee wif meny bites.

OOF!

UGH!

OOCH!!

Iy not liek hur so much for dat.

And it o.k. if you takes Mylow to outsied.  Hee looks nise,

but hees rellee vishus visheus rellee meen.  Seee?

But mee?  Iys not liek dat.  Iys a guud boy.  Shur Iy doos plaey wif my bruddur and sistur,

But dey mayked me doo it.  Iy not liek it so much. 

Yoo nowe wut I liek?  Sleeeping.  I liek sleeeping, and den yoo not nowe Iym eeven arownd.

Iy eeven sleeep wif peeples aslo.

And Iy not cumplane comeplayn say anyting wen dat litteler gurl raps mee up.

Seee mee sleeping?  Iy so inosent innoesent nise.


And Iy still neeed mye mama aslo.

Bad Laydee says we gots a bond, Bad Man.  Mebee its caus Iy sits wif hur wen she yooses the majik bocks.

Reelee Iy jus lookin owt the windoe

Mebee its caus Iy clime up hur pantses to saye heyo evury day.

Iy dunno.

But Iy promis promice swere Iy will not clime the screeen no mores, if yoo lets mee staey in.

Ooooopsee!

Iys comin bak doewn

O.K., Bad Man?  Mebee Iy eeven calls yoo Good Man frum noew on.

Ugh!  Dis camra is to clos to mye face!

.....But prolly not.

Dats beddur.  'S hard to taek piktchurs of meeself

Dats all Iy has to saey, Bad Man.  'Cept Iy luv yoo.

Dis is aslo mye Iy luv yoo face

Frum,  Luv
Tor