Comments, questions, and answers

I have had several sweet comments on my last several blog post. It is nice to know people still read the nonsense.
Jennifer has posed a few questions on my soap making post asking about molds and such. I use really just what ever looks like it will hold the amount of soap I am making at the time. It may be a Velveeta cheese box or a soup box I have cut an taped to reshape into the size I want at the moment. A nice wooden mold would certainly be nice. Maybe I can ask hubby to make me one when he gets in the shop this winter to finish Liam's toy box. I am gonna plunder around some yard sales and such too and try to find a cheap miter box with a back saw to cut soap. I know at some hardware stores you can buy the cheap inaccurate ones that are not good for precision wood work and that is kinda what I am lookin for. It would make for cutting nice even slices of soap. Not that I mind if my soap is funky shaped. Also in soap making I do not keep an extra set or special set of pans dedicated just to soap making. After all it is just soap and most of us use soap of some sort to wash our dishes so does it matter that you have had soap in your pan. Although to make soap you do need to steer clear of anything aluminum. I use stainless steel stock pots to make soap. I think my small one holds about 3 or 4 quarts. Just need enough room to hold all the soap volume when it is mixed together. I need to buy another stick blender for soap and lotion makin tho. I gave Amoy my other one to use to make food for lil Liam at home. That lil man is growing way too fast. Cant wait to see him again in April for his birthday. And yes Jenny we think that lil fellow is pretty special too. I sure have missed you as well and all our long fone calls till the fone battery dies. I will call you someday when I can get time to stay home for more than a few busy days at a time. Geez, I ain't even home right now. House sitting again.
Deja I am glad the pina colada jam turned out good for ya. I am not sure about cutting the sugar in jam and jelly recipes. It has something to do with the pectin/sugar ratio that makes it set nicely without being tough and rubbery. Also when buying sugar for jam and jelly making, make sure it is "cane" sugar. You can get both cane and beet sugar. They differ in molecular structure and beet sugar will not set in jams and jellies. I know at one time I noticed 25 lb bags of sugar at a Kroger store and thought about getting it as the price was much cheaper. But after I got to looking closely, no where on the bag did it say cane sugar so I was suspicious that it was beet sugar and decided it was not worth the money not to mention a product that would be for the most part useless to me. So be aware when purchasing sugar.

Here it is winter time. Not to mention near the end of January already. Its about time to get started pruning grape vines and fruit trees. Maybe we can manage to get those chores behind us in a couple weeks. Weather permitting of course. This chick don't do well in really cold weather. I know what happened to me last time I got cold. I got this damn flu, sinus infection and bronchitis. I am better but no where near well from it. It seems this congestion just keeps hanging on. I don't sleep really well anyway and sure as heck don't when I wake myself up coughing. My ribs feel like someone took a ball bat to them. But trees and vines need pruned. I am not by any means a pro at tree pruning but will take advice from someone who has cared for fruit trees successfully. Our buddy Butch in west KY has many wonderful trees and his advice it to make sure there is good air circulation inside the trees. He highly recommends taking the center out of most fruit trees as that allows sunlight and air to get into the foliage and keeps down diseases. So when I prune ours that is my goal. Hopefully when we get this process started I can post some pictures. OK I know you are laughing because I always forget the camera when we do these kind of things. Maybe I can remember this time. Just maybe. When I prune grape vines I intend to start more cuttings from the Concords. I have a friend in Virginia that wants some starts and hopefully I can manage to get them going for her. Grape vines are pretty easy to start from cutting in spring. As soon as the cuts are in soil and in a warmer place they will start making leaves and thus make roots. Its winter time and I am getting itchy to get in dirt. Might be while getting in dirt tho as the weather forecast is for extreme cold and more snow for us in East Ky. I think Rodger said they have about 2 inches at home right now. In west Ky it is cold, not unbearable, just cold but no snow. I should be hibernating by now. Such is life..

Not much else happening around here. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Beautiful weather and piddling inside

Our weather this weekend has been beautiful for January weather. Warm and sunny, a little breeze blowing. Nice weather to be out. On Saturday Rodger went to the crib and shelled some corn for the chickens. They do love their corn in cooler weather. He had picked up a bale of straw to put in their building for bedding on Friday. He brought the corn up and put it in the feed barrel and told me he was going to clean out the chicken house before spreading the straw. I went out to help out a lil bit. Dang I had a lot of chickens in there that did a lot of poopin. We took out 3 tractor buckets full to the garden to compost. Thas a lot of poop. I spread the new straw in the building and in the nest boxes. I had one lil hen that sat on a nest in one of the nest boxes and watched us clean all around her. I got straw put in the rest of the boxes and picked her up and set her in a new clean box that I had just fixed. She seemed happy for a minute. Then she got mad and raised a big fuss. The big rooster came to check on her and when he went in the building she calmed down. I guess she was wanting his attention. None the less he alerted all the hens to come check out their new digs. And dig they did in the new straw. They seem to be happy campers for now. I do feel better with them having plenty of straw to keep warm in the cold weather that is coming our way the first part of the coming week. Most nights are supposed to be in the teens and low 20's. Highs in the day around 30. A bit nippy. Tonight when I went to close up the chickens Possum (the cat) was in the building with the chickens. He was sleeping good in the straw beside the big rooster. It is funny to see. Not a likely pair.
We didn't do much today other than eat and nap. Rodger did get some of our tax stuff ready to take to the lady that does our taxes. I tinkered with making shampoo and played with some melt and pour soap that I had won on this site. I love reading the blog on this site too. And when I make soap I use the lye calculator on here as well. If you comment on their blog post they put your name in a drawing on Friday for a goody pack. It can contain samples and partial used products that they have made practice batches with in their lab. So I won a huge chunk of melt and pour soap (white), and a mold, a baggie of rose buds, and calendula petals. I was tickled to death. So I got the soap out today and the mold and decided to make some of the soap and scent it with the lavender essential oil  and some coconut fragrance oil that I had. I think they turned out kinda neat. And they do smell heavenly.

My new fangled soap on an antique doily on an antique dish. I like the simple look of this. Well I guess I am just a simple country girl. By the way this is the same shape as the lotion bars that I made this past week too. They turned out wonderful. I love the moisturizing layer they leave on the skin.
While I was in the piddling mood today I made the shampoo that hopefully will help Rodger's dry hair. I was a little leery of this recipe when it said to mix oil into water and soap mixture. But it did emulsify just fine and stayed emulsified. So when he showered this evening he used the shampoo and so far so good. So here is the simple recipe for shampoo. I know ya have to buy some of the products but you can make your own castile bars and use those I am sure. But this time I bought and used the liquid castile soap.

Shampoo for long dry hair

1/4 cup distilled water
1/4 cup Dr Bonner's castile liquid soap
2 Tablespoons of sweet almond oil
1/4 teaspoon essential oil of choice ( I used orange)

Mix the water and liquid soap in small bowl and stir in oils till well mixed. It will have a milky color. Put in old shampoo bottle and shake before using. Use as you would any other shampoo.

Now what to make next. I think maybe some homemade toothpaste. I am thinkin simple coconut oil and baking soda. Both are good for the teeth and antibacterial. Maybe I make a small amount and try it myself and see how I like it. As of right now we are using Tom's propolis and myrrh toothpaste. I like it really well, no fluoride, cinnamon flavor. Nice!!

Not much else happening around here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Its getting closer.....

...really right around the corner. Fall is here and the spooky thing that is right around the corner is winter. Our weather here in Ky is going to turn colder this weekend. Something tells me we have but very few more nice warm days left this fall. Knowing this we have been trying to get little things done an loose ends tied up so to speak. I have most all the peppers picked off an taken care of now, I hope. This is what I faced last weekend. We picked 3 bushels total of ripe an green bell peppers.

So with Rodgers help I cut the peppers and took out the seeds and he ran them thru the food processor with the slicing blade in place and put the sliced peppers in the dehydrator. That batch was done by Monday evening and we did more on Monday and  reloaded the dehydrators. Those finished on Tuesday and I quit! I am done with peppers.We took care of 1 1/2 bushels of bells. The jalapenos were deseeded and put in the freezer for poppers later on. I had nearly 1 1/2 bushels of peppers left an Rodgers sister and a friend of ours took those. IF we don't get frost soon there will still be more peppers as the plants have many really small ones on and still blooming. I have totally stopped messing with cayenne peppers because I have 2 gallon dried an that is enough to do me  5 years or more.
On Sunday as I was cleaning the peppers Rodger cleaned out the hen house. It was not bad in need of cleaning it was just time to clean it out before cold weather comes. Besides we want to use the manure to mix in with the soil to get the grapevines off to a good start. Those need to be in the ground asap so they can get established before frost knocks em back.
With the frost warnings an cold weather headed our way its a race to get the sweet potatoes dug before the cold gets here. They will still have to cure so at night they will need to be covered with a tarp or something to prevent them from freezing. Hay or straw will also work if it is removed during the warm part of the day so the taters dry well and the skins toughen up. Then they can be stored away for winter in a dry cool place about 50 degrees. Sweet taters do not keep in a root cellar due to high humidity.
We used most of the straw we had for bedding in the chicken house after Rodger got it cleaned out. He put all the manure in the tractor bucket to take it to the garden and pile it so it can compost and some be used in planting grapevines and probably making another raspberry patch.

I like having my chicken house in the backyard for several reasons. One is the chickens can be close and have some protection from predators. Luna keeps a close eye on them here. It is easier for me to see to their feed and water in bad weather as well. Not to mention caring for the little ones. The momma hens do a good job of teaching the lil ones how to scratch for food. AND I get to enjoy the lil fellers as they grow up.

The little one above is ducking back under his momma where it is nice an toasty on this cool evening.

The one chick in the back is under his momma sleeping and he is a good size fellow too. The dorkin in the front has 2 babies, one of which is the white one standing, an she has also adopted one that was weaned already. She just took up with this hen an her lil ones.
They didn't know what to think of a house with a naked floor. They got busy moving the straw around after I got it put on the floor all neat like. I keep a pitchfork handy to fluff the straw daily so they have a fresh layer. Next spring when we take this manure an straw out of the chicken house it will be very fine and perfect to go in the garden as the chickens have pecked all the seeds from it.
I spent most of today making a big batch of chili to can up. That got some of the peppers out of the freezer. I ended up with 13 quarts of chili ready to heat an eat. How convenient , huh?
I will be going to a get together this weekend in central KY for homesteaders and folks that want to become more self sufficient. I am taking a couple quarts of chili with me to have out there for lunch among other goodies to eat.  I will be doing a chicken butchering demo and a soap making demo on Saturday. I think we are also butchering a goat for the family who is hosting the event. Several folks are interested in learning how to do butchering. So hopefully some new folks can go home satisfied that they learned a new skill.  Rosie will also be showing us how to make salves and tinctures using native herbs. Also she is going to show us how to make paint. Now how cool is that? It is always nice to meet other folks who raise all their food an homestead like we do here. I will also be going to an Amish surplus store nearby there. It is really a neat place to shop. It is kinda like a scratch an dent grocery store. They also stock bulk items like wheat, buttermilk powder, powdered cheese an gallon buckets of coconut oil that is very inexpensive as compared to what we pay near here. I will likely post some photos of the event when I get home. But this is my one weekend this year to go have fun and visit with some friends I have made online thru BHM magazine forum. 
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Another batch of soap

I love learning new things an playing with this soap making process. I had the idea to make some soap for the guys to use after work to remove junk an smells. I have read that coffee added to soap will do the trick. So today I made a batch of coffee/chocolate soap.

 You can see the grounds of coffee in the soap and gosh does it ever smell good. The whole house smells like chocolate and coffee.

 Here is the recipe:

Coffee and chocolate soap

28 oz of lard
2 oz coconut oil
2 oz olive oil
2 oz Shea butter
 
4.56 oz of lye
11.22 oz cold strong coffee

Additives: 1 tablespoon fine ground coffee, 1 tablespoon Hershey's baking chocolate 

Weigh out the lye an coffee and add the lye slowly to the coffee and stir gently till all lye is in an dissolved.Set aside to cool.
Weigh out the lard, olive oil, coconut oil an Shea butter in a plastic bucket or bowl that you intend to make the soap in. Measure out the fine ground coffee and chocolate and set this aside.

Melt oils in kettle on stove top or in microwave in short burst till all the fats are melted and blended.
With a thermometer check temp of lye solution and fat solution, both should be around 120 degrees an within 5 degrees of each other. When the temps are correct put stick blender in the oil and start to blend as you slowly add the lye solution. When all the solution is in the fats blend about another minute to help saponify the fats. Let rest for about 3 minutes an blend again about 30 seconds, repeat this procedure till the soap is at a medium trace. With the blender on add coffee an chocolate powders and blend well. Soap should be at a good trace by this point. Pour soap into prepared molds and cover the surface with plastic wrap. This will help prevent soda ash from building on the surface of the soap as it hardens. Cover with a cloth to maintain heat so it cools slowly. Once soap is set after 24 hours, remove from mold an cut into bars.

Let the soap cure for at least a week before using it. The soap gets harder as it ages as well which makes it last much longer in the shower.

The herbal healing soap I made over the weekend looks nice and I love it. It leaves the skin moist an not sticky. Lathers really well and leaves very little fragrance behind.

Now what else can I make? Maybe I will make some lotion next, or body butter, or..............well the ideas are endless.

The weather has been just beautiful the past few days, sunny an cool. Great to be outside unless the fall blooming plants get you down. Well that leaves me in here looking out I guess. I sure don't need bronchitis. Rodger went to mow around the big corn field this evening after supper an a bit ago when he came in his hands were ice cold. Not long till we have frost an we need to dig our sweet potatoes before frost. They should be nice size by now with the rain we have had. We shall see.

Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A day of rest

It is Saturday an our day of rest here. I haven't done much today, got up late, had my coffee an by then it was noonish. We had veggie soup for lunch and Rodger took another nap. I decided I was gonna make a batch of soap. I had my recipe and all the stuff so it was easy to put together.

The recipe for herbal soap:

8 oz coconut oil
8 oz olive oil
16 oz lard
2 oz Shea butter

4.8 oz of lye
11.2 oz liquid

herbs used

2T chamomile
2T round leaf plantain
2T comfrey leaf
2T golden seal

Grind herbs pretty fine and use half the dried herb mix to make  tea for the soap liquid. Steep the dried herbs in about 21/2 to 3 cups boiling water for about 30 minutes. Strain out the herbs an then weigh 11.2 oz of tea for your soap liquid part. After teas is cold, stir in 4.8 oz of lye slowly as this will get very hot. Let sit to cool down to about 120degrees or so. Weigh an melt all the fats together and allow them to cool to same temp as lye/tea solution. When both have cooled put your stick blender in the oils and hold it at an slight angle and slowly pour in the lye solution and blend the soap till all the oil is incorporated and no oil floats on top, just a couple minutes.Turn off blender and let sit for 5 minutes, stir again, repeat this process till the soap traces which may take about 30 minutes or so. Once the soap traces blend in the remaining dried herbs and pour the soap into you selected an prepared mold. I cover the top of my soap with saran wrap and lay a towel over the top to insulate it. This helps it retain heat to set an cure better. Kinda looks like butter. Smells great tho!

Tomorrow I will remove the layer of plastic and remove the soap from the mold an cut it into bars and let it air dry and cure, then its ready to use. All the herbs that I used in making the tea for this batch of soap have healing an soothing properties for the skin. And the addition of Shea butter will make it a moisturizing soap as well. I am excited to try it. I have a ton of other ideas for adding things to homemade soaps. I would like to make a batch and add dry ground coffee after it traces for hand soap to remove grim an smells from the hands. Once you know the basics of soap making the possibilities are endless.

I also made a loaf of honey oatmeal bread this afternoon too. It was so dang good hot from the oven with butter all over an sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Yummy!!

Not much else happening around here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

It sure looks like summer here

And its only the end of March. All the fruit trees here have bloomed out and now starting to lose their bloom. We have had frost advisories the past couple nights but we didn't get any here at the house. I have peas, carrots, onions, and lettuce coming up in the garden. Our forsythia and Spirea bushes have bloomed out and look so pretty. AND the dandelions in the yard popped up after  Rodger mowed Sunday night. The weather has been nice the past couple days tho, not too hot, just right like baby bears porridge.

This spirea bush is one my aunt gave me last spring and this is the first year it has bloomed here. It is also called Bridal vail.

 

The forsythia is planted in a row at the end of the driveway and I hope in a few years it will block the view from the road to the house.

 

 

 My zinnias that my friend Deb sent me seed for are coming up in the pots. Oh my, I sure think I put far too many seeds in there. Not sure where the heck I will plant those.

 

I have one whole flat of cabbage started and they are up already too. It takes the tomatoes a lil longer to sprout and get going.

 

 

Now tell me this ain't redneck? I think everyone needs a big azz bath tub in the middle of their herb garden. Well this is the one we took out of our master bath room. Soon as I get time it will get buried in the herb bed about where it is sitting and I intend to make a water feature with it. I think it is deep enough to maybe have a few gold fish in as well. It wont be so unsightly after it gets buried in the ground and trimmed out with rocks. But for now, I am just content to be redneck. As you can see in the picture above, some of my chamomile has jumped the fence and is growing on the edge of the driveway now.

We got our hams trimmed and sliced an put in the freezer last evening. I had a good deal of fat and skin that was trimmed off. Rodger and I rendered it down this evening to make lard. I think the lard is good enough to use for soap making. I will wash it again tomorrow to get all the bits of meat out tho. When we get our beef I have ask the butchers to save all the fat for me to render for tallow for soap also. Should have a good bit of soap making material that is mostly free. And nothing beats free, right?

Not much else happening here. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Getting caught up

Things sure do have a way of backing up on the farm when you turn your head for a little bit. The past several days we have not been able to do much outside with all the rain. Then for me there is the inside stuff that needs to be done up. Routine house cleaning, laundry, ya know the kind of stuff. It was nice out today with sun and a lil breeze so I got some laundry done and hung outside to dry. I had gotten a clothes display rack from my aunt Ann so I could set it up on the back deck in summer to dry laundry instead of running the dryer for long periods of time. It works really nice too, heavy so the wind cant blow it over and very sturdy. I do love sheets dried out doors, makes them smell so nice.
A couple weeks ago Jason and I ordered a 250 ft roll of burlap to use some to make a shade cloth for the greenhouse. Imagine the mess that made when I unrolled it in the living room floor to cut the shade cloth. But I got the shade cloth made and cut 4 extra pieces about 8 ft long to make sun shades for the front porch this summer. The evening sun can get pretty hot out there in summer. Now all I need is to get the furrowing strips cut to length and the burlap tacked on those for shades. Seeing that I already had a mess in the floor I decided to use the 2 big king size comforters that I had bought about 2 years ago at the big 127 yard sale to make slip covers for the patio chairs. Got that done and the chairs will be just like new.  So there, a couple things done and the mess cleaned up.
I hope to be making some lye soap in a couple weeks. I have some lard that I will be using along with some oil that I need to wash. Yes you can wash oil. Sound strange? It is quite simple. You can wash any cooking oil to remove odors and bits of fried foods that end up in there. You will need a deep kettle to which you add about 1/4 as much water as used oil or lard. Heat till almost simmering and stir this mixture for about 5 minutes or so. The stirring helps the oil let go of the particles and they drop to the bottom into the water. Remove from the heat and let cool. If you are washing lard chill in the refrigerator till lard is hardened and gently remove the solid fat and blot the water off and store in a clean container. If you are washing oil, chill well and use a bulb baster to remove the oil from the water mixture or you can freeze the water and oil and once the water if frozen it can easily be separated from the clean oil. This is a good way to get more mileage from your cooking oil or clean it up to make soap. I have done this to remove odors from cooking oil and it ends up as good as new not to mention the money saved as expensive as good cooking oil has gotten.
In talking to some friends and chatting about whats for dinner I had mentioned that I had made some Cajun Pasta for supper last night. So here is the recipe/instructions for my version of quick Cajun pasta.

1 jar Alfredo sauce
1/4 cup chopped bell peppers
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 lb peeled and cleaned shrimp(small ones are best)
1/2 lb polish sausage, cubed
1 tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
1/2 teaspoon liquid shrimp and crab boil
Linguine pasta

In large kettle cook linguine pasta till tender while you make the sauce.
In skillet saute onion, peppers, shrimp and sausage in 3 tablespoons of butter till veggies are tender. Sprinkle in Cajun seasoning and shrimp and crab boil and stir well. Add the jar of Alfredo sauce and stir to combine and heat thru. Drain the pasta well and add pasta to the sauce using as much or as little as you like and stir to combine and heat. Serve with garlic toast and enjoy.
The above amount of shrimp and crab boil will give the dish a lil heat but not too hot. You can add more boil to make this dish hotter if you like really hot food. I like mine medium so I use about 1/2 teaspoon.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

They are messin with our stuff again

Leave it to some goober in gooberment to get the big idea that we lil peons don't need clean dishes anymore. Or that if we use the good stuff to get our dishes clean we don't have enough sense to dispose of the gray water correctly and it might make more algae grow in some stream somewhere. Goodness, ya would think they had better things to do. But apparently not. This is an article on how the makers of our cleaning products are now taking out the ingredient that makes them work. BUT restaurants can still get the good stuff. Yeah well they want to remove the sodium triphosphate from my dish soap or automatic dish tabs, so be it, I will just go to the near by hardware store and get a big ole box of TSP and add a teaspoon to the dishwasher and be done with it. I have started noticing that my Dawn even does not work like it used to. Not sure how many of you make your own soap and laundry detergent and such but I have in the past. Laundry detergent is really easy to make but combining products you can get really cheap.
For homemade laundry detergent you will need Fels naptha soap, ivory or Zote.Also you will need a box of washing soda, not baking soda. Washing soda is sodium carbonate and baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. So make sure it is sodium carbonate, washing soda. You can find it in most large stores in the laundry isle. You can also find the borax there. The recipe is as follows:

1/3 bar fels naphtha, grated fine
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax

Grate soap into a large kettle and add about 2quarts of water. On low heat stir till soap is dissolved well. I do this with a whisk. Add the washing soda and borax to the water and remove from the heat and stir really well till dissolved. When it is dissolved good add about another quart of water to the soap an stir well. Transfer the soap to a bucket that is capable of holding 3 gallon or so.  When you have the soap in your bucket stir in another 5 quarts of water and mix well. Let stand 24 hours before use. It will thicken a good bit. Once it sits for the 24 hours you can stir it again and pour into a jug to use. You will only need about a scant half cup for a normal size load of clothes.It can also be used as a pretreatment. When I make my own I add the detergent to the washer as the water runs in and about a teaspoon of TSP(tri- sodium phosphate) for heavy soiled work clothes. Normal light cleaning I skip the TSP. I can make 2 gallon of laundry soap for less than $3. AND I can add the quality ingredients that make it work. This detergent does not have a scent and it does not suds.  When the kids were small I made my own lye soap and used it for everything cleaning. Grate the lye soap fine and run in the blender with a small amount of water to make a thick liquid. I used it for dishes, laundry, mixed it in more water to mop floors.A rag dipped in lye soap water and wrung out will get nicotine off anything including windows. Yes windows! Wipe dry with paper towels.
Now to dig in my recipe idiot book and find my lye soap recipe and make me some soon. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella