What to do at -35? Saponify.

Getting used to this weather. -35 only freezes my eyebrows, now. I'm down to my last gallon of frozen goat's milk and decided it would be a great day to make some more soap. Timing is everything when I do this and I'm not too great at it. Anyways, I did get 8 lbs. of soap made this morning. I made a 4 lb batch of lavender. I had run out of lavender flowers and ground up some lavender leaves that I had in the still room. Still smelled as sweet. Also did a batch with aloe vera and vitamin E. Thought this would be a great moisturizing bar. I had a bit of lavender soap left over and filled a few "novelty" molds.

My bar molds all tucked in for an overnight nap.

The hard part is waiting another six weeks for the soaps to cure before I can use them.

This is a picture of my kitchen after my honey has been working on it over Christmas. His present to me-to finally get the kitchen finished. Still have a ways to go, but it's so much nicer already. Note the cement countertop he made me. What a guy. P.S. Can anyone tell me how to put paragraph breaks in my blog? Hitting enter doesn't work anymore and my blogs just kinda run together without any paragraphs. Thanks.

Try Something New

Let's see a show of hands for everyone who has perused all 25 seed catalogs that have arrived. How many have made out orders for seeds already? I have been through the catalogs and instead of trying one new type of seed, I think I'm going to try quite a few. Here's some that look interesting-

(picture from Richter's Seeds) These are Red Pod Asparagus Beans. Aren't they lovely? I'd like to try Daikon radishes, Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce, Cossack Pineapple Tomatillo (these have a sweet, pineapple like flavor), and Rattail Radishes-look really interesting. For herbs I'd like to add-costmary (which I grew at my old homestead), fibre flax (because I don't have enough to do), banana mint-umm, and Orris. The catalogs are so full of new (or in some cases, very old) varieties. So many seeds, so little time.

Blessed New Year!

I could start the new year complaining about the weather. Uh...but part of my New Year's resolution is to stop complaining and work on a grateful heart. Look on the bright side-my mom says with weather this cold those nasty cold and flu viruses die. Getting outside every morning to do chores is a real push, but once out there it's very refreshing. With Christmas behind us, I'm going to start working on prepping my fiber. I have bags and bags of mohair, angora, alpaca and wool up in the cubby. I have plans and ideas and seems like this would be the ideal time to get going on these projects. This is some of the angora/mohair that I carded up yesterday.

I'd like to dye and card up some of the alpaca so I can try doing some felting with it. That will be next. This is so much fun. Spinning and carding are very addicting. From Glory Farm-Blessed New Year.

More Christmas

So, it's just about Christmas and that's what had been taking up time and energy around here. Thought I'd just share a few photos from the farm and Christmas pics.

We saw the lights of Bentleyville. Caroled all around our small town. That's a picture of my goat while she had her freedom. Found out she's been head-butting the rabbit cages in her spare time to knock their Bunny Bits on the ground. She broke up two rabbit cages so now she's in solitary. Today's Christmas pics. It's snowing a snow just like the Christmas movies. Big flakes floating softly to the ground. And the last pic is my new waffle iron. Isn't it cool? I can make animal shape with the waffle just like I attempt to do with the pancakes. Have a very blessed Christmas.

Growing Winter Greens

Another sustainable food source experiment. I've wondered how to keep greens available during the winter months if, for some reason, we were unable to purchase them. We live where -40 is a temperature we see a few times in the winter. Somewhere I read (could have been at Herrick Kimball's site http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/) or I may have picked up some book I have, anyways, way back early homesteaders would dig up turnips, put them in pots and bring them in the house for the winter. The greens would grow and they would harvest them, then they would grow again. I decided to try it with beets.

I only have one, but it's growing quickly and I've been nibbling on it. I suppose if I were serious about it, I would have five or six in the house. Another source of fresh greens are sprouts. Use whole wheat, alfalfa, radish, onion, lentils, etc. Place in a quart jar, soak in the jar for 5-10 hours or so. Rinse, put cheesecloth, held in place by a canning rim, on the top of the jar. Place at a downward angle for drainage. Rinse sprouts 2-4 times a day. Once sprouted, they are full of vitamins. This is a good way to use up extra seed you may have harvested. God Bless.