Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[Bigfamily4me]

Oh baby lady... I will have goat milk someday....

 

[babylady4]

Yeah and you are too dang far away for me to get it. I will have my own goats someday.... maybe some of those Nigerian Dwarfs since they have such high butterfat. Makes for a very smooth soap!

 

[bigzio]

Windy Afternoon All....I have Buckeyes Unk and think of them as a dual purpose breed, however the hardcover book Living with Chickens, that the APA sent me considers them a layer. Mine are excellent layers, laying large eggs their first year and X-large from their second year etc....they love to roam and prefer that over being confined....prolly the black breasted red game in them. They forage for feed well....they go to roost earlier than most, making locking up a easier task,than those that wait wait til the very last glimmer of light.

I have the turkey tent set and ready to go.....had to chase a few toms and hens away from where I was planning on settting up....hope they stop back in the morning....I'll be waiting!

I took a whole day of testing for the VA when I was a senior in high school. My dad was 100% disabled vet, and I had a free college ride from the Gov.....they told me I should go to school to be a Veterinarian....no way I was going to school for that many years! You have to love school for a commitment like that.

Bringing soap to the bash bl4?

bigz

 

[kristip]

Yeah and you are too dang far away for me to get it. I will have my own goats someday.... maybe some of those Nigerian Dwarfs since they have such high butterfat. Makes for a very smooth soap!

BL4... where are you located? I love good soap and would someday love to learn how to make it. What kind of scents are you doing? curious minds want to know!

 

[babylady4]

I am far away from you Kristip.... centrally located. I live roughly 30 min from the Bash site.

Making the soap is easy, getting the ingredients is the difficult part! I make cold-process soap using a basic recipe of lye, olive oil, coconut oil and palm oil. I have made soap using other oils as well (sunflower, avocado, wheat germ, etc...) but these recipes tend to cost a bit more due to the variety of oils used. Purchasing 100% lye can be difficult; it is used in the process of making meth so the gov regulates the purchase (I have managed to find a local hardware store that still sells 2 lb containers of lye). Getting the palm oil is also difficult, I have to order mine online. When I first started I used lard instead (it has the same chemical properties as palm oil in the soapmaking process), but lard is not as good for your skin as palm oil. For someone who would like to experiment, you can find all the oils at the supermarket and just substitute lard for the palm.


Right now, everything I make is experimentation in coloring, scent and ingredients. Like I said last year at the bash, I need people to test what I make and give me feedback on what they like/not like about the soap. One of these days I will get everything in order and start selling.

I have made floral, citrus, spice, and herbal scents. I am going to make a woodsy soap one of these days..... and I think chocolate would be wonderful....

BigZ, I plan on bringing more again this year. I'll perfect that coffee soap.

 

[EarthyLady]

I have thought many many many times about making my own lye soaps, but I'm just not ready to take the leap yet. I even looked into making my own lye. Seems easy enough! Especially since we use wood to heat anyway, i could come up with plenty of hardwood ash for it. I'm just waiting til my kids get older and I don't have to worry so much about having the chemicals around. For now i stick to the melt and pour soaps. That's something the kids can do with me and it's fun! I love making stuff that can be useful around the house. Otherwise I'm not much of a crafty kind of person. i used to do a lot of crocheting, but once kids came along, I just don't have time for fun projects so I've turned to useful frugal stuff to fill the void.

I am freezing today! I finally built a fire. It didn't help that i had to clean out the deep freezer today. I got the call yesterday that our 1/4 of grass fed beef was ready for pickup and I had just gotten those chickens butchered this weekend so I had to scramble to make room for the beef. i ended up posting on facebook to see if anyone wanted to split the 1/4 with me cause I just didn't have room. Plus, it was a huge cow this time! My 1/4 alone was 199 pounds!
Then I also put in our monthly Frontier co-op order today and had a bunch of orders from people coming in that I had to get taken care of. Plus schooling the 2 older kids.

The baby turned 7 months old today and she got her 2nd tooth as well!

That's about it for me. I need to figure out what we're doing for dinner and get on it.

 

[BlackBrookPoultry]

I trapped all my calls in a pen today and magically got 4 eggs instead of my usual 1. I'd love to find where they've been laying. Brats.

 

[Terri O]

Good afternoon all! I am going to try and post before the CRS gets me! ........UUUmmmmmmm.....let me thing now;
Yup--had an awesome visit with MXM today....she goes by "margaretcindy" Cause she looks just how I remember my cousin Cindy...LOL! It is UNCANNY! SO anyhow I gave her the "grand" tour and I think she loved it all! Even the poop!

She said that everything was so "different" than she was used to that she loved it all!

It is so fun to give people tours...I just wish she would have brought her DD along cause I left the eggs for her to have an egg hunt! But alas, she was in school. I lit the oven early because we ran out of fuel oil as you all know...I NEEDED some heat in the house! Didnt want to waste the propane so I baked some potatoes! It helped that I started on the counter and got warmed up...but then I went out to do chores....then we ate some baked potatoes for lunch! Lol--I will make the rest with mushrooms to have with steaks on the grill tonight! MMMMM!

I think I have forgotten all I wanted to say...since I started this post I have: let dogs in and out, fed said dogs, let them out and in, defrosted the steaks, done some laundry, finished vinegaring (and rinsing) the coffee pot and gotten the asparagus ready for the micro.....and am now sitting down with a glass of sherry...w/o Tommy cause he is back in the basement! OMG---the beagle looks like she wants to puke on the couch....the day NEVER ends!

I guess I am going to try and answer later! Gotta run! Terri O

 

[Terri O]

Sheesh--where are you guys? Oh yeah, I have buckeyes. they are from Bigz. moving them into breeding pens tomorrow. I have 2 0ut of 5 broody right now. They lay a pretty brown really round egg. Not as prolific of an egg layer as I would have thought, although maybe they will do better as free range birds. Also the bird is not as heavy as I would have thought. HTH--TO

 

[mxmarg]

I was so thrilled to meet Terri and take a grand tour! Yes, I was so geeked I said Tommy could poop and I'd prolly think it was just fab. But actually when Tommy had been sitting contentedly being pet in my lap for some time and then he got up and started fussing, when Terri said he looked like he was getting ready to do his business I did find myself getting up pretty darn quickly... So I guess I haven't lost it completely. yet. DD will come along sometime for a visit for sure!

Thanks for the feedback on the coop thus far! I need all the help I can get! Any other opinions?