soap making tricks

two things I learned along the way which make making soap easier:

you can influence the time it takes for the soap to trace
The closer together the temperatures of the oils/fats and liquid/lye the faster they'll trace. So if for instance you make a slow tracing milk and honey soap it's good to really cool down the oils but if making a pumpkin or cucumber puree soap, where adding the mash tends to immediately trace the soap, it's good having some extra time - thus if you keep the oils/fats about 20 degrees from the liquid/lye you buy yourself some extra time to properly mix the soap and the mash.

you can cool down the melted oil/fat mixture by adding cold liquid oils at the end
Meaning you can measure out olive oil, for instance, but keep it separate and add it at the end when the solid oils/fats are melted to quickly cool down the recipe. I do take the crockpot out of the heater and place it on a cold concrete floor for a bit before adding the cold oils, otherwise it heats back up pretty fast. The crock pottery retains a lot of heat (or cold).

I tend to put the crockpot on the floor, get all my lye stuff together, depending on the temperature (< or > 140F) put it back in and add olive oil or mix my milk/lye first and then put the crockpot back in, add the olive oil and add the milk/lye (keep an eye on the lye, don't let it sit for too long). This way I can make two recipes in one toddler school day :)

goats eat trees

including Christmas trees - I blogged about it last year, but now have visual proof! First go th needles and then goes the bark, strip by strip... They do seem to like certain pine species better than others looking at the assorted half dozen we gave them, but not sure what makes which better or worse. Except one that was really dried up - dropped needles by the bucket load - they never really touched it... I shouldn't have either, my husband's Honda civic trunk is still full of needles.

I pick threes up around new years from the side of the road BUT if you do make sure the trees don't have artificial snow, tinsel, spray glitter or other plastic, glue, weird stuff in them.

By the way, this is why the trees out in our pasture (one pine and a handful of junipers) have seven foot tall chain link fencing wrapped around the trunks! They'd strip'm bare...

It's spring!

Our geese are laying eggs...

(yes, it's the BIG one bottom right - the other two are store bought chicken, see the color diff?)

Everywhere bulbs are showing their tips, the ducks are quaking a chasing each other, the hens can't get out of the run fast enough (our cold storage snacks are starting to run low) and

we have our first KIDS!

Gazelle our first time mom gave birth to two beautiful boys and they look just like their dad, including the white spots and floppy ears! Already nursing and gaining weight in a couple days they'll meet the rest of the herd. Gazelle, I am so proud :)

oh, the boys are wearing goat sweaters - or the legs of a pair of sweat pants from my four year old, and now he has a pair of shorts! - because she delivered right before the two coldest nights of this insanely gentle winter. Even with the sweaters, and lots of fresh bedding hay, they were shivering until it warmed up to the mid thirties today. No problems with the long nubian ears though, sometimes the tips can get frost bite but it was not cold enough for that, I am glad to see.

my soaps are now at Ithacamade!

My natural soaps will now be available downtown at Ithaca Made, a quirky locally owned gallery, stocked with locally made arts & crafts. Check it out next time you visit Mama Goose or Mimi's Attic!

For more info you can also check my soap blog at www.farmountainfarm.blogspot.com

Happy Valentine!

Found and photographed alongside Cayuga Lake last summer...

Everybody loves our goats!

Since late spring last year we have a new cat who lives down in the barn. It's been a blessing, I actually was already checking the SPCA about barn cats, as we now have no rats or mice down there for only a handful of crunchies each day! Now all we need is a cat who does not mind living with the chickens and geese LOL

I named him Casper as in Casper the friendly ghost, since initially we'd only see a blur, running away fast. By accident I caught him in a live trap - I was going for gopher - and had him checked out by the SPCA. If you catch a feral cat and drop him off, they'll spay/neuter for free if you take it back!

Casper really took to the goats and below is hugging our laMancha Gazelle. He will give all three goats face huggs when he can, and by the time it turned Fall he now also wants his own huggies from us. It took about six months but now he's about as snuggly as any cat I've known!

"I like you sooo much!"

"You're my favorite!"

Let's start a new project!

I found this beaten up looking Sunfish along the side of route 96 last fall and immediately wanted it... we went back the next day and picked it up. Of course, the hull looked much smaller on the ground and I figured I could just pick it up - really - and put it on the roof... so two strong guys later, I was lucky we were near a farm, the boat was on the roof and I slowly made my way back home - wondering what my hubbie would think...

Since I do come home with found projects quite often he was not that impressed, but not that enthusiastic either - all he probably saw were the botched fixed leaks and scratches, not the potential of quiet afternoons on the Lake! When in college my hubbie and I went sailing whenever we could, mostly with 16m2 Falcons. But they're more hassle and cost to handle than a simple sunfish so I already had my eye on one of these - plus, I see them on the lake each summer from route 13 and they look like such fun little boats.

So, I started surfing the web to find info on how to properly repair fiberglass hulls and found this great article:

On the Dubious Merits of Accepting Free Boats by Alan Glos

It read just like something I would do, and did, when buying and restoring our 1958 Metzendorf camper! Which my son and I dearly love and take out at least a couple times a year even tho camping time is the busiest season for my work.

By the way, I do have more than just the hull - I was smart enough to ask if they had more and received a mast & boom plus most of a tiller/rudder. I did already find a used sail, and probably a daggerboard. The DuckWorks article inspired me to contact Alan Glos and it turns out not only does he live close by, we also know his son, Michael of Kingsbird Farm at the Ithaca Farmers Market, where I work and from whom I get local organic lard for my soap business! Sometimes the world wide web is surprisingly small :)

The boat - lots of booboo's and potential!