I have talked about making my own laundry soap before here, and here. and this is a wonderful recipe and I have had great results for a couple of years now.

A few months ago I started playing around with liquid Castile soap and just love it. I took the basic recipe and modified it a bit with great results. While a bit thinner than the original recipe it is a time saver.

Here is what I do.

In my 5 gallon bucket I add 4 cups of hot water from the faucet. add to this 3/4 cup of liquid castile soap, 1 cup washing soda and 1 cup of borax. STIR until all is dissolve and let it cool a bit. Then add my essential oils. About 1/2 an ounce works well. My favorite combination these days is tea tree oil and lavender.

Once cool I give the bucket a good stir and let sit 24 hours. The next day give it a good stir again the top will have a thick jelly like surface with water underneath. Then I use a large measuring cup to transfer it into liquid laundry soap container I have collected. I find that the top line on the cap is about the right amount for a load…about 1/2 cup. I the containers I have are the non-concentrated kind so the caps are large. Before each use give the jug a good shake.

For the rinse cycle I use 2 downy softener balls with vinegar. Don’t worry, you won’t smell the vinegar when the laundry is done.

I don’t often use the dryer but when I do, a muslin bag filled with dried lavender tossed in works great. Smells great and no problems with static.

I have also discovered the wonders of those foaming liquid soap dispensers. For my birthday I was given a rather expensive bottle of the liquid soap. It was wonderful but sure didn’t last long. I must wash my hand 20 times a day if not more. Any way, I saved the dispenser and started adding about 1/4 cup of the liquid castile soap, a few drops of essential oil and a pinch of borax then fill the container with water. This works great.

So what recipes have you discovered with liquid castile soap?

The past few days has been glorious around here. Temps are up into the 60’s and it’s sunny. Just perfect for working outside, with no bugs, wind, or it being to hot. It’s so nice for a change and good for the spirits.

The leaves have fallen and the trees are all but a few bare and sleeping for the season. Most everything is brown and grey, not the prettiest time to me. But it part of the process and change in the seasons. Soon it will all be covered with white snow. Snow to sparkle in the sun.

In the yard:

A few weeks ago Dick put a bucket load of manure into the raised garden bed and today I will take Daisy with me to rake it out and cover with a nice layer of leaves. I like to add compost and manure at least twice a year, in the fall and in the spring. A few weeks ago I pulled all of the dead plants out and added them to the compost pile. It’s a good idea to just not leave them in the garden, there may be hidden bug, disease, fungus left from when the plants were growing. It’s also a good idea to pull the dead material out from the flower beds as well for the same reason. Then add the compost and layer of leaves. I wish I had warned him that I need to take a bit of the soil out, it’s even with the top of the border and the compost will bring it up over…

Now is also a good time to put a nice thin layer of compost on top of the lawn. For those who worry about a nice looking lawn. To us a lawn is nice but it fends for itself, it grows or it doesn’t. Ours is mostly clover and not grass anyway. There are so many other important things to do around here than to pamper a lawn that doesn’t provide anything for us.  The clover blossoms are a welcome arrival here each year. I will pick and dry them for tea later in the cold and flu season. Didn’t end up with many this year it was so rainy they never really dried enough to pick and not be a soggy moldy mess before they had a chance to dry for storage. I do have quite a bit left from last year, so I think we will be okay.

It’s getting a bit late in the season, but there is still time to plant any spring bulbs. I have a couple of lilies I need to get planted. I usually will buy a few daffodils this time of year and plant them up, but not this year. Our budget is stretched so tight for this winter, flowers would be a frivolous investment I don’t want to make just now. However there is the possibility I could find time and swap some with my sister. She has a few in her yard I don’t. I have a few perennials that could stand thinning and she has room in her beds for them.

In the kitchen:

There are 4 large pumpkins on the steps that will need to be made into puree for baking later on. And the seeds will be roasted with a bit of salt for snacking. This will wait for a cooler day when it’s not so nice out and I’m in the house, but before the frost turns them to mush. It’s a good temperature outside just now for them and they would turn fast in the warm house.

I took another inventory of the pantry and made a list of things to stock up on. The veggies I dehydrated for the chickens to eat this winter and a bucket of scratch feed will head over to another farm for them to use up before it goes bad.

Supper last night went well and the men were hungry, I had enough corn chowder left for a meal. This was a good thing. The fridge is full of leftovers from a huge 22 pound turkey I cooked this past weekend with all the fixings to go with it.

The Farm Store:

Sewing has come to a halt around here until I can find a new belt for the sewing machine. I first need to figure out how to get the old one off then to the store for a replacement.

I haven’t had any time to make soap the past few weeks but It’s in the plans. There are a few bars of Rose Oatmeal left if anyone is interested.

Also before the week is out I hope to list the Bath Melt Bars and Bath Biscuits I told you about a bit ago.

And to list the cloth lunch bags I recently finished. More about those later.

And lastly, to answer a few email questions…. there are dog collars over at the Country Store. Just now I can’t finish any for the christmas season as the sewing machine is not working….But soon.

I hope you are enjoying the simple things in your life today.

Karyn

What a beautiful weekend here. The weather was up in the 60’s and the sun was out. Saturday I spent an unproductive day at a local craft fair. Yesterday we worked around the yard and I spent some time with Daisy playing in the leaves. We raked up a huge pile and rolled, jumped and hid in them.

We took the time to put the plow on the truck and a quick greasing just to be sure everything was working and took it off again. It’s good to do this before you actually need it to know there aren’t any repairs that need to be made, BEFORE it’s snowing and you need it.

I worked with the horses a bit yesterday. The little Joby was getting a bit fresh and pushy. He is better this morning and wants to climb in my pocket. He has though for the past couple of mornings that he wanted to pull and try to run out of the barn. We worked on that and what a difference just a few minutes made. Nice and polite, the boy I love has returned.

Today was a cooking day for me. June and November are the months I cook dinner for the men at Dick’s lodge for their monthly meeting. On the menu: Corn chowder, corn bread, chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, apple cider and coffee. Just 45 this time…

Seems like forever since I have had a chance to spend any time at this blog or reading any of my favorites now that I think about it.

What a spot to stop for lunch while hiking

This past week also brought the need to clean out the big freezer and take a good inventory of what was in there and move some of the older goodies to the freezer in the kitchen to be use soon.

Doing this twice a year is something I always try to do for a couple of reasons. The first is to use some of the older stuff up and second it gives me a chance to use some good warm water and baking soda to give it a good scrubbing. It’s funny to me how everything that goes in there is wrapped well and it still manages to collect dirt…

While I had everything out I also took the time to update the inventory list I keep and to my surprize it was pretty accurate this time around. That is a feat I have been working on accomplishing for several years, maybe I am getting the hang of it. I also was able to make a shopping list of things that were low and I will watch for them to go on sale in the next few weeks to stock up for the winter.

This past week brought a client to the house on respite and he left today for the next chapter in his life. I noticed that I feel better sine he has left, some people just have a negative feel to them and it sucks the energy from me.

Also this presented the need to clean the entire house very well and decided I needed to purchase and use some commercial disinfectants just to be on the safe side. To no surprize to me while these disinfectants were getting rid of all the nasties it also was indiscriminate and killed the friendly bacteria. I mention this because in just the short week I had to use them I noticed that my yogurt and sour cream didn’t do as well. Actually I couldn’t get the sour cream to thicken at all.

This makes me wonder how families that are on the band-wagon for antibacterial everything manage these tasks. I have just about finished with the disinfectants and need to give the house one more good cleaning and I will retire them to the cellar should I need them again. Let’s hope not.

The other thing that struck me this past week is that I needed to use good old Lysol in the spray cans. I do use this occasionally when I give the garbage can in the barn a good cleaning but not usually in the house. A single can will last a good year or more.

I went to buy a new can and I discovered that the cost of a single can has gone sky high….over $6.00 and I bought the last 2 on the store shelf. In my many trips to the pharmacy last week I checked there too and their shelves were empty as well but the price tags weren’t any cheaper.

I guess this H1N1 and flu scare has forced the demand and prices up for such disinfectants. It’s kind of scary for me to think about all the germ killing both good and bad going on in my community just now.

Any one else noticing this in your area?

And finally this past week brought the close of the chicken saga here at the farm. We delivered the lonely little Guinea Hen to its new home yesterday. Come spring I will order more eggs to hatch and I am hoping to order chicks too. Both the Delaware and Black Java. I also would like to add a few heritage breed turkeys. I’ll spend some time over the winter deciding on a breed.

And lastly I noticed our little Daisy is growing again and it’s time to sort through her clothes and pass some of them on…

Hope you all have a good day. What

Daisy and her Puppa

have you noticed this past week?

Karyn

to start thinking about and making our holiday gifts.

The economy around here is BAD. Everyone I talk to is mentioning it and in the crafting circles of friends lately the talk isn’t about trying some new yarn, fabric or sewing do-dad. The talk is about cleaning out the stash of goodies already laying around and finding ways to use those up.

They aren’t talking about large elaborate gifts, they are talking about making very practical gifts. Mittens, hats, scarves, placemats, gloves, socks, basic blankets.

My plans follow much this same thinking. For our close friends and committee/community friends is to knit pretty gift bags to hold the jars of jelly. I would also like to embroider a nice linen bread bag with a fresh loaf of bread tucked inside. I have enough yarn here and over the summer found a jumper made of off-white linen that will make lovely bread bags.

There are some very nice embroidery patterns here. I print them on plain white paper and then trace the pattern onto my fabric with one of those washable fabric markers. Some I have to darken the lines first to see clearly through the fabric.

My family apart from Daisy is always asking for very practical things such as gift cards for groceries and gas. My oldest son told me to just go ahead and buy the groceries because he hated that part. So for him I think I will find a nice wicker laundry basket and fill it with essentials for his pantry. Add a few leaves of fresh bread wrapped in embroidered dish towels and he will be happy. His favorite is banana.

Son #2 still lives here with us so I am thinking a few pair of his favorite work pants with gas cards in the pocket will be appreciated by him. Dick is going to be a bit trickier this year, he like me just doesn’t need or want anything new, so this I will have to think on… But I am thinking a couple of new screw guns (cordless drills). After all the work the past few years his batteries are just about worn out and he has been fussing about them all summer. The other thing he has had his eye on is a battery operated grease gun.

So what are you thinking about for the coming holiday season?

The fall garden is an interesting place lately. I am finding beauty all around even though the flowers have pretty much faded away….

Today are the long gone Daisies that grow along side the house. These came from Bluestone a few years back. While they are rated for zone 5 and above they do well here in my zone 4 garden. I just never told the Daisies the difference.

They are a happy perennial with many weeks of blooms. Here they grow to be about 5 feet tall and need a bit of staking if you don’t like them leaning a bit. A heavy rain or wind will bend the stems and put them to the ground.

The only care they receive from me is compost in the spring and fall and any leaves that fall around them for the winter. We always have a good snow cover so I think that helps.

This is the time to cut back the seed heads and remove any dead leaves. I like to pull apart the seed heads and let them fall to the ground. I have a few extra I saved. I put them into little packages and would love to share them with anyone who would like a few.

I have 5 packages, so the first 5 to leave me a message I will send you my address and you in return can send me a self addressed stamped envelope and I will get them out to you. They should arrive in time to sprinkle on the ground this fall or you could sew them in the spring.

In the next few days I will put together some of the white Echinacea also growing in that flower bed. They are from the Big Sky series, Sunrise. I’ll post about them when I get them ready.

Not a great week around here, I already told you about the chickens. That turned out not all that great.

There is an old Blue Book law here in town and the maximum I am entitled to is up to $100. to replace the chickens and Guinea hens. Seems way back in 1800 something a $100. was a lot of money and would have covered the cost of our birds easily and then some. It’s an old silly law, but that’s the way it is.

The owners of the dog ended up being fined 3 times for the dog being here (it kept coming back) and did pay the restitution. I have no idea why, but I ended up with $96. for all the birds. Like the title of this post there were other things going on and I just didn’t have the energy to fight about it or think about civil court to recover the remaining costs.

Those birds were so mangled it was hard to tell exactly how many were in the pen. Later that day a Guinea came home and I put it in the pen. Went out later to find the dog back in the pen and the hen in pieces. That was time #3 the dog was here.  The next day a second Guinea came back and I locked it in the coop and screwed a board across the door to the run. The poor thing is so scared and seems lonely. I decided to bring it to another farm so it wouldn’t be alone. I’ll try to catch it over the weekend and get it in a cage for the ride.

This week brought our new client, a very friendly and likable fella. Unfortunatly because of medical issues with him we have decided we can’t care for him. It was a tough decision to loose my job and income again. There was no decision to be made, my family must come first.

It has been a beautiful fall week here perfect for working on buttoning up things and getting ready for winter, not me however, I have been in the house with lines of state and agency people coming and going, don’t want to forget the phone ringing off the hook. And the race against old man winter marches on without me.

On the bright side son #1 knows how I love pictures and brought back the ones shown in this post from a recent hike up to the White Mountains. He even said hello to the Old Man for me, who sadly isn’t there any longer.

He said he had a great time and the weather while a bit cool in the mountains the views made up for it. He said there is still snow on the ground in places.

I have noticed while beautiful the foliage colors aren’t all that bright this year. But still very pretty.

I just love that when I am feeling at my worst my family always manages to show me in some way that they love and care for me. I’m feeling better and can appreciate the amazing gifts given to me once again.

Even Miss Daisy could feel my frustration this week and last night came to me, sat in my lap, tapped me on the side of the cheek and said, “l lub you mummy”, and sang me her favorite song that always calms her down. Twinkle, Twinkle little star. We rocked and sang for over an hour. A special treat because Daisy doesn’t sit still all that long.

Hope you have a great day and get a chance to enjoy the season.

Karyn

I woke up this morning to find every last chicken and Guinea dead in their pen. Decided to worry about it after I got Daisy to school and didn’t even look that way as I left the yard to take her to school.

When I got back a dog was in the yard and had a hen in it’s mouth. I chased it off and called the police to come up to figure out who owns the dog. I realize dogs will be dogs but there is a leash law in this town. I have a feeling the dog belongs to the neighbor’s up the road who build a new house earlier this year. I sure hope not, they aren’t friendly and always have problems with all the farm animals around here. A few times they have actually rolled their windows down and yelled at me to get the horses out of the road. I just look at them and ask where they suppose I should ride them in the tree tops?

The police department wants me to figure out what the birds are worth. How does one go about doing that? I know what it will cost to replace the birds but what about all the lost eggs and their breeding worth? Not to mention they aren’t all that easy to come by to replace. I know it’s stupid to say, but I haven’t even had the opportunity to add them to our list of animals here on the farm for the insurance company. My bad to keep it on the bottom of my list all summer.

So I had the lovely task of cleaning out the coop and pen first thing this morning. Our new client will be here today and dead birds wouldn’t make a very good first impression on him or the State officials who will be bringing him.

This event is sad and maddening at the same time. It’s never good to loose an animal but I also know it’s part of the way things can be. So I am back to step one again come spring to find Black Java and Delaware birds for our farm. First thing is first though, I will be running several strands of electric fencing around and up over the coop and pen.

Fall and winter is not a good time around here to be starting chicks, it’s way to cold for such small birds.

I don’t hold any of this against the dog, just the owners who aren’t watching it.

It seems warm fall weather just hasn’t arrived yet. It went from a cool summer right into an even cooler fall. The heat has been on in the house for a couple of weeks now and last night I closed the windows in the barn but left the big doors open.

I have had a chance to spend some time knitting and trying out new knitting skills. My first was a lace pattern as I would like to make small gift bags to put jars of jelly in for gift giving this holiday season. The jelly and jars are so pretty I didn’t want to cover them up completely. I found the pattern here . The problem with the instructions are that they tell you to only repeat row 12 six more times, what I think they ment to say was to repeat the 12 row pattern six more times. Then the next issue is the pattern doesn’t end the same on each end. You will be folding it in half length wise and sewing up the sides. I didn’t have the ambition to figure this issue out.

After ripping it out several times I decided to put that project back into the basket for another time when I have time to try a different pattern. As you can see mine doesn’t look anything like the picture on the pattern.  I would like a more open, lacy pattern than this one after looking at it.

Next was learning a cable stitch. After looking around at so many pretty patterns I decided on one called a horse shoe, what else would I pick?  I found the pattern here. The cable called for 6 stitches but I changed mine to 3 stitches because the piece I am working on is not as wide.

This got me to thinking and after poking around the internet for a bit found these cute little wraps  and these and this one for coffee cups. What a great idea for this time of year and I think this project will work to make a warmer for my own coffee cup. I will just need to figure out how to add a tab section with a button hole in it to hold it on the cup. I have several horse buttons that would look very cute on this. I think a tie would work just as well and be cute too.

Although it doesn’t show well in the picture the yarn I am using is variegated and I think a solid color yarn would show the pattern better. Next time…

Yesterday I baked 4 apple pies, 3 for the freezer and one for eating now. Most like plain vanilla ice cream but my favorite with apple is coffee. I freeze the unbaked pies in a glass pie plate and when frozen remove it from the plate and wrap well. When ready unwrap, place the frozen pie back into the pie plate and let defrost then bake as usual.

The crab apple tree on the back side of the field is nearly bare now and I’ll take Daisy with me to pick up the wind falls for jelly I would like to make over the weekend. It will take every last tiny apple to make a batch of jelly. Crab apples aren’t very big.

School didn’t happen. Late last week I got a call for the agency and they have a gentleman who needs a home once he is out of the hospital. They are talking the end of this week…. I don’t know enough about him to expect Dick to help him because I’m at school. I am looking at taking the class in the spring once the weather clears up for driving. So it’s good I have someone coming to the house and not so good I had to cancel class and now need to move Daisy back out of that bedroom. She didn’t like the idea all that much as she has been enjoying her new room. We will make her old one special and it will be okay.

Have a wonderful day!

Karyn

I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it or not, my husband, Dick is a Master Mason, and has been for over 25 years.

 Yesterday brought a very special occasion for his lodge and I was very pleased to be included in the historic event. I even decide to trade my favorite jeans in for a pretty skirt.

This month marks the 200th anniversary for their lodge. They decided to return to their roots and hold the celebration at our local Historical Society, The Lane Tavern. The tavern is where the lodge started so many years ago, once owned by the brother of the woman who owned our farm.  Lane is the Family name.

I just love history and it was very exciting for me to walk up the same set of step the first lodge members did so long ago. The tavern is still much the same as it was when first built, not a lot of renovations or changes made over the years. A truly beautiful building.

The Lane Tavern is right in the center of town so it’s the main road that once was the stage coach road, and like the name implies the building was the stop over for the coach and tavern. Today it is the home of The Sanbornton Historical Society.

It was a wonderful day with friends I see on a monthly basis to help out at the public breakfast and so many other fund raisers. The officer’s wives were honored with a basket of flowers and a special commemorative pin.

Of course I brought my knitting and a few of us spent some time together knitting and chatting. It was a good time to catch up on the gossip and make plans for our annual Winter get together.

I even came home with a new skein of yarn. As in tradition we bring extra and swap them around. The skein I ended up with is a lovely off white and rather poofy.

Can’t tell you what it is as there is not wrapper. I think there is enough there to knit a couple of place mats for Daisy’s tea set she loves so much. I will work on those after she goes to bed at night so they will be a surprise come Christmas.

We also spent some time walking around the tavern and checked out their gardens, not much exciting this time of year to see in the garden. It was a cool and windy day so we didn’t stay out long.

Lunch was made by another wife and it was delicious! Finger sandwiches of ham, egg and turkey salad, fresh fruit, fresh veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, fresh fruit and home made pickles. I almost forgot fresh apple cider in the punch bowl and a large pot of coffee.

I wanted to show you this sign made for the special occasion by a friend of mine, a local artist. She also designed the commemorative pins awarded to us.

The building you can see across the road used to be the general store years ago. Today it is home to a very nice family. Can you see the green post off the end of the porch?-the hitching post is still there.

I mention all of this because I don’t often get to mention my wonderful husband. Being invited to a Lodge function outside of cooking breakfast is very special it doesn’t happen very often. It’s important to me to support and be active in my familie’s interests and activities.

So Dick, thank you for a wonderful day!