{what we did today…}
wordless wednesday
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beer soap #1 in detail
So, I made my first batch of beer soap, coupled with it being my first try at the hot process method of soap making. Do you see what is wrong with this? Two firsts in one go. Bad idea. Seriously. But the soap gods, or beer gods, but probably both were looking out for me. Normally I make cold process soap, which is where the lye is mixed with liquid (mostly goat milk) and oils (this is the saponification process), then poured into molds. After it comes out of the molds and cures for at least a month. Hot process is the same, except once the oils are thoroughly blended together, it gets cooked…and cooked…and cooked until it turns into this weird blob, then it is blobbed into the mold. The texture is a little different in the finished product, it isn’t quite as pretty, but it is ready to use the next week. The cooking ensures the saponification is completely done, so there is no ‘zap’ when it is used immediately, whereas there may be ‘zap’ from the not-quite-done-being-saponified-lye in the cold process make. Plus, the cooking helps evaporate any extra liquid/moisture, so curing for hardness isn’t necessary.
Now that I’ve explained all that, let me explain that this is all information I have gleaned from the wonderful world wide web. I have a couple soap making books, but they are all on CP (cold process). I wanted to try HP (hot process) because I am impatient, and I procrastinate, and I run out of soap then need more asap, and don’t want to wait a month…How on earth do I make cheese which needs to be aged 9 months?? I don’t know….Actually, I stress about it all the time.
Anyway, back to soap. So this is NOT a tutorial. It is my experience. I am posting the recipe, but any soap YOU make should be run through a soap calculator. It is the most amazing thing ever. I use the one at Majestic Mountain Sage (the sage). {The calc. makes sure that you have the correct ratio of lye to liquid to oils…very important.}
Other disclaimer, these are not my best photos ever. don’t judge. It was night, I was nervous, and not really paying attention to the settings on the camera. Be glad I had the mind to take any pictures. seriously.
Recipe:
- 12 oz FLAT frozen beer. I used our Christmas Spiced Beer. We made it Thanksgiving, so it would be ready for the holiday. It is pretty hoppy, and has orange spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg. yum.
- 20oz soybean oil
- 10oz grapeseed oil
- 4oz coconut oil
- 4.4oz lye
Notes:
- everything says the beer must be FLAT. Otherwise it reacts in a not pretty way with the lye.
- Frozen…I always use frozen liquid, this way the lye doesn’t heat up too much and burn the liquid (esp icky when using milk!!).
- soybean oil, I used shortening. It’s cheap. Seeing as this was a big experiment, I used a lot. As of today {seriously, today being the 24th of January, I woke up to this huge thought}, I no longer use shortening. more on that later (it’s a philosophy about GMO, not about soap).
- grapeseed oil. I love this oil. Makes a great salt scrub for feet.
Using a lot will make a soft soap, though. - Coconut oil. makes it lather.
I found a great deal on a 7qt crock pot a while back, and purchased it for the purpose of HP soapmaking. I made the soap start to finish in the crock. It works really well, and for smaller batches of CP soap, I’m using it (just minus heat). The early part of the process I didn’t take any photos…old hat.
I melted my oils on the stove (separate ss pot), tried to keep them around 110 degrees F. Put my block of frozen beer in the crock, added the lye, slllooooowly, stirring as I went to dissolve the lye and melt the beer. I did notice that the beer melted faster than the milk, and it smelled worse. Once the two were thoroughly mixed together, defrosted, dissolved…I slowly poured the oils in. Normally I stir, then use my handy-dandy-never-make-soap-without-it stick blender (thrift store find), and blend until “trace,” which is where the mixture is homogenized and becomes thicker, like pudding (saponification process). This batch, once the oils were melted, and I started stirring, it mixed right in and started to trace without the stick blender…magic…luck? I think if I had poured it into molds at this point, this color would have remained. really pretty.
trace reached. love this color.
So, now I turned on the heat. I put it on high to start, though I read other people online use low. I did not put the lid on. I stirred constantly for the first five minutes, rather paranoid that something was going to happen….Nothing happened. So I stepped away for a couple minutes to make sure I wasn’t screwing up by searching online. I checked and stirred every few minutes, and finally after about 10min or so (I didn’t think to time this), when I came to stir, it looked like this:
notice the edge
See around the edge? It started to bubble. Finally some action! and when I stirred, I could see that the oil was starting to separate out. I stirred until it looked homogenized again, and by the time I laid the spoon down, it looked separated again. So I went back to checking and stirring at about 4-5min intervals.This is the next big change, it started looking lumpy, thicker, and still separating.stick blender action
In a test to see if it was done, I tried the stick blender. Notice where the stick blender has been, it looks creamy and smoother, while the rest of the soap is still…yucky looking. Yeah, it stayed creamy and smoother for about 6 seconds, then went back to it’s former self. So I gave up; it wasn’t done yet.
You can see it is starting to look thick and blobby, but not separating any more.
Yep, looking…weird. It had a waxy looking sheen to it. It was super thick, I had to hand stir it, but it wasn’t stiff; dense but a little on the fluffy side. When it became apparent nothing else was happening. I turned off the heat and blobbed it into a wood mold J made for me. It was an effort to make sure there weren’t giant air pockets in it, and it started to cool right away, and the top didn’t want to smooth.
Here it is in the mold. ooooo. See how dark it is? Looks like earwax. Seriously. I left it over night, and removed it the next day and cut bars.
Now that I have written this all up, I don’t have a photo of the bars, nor do I have a review on the finished product…It’s been sitting in our room, waiting. I wanted to give it a week or so before using it so it would be a little harder. The color looks nothing like the beer; the beer is an amber color. And it smells nothing of beer; it smells like homemade bread.
Tomorrow I’m milking sheep and making the first batch of sheep cheese for the year! woohoo.
a soapy, snowy week
Well, I have all sorts of photos, but they haven’t been uploaded, so I’ll fix this later…This week we finally got snow (our first real snow this winter)..a foot. I guess we are making up for lost time! Over the next two days of course, it rained. So now we have slush and boot-eating mud. great. But, the wind picked up yesterday, so maybe it will dry out a bit before we get more. I got two days of subbing in, which is fun and educational…did you know any food served at the lunch room which is “commodity” (provided or subsidized by the government), can not be given away if there is extra at the end of the day? Yep, down the drain, every last bit.
But my biggest accomlishment of the week is the SOAP! It has been on my list since December to start making goat milk soap so it would be available during the market season, as I know I won’t have time once markets start. Well, I finally gathered up my courage (I love homemade soap, but I dislike working with lye, and I always seem to have a problem) and starting making it. I tried hot process soap for the first time (more on that later), with a beer soap (our beer of course), and goat milk soap with coffee (yum!), and gm soap with ylang ylang essential oil. Today I’m making goat milk soap with spearmint essential oil. We’ll be very clean here this year.
Ohhh, and J has been hard at work on the computer, and has recovered my archives! yay!
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- sunday morning brunch, blintzes with my honey walnut chevre and apple butter
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- ylang ylang and coffee goat milk soap, fresh cut
food sovereignity
Food sovereignity is a phrase I stumbled upon in 2009, right after I moved to Idaho, thanks to howling duck ranch. It is the phrase which encompassed part of the vision I had for our lives. We talked a little about it then and made a few plans; at the time we had dairy goats, chickens, ducks, and turkeys. We got a newborn calf from a local dairy early in 2010 and raised him on goat milk. We ordered a feeder pig which arrived in June 2010. Newton was born, I sold the turkeys because the tom kept stalking me (seriously, doing chores with Newton strapped to my chest made me look intimidating to him I guess, and he stalked and challenged me repeatedly to the point where I refused to do anything with the birds, or anything near where he was). anyway. Fall 2010 we had the pig and one of our wethers butchered…mmmm, bacon, my favorite. I sold the steer winter 2011 as we needed extra cash. And for all of 2011, my focus was on Newton and the dairy, and that was it.
So now, it is the beginning of the year again. And being winter, and doing more reading, we are being inspired to work towards this goal more. We don’t have everything ironed out yet, but we want 2012 to be a year of prepping, practicing, and working towards 2013 being food sovereign. It takes time to do this, to raise animals, to can and freeze a season worth of veggies and fruit. Here’s what we’ve got so far.
Current resourses:
- dairy goats for milk and dairy products (we freeze extra milk so we have it year round)
- buck kids (you know they’ll arrive soon enough!), so we can butcher one or several in the fall.
- Chickens for eggs, and some rooster chicks for meat as of spring of this year.
- We’ll raise a bum lamb (I have a hook-up for lamb
)with the kids once the milk comes in. - The dairy is planning on raising pigs on whey, so we’ll have pork once summer arrives.
- Bees: Jeremy and Newton got their first hive last year, so I’m hoping they will be able to acquire another this year…we eat a lot of honey. Have you ever put honey in your coffee?? Sounds weird, but try it. Best. Thing. EVER! Seriously.
- Garden: we have access and will help with Jeremy’s mom’s garden, and if we end up in a place of our own where we can garden, we’ll do some more.
- Hay: we currently have 5acres of the in’laws’ pasture planted in hay, the cuttings from these will feed the goats through the winter…they’ve gotta eat, too!
- Pasture access: again, we have access to his folks’ if we could find a steer to raise, or anything else for that matter.
- Drink: we do a lot of brewing of our own beer, and normally make wine in the fall.
I’d like to raise more ducks, I like the eggs and the meat, but I think caring for the goats, chickens, and pigs is enough animal husbandry for this year. So that mostly leaves the garden, planning, prepping, planting, and caring for. I’m really excited this year. We’ve been helping his mom the last couple years in the garden, though last year I did hardly anything, but we have a lot of the same ideas, which makes working together easier.
Ideas on food sovereignity we’re still mulling: coffee and tea? Chocolate (a world without dark chocolate?)? Olive oil? Staple grains for flours? Sugar?
At the moment, we’ll keep the coffee, but find a local roaster, there are several in So Idaho.
Part of the garden will include herbs for tea.
Dark chocolate, um yeah, I’m keeping that.
Olive oil, we’ll keep. I did process lard for the first time in November, even had a great blog entry on it, but it no longer exists…Anyway, seeing as we’ll be raising lard on the hoof, I will assume we will use less olive oil.
Fruit: we have a few raspberry canes, but that is it. Rodents ate my two blueberry bushlings. I intend to either trade with vendors at the markets, or go to a local orchard to pick my own. We did that this summer, and tried my hand at canning, with fair success…
Grains…that is where the pasture access comes in. We can’t till it all up to plant grain, but we could do a small amount. The stumbling block is the equipment to get us there. I’m sure I could find a way around hiring a tractor to harvest the grain, but we still have to rip up the pasture grass, pick rock, disc, pick rock, and get to the planting point. And it is hard to find someone around here with equipment small enough to do just an acre or two.
Sugar, well, that is where owning thousands of little honey bees comes into play. I did find stevia in a garden catalog, but I don’t know how it is processed in order to use, other than sticking a leaf in my tea cup. Do you know? I need to do more research on that. I am allowing a little bit of molasses (good for goats at kidding, and lots of iron) and maple syrup (I’m a sucker for maple syrup…didn’t you hear me lament my lack of “sugar bush??”).
Beer/wine, well, I said we make our own, but there is the part of obtaining the raw materials. We have a few sources for picking our own wine grapes, local. The beer…that’s a little different. We can grow barley, if we get the ‘grain dilemma’ solved, but some of the yummy things we put into beer…hmmm may have to get creative…
Other issues is equipment and space. We have one chest freezer, which will fill up quickly with pork, chicken, and chevon (goat). I don’t like canned veggies, but I do like frozen, which means a lot more freezer space will be needed. I just water bath canned this year, but would like to try pressure canning, which requires new equipment. We have a meat grinder which fits on our Kitchen Aid, and we have a food dehydrator. but that’s about it. I suppose we don’t need much more, though I do like kitchen gadgets.
I’m sure we’re missing other stuff, but that is where we are for the moment. any ideas?
More on Magic Circles
Jeremy and I have been giving more thought to our magic circle: what we want it to encompass; and what it takes to make it happen. I don’t think that saying it once out loud constitutes a magic circle, although it is important to make it public to the world and God and universe at large. I think it requires focus and commitment, prayer, and a willingness to put forth the effort to move towards it. I can talk and think all I want about food sovereignity, but until I put my feet into action planting a garden, learning to can, raising a garden, learning to butcher and cook in ways I never have before, and learn to do without some things and eat seasonally, it will never come into being as my reality.
Our magic circle has different facets. We are in a unique situation currently because we farm and dairy without owning any land or buildings, just animals and a little equipment.
I think being specific is also another important aspect. But being me, I want to be flexible, so I had a hard time nailing down what I thought offered both.
10-20 acres with a low interest loan where the owner is willing to carry. maybe with some sort of living structure already on it so the well and septic are already there. If not, being able to install the well and septic with minimal cost…maybe a labor trade in part or something.
Power is a big deal, and I would like to be off grid as possible via solar, wind, and digestor, so we need the money to install those first before we begin construction on our strawbale house, with root cellar.
I have a lot of desires for the house: strawbale construction with log poles we’ve harvested from the Sawtooth mountains north of us, lots of reused materials, except for maybe kitchen appliances; composting toilets; grey water from washing machine being piped to garden/fields. And for the home to be big enough for our family, plus guests; and to have an outdoor kitchen.
A barn for the animals.
I want our land to produce most of the food we eat, plus the feed for our animals in the form of pasture, hay, a bit of grain, and annuals for winter foraging.
For the dairy, it needs to provide our income for us plus employees within two years of this year (yes there are more specific numbers for this), have trustworthy and motivated employees and interns so I’m not stressing all the time. I want those people to be part of our family, to have warm relationships with them. As much as possible I want to sell just in Idaho, but I would like to expand beyond our borders a little, but just regional to the West Coast. I want the CSA to be a huge part of the business: financially and as a social community. I want to be able to do more continuing ed through cheese courses, or having a cheese consultant to work with, and be able to partake in the American Cheese Society’s conventions. And I want the “dairy” to be more diversified in our offerings, cheese wise, and also with goat meat, and whey fed pork (both of which I’m introducing this year).
That’s a friggin huge circle to me.
*here are some photos of a couple strawbale homes we toured a couple years ago in Eastern Idaho
conversation of the day
I spent most of last year with a cell phone which operated, but which I could not see the screeen. It was so frustrating, because all of my friend’s numbers were in the phone, but I could not access them. I couldn’t see if there was a missed call or voicemail, and obviously couldn’t text. Can you say ghetto? Yeah. hard for personal life and business.
But thanks to timely upgrade-ability of our phone contract (I dislike phone contracts, by the way), and a sale at the electronic store we recently got new (free) phones, with texting and all sorts of new gadgets. Welcome to the 21st century, Jilli.
Okay, so now my best friend and I can text throughout the day, and it is so fabulous. Let me tell you. That is one facet of our current life that gets me down sometimes, lonliness and the lack of friends to chat with…friends who really know you and are intersted in your wellbeing and wanting to make life better…
Anyway. onto the conversation of the day. She started my friday with this question:
Thought for the day. What is the difference between simplicity and serenity? And can I achieve one without the other?
Deep, right? I spent most of the day thinking about it while doing cheese maintainence and having our weekly farm meeting. (don’t I sound organized now…weekly meetings? oooo)
Me: Simplicity is an uncomplicated state: pared down to necessity or just the basics; easy, but not so much easy as easygoing. Serenity is a state of calm; peacefulness. So I think you could life in a state of simplicity and not have serenity; serenity is definitely internal, whereas simplicity refers to a little of both. At least this is my view at the moment.
Her: yes, I agree. Also serenity seems to be in my control where as simplicity may or not be. Which can makde me crazy, i.e. NOT serene!
Me: Serenity requires what: Acceptance of a given situation; of the fact I am not in control. Courage, or lack of fear. What else?
Her: For me it is acceptance. If it’s not something I can control it’s not my business so I need to keep my nose out. …Realizing all my stressing and carrying on was not helping and actualy making everything worse. And everyone including me miserable….Serenity is a work in progress.
There is more to the conversation. But those were the big pieces. The “ah-ha” pieces. While simplicity, or voluntary simplicity are things I am working for this year. Serenity is something I desparately need more of. I don’t remember ever feeling quite this way before. When I became pregnant, my anxiety and stressing and worrying went through the roof (there were lots of external and internal factors at play), and it has come down a little, but life does not have the peace and ease that I feel it used to.
I have this book…
…called Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnack. It is a daily devotional style book. It’s mostly aimed at creating your home as a safe haven and having the beauty and peace of your home extend into the rest of your life and day. At least, that is how I have interpreted it. Which is difficult since for the past three years I’ve been living with family, but there is enough useful and inspirational reading in there that I just pick out what applies to me.
I spied this book on a friend’s shelf a few years ago, and when I spotted it at a thrift store I snagged it. I have now started reading it in january for the last three years, and sometime in march I get too busy (surprise!) and it gets put back on the shelf until the following winter. This January, I have decided to do something different. I picked the book up, flipped to a month I haven’t read yet, and started reading, sometimes just a page (a day), but most times I just read until I’ve had my fill, or Newton runs off. I figure this way I actually make my way through it, and read new material.
And yes, there has been a lot about books, and that is because it is winter, which is really the only time I have oppotunity to read, other than in the car, and that is hit and miss because I do get motion sickness.
I thought this spoke to the idea of the ‘magic circle’ and simplicity:
There is an ancient metaphysical law that says if we desire more abundance in our lives we must create a vacuum to allow ourselves the good we seek.
and then, I just liked these quotes:
In order that people may be happy in their work, these 3 things are needed:they must fit for it. Theymust not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.
-John ruskin
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
-Albert einstein
Oh, and Sarah has a website : http://www.simpleabundance.com/
a review of sorts
With all the talk of goals for the new year, I thought it would be good to list what I did actually accomplish during the crazy kick butt/butt kicked year of 2011…
- I successfully kept Newton alive and healthy all year, and celebrated his first birthday! ( yes, I am serious, good work to me!)
- I successfully kidded 10 goats with 23 kids.
- I milked 19 goats from march tthrough october 31
- I assisted in milking approx 65 ewes from february thru june.
- I made lots of yummy cheese
- I worked up the nerve to enter restaurants thru the back door and offer my yummy cheese to chefs to critique, and hopefully buy. And yes, some did buy.
- Attended three farmers markets from april thru october, and one holiday market in November. I sold lots of goat cheese and eggs, some weeks everything I could make!
- I worked harder and longer than I ever have; I loved and hated it, and at the end of the seaon, was ready to be done for a while.
I did quite a bit. I couldn’t have done it without my best friend, family support, and my business partnership. I’m not trying to brag, really, but winter has been slow, and I lost track of what a great year 2011 really was, I was just feeling all of the tiredness and burned-out apathy that I felt in October when I dried off the girls.
I am really trying to get ready for this year, and this season, both physically, mentally, emotionally. There are new challenges to be dealt with, and I really am not sure how to deal with those just yet. Here’s to a great year…
a date and the magic circle
We went on a date yesterday…to the library. Seriously. With Newton and Linz (one of J’s sisters). Seriously, again. It was that kind of date. Yes, it was awesome and fun and much needed. The library is one of my happy places, literally. Yes, I’m that girl that thinks being a librarian would be an awesome job, and once even considered that as a career. yep. And Newton really enjoyed walking around, rearranging almost empty shelves, and staring at the giant globe on display.
I needed some inspiration, some excitement for the new season. I ended my farmers’ market and dairying season feeling burned out and a bit hopeless for the upcoming year. I ended up with two books to help me find that: The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball (recommended by a fellow blogging friend), and Joel Salatin’s new book, Folks, This Ain’t Normal. And yes, I’ve started reading both, simultaneously. Joel’s book we are reading together before bed. We made it through the forward and we were in love with it already; we’re now on chapter two.
Kristin’s book so far has me inspired and hating her and her husband. Seriously. Who has a magic circle? Who says, I want a farm and farmhouse in which to live, within nine months, and oh yeah, for free??? And then 9 months later GETS IT???? I had to leave the book at this point (I was reading while trying to get Newton to nap…it took a while), and go find Jeremy to lament our lack of magic circle. How come no one has told me about this? Am I too pent up and worried to have one? …And then Jeremy pointed out that I do have one, I just don’t call it that, and for some unknown reason I don’t always use it.
Case in point: Before we moved to Idaho, I said I wanted a goat dairy and to make artisan goat cheese, and farm and have a huge garden and chickens and ducks. (Focus on the goat part here.) The first week I arrived in Idaho, I met Laura, who owns a sheep ranch/dairy, and whom I now work with; partners, but not in the traditional sense of business partners. About 4 months later, she calls (rather out of the blue), and says, hey do you want to work together and make cheese at my place, yours and mine? Well, heck yeah I do! And I’ve been on this road almost three years now, with last year being the first year in production.
So yeah, I do have a magic circle.
Now the question is, why the hell am I not using it currently?
So tonight, we’re listing out what we want in our magic circle. And we’re re-creating it. What’s in yours?
newton and I selling our cheese
tea
I love coffee. seriously. I loved it before we lived an hour from Seattle. And living in Western Washington only deepened that love. In the winter, I tend to drink a LOT of coffee. It keeps me warm when I am cold, and I am cold all the time. seriously. layers upon layers of clothing, and I am still chilly. The last two winters were difficult because I was first pregnant, then nursing, so I drank very little coffee, if any. This year is a whole new ball game!
And then we got colds. I do like tea, and occasionally switch things up by midday cups of tea (mostly in winter), but when we get sick. I make tea. Lots of tea. With lots of leaves and roots. I don’t make herbal teas often enough, though I have new resolve for this year to make and drink them, even when I’m not sick.
The tea for this cold consisted mainly of ginger root, licorice root, mullein leaves, a dash of cayenne powder, and yummy raw (local) honey (can’t have tea without honey!). I did switch it up a few times with peppermint (not as good, though I love peppermint), and sarsparilla root (added a nice vanilla touch). But that is only to play with flavors. *Note, the cayenne sinks to the bottom, so watch out for that last sip!!*
Anyway, we drank 2-3 cups of this tea a day, cut out dairy and alcohol (we don’t drink a lot, but we do have some homemade Christmas Spice Beer that is so yummy ), and reduced coffee to just a cup a day. (and ya know, tried to get more rest and take it easy, etc) And it wasn’t so bad…the cold, I mean. I diluted Newton’s portion with water in his cup, but he liked drinking it straight from mine (of course, everything is better from mama’s cup). Linz (sis-in-law), who had the cold first, had it much worse, and developed a nasty cough that kept on going; while we weren’t congested, nor did we develop the cough, and in a few days it was mostly gone. I’m not completely sure, could have been because our immune systems are different from hers to begin with, may not have been the exact same bug (but I think it is, I think she gave it to us ), but Jeremy is certainly of the belief that the tea worked wonders for him.
I really love herbs and foods that heal. I don’t practice what I read often enough, but I do try. I have a great book by Rosemary Gladstar, Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health, which I bought after Newton was born. I didn’t follow a specific recipe, but picked through a few to put together the tea based on what I wanted out of the tea, and which herbs I had on hand.
I found it was easier to make a quart at a time, with all the tea loose at the bottom and just strain the tea into individual cups.