Matilda

Or, A Man and His Chicken....

This is the Araucana hen, Matilda. She's the one that lays the pretty green eggs. We had been concerned because she hadn't layed an egg since before Thanksgiving(tip to Matilda, it's easy for the people to see you're slacking off when you're the only one laying green eggs.). Ben was talking about "retirement" if she didn't start up again in the Spring. I had him talked into giving her till July. But last week, there was a green egg in the nest! Go Matilda! She's been laying just fine since then, as well. We're used to the Cinnamon Queens, who lay straight though the winter no problem, but I guess Matilda's the kind of bird who takes the winter off. The days are certainly getting longer now though, so I can see why she's back in the groove.

Here's a photo I took yesterday for all you fans of The Birds. It was loud out there!

Yay for Friday!

Dude, check out the birds. All that black out in the field across the road? Birds! This wasn't even as big as most of the flocks that come through. It gets a little creepy when they all line up on the phone lines and the neighbors' roof and watch me get the mail.
Smudge helped us sort our seeds this past weekend.


I can't wait to get my hands in the dirt! I think gardening might me like a snowballing kind of hobby. At first I hated it, but now, I'm really looking forward to doing it some more. Weird.

I'd like to go back to being awesome now, thank you.

On Monday I woke up with one of those stiff necks that feels like you might have actually injured yourself in your sleep, and can't turn your head more than a fraction either way... so frustrating!

I decided that maybe it would be best to keep moving in spite of it, and maybe it would losen up, but I don't think that's the right prescription in that situation since it didn't feel much better at all Monday evening. So, yesterday I spent much of the day on the couch with a heating pad, and it feels a little better this morning, if slightly sore.

So, between being sick last week, and having such a bad neck this week, I'm feeling like a mess! I haven't worked out all that much, and just want to get back to doing that and feeling good again.

I have a few small goals for this week, and now that I can move my head and all, I'm hoping to get some fun things done.

Today, I have chicken breasts and hamburger to cook up and freeze, since we bought extra during some good sales this past weekend. There's laundry to do, and I have some articles to write and submit for AC.

Other things I want to accomplish this week include finishing that project for Adam. My sewing machine broke about ten minutes from the end last week, and once I pick it up from the shop, I can finish this right up and send it out.

I'm in the middle of an experiment making fermented ginger soda. My starter hasn't gotten bubbly yet, but I've moved it to a much warmer place, so I'm hoping I can get that mixed up and fermenting in the carboy this week. I'll definately update more on that when I see how it goes.

I'm planning to get some seeds planted. I've recently read about a technique called winter sowing, where you plant seeds in "mini-greenhouses" (containers covered in plastic) outside in the winter, and let them do their thing till it's transplant time. This makes so much sense to me!! Seeds sit on the ground all winter and then they grow on their own, so it doens't make a ton of sense to trick them into coming up early in the house, and then struggle for 4-6 weeks to give them light, and keep them warm, and keep them from growing fungus, and keep them watered, when all I have to do is let nature tell them when they want to come up and make sure they have water occasionally.

I would like to try another batch of soap, this time with some fancier ingredents and add-ins, for using in the bathrooms. I don't know yet if I can do that this week or not though, since I haven't picked a recipe. It'll depend on whether I have the ingredients on hand or not if I wait till next week.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Geneology - Genealogy software

Because girls who wear glasses are interchaneable... ;D

Wishbone Intro

Guess what I did today...

No, I didn't remove asbestos laden insulation. Or explore an alien ship in my backyard. Or map the human genome.

I made soap!

So here's why all the safety gear:

Ben thinks I'm accident-prone. (I will never understand where he gets that idea!) So, the deal was that if I'm gonna work with lye and make soap, I have to suit up in all the safety stuff he deems necessary.

Everything worked out fine. Though those darn safety glasses fogged up a lot by the time I hit trace with the mixing. How exactly is it extra safe not to be abe to see?

I used the recipe here for soap made with Crisco. I used generic Aldi shortening that I had around that tasted so bad it wrecked frostings and cookies, so I retired it to cast iron seasoning only. It's a very simple beginning recipe with only three ingredients, so I wanted to use it for my first try, since it's the easiest soap there is. I'm planning to use it in the laundry soap instead of Fels Naptha. Next, I'll try some nice smelling soap for us to use.

I do think that my pot may be too wide, and so the liquid wasn't quite deep enough to keep the stick blender from whipping in a lot of air. I'm not sure if that'll be a big deal to the finished product or not.

My soap's all wrapped tight in an all towel in my orange juice carton mold saponifying away. On Monday I'll post some pics of the un-molding and cutting process and the finished soap. There was no way I was going to be able to take pictures while I was doing the soapmaking it's self for the first time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Woke Up Sick

This morning, I woke up sick with gunky nose and ears, a sore throat and cough, and sweating and shivering. Unpleasant.

So, I'm under orders to stick to the couch and drink at least one pot of the rooibos echinacea tea that I concocted for The Boss when he was not feeing well last week. (wonder where I picked this bug up then...)

Good thing I was at the library last night! I have a stack of books all about soap making and herbal medicine to study. So, I can still be very productive while sitting still in this case. I'm planning to spend the day studying, and maybe napping if the mood strikes. I hope I'll be feeling better tomorrow, so I can get some actual making and doing and cleaning done!