Hi Evelyn,
No problem, I have been a little busy myself.
My mother use to bottle (you say can) fruit, pickles, chutney, tomato sauce and many other produce to store from Dad's large garden and fruit trees we had quite a few varieties of.
My ex and I use to bottle fruit, we would buy in a couple of cases of peaches, nectarines, apricots and other yummy fruits we brought back from our summer vacations on the east coast of Hawkes Bay where many orchards are. We had a couple of apple trees, rhubarb, rasberry, black current bushes of our own as well as a good sized garden my Ex liked to tend.
I have had kind of a long vacation from all this since living in the States and James did not learn any of these skills from his living in various foster homes. I have taught him many skills over the years as I saw lots in theory but not necessarily actually got to practice what I saw. James always wanted to live off the land as he was always a city boy and back to basics yet I really never left this, being a country gal.
My mother or I had never made soap, or even saw it being made so this was quite a new activity for me and James who was also new to this got right involved and after watching many videos and finding easy looking recipes, I decided on the video I will put on the bottom. At present I have halved the recipe as I experiment a little with the oils.
The first batch I used peppermint oil that has been cured and we are using and the second batch I made last week has Teatree oil. I am disappointed with my solo batch because I left it a little long to score and I should have cut the soap into bars then instead of waiting until morning because the bars broke when I cut them.
Yes, I saw several video's on lye making with ashes from the fire, it is handy to know this. I bought 100% lye from Lowes in their drain cleaner section.
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Hi Amanda, sorry to be so long getting back with you.
I think it is wonderful that you and James are getting back to the basics. Both my parents lived to be 84 and I've always thought it was because of their life styles. My mother died in June of 2007, and always had a garden and froze and canned almost all their food. They had an apple tree too that she used to make dried apples for her wonderful apple stack cakes and fried apple pies and of course they had their bees for honey. They would also buy peaches by the bushel and canned and freeze them. My mom quit milking a cow and raising chickens after my dad retired because they liked to go camping for days at a time and a cow has to be milked twice a day and the chickens had to be fed and watered everyday. There are so many ways to be self sufficient, especially when you have the land space for it.
I find it so interesting to hear about your soap making. I've seen websites and also at craft fairs where people were selling hand made soaps they had made using goats milk. What scent of oil did you use to make your soap?
I can remember my mother making lye soap to do laundry with. She saved the ashes from the woodburning stove and poured water through them to get the lye, which she then cooked with the lard from rendering hogs fat. This fat was from the hogs they had raised and believe it or not the smell wasn't all that bad either, quite pleasant in fact. The soap was cooked outside in a big cast iron wash kettle. I used to love to stick pieces of wood under the kettle to keep the fire burning while the soap cooked. I was very young but this is one of the things I can remember from my childhood as if it were yesterday.
I've also hung my share of clothes on the outside clothes line too and in the winter when it was very cold they would be frozen by the time you got them pinned to the line and so would your fingers, or at least they felt like it.
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James and I trying to get back to the more basics of life again. Chickens, quail, my worm compost that took quite awhile before the worms came to live and do their stuff. I reckon a milking goat would be nice to have next as I have been drinking powdered goats milk in my coffee instead of creamer or cows milk.
James and I made our first batch of soap and after waiting 3 weeks for it to cure I used a bar today in my shower and it soaped up nicely. I took a bar over to my neighbour to ask her to test and let me know what she thought of it too. I made a 2nd batch over the weekend changing some of the oil quantities and putting in powdered goats milk instead of butter milk. I am enjoying the experimentation's to see what will feel better.
Amanda
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You know Amanda, when we see living conditions like these people have to endure should make all of us more thankful for what we have. These are nothing more than hovels these people are living in and until this gentleman came up with an affordable solution, for the most part they lived in the dark almost 24/7.
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Hi Helen, Evelyn and all
This video you shared Helen looked very intriguing and I hope that it works for these people for a long time - imagine being in the dark all day on a beautiful sunny day outside, because we all like sunlight coming into our homes which perks us up and also kills off bugs etc that like to lurk in the dark corners. UGH!
I had to do a search for the serene because I did not know what it was or heard of this word and found it was like a bleach / chlorine they put into the water, I guess so it does not go cloudy and loose the effectiveness of the light.
Amanda
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Hello there!
This a simple but amazing idea....
This could have applications even in the western world. Can you think of some?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_4qFrxw_4