And the walls...come tumbling down

Dear Jericho,

We only meant to take off the roof. The steel (on the side you can't see) wasn't all that old. less than 10 years, and would be useful for other projects. So with the help of trusty intern Aaron, the husband got to work. you might recall how the barn originally looked back in the late 1890's when it was built. Sorry, no pictures, I was born a wee bit later.

But when we bought the farm 17 years ago, the barn I speak of was already almost 100 years old. It was tough looking but fairly sturdy. We put goats in it. And sometimes chickens. And then Calves



 

 

Last year we put pigs in there and that was the beginning of the end. You might recall this picture

 

 

 

 

Blog follower Cro or was it Tom ? John ?  Walt? Alvin? One of them made the comment "Won't be long before they eat the whole thing. Well, it wasn't long at all.

But like I said, they had a little help from Keith and Company. Yes, we had moved all the pigs out of that lot before destruction day but still there were squatters to deal with.

 

One of our calves felt the need to explore the source of all the noise. Not finding the answers he needed down below he took things to the top level.

The calf came down on his own all safe and sound so you can cancel all those calls to PETA , OK?

The Manure Preneur

I follow a brilliant woman in Ireland, Lorna Sixsmith, who manages home, farm, kids and her own successful business of teaching others how to promote their business via the Internet. In a nutshell: She blogs about blogging.  On a recent Face Book post she asked followers their opinions of the terms "mumpreneur" and "dadpreneur" in regards to men and woman who run their own businesses. See it HERE

My opinion: utter silliness.  No, not Lorna, I already told you she's brilliant, see her blog Here, I'm talking about the pop vulture terms that are being thrown out there. She asks if we think the wording is degrading, especially in regards to women. Well, no. The terms are ridiculous whether you're wearing chore boots or chore heels

Our society is overflowing with titles while sorely lacking in actual workers. Calling a hard working woman who juggles home, children, husband (I can so juggle him, he's on the light side) and maybe an outside job...a "mumpreneuer" does not award her any more respect or dignity than she already has earned independently.

 Titles can not award those attributes, just look at the goofs we call President , (present leader included) and if we hang our hats on the name badges instead of on the work accomplished, what will we do when we accidentally toss  the name badge in the Maytag with the rest of the uniform?

It's not that I am so up on the high road I have never sloshed around in the title pond, no, in fact I have coveted titles for many a year but to admit the following is a required part of my recovering manager therapy. Embarrassing as it may be, here goes.

In 1988 at the raw age of 28 I was hired for my first nurse management job. The title on my office door (yup, had my own desk and black speaker phone too) read "Hospice Patient Care Coordinator" I thought I was very hot stuff. And I was quite happy with the name given since I understood much of my job did indeed involve the coordination of patient care. Seemed logical huh?

Then, about 6 weeks into the job, after filling out numerous application forms for State Licensure  and them Medicare Certification  of the program, and then becoming even more empowered (HATE that word, every time I hear a woman say it I visualize a long power cord coming out her tush and being plugged into a wall with sparks flying out and about) when I hired and fired the same person in 24 hours, I realized I was actually engaged in the responsibilities of a  program DIRECTOR.

I approached my boss about a name change. She  wasn't too thrilled with my request since she was already DIRECTOR of Nursing. We couldn't really have two directors now could we? It's embarrassing to admit how much I whined and moaned and groaned about that silly title until I got my way and my new name tag. My salary stayed the same, my duties were the same but my TITLE...now that was different.

Big deal.

So now nearly 25 years later I am reduced to more work and responsibility than I have ever had, since Keith and I own and OWE everything and ironically, I am without any official title. Unless you count the "Barn Goddess" name given to me by our accountant who puts the same thing under my name on our tax form every year. Who am I to complain?

It looks a whole lot more attractive  than the other farm wife option, "Manure Preneuer."

Saponification Sunday...Lava Lamp Liason

1965. Chicago. I was six and a family of boys who were supposed to be babysitting me and their little brother, my then best buddy, were spending a little time "recreating" to the mellow tunes of Iron Butterfly.

It was my first memory of a Lava Lamp, a slowly boiling, rolling, rumbling mass of color on color within an oil base encased in a tall cylinder of glass. All the grooviest leather headband folk had one.

I flash backed to that particular brand of art when I created this soap last week. It was supposed to be a "spoon swirl" soap . I had it all planned out mixing up several different colors of soap tinted with Indigo, Turmeric, Wheat Grass, and Titanium Dioxide plus a little Red Moroccan Clay but then forgot what my plan was and just dumped a bunch of white soap on the bottom of the mold before I recalled the plan to "spoon" in the layers.

But as the dementia faded (about the same time the soap starting getting really thick) I realized I needed to work fast  and pretty soon I was splashing soap around like Farrah Fawcett did that time she flung paint all over a huge canvas and then rolled naked on it. I had soap everywhere, while Farrah had paint in regions even Ryan didn't know existed.

Which is why I should never teach a soap making class.

24 hours later I unmolded the log of soap (while still scraping soap off cupboards and kitchen floor) and decided it was sort of dull. The colors had faded (one of the downfalls of using natural colorants) but when I flipped one of the bars over I noticed a close resemblance to the aforementioned Lava Lamp.

Made with Babassu, Rice Bran, Castor, Olive and Sweet Almond oils along with a hefty pinch of Tussah Silk I have high hopes for this bar. Next time I make this batch I'll have to substitute some hemp oil for the olive oil, just for old times sake.

And now a questions for you antique buffs out there. I bought this very heavy soap dish, meant to be embedded into a wall, last week at a local Antique Store. The store owner thought it may have come from an old school. The lovely beast weighs nearly 6 pounds and is made of iron and covered with many layers of  white enamel paint, lead paint I'll bet. Any ideas on value, age, origin? Many thanks in advance. Now hit the showers.

Buying Your First Horse. Do As I say Not As I do

Just finished another article for  The Renegade Farmer. All about buying your first horse. If you get a chance to hop over there and leave a comment or two I will be forever grateful. I mean it. Forever. Or at least as long as I can remember to do so.

The Rain Finally Fell on The Plain

After listening to me complain about the lack of rain for so long, I thought you'd like to see what we got hit with a couple days ago.

Pure joy

 

 

Almost two inches of rain

 

 

 

 

 The ground sucked it up as fast as it fell, barely leaving any puddles.

But we did get a little of this afterwards

 

 

Don't BEE afraid

Uneducated as I was , when we first ventured into the apairy world, I did not want Keith to keep our bee hives on our property. Seeing poor little Thomas J. (My Girl ) die after multiple bee stings warped my view.

But over time and after watching my skilled hubbie with the bees and then reading what I could, I came around. First the hives were at a friends house many miles away, then they were behind the barn, then they moved up by our machine shed and THEN I allowed them to be located about 50 feet from our house.

And I made him get a EPI-PEN to keep in our truck. (Old nurses never die they just lose their patience (patients)

I also learned to garden side by side with them bees, planting the kind of flowers they suggested (bumble bees wanted sunflower, honey bees wanted glads and cosmos) and filled up my bird baths for bee watering.

Earlier this summer our grandaughter Allana started fretting about the bees. Now, I have been very comfortable about them for at least a year and I suppose she picked up on some of my earlier discomfort but it didn't make sense as she was such a bug lover the first 7 years of her life. (Just ask her mother who had to put up with every Tom, Dick and Hairy caterpillar our GK insisted on bringing back home after spending the day on our farm)

Her "fretting" became a real fear to the point that she would not go outside if she saw or heard a bee. If we were walking outside with her, she would suddenly rush to our side and grab on tight or hide behind us.

I felt so bad for her. She is normally a very brave little chickie.

So we did what I am sure any grandparent would do. Buy a book on bees? Naaaa. Sit down on google and discuss with her how rare a bee stick is? Naaaa. Take her to a therapist. No way.

We bought her her very first bee suit.

One with a zip on hood and leather gloves. All in her size so she could move well, and then she and Keith sepnt an entire day tending to our bees. They watered them and harvested the honey, gently wiping the bees off their hives as they pulled out the supers. Then they extracted the honey and filtered it. Later they bottled it, labeled it and stocked it in our farm store.

The next day when she and I were walking in my secret garden she saw several bees and announced "Don't worry Yaya, they are too busy collecting pollen to notice us. She still walked away a little quickly but there was no panicked arm grabbing.

It's nice to have our little bug lover back.



You can get your own mini-bee suit HERE

Saponification Sunday...Other Womens Soap

I did a reckless thing a couple of weeks ago. Wild and Reckless. Wild, Reckless and Impulsive.

I bought another woman's soap. Actually it was four women but I had good cause...all of them...are better than mine. How do I know, you query? Well, I've been stalking them, via their blogs, their web sites, their Face Books, their you-tubes, a few interviews with their neighbors, coffee with their post men, their whatevers.

Why? You query yet a second time? Because I am advanced. An advanced beginner. I am at that point in my soap making that I fully understand that there is little I fully understand and no matter how much I point my cursor over other soapers swirls and waves, I will never advance until I take a few showers...with other women's soap.

So I picked 4 that I have been admiring for awhile,  Caron and Michelle of Two Blooms Design Studio, Kendra of Amathia Soapworks, Joanna of Product Body and Becky of Heirloom Soapworks.
I decided to do this primarily out of guilt. Reading their blogs, learning from their videos, eyeing their creations all for FREE seemed wrong. It was time to put my husbands hard earned money where MY mouth was. (Kidding, I threw a little of my own soap selling money into the Paypal Pot)

It's not like I haven't bought other handmade soap before, most recently grabbed up several things from Amy at Great Cakes Soapworks, ( Her lotions!!!! Oh my goodness her lotions are tres' fab) which was what initially got me thinking about my selfish ways of watching and not buying.

Now, the purpose of this post is not to compare and contrast (oh, how I miss Cocobong) that would be as ridiculous as me giving diet and exercise advise. Well, even more ridiculous, I did lose a bunch of weight once, I have never been an expert saponifier) No, the purpose was to further educate my limited oil plus lye equals suds self, sort of  a reverse critique.

This is what I learned overall. All four ladies made beautiful pieces of artistic soap that smelled of Heaven as I would imagine Heaven to smell. All four delivered their soaps to me FAST, (I ordered two soaps from each on the same day) Even that duo from another country got my soaps to me in just three days! All four took great care in packaging allowing their soaps to arrive in perfect shape. This was the most shocking part. You see I have been doing a little overkill on the shipping of my own soaps. Tissue wrap followed by pretty paper napkins and then bubble wrap (each bar) and then foam peanuts in a box with lots of tape and a the final touch of a large metal combination lock.

Yes, my postage costs were a wee high.

These ladies used shrink wrap (3 of 4 did) one used a sturdy individual cut out cardboard box and they all then shipped in padded envelopes. Simple, cost effective and more than adequate. All of their postage fees were within $1.00 of each other.

They also had great tops.

Lets take it from the top: Bamboo from Heirloom Soapworks, Raspberry Vanilla Luxury Soap from Two Blooms Design Studio,
Gaia (Spicy patchouli vanilla) from Amathia Soapworks
and The Sea Bar from Product Body

What's up with that one skinny green bar you wonder? Well that one belongs to Becky of Heirloom Soap works. It is her Bamboo Bar, the first one of the 8 bars I unwrapped and I was totally sucked in to its Aromatic Delightfullness. I actually took a shower with it while unwrapping the other bars I received that day, it was that hard to put down. I have washed everybody and every body's body with it since it arrived.

Don't believe me? Just smell our Turkey.

So to summarize, I learned the following
     1. Shrink wrap is great but well made boxes are good too.
     2. Labels must be detailed and easy to read. (mine isn't)
     3. Mailing materials must be adequate but should not weigh more than the post mistress.
     4. Fast shipping is well appreciated. (I could be faster)
     5. Whatever you charge for your soap...it had better be worth it!  (Theirs was)
     6. A picture is NOT worth a thousand words. All of these soaps were better than their pictures.
     7. Just like a good writer must read read read, a good soap making must shower shower shower!

And finally, here is the soap I made myself this week. Another batch of "High Woad" as in A Good Soaper must always take the High Woad.

Made of Coconut, Olive, Castor and Sweet Almond Oil, colored with Moroccan Red Clay, Woad Powder and Titanium Dioxide. Scented with Bergamot, Lavender, Lemongrass, Pink Grapefruit and Amyris EO's Available for purchase Oct 1. STILL just $4.00 a bar as I am STILL a beginner. Contact me at opies99@gmail.com to order.

                                  Freshly cut and untrimmed

PS Before you bark at me about not buying any mens soap so I can learn from them with more arm pit hair...give me time. I can only stalk one gender at a time.