Hanky Panky

Sign seen in Pharmacy, Gort, County Galway, Ireland
January 2013

My father was one of the original handkerchief men. Never without one, he perfected its multiple uses. Runny nose? He'd attack it with his hanky in his suit coat pocket, swiping snot from your nose to your chin.  Dirty face? He'd correct the problem with the other side of the same cloth (if you were lucky) well moistened with a healthy amount of daddy spit.

Skinned knee? He'd wrap his now slightly gunky rag around the knee tying it TIGHT to prevent any possible hemorrhage. Impromptu "Pin the Tail on The Donkey " game ? He was at the ready wrapping his bandanna around your eyes...our EYES for crying out loud. No wonder 5 of out 6 of us ended up wearing glasses.

Cold? The handkerchief became a scarf or worse yet, a babushka.  Grocery shopping? The hanky became an instant fruit basket, perfect for grapes both green and purple. Or maybe they were purple going in the cloth square and became green after residence in the bacteria ridden hostel.

Yup, my dad was the king of handkerchief etiquette. He never left home without it.

Saponification Sunday...You picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Castile.

Lace: from Mrs Quinns Charity Shop. Gort, County Galway, Ireland.
Pottery dish: From Mrs. Nobody's garage sale, Chatsworth. Soap:
Made with mold from son Kyle and wife Amanda

Wish I could tell you it was because of some well thought our plan but truth is...I was running low on other oils. So having lots of Olive Oil and not much else I went for it, the creation of some pure castile soap.

The technical definition is this;castile soap is that made with 100% olive oil soap, no other oils.This soap is said to be named for the Kingdom of Castile, a region in what is now known as Spain. Evidence seems to suggest that castile soap actually originated in Northern Italy, and spread outwards from there, although this soap is so ancient that it is a bit difficult to pin down the precise details of its history. In Castile, the soap was made with olive oil only, and some people differentiate between capitalized Castile soap, made with olive oil, and lower case castile soap, made with other vegetable oils.

Love the beautiful dishcloth? A blog follower of mine makes them!
Get your own masterpiece  HERE  (Thanks again Martha)

Still others use only olive OIL but add some butters like Shea or Mango and still call it castile soap. But for purposes of this blog, Castile Soap is that made with Olive Oil, water and Lye. How simple is that?

Pretty simple. With that much soft oil I worried that the batter would not trace easily (it did in about 7 minutes), that is would be too soft to cut (it was hard enough to cut on day three) and that once cut it would never harden. (Two weeks old and it is very hard)

I also had heard the lather could be "slimy" Well, the lather is not abundant by any means but it is adequately creamy and left my hands and hair, very soft. I chose not to color or scent it and the result was a sweet little ivory colored bar.

I've given out bars to my testing crew, my sisters, and will pass on a couple more to the other woman in my life whose opinions I value, my daughter and two daughter-in-laws.  The best subject though will be the farm husband who has his hands out in the cold winter weather every day.  Then I'll scientifically collate the data and complete my thesis.

Or not.

When a Man Loves a Woman

Normally the plan goes like this; after a sows litter is weaned, around the 12 week mark, the mama is returned to her herd. This herd is made up of one of our boars and 3 of our sows. The boar will then re breed the sow at their leisure.

But Clarissa, the sow this story revolves around, was a little thin after doing n excellent job of nursing her babies. Since it was winter more energy is used you see. Thus the decision was made to keep her in her private pasture and domicile a couple weeks to allow her some non-competitive feeding time.

Just a few hours before we had planned to return her to her fellow, Mad Max, the big guy, tired of waiting decided to take things in to his own...uh...hands. We did not actually see him leap the electric wire between the yards but we sure saw the result of his conjugal visit.

Yup, he literally blew out an entire side of one of our farrowing houses. One built with Keith's hardworking hands. The one he even took the time to decorate with a Holstein theme. Did Max ram his way in to get to his date? Or just knock too hard? Maybe he was just gently snuggled up alongside of Clarissa and decided to roll over?

We'll never know. What we do know, is to expect another wonderful litter of Red Wattle piglets around June 1

Meat Pusher

 

Another day pushing meat.

Keith gets up at the crack of insane and takes two beef over to the Eureka locker for processing. Because we had planned on just one but ended up that we had two that were big enough , I made phone calls and sent emails seeing if folks on the March list wanted to come up to the Feb list.

Some did, some did not. So more phone calls to the locker to give names and phone numbers and amounts.

After dropping off the critters Keith picked up all the processed beef we had at the locker from the last drop off. One and 3/4 beef came to about 700 pounds and 500 packages. Each had to be labeled with their lot number and then space found in the freezer in the store...and the shop...and the basement.

While putting in the new meat, we remove any packages that look compromised. Maybe they've gotten dirty or the vacuum packing has loosened or their is obvious freezer burn. Those packages come into our kitchen and generally are perfectly good for our own meals.

Unless I leave them on the back porch in a plastic bag and it gets discovered by an inquisitive husband three days ago.

It happens.

If so, the dogs are thrilled with their good fortune. After putting away all the new meat, we retrieve the order from Naturally Yours Grocery Store and pack it up in coolers, complete the invoice while Keith loads up the two wheeled trolley and coolers in the truck and OFF I GO. At the grocery, 60 miles from our place, I help the gal who runs the frozen meat dept. transfer  all the meat from our coolers into the store.

Very happy to see all the boxes there for our product were totally empty. On the way home I run into
the grocery closer to us and buy of all things...salmon..because one can only eat so much beef.

Eating crow...disguished as a pork chop

Received a complaint about our pork this am. Not about the taste or the way it was raised or even the price we charge ($3.25 per pound hanging weight) No, the complaint was about the size, the hog carcass was too small.

The customer, who does indeed drive a long way to get her meat at the locker we use in Eureka Illinois, was very disappointed that her hams were small and there was not enough meat left over for the sausage she ordered.

I felt bad and quickly took responsibility for our not communicating with her that the hogs were going to be smaller this time. They do grow slower in the winter. It would have made a difference to her, she might have put off her order until she could have had a larger hog with more meat to take home to her family.

I followed up with a 20% refund check to offset at least her gas expense for traveling so far for such small results. Hopefully I have kept a customer.

But, in the 4-5 minutes it took me to listen to this woman, accept responsibility for our mistake and then make it right with her via a refund, I wondered...why can't I be so accepting of responsibility with those I love so much, those closet to me, my own family?

How is it, I can accept blame, ask for forgiveness and offer an act of kindness as proof of my concern so easily for someone I have never met before but cannot easily admit when I am wrong with my own children, siblings or husband ?

Well, sometimes I admit it but certainly not very often  and even more certainly not without a great big long discussion where I drag out charts and graphs and statistical reports that will prove indubitably that my family member has to be at least HALF as responsible for the miscommunication as I am.

What is that defensiveness all about? It went so well with this customer. She was very disappointed when she called, she was absolutely right in the matter, I said I was sorry and would make it better and it was OVER. But with those we love, those who stand by us when we are at our ugliest, our sickest, our  most needy times, disagreements and bad feelings, burdens of proof can go on for weeks, months or years and perhaps without ever being resolved.

So when we think a situation is about the size of a ham steak, it really is much more about who is being the bigger pig.

Oink Oink says she.



Saponification Sunday...Seeing Red

Awhile back I ordered the wrong Palm Oil from Soapers Choice (love their FAST delivery!) It was Red. Yes, red palm oil. So I let it sit and soaped with the oils I was familiar with. This week, low on oils, I saw the big red oily bottle staring at me and started to play.

I made two recipes. The first was 13 oz of Olive Oil, 3 Oz of Castor, 3 of sweet almond and then 13 oz of the red palm oil. Kinda gruesome as I mixed and poured. I added no other colors but did scent with some Geranium Rose EO. It came to trace very quickly.

Really too bright for me

But hard, oh man is this bar hard. I cut it the next morning but could have cut it 4 hours after pouring.

So onto batch two where I used much less of the Red Palm only 5 oz and then 8 oz of coconut oil along with the same amounts of the Castor and sweet almond oil. The batter looked just as red as the one above where the Red Palm oil amount was double. It also traced quickly. Again, I did not add any other colors but scented this one with pure Lemongrass EO one of my all time favorite scents.

Strangely the two bigger molds of the different batches resulted in bars of almost identical color saturation but the two smaller flower molds, one with the first batter and one made with the second showed very different color intensities.

Which made me wonder about the gelling process. My flower molds are very shallow and I'm guessing the raw soaps from both recipes never fully gelled. Still I unmolded both of them the next day and the bars are rock hard just four days later.

Of course, I can never wait till I think  a bar is fully cured (4-6 weeks) before I play with it and sure enough on day 4  I was lathering up these bars. The results: fair to good lather that was yellow tinged but did not stain my skin. And after rubbing and washing for a couple minutes, the lather rinsed clean and left my hands feeling very soft.

Just to prove, once again...looks aren't everything.


Do you make soap with red palm oil? What are your experiences? Suggestions? Care to share a recipe you love ?

Farm for Sale ...Still

A year and a half ago when we decided we were going to step off this rapidly escalating ride of direct farm to consumer success, we were ignorant enough to think "How hard can it be?"

We signed up with a realtor who was apathetic in the beginning and totally unmotivated after one months time. "It's the economy" he told us or "Marketing is expensive you know." as if he had signed on probono.

After 6 months without  a single showing (it took him over a month to get a for sale side out front)  we told him so long and went the For Sale By Owner route. It went better. The web site I put together for our farm sale is updated HERE. We showed the farm to 12 individuals over 12 months time. Many folks had the desire to run their own organic meat business and farm, even more had the dream of being sustainable and their own boss, but none of them had the finances to go with the dream.

We understood.

But we know there is a buyer for this farm out there somewhere. Last week we shifted gears again, yes the gear box is just about stripped, we've changed directions so many times. We signed on with another realtor and thing are happening. In a few days time Cindy Eckols has our farm listed on many sites. She and her team have supplied us with signage and brochures and packets of information to have at ready when showings begin. She has touched base with me no less than 4 times in ten days, She returns my emails.

We are listening to her advice as well. We dropped our price by $12,000. We dejunking more by the day. Like the folks on HGTV always have said, buyers have to be able to see themselves in your house which they cannot do if all YOUR stuff is cluttering up the stairwell and the walls and the floors. You get the gist.

I'm giving away furniture no longer needed that makes our farm house look too small. I have four kitchen tables. Why would any sane person need four kitchen tables?. Tomorrow I'll be up on a ladder scraping the paint off a back hallway and getting it ready for a new brighter covering.

Boxes of junk are  being burned. Our dumpster is getting a workout. I'm dragging each of my kids through the house giving them items I don't think they really want but hey...it's free! I've
 even listed items on a Face Book Page yet folks don't seem to understand me when I write "FREE, CAll me to set time for pickup." Instead they text me and tell ME where to deliver it.

People.

Bottom line. We are motivated sellers. Give us a call at 815-635-3414 or contact our realtor at 309-532-1616 if you are the motivated buyer who is ready for this really great farm. We...are ready for our next really great tiny farm!

And if you need a beautiful, free dresser... (needs minor handle repair) CALL ME. I don't do texts and we don't deliver.

Postscript: moments after posting this blog, my youngest sister said SHE wants the dresser. So there it goes folks. You snooze you loose. (If she hadn't called  I was going to ship it to Cro across the pond. Seems folks there appreciate  the 50's)