TRIPLE B ACRES

praying for Iowa

Hello,

I finally made it back here!  I have just not had my mind on blogging lately.  We have been busy trying to finish up school for the year-- so I can have a break!

I love homeschooling but it can be very challenging to get it all done.   I have so many things I want them to do but never enough time to do it!  And it seems before we finish one thing I find something else that would be really great and want to do that, too! 

I am also praying daily for Iowa-- I am originally from Iowa and all of my family is still there.  All of my family is safe -- they live in Mt. Pleasant(where I grew up) and Iowa City & Burlington are part of my old stomping grounds!   I feel for everyone and know exactly what they are going through-- as we were flooded in Sept 99 by Hurricane Floyd.  We lost our home and I just remember the feelings of despair!  We were very thankful for our lives but to lose everything you work your whole life for is very emotional.   I had to call my mom & sister to come get us as we didn't even have a vehicle to drive.  My kids were 7,5 & 4 months at the time and we went to Iowa for several weeks.  We then came back and lived in a camper for 5 months until we were able to move into our home we live in now.  There is so much I want to do for these people now but I know that until the water has receded and damages are assessed there is not much we can do except pray.  I remember people asking us  "what do you need?" but until you can finally settle down and assess the whole situation you can't really think about what you will need; your mind is on just getting through another day.  Water, diapers, formula were some of the biggest blessings for us as we had a baby and we could not get to work for several weeks-- these items were a big financial blessing to us. 

On the homestead front we have come a long way with the new chicken house-- the fencing is done and the chickens are staying in the new barn but we have to finish putting up another wall before winter comes again.

I also finally made some goat's milk soap -- it doesn't look very pretty-- it wouldn't come out of the mold very well but it does smell good and I used some to wash my hands and it lathered real good. 

Today is 2 weeks so I am going to try bathing with it tonight-- I will let you know how it is!  For those of you who make soap what do you use for molds?  Do you grease the molds?  And how do you make pretty colors?  We are going to try some more soon.

 Until next time,

Be blessed ~~ Tina

Untitled Comment

{ 4:39 PM, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 } { Posted by morningsunshine }

my favorite mold is garbage. yup. I beg people I know that eat pringles to save their cans for me (I also promise finished soap if they do!) or I beg for some off freecycle.
I just give them a quick wipe with a paper towel to get the crumbs out, then pour my soup in, attach the lid and insulate for 18-24 hours. You have to ruin the cans to get the soap out, but they slice into 8 beautifully round bars of soap. I usually need 4-5 cans per batch (depending on the recipe).

soap

{ 4:26 PM, Saturday, August 9, 2008 } { Posted by pljammie }

I had my husband make some wooden molds for my soaps. I found that the little plastic molds from the craft store DO NOT work on homemade soap, but work lovely on melt and pour. I line the molds with freezer paper, shiny side out. It works on Pringles cans as well. If you don't buy pringles a piece of PVC pipe works just as well and can be used over and over. You can also use boxes for molds. Have you looked at www.millersoap.com? There is a lot of good soap making advice and recipes there.

Mrs.P

Your Chicken Yard & Soap

{ 10:28 PM, Saturday, September 6, 2008 } { Posted by Regina }

Hey Tina, My beloved just built a new chicken yard for our chicken also, I wanted to ask you, y'all don't have a covering over yours do you? Do y'all not have hawks up there? We have to cover ours and dig down and bury the wire or else something will eat the chickens, a possum, fox, coyote , something.

And I was gonna ask you about the soap but I see there where someone posted about the site to go to. I have never made soap and I want to give it a try as we are trying to live a frugal as possible.

Thanks, Regina