I was asked to post a few pictures of my soaps.  Soaping is my passion.  These first 2 photos have absolutely NO color added.  The color in the dark one comes from the fragrance.  The speckled one has NO color but some ground herbs in it.  As you can see, I like to play with color, too.  The bottom one with green and orange is really hard because it is a 2-color swirl.

I made a 2-color swirl soap for our son & his wife when they got married.  The 2 colors were their wedding colors of sage and country blue.  The wedding soap will probably be a one-time soap, just for the kids.

I confess, I love to sit and whittle the sharp edges off the bar.  My family says they make bevel boxes to do that, but it's not nearly as theapeutic.  I like to handle every bar of soap I make, which gets pretty hard during farmers' market season and the Oct-Nov-Dec mail order rush.

Like I said last night...I think I'm starting to like January.  =)

TKB

We used to trade chickens for oak sawmill slabs, but our slab guy quit milling wood a while back.  That bad ice storm MO had last January took down thousands in trees here in the Ozarks. Dh has been heading out with his chain saw every couple of days.  I haven't been paying real close attention.  Today, I asked him where he was getting the wood and how much he thought was there.  He told me he was just taking out the tractor and cutting "dead standing" along the tree line.  He thought there would be enough for at least 2 years.  What a blessing.  He's cleaning up the farm and providing for the warmth of our home at the same time!

Work has been slow and the 2 big boys have had several days off of work around the holidays here.  Today, Dad and the big boys went out and "worked" the new lambs (ear tags, banding, etc...).  We have 7 lambs now.  It looks like we'll have 15+ yearlings to take to the butcher this year.  It was really, really cold.

After they came in for the day, the girls made hot chocolate for everybody.  We stoked the woodstove and the kids started a good long game of "Farm-opoly".  What a riot!  They were playing for hours.  It was so nice to have a good dinner in our tummys, a warm fire in our home, and Dad and the kids playing a board game. Grandma sat and watched to antics.   I sat and whittled my soaps.  As silly as it sounds, it's therapeutic.  I take a little paring knife and shave off the edges of the bar.  Kind of like beveling.

It was such a joy to watch 6 of our children sit around and just have fun together.  Here they are 26 to 12 and they're playing board games.  What a joy.

I don't think life's been this quiet (relatively speaking....the cattle calls and pig calls in the game weren't too quiet  ;-) since we were without power for 15 days last January.

It'll be back to the frozen water lines for the animals in the morning.  But tonight, it was warm and wonderful.  I think I'm starting to like January.

TKB

Okay...it's 11 PM and the house is starting to thump.  The dining room is shaking.  What ????
Then I hear giggles.  ????

We haven't been home long from a big evening out to Silver Dollar City to see the Christmas lights.  A couple of the kids are in bed and the house is thumping.  What in the world?

I go into the next room to find my nearly 50 y/o husband teaching 3 of the children how to do CARTWHEELS !!  By example, of course.  Now THAT'S a sight!    Dad and 3 kids are taking turns using our bedroom as a runway into the dining room for their cartwheels.

Our 19 y/o has never done a cartwheel in her life!  (Dad hasn't done one in her lifetime, either!)  I don't think I've EVER seen my husband do a carthweel.  Obviously, gymnastics isn't on the curriculum list at our house. 

No wonder they were giggling.  I did too.

TKB

Yesterday, my Mr. went out to check on his Jersey/Holstein dairy cow who is due to freshen any day.  What did he find?  Twin lambs!  Not from the cow, of course.....

Mr., our 17 y/o son, and I went out on the Kawasaki Mule and loaded up the lambs and ewe.  The little Jacob Sheep lambs are sooooo cute!  We take them to the barn and put them in the "lamb nursery" for several days so they can get stronger (before a coyote comes) and to bond with their mama.

It's a little early for lambs.  They don't usually lamb until February or March.  My guess is that the ram got out a bit early. 

We are looking forward to lots more baby lambs this early spring.  New life is always exciting.

Lovin' this life !!

We've been heating with wood for 8 years now.  We used to trade chickens for oak saw-mill slabs, but our guy has quit the saw-mill business.

This last January, southern MO had a horrendous ice-storm.  The ice took out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people.  It paralyzed the cities and put thousands of people in shelters because they couldn't heat their homes.  The ice broke so many trees, that this part of the country will never be the same in our lifetimes.  Now, in November, in some of the more rural areas there is still evidence of mounds of limbs that haven't been burned or chipped up.

The ice-storm was a hardship on many people, including our family.  Particularly because we have our elderly parents in our home.  We were without electricity for 15 days.  Our family was able to make do and get by, but the old folks are on oxygen machines that take electricity.  Had to dig out the generators.  But everyone made out okay.

It is starting to get quite cold (as I'm sure it is across the country).  Guess what we're using for firewood?  My husband and sons have been cleaning up our forests and bringing in dead wood.  My husband even purchased a "girl sized" chain saw and our 19 y/o daughter has been helping cut up wood!

God is so good, even through those difficult times.  We re now burning broken limbs of dead wood to heat our home!  None of it is going to waste.  Praise HIS name!

We are now running on fumes (aka....we're exhausted!!), but the turkeys are ALL processed.  We are finished with turkeys for this year!!  Here are a few pictures of our day.  I left out  all the graphic pictures.  Didn't figure everyone needed to see the whole deal.

Look at what a beautiful day it was.  Here we are processing turkeys at the end of November in 'shirt sleeves'.  There have been years when we were freezing.  We give thanks to the Lord for such a beautiful day to do our work.

Not everyone in the pictures is in our "immediate" family.  Several are from our precious church family.  We couldn't have done it without their help.    We have soooo much to be thankful for.

This last picture was at the end of the day.  Our son was having a little fun!

We've been cleaning out freezers out for the last several days to make room for the turkeys we'll be keeping, as well as several we need to "hold" for some people.  My beloved found some very large boxes of ground tallow that needed to be rendered down for soap making.  These boxes of fat were taking up lots of room!  I've been cooking down fat and cooking down fat and.........!  By cooking the fat down and straining it through an old 1/2 t-shirt, it takes up far less room.  This makes my husband very happy.  Having the tallow rendered and ready to use makes me happy!

The kids spent the last 2 days at some friends' house deer hunting.  I was kind of looking forward to them bringing home some deer tallow to make soap with.  They got skunked.  No deer.  Just a houseful of tired, windblown kids.  Maybe next year.

Just wanted to share a beautiful sight.  We sure do enjoy our windmill.

Once upon a time, we just a little family.  Then we became a big family.  Now, we are a really big family!

A long time ago, back in our old life, we lived in the city.  Several years ago, through a series of trials and heartaches, we were blessed with a farm.  Now, we are working the farm full-time and are busier that we ever thought humanly possible!

Right now, we have LOTS (!) of turkeys on the field waiting for their appointed time.  The phone rings constantly.  There is a lot to keep up with at this time of year.

Last night, some friends held a barn dance for their daughter's birthday.  Since our sons usually call the dances around here, we went dancing!

It was good to take the time to celebrate with fellow believers.  I danced with my beloved, and my married son even asked me to dance! 

We all had a wonderful time.  This morning, my middle aged feet hurt.  But, it was a time to dance!