All posts by ruthsoaper

Making Soap

October 4, 2016Coffee Soap, homemade, Lard Soap, Making Soap, soapruthsoaper

If you area regular reader of Don’t Eat It! Soap blog you may be wondering where all the soap posts have been. Honestly I haven’t done much soap making lately. Summer is just filled with so many other things to do, and having anticipated this I made enough soap last winter and spring to get me through until things slowed down again. I did make one batch of soap this summer, about 6 weeks ago, and I am testing it now. I made this soap by request of a lady who has very sensitive skin. The person who had made her soap in the past was no longer making it for her. She isn’t sure what the ingredients were in the soap that was being made for her, but she knew that it had lard in it. She suspects that the ingredient that causes her sensitively is coconut oil, and I was pretty much convinced when she said my aloe soap (with coconut oil in it) made her break out. I told her it would be trial and error, but I would attempt to make her a soap that she can use.

She described the soap that she was previously using as having no lather, being very soft and “snot-like” when wet, and taking up to a year to cure. I have honestly never made a soap with those properties, but it sounded to me like it may have a high olive oil content. Since my aloe soap also contained olive oil, I decided to play it safe at first and make a soap with lard as the only oil.

Lard (or hog renderin’s as Granny, on the Beverly Hillbilly’s, would call it) has probably been used as an ingredient in soap making since the beginning of soap making, and it is likely what our grandparents or great grandparents used to make soap. My lard soap would be different than theirs for a couple of reasons. Their homemade soap would have been made using wood ash, which is also known as potassium hydroxide, as the lye. Although I have yet to use it, my understanding is that this makes a softer soap than sodium hydroxide, which is now commercially available, and I use to make my soap. Also they probably did not have scales to measure precise amounts of each ingredient, so the soap may have been very strong and harsh on the skin. I suspect this is why lye soap has a bad reputation.

The only three ingredients in the lard soap that I made are water, lard, and sodium hydroxide (lye). Since this is a test batch I only used two pounds of oil and ended up with eight bars.

This recipe made nice white bars of soap. My husband and I have each used a bar of this soap and both had the same impression. The soap feels nice on the skin, it does not have a bubbly lather but feels more creamy going on. It rinses off well and does not leave the skin feeling dry. While it would not be my first choice, it is a nice soap.

I will get it to the person who requested it this week and say a prayer that this soap works for her.

With the rain that we had late last week and through the weekend making indoors work my preference, I decided Saturday morning would be a good time to make soap. I knew that I was low on both coffee and breakfast bar soaps so I decided to make the coffee soap this time and will probably make breakfast bar later this week.

The coffee soap is made with brewed coffee, instead of water, as the liquid. It has coconut oil and olive oil, and after the oils are combined with the coffee and lye, I add coffee grounds, sugar and powered milk. Sugar is used as an ingredient in soap to increase lather, the coffee grounds add scrubbing power to the soap, and I have discovered that using powdered or dehydrated milk gives the creamy feel of a milk based soap without having to worry about scorching the milk when adding the lye to it. The best way I have found to add the coffee grounds, sugar and powdered milk is to first mix them with a small amount of water to dissolve the milk and the sugar, then blend it into the soap after the soap has come to a trace or just before pouring it into the mold.

Coffee Soap 24 hours after being poured into the mold

The soap was still somewhat soft on Sunday, but is now ready to come out of the mold and be cut into bars today (Tuesday). It should be ready to use in 6 weeks.

I Brake For Bees

September 30, 2016Bees, Frogs, The Farm, Toads, UncategorizedBeekeeping, farming, Homesteadingruthsoaper

I told my husband that I need a t-shirt that says “I brake for bees” but probably more appropriate would be a bumper sticker pasted on the back of our riding lawn tractor.

This may be something only another beekeeper can understand, and even among beekeepers I might be in the minority. It wasn’t something that I thought about before I realized I was doing it, but as I mow the lawn at the farm I often see honey bees foraging on the dandelion or clover blossoms. My natural reaction is to yield them the right of way. Of course having wrote the check to purchase packages of bees, along with reaping the rewards of their labors, I have a great understanding of their value. Now it may or may not be the case that they will move out of the way of the mower just like the chickens and dogs move out of the way of vehicles at the last minute, but I am just not certain.

Few other creatures get this kind of consideration but among them are frogs, toads and snakes.

This past summer, my husband, who is totally on the same page with me as he has been known to get off the mower and move a toad to a safe place before continuing to mow, and I decided to restrict our mowing to the later evening hours after the bees were mostly back to the hive. It may be crazy, but I consider this a small sacrifice to help keep our hives healthy and strong.

A Year in Growing Garlic (Part I)

September 30, 2016garlic, Growing Garlicgarlicruthsoaper

Since I’ve recently had a lot of people ask me questions about growing garlic I thought I would take you through a year in garlic growing. Growing garlic is pretty much a year round cycle and we have already begun our preparations for next years crop. Preparations actually started while I was cleaning the crop that we harvested this year. As I clipped and cleaned each bulb after they had dried, I also selected and set aside the bulbs that will be used as seed for next years crop.

Seed garlic is usually the largest bulbs that we harvest but even smaller bulbs may make the cut if they have large cloves. When planted, larger cloves (assuming the right growing conditions) will produce larger bulbs. I saved around 50 pounds of garlic for seed but we have since decided that we wanted to increase our production even more so I ordered another 20 lbs. There are many online sources for seed garlic and I do order my seed from one of these. Finding a source of locally grown garlic for seed may be advantageous, however, since garlic seems to take a couple of seasons to acclimate, and a garlic that is already used to your growing climate may perform better in the first season. Buying seed garlic can be costly, but considering you will save next years seed from the crop that you grow it should only need to be a one time purchase. I’ve seen prices anywhere from $17 to $25 a pound. At first glance you may you may think you have found a good deal but if you see seed garlic for $8 check the amount of garlic you are getting. It may only be 1/4 pound. I even saw one online source selling 2 bulbs for $9.

This is also the time of year that we prepare the ground for the garlic. The claim is that garlic will grow in any type of soil but will perform best in a well drained loam. Over the past few years we have found that garlic will indeed grow in soil that is heavy on the clay side but we have lost sections of garlic that were planted in low areas that did not drain well. So checking your drainage before planting is a good idea. We use this time between plantings to condition and nourish the soil. Our ground was tilled in early August, shortly after this years crop was harvested. At this time the straw that was used for mulch and any weeds that had grown up were worked into the soil, adding organic matter that is needed to help loosen the soil. Other ways to condition the soil include planting a cover crop that can be cut before planting the garlic, adding compost to the soil, or adding rotted manure to the soil. In different years we have utilized these different methods. We also tend to the area by mowing any plants that come up, whether they are weeds or cover crop, before they go to seed. The mowed clippings remain on the ground as a green manure and the would be seeds do not mature to grow up in next years garlic bed.

It is recommended that garlic be planted about 6 weeks before the ground freezes. This gives the roots time to begin to grow but the garlic should not sprout above ground. Our target date for planting this year is October 15th or 16th but we will be watching the weather forecasts as we approach those dates and may have to modify our plans if much rain is in the forecast. During last winter with warm temperatures and continual freeze and thaw cycles the garlic did sprout and the leaves suffered some freeze damage. I had great concerns about how this would effect the crop. What we discover upon harvesting was that while the hardneck varieties that are normally grown in northern climates such as ours produced decent size bulbs, the softneck varieties which are normally grown in warmer climates produced larger bulbs.

If you too are going to grow garlic this year, follow along. I plan on writing posts on each step along the way, so we can do this together. Please feel free to ask questions and share your experiences.

Tomatoes, Grapes and A Chicken Update

September 16, 2016Uncategorizedruthsoaper

Having such an abundant tomato crop this year dictated that I switch gears and use other methods to preserve them. I just couldn’t see such a beautiful gift from God and the hard work that my husband went through go to waste. So with time being my major consideration I decided to turn the tomatoes into juice. The reason I normally don’t make tomato juice is because we never really drink tomato juice. Knowing that I can always turn the juice into sauce at a later date I decided this was the way to go.

Despite the hot summer temperatures last week we decided to turn off the A/C and turn the house into a sauna. On Wednesday I put up 25 quarts of tomato juice.

Followed by another 4 quarts and 17 pints on Friday. Upon tasting the juice on Wednesday my husband and I each discovered the wonderful flavor of fresh tomatoes. I expect we will be adding tomato juice to our diet and perhaps even an occasional Bloody Mary 🙂

On Saturday with several crates of tomatoes still begging for my attention I just didn’t feel like another full day of canning, so I pulled another trick out of my sleeve. I have never dehydrated tomatoes before nor have I bought them, but this seemed a good option.

I washed and cored the tomatoes and sliced them as evenly as I could.

I was surprised at how many my 9 tray dehydrator held. I set the temperature between 125 and 135 and the timer for 8 hours. When I checked them at the 8 hour mark they still had away to go so I left them on over night and when I checked them around 7:00 the next morning they were prefect.

I stored them in zip lock bags for future use.

Saturday was also our day for picking grapes. It seemed a now-or-never situation as the birds were quickly eating more than their share

We picked what was left of our concord grapes.

We then decided to pick some of the wild grapes my husband had recently discovered.

This wild grape vine was loaded with grapes, but picking them would be more challenging than the grapes in our grape arbor.

We took the tractor to the site and my husband climbed into the bucket. I operated the controls, lifting and tipping the bucket as he directed me. I’m no stranger to operating the tractor controls. I first learned to do this over 5 years ago when we bought the tractor and over the years I have gained much experience. We have a series of hand signals that he uses to direct me when to raise or lower the bucket or tip it up or down. With him in the bucket I paid close attention to his directions.

I thought about how much he trusts me, and I was careful to keep my foot on the brake and my hands away from the controls while he was picking. When he signaled me to raise or tip the bucket I did it slowly, cautiously.

Reaching the grapes was complicated further by the rose bush that climbs this tree along with the grapevine. After being stabbed by thorns a couple times he decided to leave the rest of these grapes for the birds.

After cleaning the grapes, I put them all together in a pan to cook them up for juice. After cooking and mashing them I filtered them using a mesh strainer lined with cheese cloth.

After I had done this I realized that I could have used my Nutribullet to juice them and then strain them. Hopefully I’ll remember that method next year. From past experience I knew that the grape juice was concentrated so I added a cup or so of water. I heated the juice to about 190 degrees, I’m not sure why because I was going to freeze it instead of can it. I decided to sweeten it with honey instead of sugar so I let it cool to about 90 degrees before adding the honey. I stirred in about 1/2 cup of our raw honey before pouring the juice into 5 wide mouth ,pint size, jars. I left extra space beyond what I would normally leave if I were canning the juice. I put 4 jars in the freezer and one in the fridge, to enjoy with our breakfast.

Lastly I thought I’d give a chicken update.

My husband posted this sign on the coop. We find it quite appropriate.

As usual they were out and about on Saturday. First looking for what (scraps or treats) we might have brought them (that’s the whaja bring me attitude) then happily wandering around, pecking and scratching as they love to do.

It seems as if all of the young hens (8 buff orpingtons and 6 barred rocks) have started laying as our daily egg production is now around 18 eggs.

The barred rocks are an interesting breed that my husband keeps joking are part guinea hen.

Some of them have started roosting in the tree or on top of the coop at night instead of going inside the coop with the rest of the flock. Yes, they have attitude.

One of our old Buffs has been broody for what seems like the whole summer. If you have ever known a broody hen then you know attitude. Since we didn’t want anymore chicks we kept taking the eggs from her. We finally decided to leave her one egg, thinking that if it hatches she will then be a happy momma and stop taking up nest space. We marked the egg with an x and leave that egg with her. I guess we will know before too long if this works.

Buying Our Garlic

September 8, 2016garlic, Uncategorizedruthsoaper

We are pleased, we are excited, and we are thrilled to announce that you can now purchase our Michigan grown garlic at Nino Salvaggio’s Saint Clair Shores, Michigan location and Vince and Joes locations in Shelby Township, Michigan and Clinton Township, Michigan. It is also available at Water To Go in Richmond, Michigan and Pure Michigan Country Market on 10th Street in Port Huron, Michigan.

Nino Salvaggio’s is selling our S&H Silver and Red Toch varieties, while Vince and Joe’s is selling Chesnok Red and Music Garlic. Water to go carries Chesnok Red, S&H Silver and Red Toch, and Pure Michigan carries Chesnok Red, S&H Silver, Red Toch, Music and Spanish Roja.

We would like to send out a big thank you to all of these retailers for helping us get our garlic in the hands of those who love it. If you shop at one of these retailers you, too, might want to let them know that you appreciate their efforts to support local farmers while making quality products available to the customers.