Homemade Recipe Week – A little of this, a little of that - #5

See that ticker up there?!?!?!?! I’m in the single digits now! Last night at the dinner table she was kicking up a storm(she’s a wild one, that’s for sure) and it was quite entertaining over dinner to see this “less than 2lb” child make that much commotion.

Onto Homemade Recipe Week…No rhyme nor reason to today’s post, I am throwing the last of what I had chosen on this post. Enjoy browsing!

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Sweet Sugar Bath Scrub

Ingredients: Makes approx. 16 ozs.
1 1/2 cups fine white sugar
1/2 cup fine sea salt
1/2 - 3/4 cup Virgin Coconut Oil (as needed)
1 tblsp. Pineapple Fragrance Oil (optional)
16 oz jar or container

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and add more or less of the Virgin Coconut Oil to your suit your preference. The mixture may seem dry at first, but wait a few hours and then add more of the coconut oil if necessary. Scrub should be moist, and not too much of the oil should be floating on top. You can also make an all sugar or all salt scrub if you prefer one over the other or change the ratio of sugar to salt. Spoon mixture into jar/s and finish with our new "Semi-Custom" Product Labels.

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Mock Burt’s Bees Lip Balm

Makes about 25 - .15 oz tubes(I’d 1/4 this and refill Carmex containers) 

1.5 ozs of beeswax, grated
1 oz of coconut oil (76°, virgin or fractionated)
0.8 ozs of sunflower oil
0.3 ozs of lanolin
10 - 20 drops of tocopherols (Vit. E oil)
10 drops of rosemary oil extract
peppermint essential oil (add to your liking)

Melt all the ingredients over very low heat except for the peppermint oil. Remove when heated through and than add the peppermint oil. Pour into lip balm tubes, let harden, label and seal.

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Furniture Polish

1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix together in a clean new spray bottle. To use, remember to shake before each application. Apply a small portion to your cleaning cloth. Spread the polish over the furniture, trying to polish evenly. Use another clean cloth to polish the surface dry.

I’d add a little beeswax to harden it up and make a *polish*.

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As a young mother who started out wanting to look like the “I can afford that” housewife(but really couldn‘t!), I would make this recipe, add several drops of blue food coloring and funnel it, ever so carefully, back into my Windex brand bottle. Now, I am proud to be a make-it-yerself housewife! I no longer use the blue food coloring, I am secure in my being. I have matured.

Better Than Windex

1/8 cup ammonia
1/2 cup rubbing alcohol
1/4 teaspoon Joy dishwashing soap (or whatever you have under the sink)
1 quart water (up to)
Container to hold mixture

Mix all ingredients together in spray bottle, adding just enough water to reach the 1-quart mark.

For the big jobs, whole house windows, outside windows..In a bucket put 2 gallons of hot water, 4 glugs(1 C??) of ammonia, 4 glugs of white vinegar. Use a rag to wash the windows and use old newspapers to dry. It leaves the cleanest, streak-free windows you’ll ever see.

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Basic Lip Balm

1tblsp beeswax
2 tblsp coconut oil
2 capsules vitamin E

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Lip Gloss 

1tblsp beeswax
1 tblsp sweet almond or coconut oil
4 drops essential oil (orange, lemon, mint,....)

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Petroleum Jelly 

1ounce beeswax
1/2 cup mineral oil (or baby oil)

Melt and whip with blender

 
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Hand Lotion

 
1parts beeswax
4 parts olive oil (add a little coconut oil)

Melt and whip with blender.

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Moisturizing Cream

1ounce beeswax. melted 
4 ounces sweet almond oil
2 ounces water
1 tsp vitamin E oil
1 tsp lavender essential oil

Use a blender to whip the first three ingredients together into a fluffy cream. Whip minimally the last two ingredients. Store in airtight container.

 

Back to homeschooling, house clean’in and soap’n.

Homemade Recipe Week – Baby Care - #4

I should have stated with my first post that if you or your daughters want to try your hand at making these fun homemade cosmetics, medicines and cleaners, you can pick up many of the ingredients along with every type of container you can think of from Otion , or their sister online store Brambleberry, both out of Bellingham. 

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Lavender-Scented Baby Powder

 
This is a lovely, rich powder ideal for keeping infants comfortable. Lavender oil is very soothing and has antibacterial properties. This simple powder will keep your baby dry and happy. You can also use the powder yourself after bathing.

 
Ingredients:
1 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon light oil (almond, sesame, sunflower)
2 drops lavender oil.
Directions:
Mix all the ingredients in a resealable plastic bag. Seal the bag and massage the powder until all the oil is evenly distributed. Pour into a clean, dry container.

Yield: 8 ounces

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Baby Bum Balm:

 
1-2 ounce beeswax
4 ounces sweet almond oil or olive oil 
10 caplets vitamin E - poke and squeeze oil into balm
1/2 tsp lavender essential oil

1/2 tsp tea tree oil

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Liquid for Baby Wipes:

First three ingredients, low heat on stove until soap is dissolved…

•     3 C water    
•     1/8 bar of castile soap, grated
•     1/4 C Olive Oil
•     1/2 tsp tea tree EO(healing) or 5 drops other pleasant scented EO or scented oil. Check to make sure the EO is not a skin irritant.

Let cool, then add EO or scented oil, pour over prepared 1/2 paper towel roll. Add more water if needed later. They will leave baby's bottom moisturized, soft & smelling fresh. Can add a few caplets of Vitamin E if desired.

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Jessica and I are having a blast making soap again. I am teaching a class to our church’s Keepers At Home ladies on how to make soap so I thought I better get my act together! We bought Melt and Pour, an easy, cheating way to *make* soap. It is SO fun! We are also rebatching some Green Herbs Baby Soap that we infused oil for months ago…so it will be nice to see it done.

We are 8 animals lighter tonight than we were this morning. Junies little bucklings went to a great home, we get to process MILK tomorrow! I snuck some for my morning cereal this past weekend and hid it in the back of the fridge…shhh. Goodbye bottle feeding!!

Paul had enough of our Guinea Fowl. He was working outside last weekend and they followed him around barking the whooole time, very loud, VERY annoying. I knew it was either the shotgun or Craigslist, so I opted CL. They were an easy sale.

Then my last little ShihPoo went today. Cute little bug he was. More due this weekend.

As I type, I hear freshly hatched chicks flopping around in the incubator. By tomorrow they should be dry enough to go in the brooder.

Bed is calling…

Homemade Recipe Week – Deodorant - #3

I have posted this recipe before after stealing it from a friends blog. ;) When I first posted about it last April, I had tried it for the long haul. Since then we have used it exclusively in our home. It works very well for us. It erases existing smelliness if you wait too long to apply and gives you a clean dry feeling, unlike some commercial deodorants. AND it does not have parabens, aluminum chlorohydrate and aluminum zirconium. I thought it worth my while to repost.

Ingredients:
5-6 Tbsp Coconut oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup arrowroot powder or cornstarch

Combine equal portions of baking soda & arrowroot powder. Then slowly add coconut oil and work it in with a spoon until it maintains the substance you desire. It should be about the same texture as the store bought kind, solid but able to be applied easily. You can either scoop this into your old dispensers or place in a small container with lid and apply with fingers with each use. After applying the product, you can just rub what remains into your hands as a lotion! This recipe lasts about 3 months for two people with regular daily use.

If you dare ;) read a quick, short article on commercial deodorants here.

Homemade Recipe Week - Vic’s Vapor Rub - #2

3.53 ounces of generic Vic’s Vapor Rub, the Safeway brand, was on sale for $6.99. The Vic’s brand was on sale for $8.99. Such a big price for such a little jar!

I swear by the stuff when a child or baby has a cough. You rub in on their chest or, to be less offensive, on the bottom of their bare feet(No, really! It works!) Several applications and off to the store you go to buy another overpriced, short-lived 3.5 ounces.

Enter a simple homemade recipe I tweaked a bit.

Melt <2 T Beeswax in 1/2 cup + 1 T coconut oil or olive oil, whichever you have.

Add;
15 drops Peppermint *EO
15 drops of Eucalyptus *EO.

Stir and pour into a container. Let cool and rub on as needed. Breathe easy!

If you’d like to tweak this recipe to make it stronger, I would not increase the Peppermint but increase the Eucalyptus. Re-melt and add more oil if you’d like it creamier.

*MUST be EO, not scented oil.

Homemade Recipe Week - Healing Salve - #1

Here is a healing balm I put together to use on my goat kids heads 24hrs after disbudding. However, it is very effective on my own family. It works as an antiseptic, antifungal, is great on burns, insect bites, as well as cuts and rashes.I
t has a heavenly mediciny smell(can those two can go together?)

Will work on humans, dogs, goats, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, guinea pigs and ???, I ran out of test subjects.

Squaw Creek’s Healing Salve

1/2 C Olive Oil
1/4 C Beeswax
1/2 oz Chamomile flowers(optional)
1/2 t tea tree oil
1/2 t lavender oil
5 Vitamin E capsules 200mg

Place 1/2 C Olive Oil and 1/2 oz Chamomile flowers in a pan on low heat for 2 hrs. Using muslin, strain flowers from oil and put oil back on stove, low heat.
Add 1/4 C Beeswax until melted, remove from heat.
Add 1/2 t tea tree oil, 1/2 t lavender oil, 5 vitamin E capsules(poke and squirt out liquid, dispose of empty capsules) - stir well and place in storage container to cool.

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The first batch of eggs went in the hatcher this morning, that means we have two more days until hatch, we hope. We are simulating mamma hen as she raises the humidity under her feathers by sweating. At this point, she will not leave the nest, either to eat or drink. She stops turning her eggs several times a day so the little chicks can now position themselves to peck through the air sack at the wide end of the egg which will sustain them while they *pip* through the egg shell to fresh air. The Great Designer is worthy of praise and adoration when looking at the complex workings of a chick hatching from an egg!

Our heat has been uneven in our inky so I am hoping we get a decent hatching rate. This is our 2011-13 flock, a mix of Leghorns and Americaunas.

Learning as we go..

We’re learning as we go. Keeping a small hobby farm isn’t exactly a money saving venture. You have to exercise common sense or you will quickly go broke doing it by the book, o.k., we will go broke. Costs add up so quickly it can make your head spin, so we had to come to terms at the beginning how much we were willing to spend on these silly animals. Problems come up, emotions come into play, society pressures you into “doing everything possible” even if that means debt. Before long, you’ve dropped several hundred dollars to save an animal’s life that might have been better to just let go.
The larger the animal, the bigger the vet bills, with the exception of dogs. Vet bills are out of this world with dogs because people are quicker to launch a lawsuit over the “family member”. For instance, an after hours C-sec on my 170lb goat is $500 and for my 9lb dog it is $1400. Right Dee? :) I still don’t understand that one. 
I’ve learned there is much we can learn ourselves in animal husbandry instead of paying out the bucks to “professionals”. Vaccines, treating and doing fecal exams for a variety of parasites, injections, grooming, wound care, general health care, animal midwifery(what else do I call it?)

I love the fact there is always something new to learn through some new dilemma that arises. Which is why I post. We learned a new skill this week! Disbudding goat kids. Simple as it sounds, it scared me to think of burning the horn buds off my sweet innocent little kids. Two years ago I took our first two kids to the vet. The only option was a “pain-free disbudding” <sigh>  for crying out loud… And this in a farming community.

So $125 later we had disbudded goatlings that suffered through several painful injections of lidocaine near the horn buds and seemed to be pretty doggone uncomfortable during the *pain-less* burning procedure.
This year Paul took it on. I shaved their little heads and he read a dozen articles online and watched several how-to videos over the course of a few days. He and Jacob pulled it off non-eventfully. All went MUCH better than it did at Kulshan Vet, and with little drama. As soon as they were done, I had their bottle of warm milk waiting and that is all they needed before they scampered off to play. Yay! One more skill and one less yearly bill!

One week old, triple in size, barely covered with white fur and starting to get cuter!

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I made a wonderful healing balm to use on my goat kids heads after disbudding. I will be sharing some of my favorite "homemade" recipes this next week, starting with the balm. All simple, cheap and fun to make! 

Petting Zoo and Frog Night 2011

I see on my calendar that Frog Night has already come and come in past years. The problem this year has been the cold, there are no eggs in the pond(it’s late!) and no frogs to be heard, but we know they’re coming. As soon as we get a warming trend, they will come out by the thousands and be deafening to ears. It doesn’t come with much warning, so we’ll post as soon as we have a date!

As for Petting Zoo 2011, we only have 1 of our 3 star attractions. The goatlings. We are waiting for the bunnies to get fur so the children do not run and scream and the chicks need to hatch. That is really all we have to offer! Oh, and cookies and coffee. Can’t forget that.

We’ll post dates as soon as we can and if you can’t make it, just call and stop in! We’d love to take to you to the barn to hold the goat kids.

2011 Kidding DONE!

Ah, is it ever good to say those words. Wow.

Last night, right before I was leaving to go to our churches Keepers At Home, at which I was teaching, my only engagement on my calendar that I couldn’t cancel, my truck was running, Jessie and Emma waiting…I ran, one last time, to check the goats and guess what? Chloe was just dropped #2. After a  moment of panic, I found the towels and dried off #2 and got him breathing well. Cut his umbilical cord free and gave him a good rub. Meanwhile, Paul heard my yelling and  came to take a crash course on goat midwifery.  “Cut the cord, dip the cord, get them on their feet and nursing.” I was late and had to go, it was SOoo hard to leave!

 

Two little doelings(7lb 11oz & 7lb 12oz)! Paul surprised me by getting everything done(he is not a goo guy) and the kids were beautiful with full little bellies when I got home.

I called home a couple times and Paul was concerned that when he bounced Chloe’s tummy(a way of feeling to see if they are empty), he felt more legs in there. What? Not Chloe. I left Keepers early and ran home. By the time I parked the truck, Daniel came up and said “Daddy needs you right now in the barn, Chloe is birthing another kid”

To make another long story short, I delivered my first stuck kid. The front legs were all that were coming out, no head. Its head was twisted back and down. I was coached(by my sweet goat guru friend Mindy, who rushed over to my aid;)  to push the legs back inside, finagled the kid’s twisted head and pull it out in a  normal birthing position. After what seemed like a long time, out came a beautiful little dead doeling. Absolutely beautiful, looked just like Chloe. I tried and tried to revive the little thing to no avail. We saved a hefty vet bill and I learned more than I EVER wanted to know about delivering stuck kids. Very sad.

 

So by 1am, I was happy with the way everyone looked so packed up I took a shower. Jackie was acting laborish<sigh>, so I set my alarm clock for 2:30am and the asked the girls to check her for me(they were excited to do so, I just wanted my bed) Sure enough, at 2:31 here comes a thump, thump, thump up the stairs. “Mamma?! Mamma!, Jackie dropped a kid!!” Up again and out to the barn to find a HUGE buckling. How our smallest doe EVER birthed that thing, I will never know. He’s 9lbs 3oz, which is the biggest kid we’ve had. He was/is nursing like an ox and Jackie is jumping around like her old obnoxious self. Truly amazing. I was hesitant to bounce her, lol, but soon found she was empty, that is all she gave us and she cooked him well!

  

He is mostly white, but has some neat markings on his back and head. LOVE the ears.

 

 

Sooooo glad the kidding is over. I hope to sleep tonight!! 6 kids born, lost 1, ended with 5, we are happy. A lot of experience and confidence gained!