Solid Lotion

I promise this is the last of my "home remedies" posts for a while.  Promise!

BUT, these are awesome people.  Gotta post them!

This is a lotion bar.

Solid lotion.

It works kind of awesome.  ::)

You hold the bar in your hand, and the heat from your skin makes it soft enough to spread on your skin.  So much for taking way too much lotion (wait - am I the only one who does that??!) and needing to smear it all over in places that don't necessarily need it.

I can just use this on the places I want it right then.  I find it works especially good on my feet!

So, wanna make your own?

My oldest son and I experimented with a few different recipes, and this is our favorite:

Solid Lotion Bars

1 part Coconut Oil
1 part Shea or Cocoa Butter
1 part Beeswax

Melt the solid oils/butters together in a double boiler (or glass jar in some boiling water) and add:

2 Tbsp Infused Oil
60 drops of Essential Oil
Vitamin E

Mix well and pour into molds.  I just used some silicone muffin tins.  Let stand until hard (like about 8 hours) and pop out.  Use on all your dry skin.

Cheers

How To Host an Herbal Exchange

A Herbal Exchange?

An Herbal Exchange?

Oh well.  It was an exchange!

A few months ago I ran across a photo of an exchange that a woman did.  She did it just before Christmas and used the products for her gifts.  

I loved the idea, but wanted to do it just after Christmas because I didn't want to overload my friends with stuff to do.

I asked around, texted, emailed, and told people to invite friends.  After a couple weeks, I had 15 people committed to exchanging.

This was perfect because 15 is a do-able number.

Also 15 gives you a wonderful assortment of things to play with!!

I made a muscle rub based on the muscle balm I already make.  Placed it in little jars and printed a recipe (see below if you want it).  This is what else I got:
Flu Buster Kit (lotion and capsules to take)
Lavender and Calendula Body Butter
Shower Disks
Breath Easy Lotion
Balm of Gilead Burn Cream
Solid Perfume Sticks
Calendula Salve
Marigold Salve
First Aid Salve
Coffee Soap
Almond Lotion
Shampoo Bar and Pineapple Weed Infused Soap

Super fun!!

I knew all but two of the attendee's, but all of them didn't know each other as they came from different places.  It was great fun to get together and discuss our methods of why we chose what we did, what it works for, and how we made it.

We had 3 ladies who had made only the one product they brought before.  We had some who had a couple products under their belt.  And we had the rest who had been doing this for at least a couple years.  It was a grand showing and telling time for all of us!

If you ever get the chance to try something like this....grab it!!  It was a wonderful time for all of us.

Now the recipe:

Muscle Rub

In a glass jar:
20 gr beeswax
25 gr Coconut Oil
20 gr Shea Butter (or Cocoa butter)

Melt and pour into a blender.  When it is almost solid (but not solid), begin to blend and add in a steady stream:

3/4 C Infused Oil (I use a few kinds, comfrey, calendula, plantain, chickweed, arnica...to name a few options)
2/3 C Distilled Water
40 drops of Essential Oil (I use a pain blend I developed)
0.1 oz Vitamin E Oil

Blend just until mixed and thickened.  Pour into glass containers to let solidify.

This will keep for about a year in a cool, dark place.

Rub onto sore muscles, headaches, pain, and inflammation.

Cheers!

Head and Muscle Ache Balm

In my last post I talked about the balm I made for muscle aches and headaches.  I thought I would share it with you.

It is amazing for temporary relief.  I am a big fan of something that I can do that doesn't damage my kidneys as much as taking the massive amounts of drugs it requires to tame one of my headaches!

To use for muscle pain rub on affected area as often as needed.

To use for headaches (seems to work for most types of headache) rub on temples (be careful because the fumes make your eyes water so I always lay down after), back of the neck on your brain stem, and on the forehead.  Apply as needed.

Headache and Muscle Balm

0.3 oz Peppermint EO
0.3 oz Lavender EO
0.1 oz Frankincense EO
0.1 oz Wintergreen EO
0.1 oz Birch EO
0.5 oz Cocoa Butter
0.2 oz Castor Oil
0.4 oz Bees Wax

Place the Essential Oils in a separate container.
Melt the butter, oil, and wax in a heat proof, glass container.  Use a pan with some water boiling in the bottom.  It will take about 5 min or so.
Add the EO's and heat till mixed well.

Pour into your containers.
Let set up and use on all muscle aches.
Be careful around eyes and mucus membranes.  You do not want to get this in there.  If you do, immediately flush with water and get it all out.  (not speaking from experience or anything as I rubbed my eye frantically with a towel!!)

This causes a pleasant cool burn.  It will be almost instant relief of muscle pain.

How to Skin a Chicken

***WARNING***

Graphic Photos are following.  If you are not able to view them, please don't.  This is a pictorial on how to skin a chicken.  

We have been raising our own meat this year.  We wanted to have our own control over how our chickens (ducks, geese and goats) were raised, what feed they were getting, how they were treated, and how they were housed.

We knew going in that our animals are not pets.  They are respected, treated well, but ultimately they feed us.

My friend stated the other day as she was standing under her apple tree:

"I stood under an apple tree this morning that I planted and tended for about 15 years now. It's hard to explain, but I felt a wave of gratitude, kinship and history with this tree as I picked it's fruit and munched on the occasional one ( a mutual giving and receiving relationship). I felt I knew it and it knew me."  

Isn't that beautiful?!  It sums up my feelings so well.

I have been feeling a great connection to my food for a couple years now, and as a result this has been our next step into becoming more connected and responsible to/for our food.

We do not glory in the death of the animal (or veggie, etc) that has given it's life to feed us, we glory in the fact that we could care for it, raise it, and later use it in such a way to give us life.

We also have taught our children to be involved, having some beautiful teaching opportunities about the sanctity and beauty of life.

Because we got into raising our own chickens for meat, we knew this day was coming.  We knew we would be harvesting our own chicken, but three roosters just came a little faster than we were planning.  They were so vicious they couldn't wait till the normal 20 weeks for a chicken.

I searched and searched all over the internet for a pictorial on how to skin a chicken.

I didn't want to pluck because it stinks and it takes FOR.EV.ER!!  I also can't eat chicken for a couple weeks after because of the smell.

I heard that skinning is easier, quicker, and less stinky.  I am all for easy so I wanted to try it out.

Because I couldn't find a decent tutorial, or pictorial on skinning, I had my son take some snaps as we did ours.  Here it is if you find yourself needing a guide to harvesting your chickens.

Get your space ready.  We don't have a beautiful stainless steel sink and worktable like some, and we are still old school with a chopping block, but it all works great.

Some essential things we have found you need:
A super good axe you can handle with one hand.  MUST have a super sharp edge.
Bucket for after you remove the head.
Plastic to keep your area clean.
Gloves (optional, but nice to keep your hands clean, they are easier to change than washing your hands each time they get dirty)
Garbage bag for feathers and skin.

Super sharp skinning knife.

I didn't post removing the head, but if you want to know how to do that, contact me and I will tell you.  I was trying to spare some people's sensitivities.

After your bird has been dispatched, remove the feathers from anal to rib cage.  This is so you can access the gut area.

Carefully cut into the skin.  You will cut through a layer of skin, then fat.  Stop there.  Your guts are right under that and you don't want to pierce any of them.

 Separate your skin by easing your finger in between the meat and skin.  It comes off really easy.

Get some legs out, and the breast, cutting skin where needed to access the meat.

Place your hand into the cavity and work your fingers around the insides.

Remove them all.

It should be totally empty when finished.  If you didn't grab all of them, go in and get the rest.  Carefully so as not to puncture the organs.

The easiest way to remove wings and legs are to break at the joint.  This will also remove all the skin and feathers.  It just slides right off when you have the breast and up to the joints exposed.  Just slide it all off and dispose of it.

When you are done it will look like this.  You may have a few feathers on your skin, but we just wash them off as they were just strays, not actually attached.

All done.

Finished weight will depend on the breed and age of your chicken.  These three averaged about 6lbs.  They were Cochin roosters (which are supposed to be incredibly docile, but these three were not) at almost 17 weeks.  The feathers were a pain to take off, and I am so glad we skinned instead of plucked as these little men had WAAAAY lots of feathers!!

There you have it.  I am kind of in love with skinning as it only takes us about 7 min start to finish for one bird.  Plucking takes us about 20-30 min per bird.  I am all about time saving so skinning seems to me to be the better option!

Cheers

Burn Paste

I have been having fun with herbs.  :)

Picking herbs and drying them.  

Making things with them.

The other day I thought I would try another herbal remedy for my stash.

Burn paste.

It was so simple I almost hate to tell you about it!

All you need:
Comfrey
Raw Honey (mine was not raw as I ran out, but use it if you can)
Wheat Germ Oil
Blender

Use equal amounts of honey and oil.  Blend until emulsified.

Add comfrey until a paste is formed.

It will stand up on your spatula.

Place into bags, label, and store in the freezer.

If you get a burn (who am I kidding, WHEN I get a burn) remove a chunk - it does not freeze solid - place on your burn and wrap with a burdock leaf.  If you don't have burdock please come get some from me!! you can just use gauze, but the leaf will keep your skin from peeling with your gauze when you remove it.  Wrap the burdock in gauze.  Replace your paste as needed to heal your burn.

This will help heal without a scar. (or minimize your scar) It will also minimize or take away the pain entirely.  Bonus!

Cheers

Making a Poultice

Once upon a time I was a normal kind of girl.

I would get sick, or get hurt and I would find something that a Dr. could do for me first, then go the herbal rout second.

Now it is so far past that.

I almost always go the herbal rout and skip the Dr. because it works so well for me to do stuff herbally.

So, this year I learned how to do something that I am sure all of you know how to do, but in case you don't, I thought I would share.

I made my very first poultice!!

My son came home from camp with a pretty good sized sprain.  He gets them often, but always gets some steroid cream from the Dr.  This does nothing for him, so I thought I would look into a herbal way of doing things.

I happened to pick a crap-load of Comfrey that day.

And I had an old sheet on hand to rip into long strips.  (about 4' long, 6" wide)

Take some fresh herbs (I used comfrey for the healing of swelling, but you can use whatever herbs you need for yours) and add them to your blender with just enough water to blend.

Remove from the blender and add flour to make a paste.

It will stand up on the fork when it is done.

Pile about a burger sized portion on one end of your strip.

Wrap end over end until it is all wrapped up and wrap in wax paper.

Store in plastic bags in your fridge for short term storage, freezer for up to a year.

To use, remove from wrap.  You can thaw and heat, or use cold.  Unwrap, and place the "burger" where you need it.  Wrap the remaining fabric around the limb to secure.  Keep on for about 6 hours.  Remove and repeat as needed.  My son needed 6 days of once a night application.  I put it on just before bed and right as he woke up.  The pain was gone after 2 days, the swelling after 4.  I did it an addition 2 days just to make sure.

I made about 10 of these this time, but next time am making more.  For some reason sprains and strains are common around here!  The next batch I make will also have mallow in them because I also have a crapload of that!

Cheers

Never Fail Soap Recipe

Due to popular request, I am posting the recipe that I alluded to in my catch-up post last week.  I have been searching for a simple soap recipe, one that I could use with whatever I had on hand, and one that was easy to sub things into.  Enter this recipe.

I promise that you will make gorgeous soap no matter what.  Seriously.  I have tried this 4 ways (see variations below) and all have worked.  It is amazing.

The soap lathers great, is simple enough to make within a half hour, and lends itself to experimentation and substitution.

Fine print:  Please plug your substitution values into a lye calculator just to make sure yours comes out properly.  There are several free ones on the internet, and some you can buy.  I bought mine as an iPad app from Bramble Berry Soap Shop.  

Basic Soap

21 oz Lard

16 oz Canola Oil

16 oz Coconut Oil

7.41 oz Lye

17.5 oz Water

1.  Melt your solid oils together in a pan.  Add liquid oils.  Measure the temperature.

2.  Freeze your water (or other liquid), place into a glass bowl.  Sprinkle the lye on top of the frozen liquid.  Stir until the lye is dissolved.  Measure the temperature.

3.  When temperature of both are within 10 degrees, add and blend with a stick blender.  

4.  Trace is when the liquids are all combined and it starts to get a little thicker.  Think thin pudding.  DO NOT blend past trace or it will separate again and your soap will be ruined.  (been there, done that!)

5. Pour into your mold.  I just use a cardboard box that is slightly bigger than a loaf pan, line it with parchment paper.  

6.  Wrap the box in a towel and place somewhere you won't disturb it for 24 hours.

7.  Remove from your mold (box) and cut with a sharp knife into pieces.  I use a pastry cutter.  It is a long metal blade type thing and works great!

8.  Place in a cool, dark place and let cure for 4 weeks.  This is to reduce the strength of the lye.  It will burn if you use it right away.  Lye likes to have a little rest before it is used.

9.  Use your soap and enjoy!

Variations:

Goat Milk Soap - substitute goat milk instead of water.
Goat Milk Oatmeal Soap - Sub goat milk for water, add 1/2 C finely blended oats (I put mine through the coffee grinder) just before trace.
Healing Goat Milk Soap - Sub goat milk for water, sub Balm of Gilead oil instead of canola (or dandelion, or a combination of both), 1/2 C finely blended oats
Coffee Scrub Soap - Sub triple brewed coffee for water, just before (or at) trace add 1/2 C coffee grounds
Goat Milk Honey Soap - sub goat milk for water, at trace add 4 Tbsp raw honey
Clay Soap - at trace add 1/2 C re-hydrated clay of choice
Lavender (or herb) Soap - at trace add 1/4 C crushed and dried herbs/flowers, 1oz essential oil (I have done lavender eo with lavender flowers, dried lemon peel zest with lavender eo, lemon eo with dried basil, rose eo with rose petal dust, etc)
Basic Scrubby Soap - at trace add 1 C cornmeal and 1/2 C poppy seed

Those are a few of the many variations that you could try.  If you don't have the right amount of oil, you can also combine so the total reaches the need amount (I combined Avocado oil and balm of Gilead to make the canola requirement, and I also combined a few solids to do the lard requirement, both worked great) Please let me know if you try it out.  I would love to know how it works out for you!

What I Have Been Up To...

Hatching new babies in my incubator...

...and admiring their beautiful new feathers.

I have two new breeds to test out, Barred Plymouth Rock and Giant Black Cochins.  Both have beautiful babies.

Harvesting my first crop of radishes.  So far we have baby beet greens, baby lettuce, and radishes.

 Discovering my now favorite "go to" recipe for soap.  I have made 4 batches (with variations) this past couple weeks and EVERY. SINGLE. ONE worked!  That is awesome and the soap lathers so nice.  It also looks pretty.

 

Weeding the giant garden that some wack job (me) thought would be fun to have!  It is huge, but lucky I have 3 wonderful helpers!

Getting awesome presents from my friends! (because I really have one - Crappy Little Kitchen that is, I have a couple friends!  :D)

Meeting some lovely ladies at the Hutterite Colony next door, and getting some awesome salve out of it.  It is supposed to help with my arthritis...we shall see.

Harvesting some herbals for this coming winter, and making some infused oil out of it.  I used some of the dandelion oil and Balm of Gilead I made earlier in my soap, so I am looking forward to making some first aid salve out of the fun things I acquired last night.

I also have been harvesting some plants on those trips to put in my yard.  Wild Licorice, Bee Balm, Roses, etc.  So awesome.

I have been so blessed to have found a group of women that accept me in and let me tag along on their foraging trips!  It makes it so much better when you can have a group and not do it alone!

I am also a really bad mom and didn't take any photos of the SUPER SPECIAL weekend that my boys had.

My baby turned 8 and chose to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a beautiful day.  He is an amazing young man and is such a good example to us all.  We had many members of our family, and some great friends attend.  Ice Cream supper after topped it off!

Then, my oldest was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Priesthood the next day.  He is also a wonderful example and such an amazing young man. We had friends and family out for dinner after.

It was such a great weekend and a witness to me that my boys are growing up good.  They make choices that are good and right, they have friends that come to support them and see them grow, they have such amazing personalities and I am blessed to be their Mom.

So, although I have been busy, I have been keeping track so I could come tell you all about it.  :)  Enjoy your summer!

Cheers

Dandelions Are Awesome

So, did you know I live in Canada?!  hehehehe

I found this really wicked awesome dandelion cookbook on Amazon that I wanted badly, but turns out the publishers don't like us Canadians so I couldn't buy it!!

Not cool at all.

So I had to make my own versions of the recipes in there.  :)

I found I had a surplus of these in my lawn:

WHAT??!

Yes, that is just a teeny tiny portion of the millions of yellow dandelions that populate my grassy fields.

So, no joke, I sent my kids out to pick me a 5 gal bucket of them.

Then I froze them.

Yup I did.

I stuck those little babies in my freezer for later so I can pull them out and use them for tea in the winter.  (and yes, my Mom already mocked me for the fact that I felt I had to preserve dandelions!)

Then the next day I realized I froze all of them!

Ooops.

Sent the kids back out again.

Filled another 5 gal bucket.  This time I kept them out of the freezer, and not to miss the mocking, but because I wanted to make a few things.

First I put a bunch in oil so I could have dandelion infused oil to make salves and soap out of.

Then, I took my handsome helper boy out and did this:

Seperate the yellow from the green.

Dig your finger in so the green splits in half.

Gently pull the yellow parts apart.

You should end up with yellow in one hand (if you teased it right out of the green) and a green part in the other.

Then you get a lovely bowl of yellow fluff.

We needed this for a couple things.  My boy wants me to make some cupcakes with them and he really wanted me to make pancakes:

They were interesting.

Dandelion flowers have a sort of peppery, flower taste to them.  It added a little chew as well to the pancakes.

All I did was added a couple of handfuls of the beautiful yellow to my regular pancake batter and mixed it in well.  Cooked the same and everything.

Kids all thought I was fancy gourmet!

Speaking of gourmet...

This may look a little nasty, but it was so good!

This is dandelion pasta!

Here is a simple pasta to make that will surprise your kids and make you feel super fancy.

Dandelion Pasta

5 C Flour
pinch of salt

Pour onto clean counter and make a well in center of it.  Add:

3 Eggs
6 C Dandelion greens blended with a tiny bit of water (I just did this in my blender)

Mix until well incorporated.

Roll as thin as you can (if you have a pasta maker use it, but if not, do your best with a rolling pin), add to water that is at a rolling boil.  Boil until tender (about 5 min).  Serve with butter, salt and pepper or your favorite sauce.

Try it, you will like it!

Cheers

Can You Believe Lemons?!

Have you ever ended up with some beautifully colored dirty dishes and thought, "Well, hey now, I hope that tastes good because it sure looks amazing."

No?

I guess it is just me then.

Aren't they beautiful?!

I used them to make this:

Yes I will share the recipe.  I am not that mean.  Although I am this mean...

It is just as good as it looks!  :)

Hibiscus Jelly

makes 5 half pint jars

4 oz Dried Hibiscus (2 C approx) - I bought mine at a Mexican food store, make sure it is nice and pinkish still, if it is brown, they will work still but it is not as fresh.

4 Cinnamon Sticks

1 Tbsp Whole Cloves

5 C Boiling Water

5 C Apple Pectin (or more depending on how "set" you want it - or how many apples you have kicking around*)

1/2 C Lemon Juice

61/2 C Sugar

*I was halfway through making this and realized I didn't have any liquid certo - my preferred method of thickening a jelly.  Then I remembered you could make pectin from apples.  All I had were some shriveled little offerings, but they worked amazing!  

Take your boiling water and pour over your hibiscus, cinnamon sticks, and whole cloves.  Use a heat proof bowl because you don't want it to melt!  Let steep for at least 30 min (or longer if you forgot that you have no certo!)

Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a large pan.  Add pectin, lemon juice and sugar.  Bring to a boil.  Stir occasionally.  What you are going for is a jell.  After about 15 min of boiling I took a plate, dabbed the boiling jelly onto it and stuck it in the freezer for a couple min.  If it jells, you are good to go.  If not, boil some more and repeat until it starts to set up.  I boiled mine for about half an hour.

When you have the jell you need (mine was really soft set) then remove from heat and ladle into jars.  Wipe the rim clean and place the snap and ring on finger tight.  At this point you can choose to water bath for 5 min.  Or not, your call on how fast you will use this.  (I don't because I will use all of it in a year or less)  

Let set on the counter for a full 24 hours.  Within about 15 min you will start to hear those little babies start to snap.  It is really the most beautiful sound when you are canning!

I also canned this:

Not really sure how this tastes, but I am going to try them soon (with some gingerbread).  These are almost too labor intensive though.  It took me 2 days of boiling, taking them off the heat, letting sit for 4 hours, doing again.  I will find out if it was all worth it...

Remember how thrilled I was when I got these for the first time?

I am still thrilled beyond belief...but I am swimming in eggs here!

I get 3 duck eggs a day (which I have discovered I only like in baking - LOVE in baking - but don't like to eat) and at least 4 chicken eggs a day!  That is a whole passel of eggs for a person who is used to rationing eggs.

I used to go through 5 dozen a month (because eggs were STINKIN expensive) but now find myself having a half dozen a DAY to use.

I have been baking and preserving and scrambling and you get the idea.

I am not complaining, but it is an interesting change of pace that is for sure!

Do you like my post name?  Did you realize that there is nothing in here about lemons?!

I think these random post generators are awesome.  Some of the names they come up with are so fun!  I may be doing this again.  Can you believe lemons?!  Well can you?....

Cheers