Spring Cleaning

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Momzoo

I know a good portion of the country is up to their eye balls (literally) in snowy cold.

Around my parts February is turning out to be pretty mild. The days have been in the 40’s and sunny. On days like this I start to get the spring cleaning bug.

Does anyone else get this bug?

When do you usually start spring cleaning?

How do you do you spring cleaning?

One big fat week of cleaning, or do you do small jobs over a month?

Using Homemade Soap

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Momzoo

I got an e-mail from a blogger friend the other day and she asked me:

I see that you’re making your own soap!!! I’m so impressed. I’ve been trying to read up on how to do this myself. But before I take the plunge, I thought it would be best to try some out first. So I bought some at a local store, and so far I love it. But I’m just not having any success using it to wash dishes. Could you fill me in on all the ways you use lye soap?

Mostly I use my soap for bodies. Live bodies….promise….we use it while bathing, for hand washing and I even use it for my face. It is very mild, and by the time you use it (after curing for 6+ weeks) the lye is completely out of the soap. If you want a stronger soap use it sooner.

In regards to household uses, I use it anywhere I can. For dish washing and kitchen cleaning this is what I do.

(sorry the pictures are dark, it was a cloudy day and my kitchen was dark)

I shave small bits of soap with a knife into the sink and I add hot water, the soap will dissolve into the water. This works well for easy clean up jobs. There won’t be a lot of bubbles and suds, commercial dish soap has added chemicals to make it bubbly. I try to avoid those chemicals.

For big messy jobs I add my homemade scouring powder to the water. (Equal parts Borax and Washing Soda with a scoop of Oxiclean).

This formula works very well for baked on food, and messy stove tops.

For a quick wash up, I get the bar of soap wet, and rub a wet rag on it until it is saturated with the soap and quickly wash whatever need washing. Very simple.

I have also used my soap in homemade laundry soap, which is a post all itself, so I am going to link you to a great post by my friend. She does a great job explaining everything you would need to know about homemade laundry soap.

I find great satisfaction in making and using my own soap. Not just because as a family we benefit from using soaps and cleaning products free of harsh chemical. It is more about creating something from my own hands, something that is important in the care and nurture of my family.

Update here is a link to my post about making soap:
http://momzoo.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-soap.html

Making Soap

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Momzoo

Fall time is soap making time, at least once all the canning is done!

There really is a particular reason I pick this time of year to make soap and it has to do with the amount of daylight and the temperature outside.

I use lye in my soap making and lye gives off some pretty nasty fumes at first, I like to be able to keep the windows open to let the fumes disperse. In the winter it is too cold and in the summer it is too hot!

I could make soap in the springtime, but the days are getting longer and my attention is focused outside planting my gardens.

The picture above is my soap in its mold the morning after I made it.

I pop it out of the mold in one big solid block.

And cut it up into neat squares.

The soap then needs to sit for six weeks or more to cure and harden. Then it becomes wonderful soap that I use for everything, from washing my face to washing dishes and laundry. This is wonderful stuff!

http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-make-cold-pressed-soap.html

This link is where I got my recipe and know-how from.

Why make my own soap?

Well, it is about getting back to a slow self sustaining life. I know I can run to Walmart and purchase soap for a lot less than I can make it at home. That soap will also be full of chemical and synthetic fragrances. The natural occurring glycerins are pulled out of the soap and petroleum based moisturisers are added back in. With homemade soaps I know exactly what is going on my skin and on my children’s skin. This soap seems to last longer too, I only need about 4 batches to get me through the year, and I use it for household cleaning too not just for bathing.

It also makes a really fun impromptu gift for any occasion.

Have a wonderful day!

"My Work Space" or "Composting Part I"

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Momzoo

This is my work space

This particular day I was washing and preparing green tomatoes to make relish and I paused, my area was clean and peaceful. There are so many times that I look at this area in my home and I hate it! Dirty dishes all over, sinks to be cleaned and food prepared. It makes me tired! I have learned that if I can stop and love when things are lovable it makes the hard times easier. Does that mean that I always love to do my chores and I sing a happy song and life is all flowers and butterflies? No, I still loath ironing and mopping floors gives me a headache, but the end results, are well worth the effort. If I can focus on that, it makes the work much easier.

Beautiful bowl of green tomatoes in the morning sunshine.

Getting on to the composting portion of my post.

Right next to my kitchen sink I have two plastic bins that I use for my composting. One is for the compost pile and the other is for the chickens.

In the chicken bin I put all of out table scraps. Chicken are omnivores and will eat anything that we humans eat. They also eat and compost, in their own special way, foods that I don’t want in my pile; including meats, pasta and processed foods.