Emerald Aisle Soap

My first brick of goat milk soap looks real good.

My husband cut the goat milk soap for me because he's so good with his knife.  He is really good.

I can't wait for this soap to be ready!  This is one of my Sunday Clean Soaps.   This one is for really dirty hands.  I've added ground rye as an abrasive.  I boiled cedar and fir boughs in rainwater.  It is rich, extraordinary, and original.

I love my label.  This is Soap 7.   It is Applejack Peel scented poured over chunky bits of a whiter unscented soap.  

You can nearly see the high gloss on this soap.   It is amazing to me that used cooking oil could create such a high quality soap.  I added coconut oil until I got the hardness I was looking for.   This photo gives the wrong color since I did not use flash.  It is a light tan.   The cooking oil was fragrant with fried chicken.  I can't pick that out in the soap but I have not bathed with it yet.

These are two of my soap molds.  The black pipe and cap is self explanatory.  I can pull the cap off after 12 or so hours and use it on another piece of pipe.  The caps cost more than the length of pipe you see in this picture.  The other mold is a length of downspout.  I found the idea on the Internet but she was using a bag to cover the end.  When I tried the bag idea I made a pretty big mess.  I cut this chunk of soap from another batch and it plugs the end tidily.  I filled this mold without leaking a drop.

Chinese Lanterns

The Chinese lantern is almost ready to start over for spring.   The vigorous green leaves shoot up as the runners spread through my garden.  Small white flowers bloom before green three dimensional heart shaped "flowers" appear.  People call them flowers but I think they are the husk to the fruit because they already had a small flower.  As they turn orange they light up the entire garden. At this stage I pick some of them to hang and dry for indoor arrangements but I have learned to leave some to nature so that I can see these incredibly delicate miracles become awesome works of art in with the most intricate filigree patterns imaginable.

Husband and Grandsons Splitting Firewood

I like watching my guys work with the firewood.  Matt sets it up, John splits it.