I'm BAAAACCKKKK!!!!!!!!

Yup - I just looked and it's been OVER 2 months since I have blogged! I have made some soap since then, but not very much :( There's a few videos needing posting....and much updating to do LOL! Going in reverse order of what I have been up to this summer....

There were tamales to be made.....just over 30 POUNDS of meat! Oh yes....that's a LOT of tamales LOL!

3 giant pots full of meat to cook down, masa to make, much steaming to do....

THEN, there are the "baby goats" - whom are no longer so much babies as giant terrors haha! BUT...they have been keeping me on my toes with 3 bottles each, every day, hoof trims, ears that needed tattoos done and of course much baby goat lovin's to be given!

The disappearing/reappearing pig....who has also taken up residence in the goat pen WHEN he is home! I'm always keeping an eye out for him...some days he wanders off in search of greener pastures....

I finally made the decision to sell one of the does - she just wasn't growing up to be what I want or am going for in my herd, it was hard....but it needed to be done. Keep and breed only the best right?
I miss her, but I know she has gone on to a VERY nice pet home!

The whole herd got a bath, and hoof trims a few times since last I was here and...drum roll please....FIVE does have been "exposed"/bred for November babies!!!! I still haven't sent in bloodwork to confirm pregnancy yet....but fingers crossed I get what I want LOL! We did however send in bloodwork for CAE (all negative of course) and that was nice to be done with as well!

Five kittens were born out there, who always seem to be literally under my feet....though thankfully we are a mouse free property I must admit!

 I have a date every few weeks with Murray....our lawn mower! Keeping the grass cut down to a reasonable height takes about a half a day at least out here! THANK GOODNESS Murray is a riding mower!

The other pig...Breakfast...is growing well and doing great! I anticipate her heading off to the processor in a month or 2 more...maybe 3 months, but I bet just 2 more and away she will go and back will come pork chops, hams and bacon!

Several days were devoted to the stocking up of jams and jellies for us for the year....apple cinnamon jelly, raspberry peach jam and blueberry jam....and then I was given a heap of jalapenos so those were pickled and canned for future use in goat cheese (mmmm.....garlic jalapeno chevre!).....HOT, long, sweaty kitchen days...but nice to have enough good stuff put up for us!

A trip was made and geese were brought home....COTTON PATCH geese! Rare, heritage type geese, pretty cool birds actually! I had to do some "remodeling" outside and set up for them as well - they are happy birds, funny too! When the horses call to me, the geese honk and call back! I can't wait until next spring when we have baby goslings running around!

The hens are doing well, and I am now getting about 3 eggs every day from them! Keeping us happily in enough eggs to have breakfast for dinner whenever we please :) I do so love my poultry!

I got the herd on "milk test" - a very simple (though tons of time to figure it out) process with once a month test days where we weigh and send in samples on the milk....makes things more official in the milk department for the goats, and I like having one more bonus to market with them as I can prove how much milk they give!

I also expanded on the doe pen - put up 120 feet more of fencing and "yard" for them....I figured if I wanted to be gone more to markets selling soap and if I wanted to be inside more MAKING soap I needed to give the goats more room to roam and run and play. I felt guilty on the days when I couldn't walk them about...so I added on to their "facilities"....they like it and I feel better now, but that was yet another loooonnnggg week of hard work outside!

There's the magic "pimp juice" that helped to get the goats all bred out of season for them and synched up to be bred on the same day! That way I only have to wait on babies at one time, and not spread out over the fall!

The old water heater had a Chernobyl stile melt down and I awoke one day to a flood of Noah's Ark proportions...so a weekend was spent getting a new one put in. YES, we only have a tiny water heater, in a tiny spot....it's a tiny house, what can I say? It works...no super long showers, but I have enough hot water to test out my soaps LOL, and that is all that matters!

And that's it! WHEW! Looking back, it has been a REALLY long 2 months! I'm going to try to get the few videos I made up, and THEN, I have a TON of supplies on the way this week, so I will hopefully be making more soaps and getting THAT stuff up as well! I spent the early part of the afternoon premixing colors and getting ready to do the few more soaps I can with what I have here...but I didn't realize until last week how empty it was looking in there in the supply department! CRAZY how fast stuff can go when you aren't even trying! And never mind all of the blogs and youtube vids and such I need to sit down and watch and get caught up on! Oh my good grief I have missed SO MUCH being outside like I have been! I am not gonna lie...it's kind of nice to get away from things like television and computers for a while, but I also miss the interaction with other people of similar mindsets...it's just me and the goats most days....hanging out, chillin, and they don't talk you know?

So....off to fidget with a few things and get back on a roll with soapy stuffs and what not :) Glad to be back finally, but I really did need to focus on the farm for a while :)

Mother's Day has come and gone...

And a healthy little stack of boxes went with it full of soap orders LOL :)  That's just a portion of what went out last week - it was nice, but tiring!  See....MOST people can get the post office to come right to THEM to pick stuff up - um, no, not here :(  All delivery personnel avoid our dirt road like the plague.  This is probably for the best as they would otherwise most likely end up stuck in my driveway (got a GIANT sink hole happening of sorts, we refer to it as "the quick sand").

So I had to treck into town with all that, unload it with no assistance, and THEN get a lecture from the guy at the post office about someone else picking it up at my door...hahaha...LOL...ROFL!!!!!  I had to tell him they won't come to my door - he looked a little crushed on my behalf.  It was nice of him though to try to let me know about it.  I have to admit, out of all of the major delivery services available, the United States Postal Service is by far the most cost effective for me and at one of the local post offices they are pretty nice (the other one is 'eh soso').

I must admit, I am kinda glad to see one more holiday behind us for the year - it means moving on and ahead to other things, other soapy themes and ideas if you will.  I am TOTALLY ready to start making Christmas soap - but I am trying to hold out until August to start all that :P Perhaps I should focus on summery stuff and Father's Day for the time being don't you think?  Lordy me, I AM a soap mess aren't I?  All ready for Christmas and it isn't even JUNE!

Oh well, guess I should go out and give those baby goats their bed time bottles and then head off to sweet dreams myself eh?

Bath "stuffs" 1 - Me 0!

Yup....you see the score....bleh :(  Last weekend my niece was over, and we decided since I had the fixin's on hand and it's an easy project for a young teen to try that we would experiment with "bath melts'.  Yeah, I know, it's getting too hot almost for all that and yeah, I know it REALLY shouldn't be that hard...yeah...BLEH I said!

Gave a few recipes a go before all was said and done and popped them in the freezer - where they were PROMPTLY forgotten about once we discovered the cookies'n'cream ice cream in there!  Can you say "easily sidetracked" oh yes, that would be me :)  Just a trio of small batches mind you, nothing major...experimental stages and all....

I remembered them Friday when it was dark and I had literally NOTHING to do for lack of electricity that day AND the fact it was still way too soggy to go out side...I unmolded them easily enough...I set them on a rack to thaw a bit...and they were forgotten again...

Whilst passing through the kitchen a few hours later, pacing the house in search of SOMETHING to do with myself they were for the second time rediscovered and OH NO! Oh MAN! OH BABY THEY WERE MELTING!  Yes, melting, OOZING through the rack!  A few gloppy gooey drips of bath melt had hit the counter tops...it was a bath melt tragedy!  The worst part - we don't have a TUB!!!! If I had a tub and not just a shower stall in our little place I would gladly use them straight from the freezer - even if they melt too fast it won't bug me...but nope, no tub here...perhaps a little swimming pool in a month or two would work?

My initial thought was: For real, is someone kidding me?  Because it was fairly cool in here - like MAYBE 75 - 80 degrees - MAYBE....IF that warm!  Let's just say I sweat like my ex-racehorse and I was NOT sweating when I caught them melting....I DOUBT it was that warm in here! Then I realized: This will never do, oh no, can't have bath melts that melt in people bathrooms BEFORE they hit the tub! Good thing we only made a few of each right?  That's what test runs are for folks! Now what to do with the gloppy mess? Back in the freezer - what else could I do?  Power or not it was still cold enough in there to firm them back up and stop the dripping at least!

I wanted a picture SO bad!  I stuck them back in the freezer - if I remember I will get one later when I feel like trooping out there...I am hoping I can at least remelt them (not that much effort will be required there right?) and add a bit of stuff (beeswax really since they are pretty close to what I make already here for lotion bars) and make the "lotion bars" my hubby loves so much for his ucky man feet out of them!

So the tally at this point is Bath Stuffs 1 - ME 0!  I fully intend to conquer this prior to Christmas LOL...one failed batch at a time! Perhaps better luck shall be mine when there is no ice cream to distract me and no power outage to frazzle my nerves?  Maybe they sat forgotten too long and too many times and took it personal?  Who knows...all I know is NONE of those recipes are gonna work :P

Restocking L.O.V.E. (now on video)

Oh yes...I am all video crazy now!  Sure, it seriously takes like 12 hours to get a video uploaded...first from the phone to "google +" (I think that's what it's called...idk....all I know is it's the method I have figured out - I am sure there is a better way).  Then from there to being saved to the computer, THEN on to youtube...T E D I O U S!  But..I LOVE making the videos!

So...we made a restock of L.O.V.E. (the love spell type fragrance) yesterday - I had my niece here to help run the camera and she has never been old enough yet to make soap with me.  FINALLY she is old enough AND available!  All in all it was fun :)  AND it's one of her favorites that I make!

The newest NadaLotta Camera skills on video (LOL) :

The cutting of "Billy Goat Buzz"

I am in LOVE with this fragrance!  The house still smells like yummy delicious coffee! MMMmmm :)

Made a video - used my new "soap cutter" (aka cheese slicer) - and I think even if it wasn't exactly what I was going for, this is one nice soap!  And of course I am overly proud of my cheesy videography skills :)

OH!  Had a moment at the end and cut off the camera before I got the final shots of the cut bars...here's the still photo of that:

 I was shooting for a "Holly swirl" as they call it....I over swooshed a bit...but still a nice looking bar I think :)

So...presenting the cutting of "Billy Goat Buzz":

Bath Truffles??? Hmmmm....

I have to admit, I am not a real big fan of chemical type stuff.  Yes, I know lye is a chemical and a chemical reaction creates soap and things like the preservative in my lotion = chemical too! I know....BUT....if I can avoid ingredients like SLS or even SLSA  then I will.  That being said:

I WANT TO MAKE FIZZY THINGS!!!!

Actually...I want to add something simple like bath truffles to the line up.  I considered bath melts, but this is Texas. It gets HOT in the summer and yes folks, summer has basically arrived.  Since I live so far out, and since I ship things as far as California (where the fam is you know), things that melt are no bueno...it's too hot between here and there to trust it would arrive without ice packs and that doesn't go over well with things that dissolve in water either!

Then I thought "Hmmm...perhaps truffles?"  I actually saw this video by the Soap Queen about how to make bath truffles   and the second half of it has a recipe without SLS in it...

I'm torn...I dunno....the OTHER major issue we face here in the "armpit of Texas" is the humidity!  Oh yes, we call it the armpit of Texas because just like an armpit it is sweaty, sticky, and wet here like 75% of the year! Yuck right?  You adjust...sort of...actually not really.  But you get over it at least :)

The final issue: I DO NOT HAVE A TUB!  That's right, remember we are a "shower only" household....I'm gonna have to get a baby pool to test these in LOL or find some nice kind guinea pigs (which I can always find) to do my testing for me....

So I guess I am still in the "I dunno" stage - I really want to add a little something else to the line up, but I dunno if it will survive the climate and such...we shall see.....we shall see....