Showing my Green: Laundry Soap

Yesterday I made another batch of laundry soap. The last batch I made was about mid-December (ish) and I finally ran out this week. The recipe I used can be found at The Family Homestead.

Pour water into large pot.

Heat until soap dissolves. Add washing soda and
borax and stir until dissolved then remove from heat.

If you don't remove from heat fast enough, it will start to bubble, a lot.
It can even boil over. I almost lost this one!

My mother had given me two bags of shredded soap, borax and washing soda for Christmas. I used one of those bags to make this. Thanks mom!

I have been using homemade soap since I made my first batch and will never go back. It's cheaper, doesn't leave a heavy residue of fragrance and works great! I usually add rosemary extract to mine before I add the it to the water. I also use vinegar for fabric softener. I just put it in the softener dispenser in my washing machine. I also have dryer balls in the dryer to help with static when I use the dryer. I'm still working on getting a clothes line outside, so for now most of our laundry still goes in the dryer.

Snow

Sorry for the long delay in posting. We had a very productive weekend though, thanks to my wonderful family. My parents and youngest sister came over Saturday evening and helped us to finished ripping up the ivy, work some dirt, build the boxes and generally get the garden moving! A lot gone done, and I am very grateful for all of their help. (Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures.) They also brought stuff for dinner and a super-delicious red velvet cake with chocolate ganache icing, yum.

Hubby and I also went shopping for the outdoors before the fam came over. I got a wheelbarrow and a small, hard-tine rake, more compost and a bunch of little things. Hubby got a bunch of dirt and grass seed to re-seed the curb strip and a couple of shadier areas. Then we came home and I got to work sifting dirt and putting the wheelbarrow together.

The garden area isn't completely done yet, but it won't take much now! I'm just waiting for a good day to do it. Presently, it is snowing. We got about and inch overnight and should get another today. Luckily, the temp is hovering just above freezing so everything is melting, but it's very depressing. The boxes are being stored in the garage, the soil is in a holding pattern, and I'm getting quite anxious!



I may use the time to treat the wood we used for the boxes, but I don't know with what. My dad was very concerned after we assembled that the wood is going to rot away and that he should've bought composite for me (the boxes were my birthday present from him, isn't he great!?). I am hoping to find a treatment for the wood that will help preserve it but not leech harmful chemicals into our food. Any ideas?

My wonderful mom got me the book Nourishing Traditions and a food scale. I wish I would've taken pictures, but I will get them tonight. And from the littlest sis I got a wonderful bag for my clothespins, made entirely out of duct tape (it's her favorite medium, she can make anything out of it!). I also got an awesome quart of orange dole whip from other sisters (I think the twins, but I'm not entirely sure it was both of them.) It was a great day!

Yesterday, my actual birthday, was a really good day too. Hubby made me breakfast, AND cleaned it up! I wasted two hours of my life looking for jeans at Kohls (where I have a gift card and a 30% off coupon - but couldn't find anything) and Old Navy. Both were a bust. I'll just hold on to the gift card until I do need something. Hubby and I ended up heading to the mall for a dinner out and a movie (tickets were a gift for our anniversary, 6 months ago!). It was a really great time with him. And, I went to GAP to look for a pair of jeans. I found them, they were perfect. I paid full price, I never do that. But I did. I also got a sweater that I'd been looking for for the past few months. I spent money, but I got good quality stuff that I wanted. It was a little weird for me to walk out of both Kohls and Old Navy with nothing, but I just didn't see anything I wanted or needed. Quality versus quantity I guess. I spent a little more, but got what I really wanted and didn't buy stuff I didn't need just because I had a gift card. I'm a little proud of myself. But just a little :)

Long & probably boring, sorry. I promise garden updates as soon as the weather breaks!

Adventures with Ivy

I managed to get quite a bit done last night. I only worked until about 8:30 outside, but made enough progress to feel okay about it.


Lots of ivy moved to the compost area! Unfortunately, there's also a lot of dirt in my eyes and lungs right now. My allergies are going nuts.


I managed to clear one bed out (a bed I didn't know existed) plus a little more. I still don't know if I want to clear off the fence or not.


The dirt below is in pretty good shape. It's had leaves composted into it every year for the past few years. However, there's a lot of rock and debris that needs to be cleaned out before I can plant anything. I'm hoping this first bed will be enough room for what I want to do this year.


And here's the soil sifter. You can't really see it, but here it is! Just four sides and the screen. It's sitting by some larger rocks I pulled out from under the ivy.


This is a pic of the mass of ivy that is draped over one of the fence posts. You can see it looped around itself!


More ivy. Every year we have to cut it back so we can use this walkway behind the waterfall.


A tulip coming up in a bed of stones. This is what all of the flower beds looked like when we bought the house. I am slowly working on clearing out the stones from every bed. It is VERY slow going. Last year I spent all day working on this and cleared about 6 feet of the bed. It's nuts.


More flowers coming up! I didn't realize there all of this was in this area. I'm thinking I'm going to have to move something. The strawberries will take it all over!

Out like a...cold, crying lamb?

Happy April everyone!

The weather forecast for this week shows most days either cold, rainy or both. Today is the only day it's supposed to be nice until Saturday. I hope to get the most out of it. I have a LOT of work to get done before then.

However, yesterday I got bread dough started, made some cookies, made chicken salad for Hubby's lunches this week and filed my state taxes. Productive day, but no time outside. Rained on and off almost all night :( and it was maybe 40 outside.

Today will be the day. Hubby's getting home late and I'm working until I can't see anymore!

Soil Sifter

Thanks to a TERRIBLE day at work, I got home late and consequently didn't get any ivy ripped out. But, I did get my soil sifter made. It's framed out and the wire mesh is attached. I forgot to get a picture, sorry, but I'll try later.

This will hopefully help sift through the nearly ready compost to get the usable stuff and to get rid of all the rocks in the area that will soon be my gardens. I can't wait!

Menu Monday

Again, last week's meal plan was more of a starting point, not followed closely :) But luckily the weather was crappy this weekend, so I got to spend some time inside, working on the kitchen mostly. I made bread, roasted a chicken for the week, made blueberry muffins, cleaned (a bunch!) and a bit more that I don't really remember. We also got to grill out twice! It wasn't anywhere near warm enough to eat outside, and we did get rained and snowed on a bit yesterday, but it was completely worth it!

Unfortunately, that means I didn't get anything done outside. According to my planting schedule, I'm supposed to have my beans in the ground this weekend. Not gonna happen. Also, my parents are coming this weekend to help me build my raised beds. I don't even have half of the ivy gone, let alone the stones cleaned out of the dirt. I haven't finished building my soil sifter (though I did buy nails, woohoo, I can at least get that done). I'm just hoping and praying the weather this week will be on my side.

I also haven't really thought about my menu much. I'm coming up with it here on the spot at work, which is probably why I keep deviating :) I also discovered this weekend that I need to start planning for weekend lunches too. Wow, this post really makes me seem behind, how depressing. Anyway, on with the menu.

Monday - pot roast, potatoes and carrots (already in the crock pot)
Tuesday - chicken tacos
Wednesday - pork chops
Thursday - spaghetti
Friday - at Nathan & Kira's
Saturday - ribs, etc. (family over for my birthday!)
Sunday - pizza

Check out more menu plans at www.orgjunkie.com

Seedling Update

Broccoli :)


Onions :)


Lettuce :)

Quick shopping trip

Today I went to the dentist. I don't mind the dentist at all, so it wasn't a big deal, except that I completely forgot to pack my lunch. (And there is now a small cut in my mouth, the kind that really annoys you, and it's right where my tongue rubs the roof of my mouth, grr...) This resulted in me having to go out and get lunch.

I decided to stop at Tractor Supply Company on my way. Though they didn't have vermiculite (I still can't find it!), I was able to get some wire cloth to make a soil sifter this evening. I have a lot of great compost ready to go and a bunch of soil from under the ivy that was growing on the pavement, but both need to be sifted out before use. I also plan on making a few more stops before heading home tonight to get a wheelbarrow, look for vermiculite and pick up a few things for inside the house.

Last night I did get outside to work, but didn't get a lot done, so hopefully I can do more tonight too. I don't know why, but for some reason I'm struggling with ripping out the ivy. Not that it's hard to do, it's actually much easier than I anticipated, but I find myself not wanting to do it. So I'm careful to leave some. I don't want it gone entirely, just mostly. This makes what could be a fairly quick job with the electric trimmers, very tedious and time consuming. Oh well. I can't plant anything outside yet anyway, so I guess I have a little time.

I'll try and get pictures of my progress tonight, as well as some seedling updates! I got my sweet peppers and some basil in this weekend and everything else has sprouts by now. So exciting!

Adventures in Drying Clothing

Last night, finally, I got the clothes line hung in the upstairs bathroom. A while ago I took out the shower doors from our upstairs bathroom. It's a teeny, tiny little room and the shower mechanism doesn't work. It hasn't since we moved it. It's on our grand list of things to do, but it needs a serious remodel (ugly pink everywhere, and did I mention it's tiny!), which will be far off in the future. For now, it's useful as a toilet upstairs and we occasionally brush our teeth or wash our faces up there. And, until I removed the doors, I would hang clothes on hangers from the cross bar to dry.

With the door gone, however, I had nothing. I made things a little difficult :) So after having the hooks and the line, I finally mounted it all last night. Woohoo! It's not exactly what I had envisioned, but it will work for now. Total project cost was about $5 and about 20 minutes.


Something about it being light outside, and not frigid cold, seems to make it a lot easier to be really productive after I get home from work!

Adventures in Demolition

Sunday I finally finished ripping out whatever that ivy-covered lattice covered structure was sitting in our yard. I did most of it myself and it was a very good experience. It felt empowering to be outside again and doing something constructive (or destructive as the case may be). I did need to ask Hubby for help though. The posts were buried about 4.5 feet in the ground, 4 4x4's and 2 2x4's which all ended up being 12 feet long. The physics of me pulling them out of the ground just wasn't on my side. I got all but two of the 2x4's, and I'm still a little sore. But God did it feel good!


With the structure gone, now we have an open area covered in ivy. Most of the exposed ivy is leafless as it used to be covered by structure, other ivy that we've already ripped out or the bushes that were there. So we've decided to rip most of it out as well. We'll leave the stuff up that's growing over the wall, but I think most of the ground cover is coming up. I'm sure it will come back again in no time :)

Also, Hubby and I discussed things and I think this is going to be the site for my garden plots this spring. This area gets more sunshine and the ground under the ivy is pretty nice. There are a few rocks and stones, but nothing compared to the rock garden which was my first pick. The only thing I'm worried about now is the critters, the other area was a lot more sheltered than this, which is WIDE OPEN. I also don't want car exhaust blown directly onto the gardens. People usually don't park in the three end spots, only visitors, and most visitors pull in, so I guess it's okay. I'll make it work. Hubby's on board with it so it will be much easier and if it doesn't go well, I'll move them next year!


After disassembling the structure, I now have a lovely pile of wood. Good sturdy wood! With this I am going to build a shelter for our garbage can and recycle bins. No more raining on my cardboard and no more dripping recycle bin juice on my leg in the morning! Woohoo! I'm not sure about the rest of it, but I'm sure we'll find something good for it. I don't really want to use it for the garden because I'm pretty sure it was treated wood...we'll see.

If all goes well and the rain stops be the time I get home tonight, I hope to be ripping out more ivy this even to prepare the area for gardening. Yeah!