Homemade Lye Soap from Alander’s Acres

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We LOVE homemade lye soap from Alander’s Acres! 🙂

Here’s a link to their page on Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org/alanders-acres-M29791

They are gracious enough to bring us large batches of soap so we can offer them to our customers as well.

In our effort to discontinue using toxic cleaners, this soap has become our “base” for so many things…bathing, shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap, general purpose cleaner – just to name a few! 🙂

We have been using it exclusively for over 2 years now. 🙂

As the concept of “our skin being our largest organ” has begun sinking in, we are thinking twice about what we lather on it.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this soap! 🙂

For laundry & dish soap, I shred the bars of plain lye soap. (The other soaps work fine, too, if I’m out of the plain…)  I fill up an old egg carton with 10g of shredded soap in each “egg hole”. Then I dissolve each one in 8 oz. of hot water as I need it.  I keep it next to my washing machine, so I’m good for a dozen loads, lol… 🙂

For laundry stains, like grass/mud stains on jeans & baseball pants, I keep a container of the small pieces of soap left from a full bar.  I place the pieces in a lidded container with a little bit of water in it.  I dampen the clothing that has the stain, get a small & wet piece of soap, rub it well into the stain, spray it with some white vinegar, let it sit a bit, and throw it in with the next load.  Works wonderful! 🙂

For dishes, Mike helped me make a soap dispenser from parts of old ones I saved… Click here to read the link on Jill’s post – it helped me with directions. 🙂

I have crocheted small, thick, square cloths from remnants of yarn leftover from past projects.  I made enough so I can use a new one each day.  I just squirt a few drops of soap on the wet cloth & wash – reapplying as necessary.  I have no complaints – this soap works GREAT!  It’s especially wonderful for removing “greasiness” from things like broth or butter – along with nice, hot water. 🙂

Beef broth yield 2012

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This post will be a record of quarts of beef broth canned this year + our recipe.

Since we just took some beef to the butcher shop, we are using up the beef bones in our freezers before we get more from this batch. Been trying to wait for some cooler days for this, but they seem to be few & far between this season…

We usually do 4 roasters full of broth stretched over 2 days. Here’s our recipe per roaster:

12# meaty bones
4 Onions
6 Carrots
12 Celery stalks

We brown the bones by lining the roaster with them, & placing the next 3 items on top. Place lid on roaster & roast for 1 hour at 450 degrees – flipping bones halfway through.

[UPDATED 2-5-19: I NO LONGER FLIP THE BONES…MAINLY BECAUSE IT IS MESSY, AND IT TURNS OUT FINE WITHOUT FLIPPING.😉]

Turn off heat.

Add:
9 unpeeled & crushed garlic cloves
1T coarse sea salt
1T peppercorns
1c raw apple cider vinegar
Cold water to fill roaster to top

Let sit for 30 minutes (no lid).

Add lid and bring to boil on high heat. Once boiling, lower heat to keep it at a low simmer. We let it simmer 18 hours or so. (May need to add more water periodically to keep it full.)

Allow it to cool for a bit. Strain it. What’s left is a beautiful, healthy, broth! 🙂

We place the broth in large bowls with lids & let them sit a day or two in the fridge. By then, the fat has solidified on top, and it’s easy to remove the fat layer & begin pressure canning the broth.

Our yield is about 9 quarts per roaster.

[UPDATED 2-5-19: MY 18Q ROASTER FINALLY DIED THIS YEAR, AND WE UPGRADED TO A 22Q ROASTER. BROTH IS STILL GELATENOUS KEEPING THE RECIPE THE SAME, AND YIELD INCREASED TO 11Q]

6-30-12 canned 41 quarts

Blueberry yield 2012

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Mike’s Mom & I picked 16 pounds of blueberries today. I finally have some to freeze – we ate all of the first round already, lol! 🙂

7-19-12 picked again today with Mom & Paul; picked 20 pounds 🙂

WELCOME – 11th (and final) Calf 2012

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FINALLY – our last bred cow, Suezy, had her calf yesterday…a girl! As we suspected she might, she waited until Mike had moved the herd to one of the furthest field’s from the barn, lol! Her calf was quite the trooper, and walked all the way down with the milking herd. 🙂

We weren’t sure on a name for her, so we deferred that decision to our family in Nebraska. They decided on Fiskars! 🙂 (Her mama’s name category was “school supplies”…)

This is a good feeling to be done with calving now. Our final tally was 3 boys + 8 girls. 🙂

a drought and grass farm prayer

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Here where we live, we are experiencing a drought. Before we farmed, I NEVER thought about droughts – except to complain about temp… But now that we farm, and farm grass, especially, this is a much talked about subject.

In the Spring, the pastures grow really fast. Since the cows can’t eat it all before it goes to seed, we harvest/store the overabundance as first-cutting hay.

When there is NORMAL rainfall, the fields get watered & continue growing, the cows get rotationally grazed through the pastures, and this continues until December-ish.

However…when there is a drought, there is a good chance that the fields WON’T grow back quick enough for the cattle to keep full tummies. Such is the case for us, right now. 😦

Here’s the tricky part – while waiting for pastures to grow, the cattle need to be “somewhere”. And if that “somewhere” is a normal grazing field, they will keep eating the grasses to the ground & could permanently hurt the regrowth of the field. 😦

Soooo, alternate plans need to be made.

Since feeding anything other than grass (fresh or dried) is not an option for us, we need to begin placing the herds in “sacrifice fields” and supplement their feed with our hay…yes, IN JUNE!!!

Yikes. Kinda scary if we forget the Lord is walking alongside us. BUT PRAISE GOD, HE IS HERE! 🙂

Father, as animals talk to us with disdain because they want something we can’t give them right now… As our dairy cows milk less because their feed isn’t optimal… As we scramble to fill pickups because of lower milk volumes… as we prepare to walk the long distances to use sacrifice fields on the outskirts in June… as we weed gardens in heat & humidity on hard soil… As we water these gardens for hours with watering cans & hoses… As we freeze in the air-conditioning because it’s too miserable to not have it on… Could You snap our minds back to You by sending us a bird to see soaring in the sky? May that bird remind us of Matthew 6:26 – Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Fix our focus back to Yours, Lord. May we be thankful our animals have voices and that we have ears to hear… May we not take for granted every drop of milk we receive… May we be efficient schedulers as we bottle each day… May we be thankful for legs that can walk far distances and for having extra fields that can fill the purpose of protecting our best grasses… May we be thankful we even have gardens to weed & plentiful underground springs to supply water to our farm… May we give thanks for the abundance of clothing we have for all temps… Your Peace is such a blessing, Lord – may it completely envelop us as we wade through this drought. Amen

Applesauce yield 2012

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This post will be a tally for applesauce made from the apples of trees here on the farm. Mike’s Dad sprays them with an organic fish spray several times a year. They aren’t the prettiest to look at, but they taste really good! 🙂

One of these days I need to watch Mike’s Mom & note how she makes it. (I do love notetaking, but I also like to SEE how people make things that are new to me.) I know she cooks them down, runs them through a hand crank food mill & adds a bit of evaporated cane juice to sweeten it up… It doesn’t sound difficult, it just seems like when it’s time to make applesauce, I’m doing 500 different things at the same time!

We’re so grateful she makes it & shares with us. 🙂

I make large “applesauce ice cubes” by freezing it in 1 cup containers. Once they are frozen, I pop them out of the containers & place them in labeled ZIPPER bags.

**I learned the hard way to use ZIPPERED bags… A couple years ago, we had an instance where a freezer door was accidentally left ajar for a day. 😦 The applesauce had been on the freezer door in non-zippered sandwich bags – ug, a complete STICKY disaster!**

Next the “cubes” are placed in labeled shoeboxes in the freezer. On the freezer door we chart the date & yield. Then I map it out for one year. Looks like with this current yield, our family can enjoy 1c of applesauce with a meal every 2.5 weeks. 🙂

Yields:
6-23 6c (frozen)
6-25 6c (frozen)
6-27 6c (frozen)

Broccoli yield 2012

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This post will be our record for broccoli this season. Hopefully I can remember to add data to this post as we harvest. 🙂

Yesterday we picked our first bundle of broccoli! I should have weighed it, but I forgot, lol…

Paul & I (Mike & Michael aren’t fans of broccoli…) steamed it & ate it as a side with dinner before baseball practice & again for a snack afterwards! 🙂

It was sooooo good – especially lathered in lots of butter! 🙂

Yields:
6-26 about 4 cups (ate fresh)
7-7 about 13 oz. frozen
7-12 about 14 oz. frozen
7-16 about 22 oz. frozen
7-24 about 20 oz. frozen
8-1 about 18 oz. frozen

False positives…

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Ever thought about the amazingness of “false positives” before?

I have this week…

I could take a test, ace it, and the assumption would be I really knew the material, right? But, what if I cheated? That would be a “false positive”.

I could take a test, fail it, and the assumption would be that I didn’t know the material, right? But, what if the person grading it used the wrong answer key? That would be another type of “false positive”.

I feel like this is what happens with me sometimes, as I try to figure out what the Lord is doing in my life.

Sometimes I take the “test”, do well, and think an outcome couldn’t possibly go a different way, only to end up feeling “cheated” by some unexpected turn of events…

Or sometimes I take the “test”, fail miserably, only to have a better answer revealed I never would have thought of!

Perhaps this is what the Lord means when he speaks through Paul in Philippians 4:11b-13: “…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

Through “false positives”, He’s not just teaching me to be OK with “a win or a loss”, a “healing or a sickness”, a “blessing or a tragedy”, a “downpour or a drought”, He’s also teaching me to not dwell so much on guessing what the outcome is going to be. Wow. What a beautiful way for me to be told I AM NOT GOD. Thank You, Lord, for putting me in my place! 🙂

“Refuse to confuse success with significance.”

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Chip Ingram Quote 6-26-12

I just heard this quote in his sermon today on WCRF – Moody Radio, and it really spoke to my heart. 🙂

Makes me think of what Paul wrote in Romans 12:3 – For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought; but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Sometimes with my successes, comes arrogance. And with my arrogance, I become self-righteous. When my attitude reflects this, I place myself on my own “pedestal of significance” – insinuating that I am the one who accomplished the success & because I did, I am better than someone else. Yuck. Not something I like to see in myself. 😦

Lord, I only want to be on YOUR pedestal. If any significance comes from my successes, please help me to give all the glory to YOU! Keep me humble, Lord, and help me to remember that significance in Your Kingdom looks very different than significance in this earthly kingdom. May I be content with knowing You are smiling when I look at myself with sober judgement. Amen