Erin

When I was a kid, we visited my father's family in Massachusetts. One of the tourist things we did was go to one of the cranberry growing areas owned by Ocean Spray. They had used an old narrow gauge railway to move fruit out of the bogs at harvest then someone thought about hauling people for a fee. It was very interesting and although it's been 40+ years, I remember the educational displays, both still and what we would now call videos, the train ride and the cranberry treats available at the end of the ride. You ought to try cranberry sherbet if you ever get the chance. I don't know if Baskin-Robbins offers anything like it but it was good and very refreshing.

I posted the whole deal about using a blender for soap making and somehow lost it. I will repeat it later but wanted mostly right now to give the information about the book I mentioned earlier. The author is Elaine C. White and the book is called SOAP RECIPES. The ISBN is 0-9637539-5-9 to make it easier to know it's the correct book if you ask for it at the library or used book seller's.

Saponify is just the word to indicate the chemical bonding of the fats and lye (sodium hydroxide). The dumb question is the one for which you truly want an answer but don't ask. There are lots of silly questions but few dumb questions. Some silly questions are actually dumb questions that indeed shouldn't have been asked! I hesitate to publish copyrighted material even if I give the source. It's a neat little book though, if you can find it.

Danny Lou, the ones I use in the blender are from Elaine White's book and copyrighted. Also I have heard that the book is out of print. I will post tips on doing the blender soaps later but basically, any recipe that saponifies by slow stirring and you can reduce to no more than 16 oz of fat will work in a blender. I can do several batches in the time it usually takes to stir by hand one batch. You must not use the blender for food preparation and measuring is a little more critical, I think.

Westbrook, I think we are already friends from a previous forum and phone conversations. Do you live on 30 acres that have been in your husband's family a while? Did your husband save a sheep from drowning in a creek one time? Let me know.

I apologize for the breech of etiquette in posting before I introduced myself but I tend to speak on things that concern me and maintain my own counsel on others. I've been married to the same fine man for nearly 28 years--lots of 4 legged kids but no 2 legged ones. We are in Missouri as you may have guessed from my name. We have 65 acres about 100 miles west of St. Louis where we keep dairy goats, 3 superannuated pet ewes for my spinning, chickens, cats, and dogs. Because of a hefty coyote/stray dog/uninvited visitor problem (we're close to I-70 and have had incidents in the neighborhood with opportunistic criminals and a few homegrown knotheads), we have 3 Great Pyrenees with the stock and in the yard and a German shepherd and a pit bull mix in the house. The GSD is a 7 1/2 mo. old rescue now in obedience classes and I'm amazed at her. It's been so hot lately that I don't do any official "training" with her until about 8 p.m. (I work on her recalls and long downs and sits throughout the day as we go about our normal activities) She starts BUGGING ME to work with her about 7:45. To date the dogs have worked well as deterents because while several of our neighbors have been burglarized,so far, so good, we have not. We aren't nearly as isolationist or aggressive as these precautions indicate--we just want to be safe in our own home. I try to raise a big garden every year so I can feed us and share the surplus. We are in the process of removing the old, somewhat overmature landscaping and replacing it with edible landscaping. I traded for 2 green houses in the last 3 years and use one to winter the chickens but grow cold hardy vegetables in the other. It was so nice to have beautiful fresh salad greens when the price was so high for such poor quality produce last winter. We have a lot of deer and turkeys in our county and we hunt on our own place each season--safer that way. Between hunting, the garden, and our animals, I don't buy much at the grocery. I probably spend more on critter food than I do on our own. I spin, knit and although I own 4 looms, I don't yet know how to weave and I plan to remedy that one of these cold Missouri winters. I have grown and processed cotton and flax using some restored antique equipment I was fortunate to find. I'm a retired home economics teacher but don't expect to find my house spotless. Life is too interesting to spend a second more than necessary removing dust. (My dear husband claims we have dust elephants instead of dust bunnies. I tell him the handle of the vacuum will fit his hand just fine) That's about it.

Me too. I figure the day I don't learn something is a wasted day. I've gotten into making soap in a blender and I'm delighted with the result and how fast it saponifies. I got so tired of all that stirring and stirring and....

Lowlander, I'd like to hear about your greenhouses and polytunnel. I traded 3 years ago for a 12' X 24' X 8' tall hoop house (no supplemental heating or mechanical ventilation). I had planned to grow cold hardy vegetables in it but I needed a place for the chickens that winter so.....It worked out okay because after they had scratched and added their gifts to the bedding of leaves, grass clippings and spoiled hay, I had about 8" of beautiful compost that I spread about the garden. Last year, the lady with whom I traded for the first bit decided she didn't want the rest of her hoop house and offered it to me. All I lacked was the cover material and the good husband provided that. I did get to use it for the vegetables as I'd planned initially. Please tell me how you manage yours as I'm still fine-tuning my methods. Thank you.