Soap, soap and more soap. It's everywhere!

I have been a soap making maniac lately. Getting ready for this holiday market in December. I still have more this to make and so much to do.


This is a Spiced Mahogany soap I poured in big cupcake papers. It smells so good, like a man's aftershave.

I have soap drying and curing all over the house right now.  This is some Orange-Clove on the top shelf.
Then to the left is a Woodsmen's soap with cedar, lavender, citronella and something else I can't recall at the moment. But it's supposed to keep those nasty pesky bugs away while hiking or working outside.
To the right is a plain soap with cucumbers in it. I thought it might have a nice cucumbery scent but it doesn't. It's pretty though.

This is my Pumpkin Spice on both sides of the double rack. Smells like a pumpkin pie. And the ones in the middle are Clarey Sage-Rosemary and plain goat milk soaps I made using  Pringles cans.

Top soap is a Spiced Pear. Very dark soap because of the cinnamon and cloves. It does smell like a spiced pear though.
Then a Peppermint-Sage. Love that one.
And a Peppermint, lemongrass and a tea tree oil castille.

Cedar-Safron "manly" soap.
A Lavender-Orange.
And oatmeal-honey goat milk.

I made a Lavender-Lemongrass with bees wax yesterday. It's so pretty and the color of the bees wax and smells so good too. I put lavender flowers in it. I will cut it in a few minutes when I find a place to put it to cure. I'm running out of room here!

Here are the soaps I haul to market in little cute thrift store baskets. I am making more soap today. Just made a lard based soap with Patchouli-Indian Sandalwood. That smells amazing! Patchouli is my favorite scent.

Apple pickin' time

This is Kansas. She's my apple picker helper today. A friend of mine will be doing apple cider this week, so I decided to go ahead and pick all the rest of my apples off the trees. The green ones are Granny Smith and the red ones are Yates. I love the Yates. It's a very old apple tree variety. So crispy and crunchy and juicy. Also makes great apple cider. Kansas is so tall she can almost reach up and just pick them off the tree.

 

I have about a bushel of the Yates apples in the fridge outside too. So I have a good 2 1/2 bushels to make cider. I'll go get a few more boxes from the apple orchard in Tn.



This is a huge apple that we are going to just EAT! You can see Kansas out the window reaching way up high for another apple.

And here she is getting down out of the Granny Smith tree.I love apples and picking them and making cider. And I love my little apple pickin' helper, Kansas, too. She will enjoy all this good cider this winter, along with her 2 older sister's Chloe and Coryn.

I hope y'all are able to get some nice apples this fall. I'd love to hear what y'all make or do with them. I want to dry some of these. They are SO good dried with some cinnamon sprinkled on them. Chloe loves them.

Happy apple pickin', y'all!

Contrast

Same tree. On the left was taken this morning, in fog. On the right was taken just a little while ago, while picking apples. So pretty.

                                                                     

Lookout Mountain

On the way to town this morning, I had to stop and take these pictures. It was so pretty. Lookout Mt. shrouded in fog.

                                   This is my favorite view. You can just see hints of Autumn color.

It's raining

It's wet and rainy this morning. The goats hate it. This is Sandy and the very little young Boer buck, out back in their shed. They are not going out in this. No. So I can just throw a flake of hay through the window. I like easy. Isn't that funny that Sandy's eyes are pink and his are blue? Wonder why?

I hope you all are nice and dry and warm this morning. And have a great fall weekend!

And making soap too

I am also making more soap. This is a violet-chamomile soap. It smells so good. I hope it turns out ok because it's dark and cold and dreary outside today.

I also made a spiced pear using the pumpkin spice recipe I love so much. I had some spiced pears I had canned so used some of those and some ground cinnamon and cloves. I hope this works. It was really dark when I poured it in the mold.

I'll make a Spiced Mahogany later.

I just love making soap. It's way too addictive.

Elderberry syrup

It's that time of year again. Itchy sore throat, runny nose, just general yucky feeling. So I make elderberry syrup and take a tablespoon every morning. I have not been sick in several years since I do this. And it's SO easy to make too. 

You just need dried elderberries, water, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, grated ginger and honey. So simple.

Here's the recipe. And I always double it to make about 4 cups.

1 cup dried elderberries
4 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
10 whole cloves
10 T grated ginger (I just usually buy a big ole chunk of ginger and use it all. I don't measure.)
2 cups honey

So you start by putting the first 5 ingredients in a big pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, til it's reduced by about half. It takes a good 30 minutes or so. But ya know what? I have never let it get that far. That's what my recipe says, but I don't always follow directions.

Then you strain all that goodness into a bowl or measuring cup. Add 2 cups honey and stir til all dissolved.

I reuse all my little dark colored fish oil bottles for this. It says to keep in dark containers. These are perfect and hold 1 cup each. It makes 4 cups most of the time. Sometimes a little more, sometimes less. This time was a little more. I just drank it. It's so good!

A friend of mine orders the berries for me. But you could look up on line for places to order elderberries from. You all need to make this, right now, before you get sick. And kids can drink this too! Enjoy!