A Simple Gift

Staying indoors for long stretches of days actually has some quirky benefits. I have found that I putter around more when I can't go outside. Putt, putt..... I grab my camera to try to capture what my exploring eyes come upon. These African violets sit atop my microwave absorbing that desire-some northern light that they crave; along with whatever weird waves my microwave is perhaps emitting. The nutmeg grater awaits my morning ritual of sprinkling it's aromatic spice into my first cup of coffee. Hand-crocheted doilies that I myself don't make, find their place gracefully throughout my home.



I have always loved to collect Hurricane kerosene lamps like these. I lost most of my collection in a series of earthquakes many years ago. So, I just started collecting all over again!

These are my delicate dishes that I bought many years ago from an older gal who was downsizing her collection of belongings. The apple bowl in the background was hand painted by my mother's mother about a hundred years ago. One of the very few family treasures that I own.
My MIL gave me these years ago. I remember seeing them inside of her china cabinet; now they are just sitting inside of mine! I have no idea about them. I think they are Hansel & Gretel.

My spaces seem to get smaller as the years go by; less land to manage, fewer kids at home to look after, fewer animals to care for. I think I like it though! I find it manageable. Not too stressful.

So, there it is. The simplicity of my recent days. Don't get me wrong, the surges of stress and busyness come regularly, but I am learning to appreciate the quiet days more and more!!

Humboldt Harvest of Another Kind

As the days hover between summer & autumn with warm, breezy days and cool, misty nights, harvest is in the air. By harvest I don't mean the skanky illegal kind, but the productive, homestead kind. The kind of harvest that provides for me a cupboard full of canned pears and preserved jellies and a wood shed filled with neatly stacked dry firewood for the wood stove.
Last weekend we visited M& TJ up at the Ranch.
We gathered fruit that was ripening on the trees while the guys went out to fill the pickups with wood. The best part about a trip to the ranch is the time of visiting and sharing our stories while relaxing in M&TJ's living room.


The grandkids discovered TJ's Matryoshka dolls and spent an inordinate amount of time examining them! You know, those little wooden nesting dolls that stack into one another. We were amazed that ACJ new the real name for them and asked TJ if she could play with her Matryoshka dolls. My what??? TJ learned the real name for them from a very young teacher!


On our way out we got a quick glimpse of those movable boulders that are seen on the ranch from time to time. These things look like prehistoric creatures that dwell among the rocks, camouflaged by the grasses and contours of the countryside. Notice the tiny little legs poking out from under that huge mass of wool!

They are almost the size of a Volkswagen beetle!


The sunset was a stunning farewell to a productive day.

Making Pectin from Quince

I get a large, sturdy knife to cut these things; seeds, cores and all. All I do is rinse off the downey soft fuzz that covers them. They are a hard as stone so slicing them takes some muscle! When they are ripe they are a little easier to cut up, but not much!

This is all of the fruit cut up into random chunks with enough water poured over it to cover them. They smell alot like apples when they are cooking.

Now I let the fruit cook into the water for about 2 hours or until it is good and soft. I love the way it turns a beautiful pink color.

Here I have 3 sieves going at once, draining the juice into the bowls. I just bought 2 of these sieves at a yard sale last weekend. I guess that was pretty good timing! I saw a recipe on the internet that uses the pulp for some kind of desert dish. I forget what it was called. It looked like a good recipe, but unfortunately I had already discarded my pulp into the compost bin. Next year I will have to try this other dish.

I just let the fruit sit in the sieve until all the juices run out. I don't squeeze it or press it or anything. I just let it set.

Once I get the juice extracted from the pulp, I boil it down for about 45 min.

Then I cold pack it into jars. After all that hard work, I only got two pint jars. I am going to try mixing it with grapes to make grape jelly tomorrow. Supposedly, I can use it in place of pectin, so this will be an experiment. I hope that it works!

Cherry Pickin' in Humboldt

So incredible! E's tree is just LOADED with sweet, dark red cherries just waiting to be eaten! The tree is about 30 yrs old and one of the biggest cherry trees I have ever seen!

Nick trying his best to rediscover his inner child and climb this tree!

DIL takes her cherry picking very seriously!

One for me and one for the bucket! That's about how it goes when you're pickin' fruit this delicious! I think we all had stained teeth and hands by the time we got done!




When we finally finished gorging ourselves we wound up with a HUGE bucket filled with cherries.

Lucky for us I had a cherry stoner which made the job of pitting the fruit super easy. E & Kate sit down on the job and really make it look easy!

E set out all the ingredients for making a cobbler; her first one she's ever made. Actually, they picked enough cherries to make three! DIL and I took home enough to make 3 more! After all this hard work, the rewards are sweet and delicious! We are going to return again this week to pick enough to preserve. Should be good, but that will have to be another post!

Making Whole wheat bread

Several years ago I wanted to learn how to make my own bread. I began by searching recipes and reading about it and talking with others who had this same passion. After much trial and error I finally found a mixer, a recipe and a supplier to provide me with all that I needed to succeed. Wheat berries, a wheat grinder, a bread mixer, dough enhancer, quick rise yeast were all I needed to accomplish my goal. Very quickly I became what is know as an urban homemaker. Now let me tell you just what that is. An urban homemaker is one who loves to cook from scratch, uses as many natural or organic ingredients as possible, obtains all such ingredients from the best possible sources (which may or may not come from ones own garden) and does all of this from home. I don't live on a big ranch or grow my own wheat or raise all my own food, but I do admire all those people who do. What I do like to do is obtain my food from known sources so that I can discern its nutritional value and substance. Basically I want to know what it is that I am eating and where it came from. Over the course of this life experience I have now become a proficient bread maker. My friends and family have become accustomed to the rich smell of freshly made bread wafting through my house. It all starts here...with hard spring Montana wheat berries and a good wheat grinder. In go the berries and out comes some vitamin rich freshly ground wheat ready for baking.

I invested in a heavy duty mixer that will make a large batch of dough. The recipe that I use will make 5 loaves of bread at a time. (I have a big family, so we use it!)

Here it is in whirling action.
Once the machine is done mixing and kneading (yes! this machine even kneads the dough for me) I can shape it into whatever it is that I want to make. Loaves, rolls, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, bears, whatever!

This is one big lump of dough! Today I made the entire batch into rolls. The recipe make 75 rolls.

The rolls as they begin to rise. This takes about an hour.


Sweet, golden deliciousness. With a little butter or peanut butter and some homemade jam, these babies will be gone in no time!

Rags

I know I didn't need another cat. I know kittens can be a lot of work. I know all these things. But she was just so dang cute. As soon as I picked her up her motor began to purr as she snuggled against my neck. I mean, just look at that face! It just begs to be loved!

My other cats are mortified. How could you?, they cry. There has been lots of hissing and dissing, but eventually they are getting used to the new roommate. Every once in a while I even catch them playing together.

You can just see the disgust in this guy's face. You did what??? Does that actually mean I have to share the foot of the bed with her? And the afghan? Please.
The grand babies are a little shy of her. I think it's the razor sharp kitten claws that keep them at bay.

Summer Jobs

Trying to find projects for my two boys for the summer is my latest adventure. Both boys are strong, young and capable yet it seems they lack the creativity to funnel that energy into usable tasks. That's where I come in. A typical morning in the family room consists of them tapping away at the keyboard on the computer deep into the "MySpace" world or draped over the furniture watching some WW2 movie for the umpteenth time or just plain old fashioned horse play. So being the driven mother that I am, I get them off their behinds and outside into the never-ending realm of home improvements. Here they are building a fence in the backyard. Much to my amazement, the fence actually came out looking great! It's straight, sturdy and structurally pleasing to the eye. Now my backyard looks like a cute little courtyard area for relaxation. Thanks, guys. Now off to find the next project! Oh yes, insulation needs to be put up in the new garage room!

And of course after this comes the drywall installation. That should keep them busy for at least 2 weeks. Then comes summer camp & vacation bible school & probably more home improvements. Before I know it August will be here and school will be starting. Gee...how come the time seems to go so fast these days?

Soap Making trials

Yes, soapmaking has its trial. Even after making soaps for 6 years without having to use a recipe because I've done it so many times it has become more of a pattern of movement, sometimes things just don't go right. Apparently, I made the mistake of leaving the lid off one of the buckets which allowed moisture to seep into the granules of powder. As the photo shows, these little granules refused to dissolve into the mixture. This was a problem. You see, when making soap, part of the process involves using lye. This sounds horrifying, I know, but indeed one cannot have soap with out it. Lye is a VERY caustic chemical but the process known as saponification reduces it to a state of usefulness and makes it harmless. (soapmaking 101).
I deduced that if I removed the moisture from the powder, it would become flaky and powdery again so I put it in the oven in a pot on a very low setting.

I use a jar to scoop it out and even it was stuck in the glob so hard I couldn't get it out! Several hours later I checked on the experiment only to find out that my hypothesis was incorrect! The powder actually turned liquid! At that point, I just decided to put it away and deal with it tomorrow (which is always a good way to deal with stress, right!?)


I continued making the batch of soap that I had begun in the first place. Olive oil is one of the 6 oils I put into the soap. This makes for a beautiful, rich, bubbly bar of soap. Each ingredient must be carefully weighed and combined in the proper order to ensure the saponification process.


Once the ingredients are combined, they are vigorously blended together. Here I am using what is commonly referred to as a stick blender. Usually these are used for making milkshakes, but they also are indispensable when making soap! I blend until "trace" which is a thickened state.
Once I add whatever fragrance and color I want, I pour it into the molds and let it set overnight. This batch is Plumeria.

Next I cut each bar by hand and set it on the shelf for 6 weeks to allow it to cure. After that time it is ready to sell. So this is what it takes to keep my family and friends clean and smelling nice! This is my creative expression which I love to express, so more than anything it is a labor of love!

Soap Making in Humboldt County

This photo is of a Freesia, one (of many) of my favorite flowers. I have quite a few "favorites." I absolutely love Gardenias. I grow lots of Roses. Jasmine is another favorite. And I almost forgot to mention how much I love Oriental Lilies! I have this irresistible tendency towards sweet fragrances.
Remember the cartoon illustration of the hungry character floating through the air toward the food with the smoke pulling it like a rope? That's the way I am with floral fragrances. I can never seem to get enough beautiful, sweet flowers around me. So, I have discovered a great way to express this passion for fragrance without having to plant all of these flowers in my garden......I make my own soap. I am a self proclaimed, successful herbal soap maker.

I started this endeavor about 5 years ago when I lived on a small homestead in Southern Humboldt. I attended a class introducing me to soap making that was taught by a friend of mine. I thought it interesting and promptly went home to announce to my family that I was now going to make our own soap. I had already succeeded in making all of our own whole wheat bread, raised our own chickens to provide our eggs, raised and butchered all of our own turkey and chicken meat, and grew and canned most of our fruits and veggies. So when I made this announcement, no one seemed too surprised. My first attempts did not turn out very well, but with tender encouragement from my husband, I kept trying until I got it right. I spent many hours on the internet researching recipes, borrowing books from the library and calling my friend to help me create a great bar of soap. After weeks of trial and error, I developed a bar of soap that fulfilled my expectations. At this point, I decided that I couldn't just make soap for my family; I had to make it for the entire county! Once I got going on it, I couldn't stop. I found so many titillating scents and fragrances to make into incredible soaps that I had to step up my production just to experiment with them all! I had racks and racks of curing soaps scattered all over the house and throughout my living space. All of this became the creation of my new business, "A Corner of Eden." I had to have soap displays made so I could sell the soap to local businesses.
I went to farmer's market every week to sell it. I spent my Christmas holidays attending boutiques and faires selling my specialty soaps. I put in lots and lots of hours promoting my handmade goods while raising the kids, managing the homestead, and generally keeping life running smoothly. Whew... I'm getting worn out just remembering all of that!

Several years later, our family made the decision to move away from the homestead. The circumstances in our lives had changed which made it necessary to move closer to town and off the farm. It wasn't the easiest decision I have had to make, but I was ready to accept it.
Since moving into town, I haven't gotten my soap business back up to the level I would like it to be, but I feel a change coming........It's time to make soap again. I can feel it. It's a creative burn in my hands that begs to express itself. Gardening can't fulfill it, cooking won't do it, only soap making will give my limbs the satisfaction they long for. I shall start as soon as I can get up out of this comfy chair and away from this warm fire... oh, wait a minute, is that the phone ringing? Did someone say that the grandkids are coming over to spend the day? Oh yes, and I have a test on Monday that I need to study for; and I haven't taken the dogs for a walk yet...
Hmmmm.... maybe I will just wait until tomorrow.....