Going for walks…

Has always been my church, so to speak. I have big dogs that don’t always get along with other dogs, so I have always hunted down the trails that are less populated.

Being a musician I have always loved the sound of nature. I especially love the sound/silence of winter. It is always inspiring when we go out. There is always something new that we see or hear.

This particular morning we found tracks to the water that were not there the day before. We were to late to see the otters that are in the area. There was one morning where there were five of them. It was just me and Bear (my 80lbs shepherd, malamute, husky, lovable mutt) we came up on them (not close) in the water and just watched. One of them saw us and they all started barking and swimming towards us. Since I didn’t want to get into all of that we walked in opposite direction with me pulling Bear and saying “leave it!” But I thought it was funny at how aggressive they were of there territory.

Sustainability part 2

Making soap in small batches helps me have no waste.

I love cooking shows, but you know when someone is on a cooking show and they don’t scrape out that bowl to put all the ingredients into whatever they are making? That really bugs me! I’ll be talking to the screen saying “ you left a whole other cupcake in that bowl!”

And when a batch doesn’t turn out, I can make it into something else! I love the versatility of it all and no stress in a way. “Well if this doesn’t come out… I’ll turn it into something else.”

I use the scraps of all my soaps in a bar that I make. I use the last of the 50/50 lye water that I made up, and the last of the oils, and fragrances that I want to try out. This picture is from my latest batch. I usually only sell it at markets and not online, because it’s different everytime. I used different fragrances to try out and sometimes I will try different colorants to see how they work with the fragrances, etc.

When I was making this last batch, I tried to put as much scraps as I could. Turns out I over loaded the mold and almost had a huge mess when I was taping it down to get any air bubbles out. The mold opened on one side and started coming out. Luckily I was able to save it and had extra clean molds on hand to put in there.

“Soap batter ready for my soap scraps”

“Soap batter ready for the mold”

My “everything” bar of soap.

Sustainability

It all starts with small steps.

One of the things that we changed in our lives is how we take care of our shredding, cardboard, and other paper products.

We have a wood boiler that heats our house during the winter and we love it! I collect all our cardboard and paper products throughout the year and during the winter we burn it in the boiler. It helps clean the creosote from the boiler and gets rid of all our documents that we don’t want put in the recycling. Win win!

During the summer we have a fire pit where we burn the brush and other paper products that we don’t need. Win Win Win.

December 2021 in Wisconsin…

“This may not look like December in Wisconsin, but we had a warm day that melted the snow that was on the branches. Overnight the water will freeze on the branches and will look like this. It looks wet, but it’s ice.”

…is when we moved into this home. Both my husband and I were working opposite shifts and not seeing much of each other. But were hoping to slow down our busy pace of life.

I was working second shift. This enabled me to get up, walk the dogs, and get some things done around the house before heading out to work. Started making soap and really enjoyed it. We were looking at ways to cut back costs and also make what we wanted. I had a hard time finding soaps that I liked the scents and natural ingredients.

My first batch was a basic Lavender soap. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed using it and smelling it around the house. Hope you enjoy it too!