Bells of the North Homestead

I can’t believe the year is almost over with.  Its Mid-November, the ground is fully covered with snow (finally), and we’re just about done for the season.  This year seemed to be more about protein farming than our garden really; when I sit and ponder it.  Slowly but surely our property is becoming more and more productive.  In July I posted that it seemed as if our meat rabbit production was not doing as well but suddenly come September that all changed.  We had two surprise litters and we had a friend drop off some of her grow outs as she was getting out of rabbits for a while.  This pushed our meat harvested massively up.  That definitely helps counter the cost of raising the rabbits.  While I love my breeder rabbits (Bones, Pepper, Dorothy, Cadbury, Butterfinger, Granny Cookie) they are not simply pets.  As any protein farmer knows, these are also my livestock.  I get to know each and every one.  Their likes and dislikes, who enjoys what kind of food and who tends to be more

Brew coffee triple strength several hours prior to creating batch of soap.  This will be used for the lye.  I like to add cloves into the brewed coffee as it adds a bit of a complex smell later.   SoapCalc © Recipe Name:    New    Print Recipe Total oil weight 3 lb Water as percent of oil weight 38.00 % Super Fat/Discount 5 % Lye Concentration 27.883 % Water : Lye Ratio 2.5864:1 Sat : Unsat Ratio 60 : 40 Iodine 41 INS 176 Fragrance Ratio 0.5 Fragrance Weight 1.50 oz Pounds Ounces Grams Water 1.140 18.24 517.09 Lye -  NaOH 0.441 7.05 199.92 Oils 3.000 48.00 1,360.78 Fragrance 0.094 1.50 42.53 Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook 4.675 74.79 2,120.32 # √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams 1 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 35.00 1.050 16.80 476.27 2 Tallow Beef 40.00 1.200 19.20 544.31 3 Shea Butter 5.00 0.150 2.40 68.04 4 Olive Oil 20.00 0.600 9.60 272.16 Totals 100.00 3.000 48.00 1,360.78 Soap Bar Quality Range Your Recipe Hardness 29 - 54 56 Cleansing

SoapCalc © Recipe Name:    New      Print Recipe Total oil weight 2 lb Water as percent of oil weight 38.00 % Super Fat/Discount 5 % Lye Concentration 27.285 % Water : Lye Ratio 2.6651:1 Sat : Unsat Ratio 39 : 61 Iodine 56 INS 156 Fragrance Ratio 0.5 Fragrance Weight 1.00 oz Pounds Ounces Grams Water 0.760 12.16 344.73 Lye -  NaOH 0.285 4.56 129.35 Oils 2.000 32.00 907.18 Fragrance 0.063 1.00 28.35 Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook 3.108 49.72 1,409.61 # √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams 1 Avocado Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 2 Coconut Oil, 92 deg 35.00 0.700 11.20 317.51 3 Castor Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 4 Olive Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 5 Avocado butter 5.00 0.100 1.60 45.36 Totals 100.00 2.000 32.00 907.18 Soap Bar Quality Range Your Recipe Hardness 29 - 54 37 Cleansing 12 - 22 23 Conditioning 44 - 69 57 Bubbly 14 - 46 41 Creamy 16 - 48 32 Iodine 41 - 70 56 INS 136 - 165 156 Lauric 17 Myristic 7 Palmitic 11 Stearic 3 Ric

SoapCalc © Recipe Name:    New      Print Recipe Total oil weight 2 lb Water as percent of oil weight 38.00 % Super Fat/Discount 5 % Lye Concentration 27.285 % Water : Lye Ratio 2.6651:1 Sat : Unsat Ratio 39 : 61 Iodine 56 INS 156 Fragrance Ratio 0.5 Fragrance Weight 1.00 oz Pounds Ounces Grams Water 0.760 12.16 344.73 Lye -  NaOH 0.285 4.56 129.35 Oils 2.000 32.00 907.18 Fragrance 0.063 1.00 28.35 Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook 3.108 49.72 1,409.61 # √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams 1 Avocado Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 2 Coconut Oil, 92 deg 35.00 0.700 11.20 317.51 3 Castor Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 4 Olive Oil 20.00 0.400 6.40 181.44 5 Avocado butter 5.00 0.100 1.60 45.36 Totals 100.00 2.000 32.00 907.18 Soap Bar Quality Range Your Recipe Hardness 29 - 54 37 Cleansing 12 - 22 23 Conditioning 44 - 69 57 Bubbly 14 - 46 41 Creamy 16 - 48 32 Iodine 41 - 70 56 INS 136 - 165 156 Lauric 17 Myristic 7 Palmitic 11 Stearic 3 Ricin

Six more weeks till Winter. Or so the story goes told by Alaskan Natives and sourdoughs alike.   When the fireweed has bloomed all the way to the top, we have six more weeks till the snow flies.   So far this break up and then into summer, we’ve had some successes….and some failures.    That’s pretty typical though.   The garden is doing well but could be doing better thanks to the late start because of our vacation in the lower 48.   That is a killer here since our growing season is so short.    We got to harvest a large bunch of garlic scapes earlier this week.   Yes indeed, garlic scapes.   SUCCESS! The garlic survived the winter! We’ll have garlic later this summer to harvest.   We’re about 2 days away from harvesting our first zucchini and summer squash of the season.   Our kale and broccoli rabe this year barely sprouted due to the fact that we got a late start on it.   We should have direct sowed the seeds in May, however in May we were racing aga