Soapy Day

Good morning! It has been so far another of those similar and yet completely different mornings. I got up at 5:00 as usual to make sure Amena was up. Because Misty heard me, she had to get up and go about. I let her out. I used the bathroom. I let Scooter out and Misty in. I fed Kitty and let Scooter in. I went back to bed. I wasn’t quite ready to go back to sleep so I read a couple of chapters (revisiting the Old Testament—reading about Gideon, one of my favorites) and then attempted sleep. It must have worked because my 5:55 alarm actually woke me up from a dream. I checked on Amena and she was still in bed. Oh my gosh! Seems to be happening fairly regularly as of late. You can check for me and let me know because I don’t feel like it.

I went to the kitchen and looked out the window and beheld the gate to the goat pen . . . open!? Are you kidding me? “Seth, did you let the goats out already?”

“No.” Of course not, why would I think he had?

Well, I had to get a lunch ready for Amena so I did that quickly and then got ready to milk and help Seth with the goats. While I was doing that, Seth was supposed to shut the gate; I found him on the front porch carefully putting on his boots so as to not hurt the kittens. That’s fine and good but when a gate needs to be shut, a gate needs to be shut.

Libby was by the crate where her kids were, Leroy and Zoey were behind the house, everyone else was in the goat shed. That was easy enough. Leroy and Zoey went back in, I discovered that one of the hinges for the gate is broken. Well, not quite broken but certainly not working correctly; it can be fixed.

I milked and let the kids out and Seth finally appeared. We got the goats out although it took several trips back and forth because they didn’t all want to go out at once.  Snowflake didn’t like the change in routine but everyone else went along the way I wanted them to go rather nicely; just not all at the same time.

While I was getting ready to milk, Misty came out. She was sniffing around for something and it wasn’t milk. Last night when Seth brought the goats in, I decided that since it was still light, I would trim someone’s feet. Goldilocks was the first one who was interested in getting some grain so Goldilocks got her feet trimmed. I should have done it quite some time ago and they are going to need another trim in the next day or two but they’re much better now than they were. Because I’d been neglectful about trimming feet, I took of pretty good-sized amounts of nail or whatever you call it. Misty was out helping as she is wont to do and she developed an interest in these discarded pieces of goat toenail. Dogs are disgusting. Anyway, that is what Misty was searching for this morning: more goat toenail to chew on. Yuck. We won’t even talk about where those nails had been or what they had stepped in. Just yuck. Dogs eat crap, literally, and then we let them lick us. Humans are disgusting, too.

And at this point, I will be back because boy lunches need to be finished up and I need to change my clothes because my wet pants are making me cold.

Compare this to when they were teeny tiny. No wonder she's hungry all the time.

A bit of a delay there. I went to get changed and there was an emergency. Once that was taken care of, I went to get changed and there was another emergency. At that point, I decided to wait until the boys were on the bus before attempting to get changed again. And when I did, the book I’m reading called to me and I had to read a few pages.

Have I told you about the book I’m reading? It is Tales of a Midwife by Maria Anderson. I have to say that the first couple of chapters I found rather . . . different. I guess I haven’t spent much time reading memoirs. It isn’t at all like a novel or nonfiction book. And it isn’t much like autobiographical books I’ve read, either. Still, in the third chapter it’s getting better or I’m getting more used to the style. And a few pages really eighteen.

I just think this one is cute.

Yesterday. Yesterday was a soapy day. I made four batches of soap: Who Needs a Spa? Bars, Papa’s Own, Outrageous Grapefruit, and Lavender Green. For the last two, I tried a new technique I read about in a soapmaking blog. The tutorial I read showed how to do bars with three (or four) colors swirled together but in order to do that, you really need three hands. Since I had only two at my disposal, and the soaps I wanted to make really didn’t lend themselves to three (or four) colors, but only two, I did two but used the same idea of a divider.

The first one was Outrageous Grapefruit. I used a glass 2-quart measuring bowl for half of the soap and to each half I added the different scents and colorants. Then, using one of the plastic pieces that go on the bottom of the mold secured at the top with tape, I poured first one and then the other. That worked but not so well as if I would have poured at the same time. However, pouring from a pot and a bowl simultaneously would not have really worked. So, for the second, Lavender Green, I poured each half of the soap into a separate 2-quart measuring bowl (I’m really glad that I have two) and added to each the different scents and colorants. Securing a divider as I had the first time but pouring both at once worked much better. Now I am looking forward to the unmolding and cutting of these bars. And while I’m thinking of it, I’m thinking of other ways to do this with different molds. Oh my.

In between making soap, or actually while waiting for oils and lye solutions to reach the same temperature, I folded some clothes. I need to do more but currently the boys did not all get their clothes put away so the couch is a messier mess than I’d like to begin with and I’m not going to redo what I already did. Due to this, I am going to wait until the boys are home from school and they are going to help with the folding of the laundry. I will do towels before they get home but that is all.

Otherwise, yesterday wasn’t terribly eventful. We shall see what this day holds.

Have a wonderful one!