Once Again, I'm Cleaning Up My Act.

I am one of those homesteading hippie freaks who makes her own soap, tooth powder, deodorant, laundry soap and cleaning supplies.

I have not always been like this, I in fact, was deeply addicted to The Works for toilets and only gave that toxic stuff up about a year ago. But I still miss it and I admit, still dream about its bright blue color and its ability to strip paint off a submarine or stains out of a loo. You know, like the way we dream about those people who were never good for you but had such amazing guitar skills that when you picked them up on the side of the road it was impossible to ask him to leave your single wide trailer with the blue suede bedspread...like that.

Yes, I have a thing for the color blue.



Back to all natural cleaners. Today's blog is brought to you by homemade soap. The real kind made with lye not glycerin blocks you get at Hobby Lobby. That's not soap, its just another hobby, from some megastore lobby. I'll talk about tooth powder some late night when the snow is 6 feet deep outside.




I used to make and sell soap for our retail farm store under the name The Midlife Farmwife .  Now, I have no such fancy label or a webpage for ordering, its just you and me right here right now. Maybe later after I get rolling I'll do a Facebook page again but for now, I'm keeping it simple or if you prefer, ultra exclusive.

All of my soaps  are made with natural ingredients for color (see the picture below) and scent. I use only high quality base oils and essential oils, no fragrance oils, So if you want something in patchouli, cedarwood, geranium rose or lavender for example,  I'm your gal but if want something that smells like bubblegum or White Diamonds, you'll need to visit Walmart.




Email me at opies99@gmail.com if you'd like prices, or more info.

Goodbye Camper, Hello Outdoor Writers Studio

Now you see it, 

Now you don't.

Last summers quaint abode, all 160 square feet of it, is on it's way to a new home. Destined to be the playhouse for a couple with ELEVEN children, I was not unhappy to see it go. It served its purpose but life last summer, from April through October, without indoor plumbing, heat, or room to do the little things, like breathe, was an experience best left in the past.

Sure, there were benefits. When you live in such a tiny space you spend most of your time outdoors, which is always healthier. You also learn to live with much less and thus moving into out 680 SF grain bin was like moving into a three wing castle. It's all relative.

It did have a working stove but most days cooking in there was just insanely hot so we cooked on an open fire outside. Storage was limited and  I had to stand on the booth benches (left) to reach into the cupboards above them. The plumbing was shot so we used our composting toilet in the outhouse, and we washed all our dishes via carried water, on a stainless steel sink set up in the camper yard.

We also showered outside, which I will admit, I miss sometimes. We had privacy, unless you drove up through the field just south of us, then it was every naked camper for themselves. But once the corn grew waist high (for Keith) and neck high (for moi) we were good. All in all we had fun (most of the time) we learned new survival skills ( how to tie the door shut with a robe belt) and we acquired an appreciation for the little things ( not having to wash our bums outside on 40 degree nights).

Now, this vacated area is my new outdoor writing studio. We don't have AC in the grain bin so on the 95 degree days I prefer to be outside in the shade. With our old picnic table placed on the deck previously used as our shower area, and a jug of ice water, ice coffee, iced beer (I believe in free choice) plus a few farm critters for company, I'm good for at least one short story.

Manure Preneurs: How Our Garden Grows

Manure Preneurs. That's us. (Any self-employed screen printers out there? Make me a  Manure Preneur T-shirt and I'll trade you some cool soap.) In this day of chemical fertilizers, Round Up ready seeds, overhead spraying by dive-bombing planes, what Keith and I do here is a rarity in our parts. We are literally surrounded by GMO corn and beans, corn and beans. Few Illinois farmers grow anything else, but we love to rock the status quo and our freaky chemical free methods...are working. Our clay heavy soils screamed for help and we responded and in return we have been gifted with the following. 

Here again is the garden just off our front door. The pic was taken May 27. 

And here it is just a little over four weeks later. 

We did this with a nearly extinct form of food raising. Hard work. So much hard, sweaty work. We no longer own a tractor, riding mower or garden tiller. Our son Kyle did initially till this spot for us, but since then it's all been just hand tools. Next year the plan is No-till since we've laid the ground work for such this year. Lately I've become very close to my wheelbarrow and pitchfork. We use older moldy hay, grass clippings (from our push mower) well rotted manure/straw combination to mulch between rows. We hand pull weeds. It is not (yet) an efficient method but in future years all the work we've done lately will pay off in rich soil which will require only minimal maintenance.

Green beans on the left and tomatoes in the middle. Peppers and onions to the right.

Close up of the peppers with zucchini behind them, onions towards middle and far right are my herbs: chives, tarragon, basil, sage, mint, cilantro, thyme, all just three feet from my front door.

 View from the upstairs window in the evening light.

Alongside the sidewalk the package of wildflower seeds are in bloom and baby's breath, calendula, marigolds, cosmos and zinnias add the color I have always wanted in a garden.

I am one stinking ridiculous happy homesteader, until of course all the beans come ready for canning next week when the temps are predicted to be in the high 90's. Oh well. The life of a Manure Preneur is bound to stink sometimes.

Barn in Absentia

In 1995 my husband built us a beautiful, monstrous, red and white barn 85 ft by 65 ft. He did this without contractors, skid steers or cranes, using an old tractor with a rickety bucket. An amazing feat. Please forgive the fuzzy photo, I can barely chew gum and walk at the same time let alone fly and take photos. 

  Keith used the old wood from the property's first barn built in 1898, hauled it to the new site and used that wood for the bones of the building. We purchased new steel siding and new roofing materials. It had a large hay mow where our grandchildren begged to play with each visit and inside we sheltered horses, cows, calves, hay, straw...etc. The small addition was our milk house added in 1999. We loved that barn. Here it is up close.

An intern, back in the day when we had such, 
helps Keith put up hay.

We loved that big barn so much we left it, to start this new simpler but albeit, barnless life.  Please refer to the word "morons" on this blogs header, above. What we have instead,is this quaint building measuring a whopping 25 ft by 20 ft.

The original shed, to the right, was likely built about the same time as the old decrepit house on our property, in 1867. Somewhere along the line, a  concrete floor was poured. I love the look of this shed and it is hoped we can save it and use it for many years. It contains feed barrels for cats, chickens, and pigs,  horse tack, garden tools, buckets, fencing supplies etc...

The addition to the left is crap on a cracker as my mother would say. She was from southern Indiana and prolific in her quotable quotes. Miss her I do. Primarily it is cheap fiber board and warped plywood with a dirt floor. One day it will be torn down and replaced, but for the moment it serves a purpose. It houses our hay, straw and miscellaneous inventory. With the exception of a disoriented duck or laze-about dog, the building does not routinely house livestock. Instead, we house our animals in numerous creative ways.

A small milking "barn" for Holly and her mentor Mucca, the livestock trailer for Ennis the horse (pulled in and out of her pasture as needed to haul hay or other large items that won't fit in the back of our truck) and the old well house for the steers, who were not at all kind to the old well house. 

Well house circa 1867, turned steer shed 2015 turned chicken coop 2016.
Yes, repairs are scheduled.

With winter just 5 short months away we are considering our options for 2017. Stay tuned. 

Lions and Tigers and F2's...oh my!

Dorothy and her crew stopped by for a brief visit Wednesday night just as Keith and I were settling in for the evening. Cell phone alarms are so grand when you are too far away from town to hear Tornado Warning sirens.

It's also helpful that when all four of your adult children are in the general path of bad weather, there is social media to help with gentle text instructions...GET IN THE BASEMENT NOW! (Me to youngest son) or "Tornado in area, hope you get this message in time, if not, then tell the wicked witch hello for me" (Message from oldest son to me)  Our daughters message wins the prize for emergent brevity. "We're ok are you ok?" Even the middle son who avoids all technology more than he avoids vegetables, sent a facebook message. "Hey old folks, Still alive?" With no basement of our own in our grain bin house,  we just stayed close to the concrete foundation, snacked on floor crumbs and waited for our metal cone to start spinning.

All ended well for our immediate family. Our two oldest and their families, who live in Pontiac which was hit on the west side by an F2, were unscathed, but their neighbors had roof and yard damage. Worst hit was the area near the Rt 116 and I-55 interchange. There the BP gas station was badly damaged as were a couple trailers just south of town. Many businesses were also hit but our local hospital, just on the other side of the interstate, was missed.

Fortunately, only a hand full of injuries and no deaths. For more damage photos/video go to ABC Channel 7 News

We also received 3 inches of rain here on The Poor Farm that night, which was desperately needed. It's been humid since the storms and work outside is a sweaty, muddy experience but we are happy about it. Our well ran dry on Tuesday night (someone forgot to turn off the hose when watering HIS garden which almost makes up for the all the times I forgot on our old place) causing us to fret about an upcoming dry summer. So when we got drenched with the post tornado rains, we were giddy with relief. The well is full again and all is uh,,,well.

It takes little to make us giddy here, we're just that simple (minded).

We Do Not Sweat Like Pigs

Even though we've had several days in June over 90 degrees, one recent day it was 97 with a heat index of 103 F, we are not sweating like pigs for the simple reason that...pigs do not sweat. They have other wonderful attributes: they learn quickly, they don't poop in their sleeping areas (unless crammed into a confinement building where they have no choice ) they taste wonderful when raised on pasture, but they cannot sweat. So, when it gets hot they depend on the homesteader and a GK or two to help with relief.

On our old farm we raised 60-70 hogs at a time and we had large water holes filled for them. We also had two wells. This year on The Poor Farm we have one well that is not so deep, and we are experiencing a very dry spring, presently three inches of rain below normal. Two thirds of Illinois is currently in a "pre-drought" status.

Of course I must ask, isn't all weather outside a drought "pre-drought"? if we had 20 inches of snow or 2 inches of sleet, or a single sand storm would that all not be "pre-drought" ? Sorry, the older I get the more my pea brain wanders.

  In contrast, last summer it was extremely wet. Que Sera Sera. Unsure of how summer and fall will evolve we are cautious with our water supply. Fortunately we also have a limited supply of livestock: two cows, one young bull, five steers, assorted chickens and ducks, two dogs, four cats and four feeder pigs.

If the temp stays below 85 and there is a breeze, the hogs do fine but they show signs of stress about the 90 degree mark (increased respirations, less active, demanding long island ice teas with extra ice, and fanning them selves with ducks in the outstretched wing position (I told you they were smart). At that point we hit them with the hose. They get sprayed which makes them laugh out loud and leap in and out of the stream, bringing back fond memories of my Chicago youth. 

After that I will fill a small area with water on a dirt hill in their pasture. Of course we fill their water pans often. My GK Allana is well familiar with this routine as she has played with the pigs since she was very small, and though she is now a sophisticated age 12 she was not above getting down and dirty recently with the porcine four. I am also happy to say that for her recent birthday she talked her parents into giving her two pet rats. 

We two hippie homesteading grandparents could not be more proud. 

Grain Bin House Gets the Blues

Our inside work on the Grain Bin House continues, but certainly not at the speed of the outside work. Priorities man. Still, two projects were recently marked off our ongoing list of items to be finished; the pantry and the stairs.

The pantry was, for the last eight months, a freestanding set of plastic shelves under our stairs. It sufficed, but we needed more shelves, permanent shelves and more room on each shelf. Enter Keith and his supply of leftover wood.




Leftover from other GBH projects, leftover from my sister Mary's kitchen remodel, leftover from our old farm, leftover from we can't even remember. Every piece of the new pantry came "pre-paid." Keith built a frame under the stairs then pieced together several very deep shelves that more than triple the square inches we had in storage with the old plastic shelf unit. I came along with paint, more leftovers from our bedroom walls, and the pantry is complete. More or less.

We plan to add additional shelves, about 8 inches in depth, to run at right angles to the deeper shelves. These we will use for jars of canned goods...coming in a few weeks. I may or may not cover the area with a curtain, certainly we don't have room for any doors.

Now onto the stairs. The risers were made with leftover wood but the tops were new pine.

I wanted color,  so with GK Wesley's help, we picked three shades of blue,  and then alternated them. We had some mighty heat here last week so I painted outside which quickened dry time.

When I was done it all looked very Pianoesque, and I imagined a future picket fence painted the same way, but for now, it's only the stairs.

With the risers done, I decided to cover the tops with a combination stain/polyurethane (see bottom step.) It's a bit light for my taste but we'll see how a second coat goes. Eventually we must close in the top of the stairs over the pantry but I expect that will become a fall job as garden duties are increasing in intensity.

This is our first summer of serious food production and we plan to be on top of everything when the veggies are ready for harvest and preservation. But we all know how God responds to our planning don't we? He drops to the floor, rolls around and laughs so hard he wets himself.

Or so I've heard.