When it's hot out...make soap

Since Sunday Wisconsin has been part of the heat wave covering most of the country.  While I was making liquid soap yesterday in my hot steamy kitchen and watching the news how some people cooked steak in their cars...I thought to myself, "why not cook my liquid soap outside?"  So here goes my experiment.  Years ago I bought the book Making Natural Liquid Soaps and have found it to be a valuable tool.  So this experiment uses one of the formulations from that book.  

First off, I got the paste started in the house...melting the oils and mixing the lye water into the oils using the stick blender.  Next I took it outside...On our thermometer you can see the inside and outside temps along with time, date and humidity.  

 After being outside for a couple of hours I went back to check...You can see the soap cooking!!!  So I had to mix it up a bit.  

see the cracks in the soap paste?  I knew it was cooking!!!

Keep the heat outside and cook my soap.

Went out to check again...the spoon is extremely HOT and had to use a hot pan holder to stir. 

See the color change...I don't smell much lye at all at this point.

Put the cover back on and get my things around to dilute the paste.

We're at the peak of the day for the heat!!!  

This soap turned out great...see for yourself.  These are listed on Etsy... Blood orange, unscented, white cherry blossom, blackberry apple and carrot cake.

Chillin' Lucy with her first bath

 The kids wanted to try my dog shampoo on our dog Lucy.  We've been dealing with high temperatures and what better way to cool a dog off than to give her a bath.  I really think she liked it.

In and around the homestead- July 1, 2011

Some quick snapshots of the day.  I was a very hot day here in Wisconsin with a heat index of 105 degrees!!!  Life goes on and we definitely drank a lot today.  :)

Our front porch.

The east side of the house.

The turkey townhouse in among the grape vines.  

The turkeys love their new dwellings.

They love it when I go over to talk to them.  :)

That use to be our selling shed but it is now used for my chickens.    We still need to do some work but it is functional.  

1 week old baby chicks...these are some meat birds.

The white ones are white rocks and the brown ones are red broilers.  The red broilers didn't do so well when we first got them, that's why I order the usual meat birds.

Brownie the goat....in the retirement pen.  She fills her days eating weeds.  :)

I was hoping you'd be able to see more of the hay field.

The strawberry patch where the kids picked well over 500# of strawberries this year.

the potato patch...the potatoes are the size of golf balls right now. .. time to start digging and eating!!!

More of the garden...cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.

We're trying head lettuce this year.

our 600+ onion plants

One of the rabbits I bought the girls last summer at the farmers market.  You can see the other one a little bit on the left.

Angie helping Mark with the hay...Heather and Hannah were in the mow.

Lucy

This time of year the front of our house looks so pretty.

Now we're picking cherries!!!

Apples growing on the trees.

I hope you enjoyed the snapshot of the day.