A Visit from the Apothecary

Not that anyone has an apothecary anymore, but every once in a while its nice to be able to pamper ourselves with some homemade goodies!

On my awesome Pinterest page, I've been looking for all kinds of simple homemade products that you can make yourself with at least half of the ingredients already in your pantry. I've really surprised myself at how easy some of them are--like homemade Febreeze? Or homemade deodorant? I'll give anything a try!

What I found myself most interested in was making chapstick, but I couldn't order the essential oils in time for this experiment. "Why", you ask? Well, because this was yet another snow day that I was bored out of my skull and wanted to be crafty and learn yet another life skill because I'm crazy like that.

What I had ordered a week before this was a jar of shea butter, coco butter, and beeswax pellets from the Essential Depot via Amazon. The reviews online were a bit iffy on the beeswax and although they all have their own unique aromas, I personally did not find them offensive. The company sent them very quickly and I am very impressed with their quality.

So onto the research! In the many recipes I found, I knew I wanted to make at least one hand lotion and one hard lotion bar. My hands get horribly dry between dishes, yard chores and ceramics at work and there's only so much money in the grocery budget for Nivea Soft (which until now has been my lotion of choice). The recipes are very clear and leave tons of flexibility to experiment with scents.

Whipped Body Butter

1 cup shea butter

1 cup coconut oil

Melt everything in a double boiler

Put your mixer bowl in snow or ice water to bring the temperature down

Mix well until it is the consistency of Neosporin

Whip the mixture on high speed and remember to scrape the bowl about every 3-4 minutes to prevent lumps

About halfway there...

This is when I added my EO drops, but you can do it at any point after it is chilled a bit. I continued whipping the ingredients about 3 minutes past this point, when it was no longer soupy, but held its shape firmly in the bowl.

This recipe gave me three and a half half-pints!

Whipped Body Butter Recipe

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• essential oils (to preferred scent)

After adding the lotion into jars, they started to firm up rather quickly. My house is somewhere around 65 degrees F, so if your house is warmer it might take longer. Of course when its hot outside, you're going to want to keep these in a cooler area. I've opted to store my extra jars in the cellar room in the basement where it only gets up to the high 60's in the summer.

 *credit for the original inspiration for this recipe goes to Hens and Honey (who also has a stellar blog, so check her out!!).

All Natural Hand Lotion

Add 1/3 cup corn starch

This next recipe also calls for 1 cup coconut oil and 1 cup shea butter, but it calls for an additional 1/3 cup of corn starch. The reasoning is that the starch takes away some of the "greasy" feeling most people complain about with natural products like this, but I'll be straight with you, I've not noticed any difference. If you take a common sense moment to think about it, you're rubbing plant oils all over your body, so of course there will be a bit of a greasy feeling. The "greasy" feeling doesn't bother me at all and its only really noticeable when I'm slathering it on after a shower at the gym when I'm rushing out the door in a barely-clean sweaty mess. And even better, even if I've put too much on accidentally (you need barely the size of a dime for just your hands) it never shows up on my clothes. I've been using this stuff regularly for two months now and I've yet to see a grease mark on anything!

My recipe made 3 3/4 pints!

All Natural Hand Lotion

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• 1/3 cup corn starch
• essential oils (to preferred scent), I used tea tree, eucalyptus, and cucumber

Using the directions above, I really cannot stress enough that when you are chilling the mixture you must stir constantly. If not, it will become lumpy and you will have to spend extra time at your double boiler remelting the mixture. Then you just whip it, whip it, whip it! With my mixer it takes maybe 5 minutes or so, and I really don't know how long it would take to mix by hand, but by golly you'd have the best arms for miles!

**credit for the original inspiration for this recipe goes to Dena at Back to the Book Nutrition (she's got literally tons of other great recipes on her page too).

All Natural Hard Lotion Bars

This is the recipe that I'm dying to tell everyone and their mother about--hard lotion bars! I hate to whine and mope about having cracked hands, but it becomes torture for me and I have been known to get quite grumpy about it. So here is to all the other folks out there who love soft, nourished hands, this one is for you!

1 cup coconut oil

1 cup shea butter and a tiny bit of coco butter for kicks

1 cup beeswax pellets (I added more later)

Put all ingredients in a double boiler (the block is additional beeswax)

Add EO's, mix quickly and pour solution into molds

All Natural Hard Lotion Bars

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup shea butter
• 1 cup beeswax pellets
• 1 Tbsp coco butter (optional)
•  essential oils (to preferred scent) I used lavender and vanilla

These bars are an absolute life-saver! They take a few second to warm up in your hands, but once it starts getting all melty and awesome, its game time! I will warn you however that using coco butter will give your product a slightly chocolatey smell to it (and chocolate and lavender are not the best of buds as far as scents go). If you want a chocolatey smell, then I would recommend using a ratio of 1:3 or 1:1 of coco butter to shea butter and only add a tiny bit of vanilla scent. Use your best judgment, because the coco butter (for me anyways) is really overwhelming and takes only a little bit for that smell to take over. When I was sharing my bar at work, someone said we smelled like we had just left a candy shop! But I cannot rave enough about these bars, they are so fantastic I'll probably give them as gifts just so I can make more with different scents.

**credit for this recipe goes to Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading.

So thanks for hanging in with me everyone, I know this was a super long post. I'm really beginning to fall in love with the idea of making my own products at home, not just because I know what's in everything, but it also eliminates the middle man and I can custom make my own line of whatever I like. Any questions or problems with the recipes, send me a message!

Keep it real!

Love,
Betty
XOXOXOXO

Matters of Privacy

Not everyone lets "it all hang out".

Take my ducks, for example: they have never had nesting boxes since we brought them home until about three weeks ago. Then suddenly I found an egg in their coop and felt that they were finally ready for boxes.

But birds do not like change. They thrive on routine and they show their appreciation and comfort with routine by producing eggs and growing at steady, healthy rates. As in a previous post, I found I has unknowingly been underfeeding them which resulted in a stark dearth of eggs. I took immediate action and soon had quick results.
But with the ducks, they did not take well to the addition of their laying boxes. Whether it was me checking their coop every day or simply because I had changed things around, they weren't happy with me. For two weeks I had no signs of eggs but paid VERY close attention to their food resources, as per lessons already learned. Then today I found a large, beautiful duck egg in a nesting box!

So now that my ladies are comfortable with their nesting boxes, I'm going to implement another change and give them a bit of privacy. I've read in so many places that birds really need privacy when they lay, and anytime I walk in on a hen who is right in the middle of nesting, her sounds make it quite clear that I'm not welcome yet. What I plan to do today is to make a trial-run nesting bucket for my ducks--for FREE!!!

Materials

That's right, free! Here is a quick list of materials:

• sturdy bucket with tight-fitting lid
• permanent marker
• straightedge of some sort
• drill with med. sized drill bit
• metal putty knife
• torch
• safety gloves (not pictured--Bad Betty, bad!)
• 2 bricks
• generous handful of straw

Now, keep in kind that these materials are free to me because we've been collecting a lot of junk to get our farm started. I imagine if you don't have access to them, it would only cost a couple of bucks to get some 5-gallon Home Depot buckets (which will last you forever). the idea here is to be creative with what you do have and avoid spending money as much as you can. Here is a link that I took a lot of inspiration from. These folks are awesome resources and very helpful!

1. What I did first was gather my materials.
2. Next, I drew a cut out line on the lid that would allow my biggest duck to climb in and out comfortably without all the straw (or eggs) spilling out.
3. In the furthest corners, drill a hole. This will make the edges come together easier and the center will pop right out when you've finished.
4. Hold your metal putty knife to the torch flame for about 20 seconds. In slow, precise movements, touch the hot knife to your line straight down and apply some pressure. If your blade is hot enough, it will cut right through without too much effort. Do this all the way around your line. When I cut the lid, I put the blade in at a 45* angle and slid it across. Be safe!!
5. With the lid off and carefully in your (gloved) hand, take your torch to the inside edges of the lid hole to take away any sharp edges. This step is not really necessary, but I know I will regret it later if I don't.
6. Place bricks in the coop area right where you want the bucket to sit. I moved them forward a bit to rest just under the collar of the bucket so the bird will nest cozily in the back.
7. Toss some straw in there (and a decoy egg if you have one). Mother nature should take over from here!

One on each side

Drill hole

Heat knife

Cut carefully

Lid is finished

Last steps

Add bricks

Install!

If this works, I want to create a nice little storage shelf in both coops for a line of nesting buckets.
Do you have any other ideas? What has worked for you? Can you help me improve on this plan?

Have a Blessed Day!
Betty Crockett
XOXOXO

Thrifty Missy

 How thrifty can you be under $120? Aaannnnndd---GO!

No I can't complain about much, but I sure wish I could cook. And just because I can't, I think that's why God blessed me with a husband who can cook a five-star meal with barely two ingredients.

This little beauty was a life-saver!

But still, how can I make sure something is ready for him to eat when he gets home from work? We get a steady stream of pizzas from "a guy we know", but man cannot live on pizza alone. So I set out on a quest to find some way of compensating for my lack of culinary skills.

Thus came the Crock Pot! My friend at work lent me her little recipe book (as seen here, thanks!!) and I sat my fanny at the kitchen table and wrote my grocery list. Early one Saturday morning, I rode to my local Krogers, got a small black coffee and filled my cart with all kinds of delicious foods. I even grabbed ingredients for salsa and spent 5 lovely minutes trying to explain to the cashier what tomatillos are.

When I got home, the kitchen was already spotless so I got all my supplies out and chopped, diced and boiled like a mad woman. The next time I do this kind of marathon I am most certainly (a) going to frame my receipt and (b) take thousands of pictures to share.

At the end of that following Sunday (I was too tired by 10 pm so I threw in the towel), I had 29  meals in my deep freezer! How magical is that? And the best part is, now I can cook! Since all of the bags are labelled, all I have to do is set the slow cooker on "low" before I leave for work and make some pasta or rice and veggies when I get home.

Label clearly

Note to self, line baskets

What's left in the freezer

Where I really saved a lot of money was in having left over seasoning packets for things like Carne Asada and such. Any time the hubby and I take a trip to Jungle Jim's, I keep an eye on the discount racks as they tend to have some really great treasures every once in a while. I also took time the weekend before to can my own pinto beans so that saved me somewhere around seventy cents per can of beans especially when it only cost me around 2 pennies per pint. Since we made salsa while I was putting bags together, I had fresh salsa for the recipes that called for it and that afternoon I pressure canned 16 pints.

Freezer meal list

All in all, this tiresome adventure has left me with 29 freezer meals, 16 pints of salsa, and a very happy Hubby Crockett. Do you have any good recipes? Post them here!

Love,
Betty Crockett
XOXOXO