The Last Weekend

Coming up will be the last weekend I’m open in the soap room before Christmas.  We’ve been working hard to keep it stocked.

New tote bags plus restocking the goat feed totes.

Mom brought out some painted goose eggs that she hadn’t brought before, and she made more snowman goose egg ornaments.

painted goose eggs

I got around to making goat milk lotion.  I guess that’s another good way to use up my goat milk.

By the end of the weekend, I had made six different scents.

Goat’s milk lotion

Honestly, we are so full in the soap room that I can’t find a place to set my cup of coffee out there.

Heading out to the soap room with my cup of coffee to get to work.

And I’m already thinking about later this spring and even next Christmas season.

A Weekend Project

One project I had planned for this weekend was to reclaim my soap room. For the last eleven-and-a-half months, it’s been more of an extra bedroom or whatever.  I moved in there after the derecho, and I never fully put it back into soap room.

converted into a living space

I started by getting rid of the day bed. There might have been a dog ball and bit of rawhide left under there.  Oops.

Then I had to get the shelves out of the garage.

They were also not fun to clean.  Thankfully my mom came out to help me because it was using sanitizing wipes on every single one of those wires to get the dust off.  By the way, I also had to bring the corner shelf with the peacock feathers on it back in and clean it too.

Finally, they were clean, and I could put my soaps on them.

Now I can make some more because when I’m fully stocked with soap that shelf is overflowing.

Then I can get out the candles and all the other fun things I usually have in there for sale.  It’s a start.  Hopefully, I’ll be fully stocked and up and running in time for Christmas sales again.

Things to Do

I long ago figured out I’ll never be caught up on the farm, but I do keep trying to make improvements and at least move in the right direction.  There are several things on my need-to-do list for this summer (preferably this week).  I already had the weed patch where the magnolia tree used to be on my list.

There’s actually a lily blooming in that mess of weeds

Since we had rain (a glorious rain) on Sunday, there’s still more yard work.

Honestly, I’m still trying to clean up from the derecho also. I could stand there and just watch my yard turn back to green from the brown it had been.  And I finally got me a push mower, so I can try to mow under the plum tree and lilac bushes and closer to the fences.

Of course, I’m still checking my pregnant goats.

Sidney

Sidney and Moira are both due this week.

Moira

I also still need to clean the bedding out of my garage.  I’m embarrassed to admit it’s still there, but it’s been a hectic spring.  I know. They all are, so that’s no excuse.

Anyhow, I’m milking Astra, and she is giving me enough that I have to do something with it, but not enough that I want to jump into cheese making mode yet.

Astra

That means I’ve been freezing it in cubes.

I don’t have a lot of soap left, and it’s been ages since I  made any.  Between the farmer’s market shutting down and the pandemic shutting everything else down, I put that on the back burning.  Now that I have milk, it’s time to make soap.  Hopefully, people will buy it.

One of the first things on my to-do list is making something with the cherries from my tree. The tree might be finally recovering from too many years of yard goats.  I’m thinking jam.

One thing I’d like to have on my list is fixing my chicken and peacock pen.  The top on half of it is ripped up and still has a huge limb from the derecho hanging through it.

I’m sure Mr. Peacock and the hens would like to have this space back.  And my free-range hen would probably like to get back over there so she can sneak out and free-range again.

I just don’t even know how to go about fixing it.