What a beautiful Morning!

 

Correction on the Garden Page!

First I need to give you an update on the Garden Page, I didn't put a date down for when you should start your seeds inside, sorry. I have put the dates that I start my seeds inside, on that page now. The dates that were there, are when I put them outside. Whoops, still pretty new on this Blog writing, but I'm getting it I believe.

 

 So Pretty this morning, but so cold!

Letting the dog out there was the most beautiful sunrise.

Then I looked to my left and saw the moon.

It was just so peaceful to see. It will be a great day, the sunrise and a chance to glimpse at the moon before it goes to sleep, it was just great!

Now don't get me wrong it's cold this morning, 29 degrees to be exact, but the sunrise says it will be nice, which means I may get to go out and play in the compost!

Cranberry Acre was quite this morning, no one wanted to get up at all.

Jojo and the babies wouldn't even move when I came out to feed. Staying as close as they could to the chickens heat lamp! Ms. Sparkles tried to get up with me to do a walk of the farm but only really made it to the stairs and turned around.

Don't blame her one bit!

I walked out as I do most mornings to check on my fruit trees and vines, the sparrows were busy fighting over something on the ground and I was able to snap a picture before lift off.

These mornings I love, this is why I farm. Ms. Silver took her morning walk with me. She is sometimes hard to photograph due to her being on my heels as I walk the grounds. She is such a sweet bird.

On our walk I lifted the cold frame glass a bit to let the strawberries breath, the frost had covered the glass, making such a pretty design. The drawings of Jack Frost I guess, well he's pretty amazing and I would love to meet him some day to thank him!

 

Now the others on the farm, let's just say they aren't as excited about cold and frosty morning walks! I found the 3 Stooges and Red still on the roost, Ms. Bella curled under the hay loft stairs trying to go back to sleep.

Now of course my two little escape artist, were out in the pasture picking away! On their new morning adventure. Wish sometimes I could be them, they seem to be having so much fun out there scratching and talking. If it were that easy.

After some errands this morning, I'm off to start seeds! I have a couple of ways of doing them and will show you the three ways. I will post most of the pictures and instructions on the "Garden" page, but will tell you when I have posted it on there. Before I go as promised, I have posted the instructions to my homemade laundry detergent. We have been using this for a few months now and haven't noticed a difference in our clothes. Kinda nice to 100% know what is in your cleaners that you are using. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. 

 

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

 

I am going to put this on my page for "Items I love", but first I thought I would post it for you all here.

During the time when I was trying to figure out what I was allergic to, I decided to finally make our own Laundry detergent. This recipe is pretty easy and very cheap! So all of that is good for me. I have since this time added a new ingredient, which is color safe bleach powder, but I'll get to this in a min.

You will first need to get your ingredients which are:

Borax powder

 

Arm and Hammer Washing soda( not baking soda)

 

Oxi clean or something like it

A bar of soap ( something you use or Felts Napa, Ivory)

 

Color safe bleach powder

A bowl that is large enough to stir everything in

 

Easy part is this 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Washing soda.

I put in 1/4 cup of Oxi (or an equivalent) and a 1/4 cup of color safe bleach powder.

EASY!

 

Hard part, grate your soap! Yep grate your soap.

You will want to use this side of your grater:

The shavings will be smaller and easier to stir in with the rest of the ingredients. Now you can save the chips of soap that you have left from your showers to use in this, instead of buying soap to use. It is truly up to you. I have started to do this at our home.

Now I would suggest not using this side of your grater. The chunks are to big for me and I use this in my high efficiency washer, I really didn't want to chance any type of build up.

 



In this picture you can kinda see the strips of soap and their size.

I only use about 2 tablespoons in my washer for a load of clothes. That is it! Now if I have a load of nasty yucky, God knows what the kids have gotten into load of laundry, I use 4 tablespoons.

Now for the price of it all.

Box of Borax $3.94

Washing soda $3.99

I get my oxi equivalent at the Dollar Tree $1.00

Also my powder color safe bleach there for $1.00

Ivory soap 3 for $1.79

Total

$11.72

This fills my laundry container about half way and lasts, well so far, I've made this one in January and will probably be using this for the next 2 to 3 months. When I bought Laundry detergent it would cost me around $14.00 and only last me for about a month.This is lasting us anywhere from 5 months to 6 months! With living on a budget, this recipe for me is a no brainier in saving money.