rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

Soaping with Shaun on Christmas Eve Eve while I was sore from hoof trimming.
Pictured is olive oil/goat tallow/milk soap. Mark's mom wanted plain "boring" soap. It's so white you can see if it picks anything up so it's banished to the bin. The pink is watermelon and the yellow is yuzu scent and Shaun went to town. The "sprinkles" is mica I bought off Amazon that discolored when I mixed it in a few years ago. I wound up with orange peppermint soap last time. I can't use it so he is to keep him busy while I do another batch or clean up.

I still have golden jersey tallow to get through. I think I'd like to get more coconut oil include because I suspect the olive oil tallow is going to be very, very gentle, kind of like baby soap and also hard and coconut oil in the mix makes it more cleansing and a little softer.

This stuff will need to sit for a month before being used. And I'm sure the first few times the kids use it they're going to need to rinse extra to get Shaun's sprinkles off or they will be blue or green or red or gold (note that I spared Mark's mom from that fate and hers is JUST tallow/milk soap color). Or the boys may leave it on because they're boys and all and that's how we roll.

...I kind of want to make little half globe embeds and make half egg/deviled egg soaps with those bar molds at some point. Maybe some green eggs and ham soap. Or Avacado looking soaps.

 

[rachels.haven]

By now all that mess is leaned up and put away, but I'll probably be soaping again as soon as I can get coconut oil (assuming I don't just decide to use up the last of my light olive oil I bought last year).

Cookies might be fun for the rest of the day but right now I'm putting in a turkey and some bread maker bread so the house will smell foody instead of soapy.

 

[Baymule]

Looks like making soap is fun!

 

[rachels.haven]

Thanks, it is, especially this time now that I have help.

 

[Mini Horses]

I never had that much "fun" but DD was grown!

 

[rachels.haven]

Put outlet covers on some of the outlets in the barn that had them missing. I had to turn off the power to do that. When I turned the power back on the electric fencer that covers the top wire and my electric net alley way did not come back on. In hindsight, I guess switching it off before cutting the power would have been a good idea...although we've lost power plenty of times and it's been fine, so Idk, but it looks like I get to get up on a ladder and put in the new one I have in the shed I was saving for something else is going to happen.

Also need to vaccinate the kids' september wether and my three Sept for now keeper doelings so falling off the ladder or getting myself injured or in trouble needs to not be on the agenda today so I might need to go do those shots first. Sigh, decisions, decisions.

 

[rachels.haven]

Outlet is not working. Project time. I'll get it working. (Still going to use my nicer Energizer)

 

[Ridgetop]

What is mastitis vaccine? Is it something new (in the past 10 years?)

 

[rachels.haven]

What is mastitis vaccine? Is it something new (in the past 10 years?)

Yep. Vimco.

 

[rachels.haven]

I think it's time to make a rachels.haven 2026 goat lactation thread for farm affairs during our 2026 lactation...when I get around to making it.

The boss thinks the poles on the sub panel needs to be checked because both circuits/breakers are on the same pole. The sun sets around the time he/Mark gets home from work and he wants to do it during daylight...so clearly I need to kidnap him from work one morning when he's between meetings so we can shut off all the power to the barn and go open the panel the harder way. If nothing's wrong I can go get some six or seven dollar replacement breakers and try that since they are cheap. And if that fails we might need to pay an electrician and any contractor is very expensive here so i'd prefer it to be a breaker thing or something stuck in the panel or something.

I bet it's a mouse or stink bugs that need to be cleaned out. We're over run with stink bugs and I haven't been flushing them by the dozen a day in the barn (no toilet out there) and I've already cleaned them out of one stuffed outlet box (power off, of course). That, or a diy special we have to fix, but i'd rather it not be that.

The 5 month old Houdan rooster went man fighter yesterday. First he surprised me and went after the five year old through the fence while nothing unusual was happening, going to war all by himself while we were nearby not paying attention to him, then he went for me later in the usual single minded fashion (rooster didn't "win", but will get carried around so I can maintenance them safely from now on since they can jump really high and sort of fly). The chickens are sort of for the kids and they enjoy them so that won't do. Very sad. Thankfully, Houdan are kind of dumb and docile (sorry, and sweet usually) so the one chicken war was unimpressive. Shaun was a little shaken, he likes his rooster, but those are the breaks. The wildlife conservancy says the Houdan roosters "may or may not be aggressive with people". Yeah, it's usually like that with most roosters. I suspect we will wind up with a bantam Cochin or a couple silkie roosters again and I should probably just be happy with it. I probably should have just kept a bantam Cochin all along. Dork. The guy has it all! but is too dumb to tell. He's got so many girls tripping over themselves for him, and one HIM. The constant fighting and flogging is annoying.

Maybe someday I'll get a bachelor pad and raise a bunch of roosters of this breed and weed through them for non-man fighters, but right now is not that chapter for me. His poor girls will have to figure out how to find corn on their own after I get to him.