Soap, soap, soap.  I love home-made soap.  I haven't used store-bought soap in several years.   This weekend I tried a new flavor - Peppermint Scrub.  Two reasons for that:  1)  the essential oil company I order from sent me a free bottle and 2) I like soap with oatmeal in it.  It's kinda like a natural loofa.

This time I used a receipt that used coconut oil, olive oil and lard.  I can't say I've ever cooked anything to eat using lard, but it makes a great soap!  To make soap out of oils you have to use lye (sodium hydroxide).  That's in the white bottle to the right.  Every ingredient has to be weighed exactly using a scale.  While you're melting the oils in the crock pot dissolve the lye in water.  Then pour the lye mixture into the oils and start stirring.  I use an emulsion blender to make it trace faster.

This is trace.  When your mixture is thick enough to leave a trace pattern dripped from the spoon.  It looks like pudding.

Plug the crock-pot back in and let it cook for an hour or so.  Always test the results with PH paper.  You are looking for a 7 or 8.  You can see to papers below.  The one on the right is still a 10 or 11 after an hour.  (That will take your skin off if you use it now!).  I cooked it for another hour and tested again and got an 8.  Good enough!

At this point your soap will look like mashed potatoes.  Now you can add your essential oils, oatmeal and color.

Like I said before, this one is Peppermint Scrub  I decided to use the violet coloring I have.  But for some reason, it just wasn't turning violet - it just looked gray.  After I'd added twice as much as I usually would, I put the mixture into my super duper soap mold that my son--in-law Bill made for me.  Then I let it sit overnight.

I almost passed out when I pulled the paper back the next morning.  Wow!  Was it purple!

Then I sliced it into soap bars.  The texture is just really creamy.  It smells so good!  The whole room smells like peppermint.

Here's the real test:  "Mike!  Did you like the new soap?"  "I liked it"  he says.  That's all I need to hear.  My honey puts up with a lot from me.  A manly man doesn't mind smelling like a peppermint drop!

I picked figs 2 weeks ago until I couldn't stand it anymore.  I was up at the farm for 4 days and picked them every day.  My stash went into zip lock bags and then into the freezer.  It was hot, the mosquitoes were vicious and then there were the bees!  Everybody wants to eat something.  I don't have any pictures of the cleaning, chopping  or cooking phase of this.  I brought all the figs home and Mike and I worked on them the next 2 days when we got home from work.  I was so tired, it's a miracle I remembered to take pictures after they were finished!  Cleaning and chopping and covering with sugar one night, and then cooking and canning them the next night.

I put thin slices of lemon in my figs - but I don't think everyone does.  Maybe that's just a southern thing.  I found these cool jars - they're tall and thin - holding 12 ounces each.  OK, I didn't "find" them.  They were the last two boxes of jars on the shelf at the store.  Everybody in Texas must have been putting up figs.  How about these cool labels, huh?  I found them on-line.  You pick the color, shape and text and they show up in the mail.  For a price, of course!

I also got labels for the apple jelly.  If your name is on my Christmas list, you'll be seeing some of this in December!

My husband is a diabetic, so I always make some sugar-free of everything.  Now, I've read in previous years that you can't make sugar-free fig preserves.  You have to boil the figs with real sugar to get the right syrup consistency.  Well, he was not happy about that, so I went on-line to prove it, and there it was!  An article about making sugar free fig preserves!

You have to use sugar-free pectin and Splenda.  And it turned this creepy pink-brown color.  I haven't had the nerve to open a jar and try it yet.  Mike's been on a diet avoiding carbs, so he hasn't tried it yet either..... But I believe Mikey will eat it - some day!

And just as a reminder if you store food in jars that's either been water-bathed or pressure cooked.  Remove the rings from the jars before you put them in the pantry.  If the jar has a proper seal, you will be able to hold the jar up by just the lid.  (see the picture above).  If for some reason, your food spoils, you want the lid to come loose.  Don't ever eat from a jar if the lid does not have a tight seal.  The ring will prevent the lid from coming loose if there's pressure buildup in the jar.

I go to a goat farm periodically that's north of Houston and they had a Ponderosa Lemon tree. Supposedly, the lemons are huge, like 2 to 3 pounds each! Say no more - I had to have one, so I started searching. After a couple of months, I found a company in Connecticut that had them in stock! Only, they don't ship to Texas! What? The biggest, baddest, greatest state in the union and they don't ship here? 
 Hmmmmph.  As my momma says, "that's no hill for a climber". So, I have a friend at work who goes over to Louisiana to visit her mom all the time, so I had it shipped there, she picked it up and brought it back to Houston.  It was about 18 inches tall and arrived in a cardboard box.
I put it in a pot and BABIED the thing for a couple of months.  It sat on the kitchen table in cold weather and went out onto the deck when it warmed up.  Success!  I had blooms!

I had visions of my tiny little lemon tree producing a crop of lemons.  I would pick them and juice them and put the juice in the freezer..... sigh, my fantasies died a quick death.

From all those blooms, here's what I got, one lemon.  This picture was taken in the spring when all of the pine trees are producing new growth and EVERYTHING you own is covered in that lime green pollen.  Your car, your deck, your porch, your house.....you get the idea.  So that's what's covering the leaves in the picture above.  

Well, for a first year tree, that's not bad.  Although, I have attended fruit tree classes that said the first year you're supposed to strip off the fruit and let the tree concentrate on setting it's root structure.

Kill my baby??  I think not. I only have one tiny lemon, what kind of strain could that be on a plant?

Well, around June, here's what my Baby Huey looked like.  And just get over the picture being sideways - I tried to fix it already.  It's hard taking a picture with your cell phone with one  hand.  

This week, I took another picture.  It still grows!  I've had to angle the plant so that the lemon sits on the chair arm propped up.

I've attached one last picture to show how small the plant is compared to the fruit.  We laugh at this silly plant all the time.  So now, how long does it take for this lemon to ripen?  It's hard as a rock, but still growing.  The leaves have gone from green to pale green.  (remember what I said about 'what kind of strain could one lemon put on my plant'?)   I googled that and it seems I need to add Zinc to the potting soil.  I'll pick that up this weekend.

It's kind of like being pregnant but not knowing your due date.  I am assuming vast knowledge about lemons will suddenly fill my brain and I'll know what to do at just the right moment.

I'll let you know if that happens.

This is going to be my second attempt at today's blog.  I wrote the whole thing a couple of days ago, but as I was proof reading it, my granddaughter Finley came over and started punching keys and deleted the whole thing.  Isn't this a picture of total innocence?

Little Tooter!  Someday she'll read this and see how Nana was ticked off!


Anyway, we were out working in the yard last week and Mike came over and said "did you see the two snakes in your garden?  I think they're making out."  What??  No, I did not!  Well, I thought that sounded interesting and maybe worth a picture, so I grabbed my camera and headed out to the garden.  I don't know about you, but I've never seen snakes making out.  As I walked up, here's what I saw: (the second snake's tail is flat against the wood beam on the left side)

Now, normally, I wear rubber boots or sneakers in the garden, but this time I had on flip-flops.  As I watched these two I was wondering about my intelligence.   Have you ever try to run fast in flip-flops?  I couldn't see their heads from the outside of the garden, so I walked around and unlatched the gate.  I slowly tried to sneak up on them (some things should NOT be interrupted.)


When I saw their heads, I thought they were fighting.  One had the other's head in it's mouth - it looked like mortal combat and I was pretty sure one was dying.  One of them kept eye-balling me and twitching.

What does it look like to you?  I told Mike the next day, (when I was writing the original version of this) that  they weren't making out - they were fighting!  So, he laughed and said, "No, they weren't.  That's how they make the other snake stay still."   I explained how one snake looked like it was dying and it's body was probably still out by the fence.  Of course I had to prove it, so, I went outside to check, and guess what?  They were both gone.


Snake love - right in my garden.  I hope they find a hotel room next time.