Eight Acres

 The best thing about making your own soap is having fun with different techniques.  Once you have mastered basic soap making, its very easy to play around with different ingredients to create unique soaps.  For example, embeds, which is just soap inside a soap, are very simple and effective method to make a soap a little be special.    What is an embed? An embed is just soap that you put into your soap batter before it sets, to create different shapes and colours within your soap.  You can buy special moulds to make small soaps for embeds - for example stars or hearts.  Some mould are long and thin to make one continuous embed (that you can cut into small pieces if required) and others are more like ice-cube trays to make several smaller individual embeds (which you can place end-to-end in a loaf soap if you want a continuous embed.  You can also just cut finished soap bars into different shapes - long and thin, chopped up confetti or even t...

 I can't remember when I first came across the idea of using a solar cooker.  Maybe in Grass Roots magazine or a prepping blog.  I do know it has been on my list for a long time. I had seriously considered making a solar cooker at one stage , and had even researched how to use the unwanted satellite dish that came with our secondhand house , and then I started to make a box-style solar cooker with some bits and pieces from the house including the bathroom mirror!  I was never quite convinced that my design was going to work though, so I was reluctant to continue investing time and money in these efforts.  I had also researched the models available for purchase and had decided that they were "too expensive", so there I was with no solar cooker, but a definite interest in using the sun to cook and dehydrate food.       Why use a solar cooker? Our sub-tropical climate brings with it ridiculously hot summer days.  And each 30degC plus ...

 Our latest batch of honey has gone completely solid!  I opened the tap on the bucket and nothing came out.  Honey has a habit of doing this sometimes, depending on outside temperature, nectar source and the amount of pollen in the honey.  Every batch of our honey is different, it just depends where the bees have been getting their nectar.  And our honey is completely raw and just filtered through a sieve, it contains pollen and beeswax particles, so it is very unpredictable. Fortunately, candied or crystalised honey is not "bad" , its just solid!  And even that is temporary, as soon as you heat it up, the crystals dissolve again and the honey can be poured.  Some of my customers LOVE our candied honey and will ask for it specifically, others prefer to wait until we have "runny honey" again.   What causes honey to go candied? Honey is just a mixture of sugars (glucose and fructose) in water, with some minerals, enzymes, vitamins and amino aci...

 As you know, I am a big fan of permaculture, I read a lot of books and blogs about permaculture, I listen to podcasts about permaculture and I try to use permaculture in all aspects of my life, particularly around the farm, but also in the house.   What is permaculture?  Catch up on my introductory post back here . To summarise, the way I see permaculture is using natural systems to do the work for you , everything from worms in the garden tilling your soil to passive heating and cooling the house, I'm always thinking about ways to use less of my own time and energy to get something done.     People often assume that you have to have acres and acres of land to "do permaculture" but if you think about it how I just described permaculture, you can use it anywhere on any scale.  I get emails from people saying "I'm currently living in suburbs, but I'd really love to sell up and move the country one day".  I try to be encouraging, if that i...

 Lately I have been working on a shampoo soap bar and now I'm ready to share it with you too! I have been through some transitions in my life, and hair care is no exception!  I remember at high school I had a huge collection of hair "products" and I liked to regularly dye my hair strange colours.  Fast forward to my mid-twenties and I started to use only organic products, no dye, minimal products.  I gradually reduced the amount that I washed my hair, to the point that it was only once a week and the giant bottles of organic shampoo and conditioner would last an entire year!   In 2011 I got the idea to trial not washing my hair at all , I just rinsed it with water occasionally.  It was kind of an interesting experiment that I continued for several years.  Then I gave the "no-poo"  baking soda and vinegar method a try after reading Lucy AitkenRead's book Happy Hair - The definitive guide to giving up shampoo: Save money, ditch the toxins and r...

 I had never heard of American BBQ until I read Michael Pollan's 2013 book Cooked .  The first quarter of this book is devoted to "fire" and is about the story of whole hog BBQ cooking, both the smoking and the changing methods of pig farming.  To be honest, I was more interested in the other sections: water (casserole), air (bread) and earth (fermentation), but I struggled through that first section so that I could review the book.     Several years later I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to travel to the USA for a work conference and study tour.  I didn't get to choose the destinations, but we happened to travel through Oklahoma, North Carolina and Missouri, three of the BBQ states.  I remembered reading that book and seeing as I had to visit those states, I made it my mission to eat authentic American BBQ in each state.   In Oklahoma we tried smoked beef brisket, salmon and sausage.  In North Carolina it was smoked p...

 Bay leaves come from a small tree known as Laurus nobilis.  I don't have a bay tree yet, but its on the list of perennial herbs that I would like to grow.  I use a lot of bay leaves and lately I've been lucky to pick up fresh leaves from our local community share.  I dry the leaves and keep them in a jar in my spice cupboard.     How to grow bay While bay trees are usually described as "small", they can grow to 15m, so they need to be managed to keep size under control.  The tree can be propagated from cuttings or seeds.  It does not tolerate cold temperatures below -15degC.  They can be kept in pots, but I'm planning on planting one in the garden as I don't like having to remember to water plants in pots.     How to use bay leaves I put bay leaves in everything!  Well not everything, but if I'm making a stock, soup, casserole or curry I will pop in 2-3 bay leaves.  They add flavour to any slow cooked dish....

 Beef tallow is a wonderful ingredient for handmade soap.  It makes a hard, longlasting soap, that is a gentle cleanser.  And on top of all of that, it is usually fairly cheap and easy to find locally.  While you can buy tallow (check out your supermarket near the butter usually), it often contains other additives and it is far cheaper to render it yourself.  Tallow is just rendered beef fat  The best fat to use is the kidney fat, as it is usually hard and white, so it makes a nice white tallow.  We have used the fat from beasts that we have had butchered, and I've also bought fat from butchers and abattoirs in our area, if you ask around, its usually available somewhere.  It doesn't take much effort to render fat into tallow, and the best method I have found is a slow cooker (or crock pot).  Basically all you're doing is melting it and straining out all the bits of sinew and stuff that isn't fat so you have a nice pure tallow.   ...

At my work I’m known as “the egg lady” because I occasionally bring in our excess eggs to sell.  The eggs are very popular and fights have been known to occur over the last carton in the fridge.  As a result I am often sought out by people who are “thinking about getting chickens”.  The questions are always the same, so I thought there are probably other people who would like to know about this too.  I firmly believe that there are no stupid questions about chickens.  When I first moved in with my husband, Pete, he already had chickens, and I clearly remember being surprised that they needed to be fed grain.  I must have thought that they lived off vege scraps!  So it’s not long ago that I was also a chicken novice with very basic questions!   How many chickens should we get? This depends on how many eggs you want and how much space you have.  Assuming that you have the space, I would say four or five hens for a family of four if you want abo...

  On a recent trip to New Zealand I was tempted by some beautiful yarn.  Both the colours (blue, green and brown) and the texture attracted me.  Woven from merino, silk and possum, it is soft, light and incredibly warm.  You did read correctly, in New Zealand the possum was introduced from Australia and is considered a pest, so it is quite common to find possum pelts for sale, as well as possum fur woven into yarn.  This is a win for everyone, it controls a pest animal while making lovely yarn!     Having bought this yarn I really wanted to make something special with it.  I bought it as a hank, so I first had to wind it into balls.  Having done that I realised that I didn't have much yarn to work with, so I decided to make a shawl.  I consulted all my knitting books for shawl ideas (deciding against getting lost in the interwebs, I did want to get the project started this winter!). I picked up the brilliant book Custom Knits Access...

 I first came across Gaia's Garden ( Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition  (affiliate link)) in 2013 and although I had tried to read other permaculture books before that, this was the one that really helped me to understand the concepts, both what to do and why.   Toby sadly died recently , so I thought it was a good time to review the book in detail.  Toby made an enormous contribution to permaculture and I'd like to remember him by reading his book again.  Throughout this post I will relate the concepts back to how I've applied them in my vegetable garden at Eight Acres, on the farm and how I want to develop my new garden.     Introducing the ecological garden In this chapter Toby explains his concept of the ecological garden as a combination of an edible garden, an ornamental garden and a wild space.  Not just combined, but connected and multi-functional.  I think I am only just starting to see this, a...

 The book Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making (affiliate link) sets out a guide to developing a holistic goal for your farm or business.  Holistic Management: Part 1 - Introduction Holistic Management: Part 2 - Four Key Insights Holistic Management: Part 3 - Holistic Goal Holistic Management: Part 4 - Ecosystem Processes Holistic Management: Part 5 - Tools for Managing Ecosystem Processes Holistic Management: Part 6 - How to Test Decisions Holistic Management: Part 7 - Completing the Feedback Loop   This part of the book describes the practical application of the theory of holistic management, through the experience of the author and others.  Some of the chapters include information of a general nature, with others specific to land management: Learning and practice - tips for yourself and others Organization and leadership - how to structure for creativity Marketing strategy Time Stock density Cropping Burnin...

 One of my favourite websites for soapmaking ideas is Jan Berry's The Nerdy Farm Wife .  I also found her Natural Soap Making eBook really useful ( see my review back here ).  And she recently published a couple of real books: 101 Easy Homemade Products for Your Skin, Health & Home: A Nerdy Farm Wife's All-Natural DIY Projects Using Commonly Found Herbs, Flowers & Other Plants  (affiliate link) And Simple & Natural Soapmaking: Create 100% Pure and Beautiful Soaps with The Nerdy Farm Wife’s Easy Recipes and Techniques  (affiliate link) Both are packed with useful recipes based on natural ingredients, especially herbs and botanicals.     There are two things I like to get from soapmaking books.  One is actual recipes that I can use and the other is ideas for ingredients that I might incorporate into new recipes.  I don't expect to make all the recipes in a book, but I do like to be inspired with some new ideas.  I like...