New Year, Closer To Going Off Grid

The dust is starting to settle from all the Christmas excitement around The Acre, so we decided to get back to some basics. Cupcake found a recipe for home made pretzels, and Big Man loves him some pretzels, so it seemed like a good fit.

The last day of the year is always the busiest and most hectic for Cupcake, so I thought of an extra special treat to greet her with when she got home Tuesday night. Individual blackberry pies. Cupcake loves her some blackberries, and we have a basement full of blackberry pie filling from the spring. It seemed like a good fit.

New Years morning, Speedy wanted pancakes, so we had a Saturday breakfast, then took down our decorations and tree. After we got the decorations squared away, we got started on our first DIY project of the new year. Home made laundry detergent.
The process takes about 10 minutes (not counting the dissolving the bar in water part) and the cost breakdown is about one penny per load of laundry. We figured $1.50 per two quart batch, and two quarts does 128 loads of laundry. Compared to the Tide we last bought at Wallyworld, that only does 96 loads and cost $20. Plus the plastic jug that needs dropping off at the recycle bin.
Here's how we made it.
First we got the ingredients from Wallyworld, all three were together in the laundry isle, and cost about seven dollars combined.

We chopped up the bar of soap into inch size squares, then placed them into a gallon size ziplock freezer bag with two cups of tap water. Take the air out of the bag, and leave it along for at least 48 hours, longer will not hurt it, might even be better, but we were kind of excited to get started.

After two days of soaking, we added one cup of Borax and one cup of the Arm and Hammer washing powder to a large bowl, and added two cups boiling water. Then mixed the powder and water until it dissolved.

Then we cut a corner out of the bag with the soap bar, now dissolved and mushy, and added it to the powder/water mix, stirring till you get a good mix.

The next step is probably the coolest part of the operation. We poured the mix into two, one quart jars, filling each about half way. We topped the jars off with tap water, leaving about two inches of room in the top of the jar. Then we took the blade part of our blender off the blender container, and screwed it on to the quart jar. Put the jar on the blender base, and whipped at high speed for about one minute.

When you take the jar off, you have a mix that has the consistency and look of mer-naise. But the smell is clean and fresh. You use one table spoon of mix to one load of laundry, and it is safe for top load or front load, and HE washers.

We figure we spend around $40 on laundry detergent every month (two big jugs of Tide) now we will be spending around $1.50, and without having to hump giant plastic jugs to recycle. The Borax and A/H powder will make at least one dozen batches, and the bar of soap is around one dollar, so the price for today's batch is just "start up" cost. Another side note to off the grid laundry, we take a handful of aluminum foil, wad it up into a ball, and place it in the dryer. This eliminates all the static electricity from the laundry.
We will be having Chicken Wing New Year tonight, but right now we are busy washing everything in the house.
Happy New Year to all.
K&K

Christmas Morning

We got to bed early Christmas Eve, knowing Deadshot would be up early. We were not disappointed. At 0500 girlfriend was up and going, making sure the rest of the family was too. Speedy came down stairs on auto pilot, we're not sure he woke up for about an hour

But the Chirruns soldiered up and got through their packages pretty quick

Even Fraidy Mutt got a present, and got to play dress up

After we opened our packages, some assembly was required for Cupcake's present

The Chirruns went back to bed, but we stayed up prepping for the family visit. Some baking and some cooking, but we kept to our schedule and got everything done

Around noon, Cousin Eddie and the fam arrived, and a good time was had by all

And to answer the question on everyone's mind....Yes, there was chicken wings on the buffet.
We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Lets get on to this happy new year.
K&K

Pink Eggs and Ham

A short follow up to the smoked ham and chicken post from last Monday. Big man had our country ham in the smoker at the time, and it turned out well enough we thought we should share. The smoker was working just right, just a whisp of blue smoke, and Fraidy Mutt enjoyed the smoke time to grab a nap by the fire.

While the ham was smoking, Cousin Eddie and the family stopped by for a photo op

After some picture shenanigans, the ham hit an internal temp of 140*, so we took it off and gave it a slice

Tender, Juicy and a little salty, just like a country ham should be.  We also whipped up a batch of potato soup for Christmas as well. The potatoes and carrots came from our garden, we even dug the carrots the morning of Christmas eve. Now that's fresh.

And we thought it was funny that we had just mentioned how the ladies had just started laying eggs again, then we found a HUGE egg Tuesday morning. As you can see, a large egg is nothing compared to this egg.

We couldn't even get the carton closed with this one in it. We hope the poor girl who left us this one takes a day off.
..."And now you know, the REST of the story"
K&K

Christmas Eve

We've been taking a lot of pictures today, so we thought we would break up several updates rather than one long one next week.
Deadshot was itching to get at the presents this morning, and Cupcake gave the OK for one package early.

After the package was open, Deadshot wanted to do some baking. Of course we made cookies for Santa.....

Big Man whipped up a pie crust, and we made a strawberry/rhubarb pie

Deadshot got in on the act as well. We had a bit of pie crust left over after we rolled it out, and she got the idea to decorate the pie before we baked it

Kids are off to spend some time with their Paw Paw, more pics tomorrow.
K&K

Last Weekend Till Christmas

We had a busy weekend, last minute gift wrapping and whatnots. We also spent most of our time in the kitchen.
The Chirruns had a death in the family, and Big Man was requested to whip up a cherry cobbler, which we took as high praise.

We also spent the day making cheese balls. Cupcake is like the Big Man when it comes to cheese balls, she does not use a recipe, she goes by look and instinct. These turned out really well, even if it is short on onions (by Light standards).

Deadshot is no fan of onions at all, so we cut out a small ball for her, with no onions

Big man spent the day baking cookies. The new cookie is the cranberry walnut he found a recipe for on the Old Farmers Almanac. They really turned out well, and even had a request for some from Rhulenbarb's parents, which again, was taken as high praise.

After baking, we did a couple outside things, even in the rain. Our ladies had stopped laying eggs over the past month, and we were becoming concerned. Cupcake, being the research specialist she is, found that many people across the country were experiencing the same problem, so we took it as a bird thing. We changed their diet a little, and added alfalfa pellets to their diet, and now we're back to getting eggs. This is one of our second generation ladies, we hatched her this spring, now she's bringing the love to our cast iron skillet on a daily basis.

It was raining, but it was almost 65 degrees out, Big Man changed the oil in Cupcake's truck. Even though she was told her truck was impossible to self change. We are working on the assumption Big Man is a better mechanic than the person who told her it couldn't be done.

Final prep for Christmas, Big Man smoked our country ham. He has never smoked a piece of meat this large before, but we are all standing by for ham biscuits. Follow up report may be in order.

 As always, we ended with "Chicken Wing Sunday" and even Pop came over for a helping or two.
Merry Christmas from our family to yours.
K&K