Today marks exactly 3 weeks until 2021 lambs start to hit the ground! I won't lie, this is the hardest time of the year for me. It's hard being patient, and the weather is terrible so there's nothing to do but wait and be patient. If you're feeling a little bored and over the weather too, here are some things to think about as we prepare for lambs in the next few weeks! 4 weeks until lambingNutrition nutrition nutrition1. Keep free choice minerals available and consider top-dressing feed with mineral mix. Some of these minerals are important to ensure a smooth and complication-free labor and birth. 2. Boost calcium and Vitamin A/D intake by supplying alfalfa in pellet or bale form. Particularly in the case of dairy sheep and especially in climates with a lot of cloud cover and rare sunshine, (Thank you, Washington!) vitamin A/D and calcium can be depleted and cause low milk production or in worst case scenario, milk fever. Vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption, and alfalfa is a good source of both. Some dairies feed 100% alfalfa hay in the last couple weeks before lambing and during lactation for this reason. Maybe it will even prevent the 'Rona 🤷♀️ 3. It is time to increase concentrates! You may want to up your ewes grain intake to between one and two pounds per head per day. Don’t overdo however, because excessive grain may cause water retention and inflammation in the udder, called udder edema. If you feed too much to early, it can also lead to an overweight ewe that could prolapse or go into ketosis. Dairy sheep are often carrying multiple lambs, and when so much space is taken up, it is hard for a ewe to consume enough feed to stay out of ketosis. Excessive fat will exacerbate the situation, so take care to reserve the grains for the last month. I personally prefer to feed more alfalfa pellets and less grain, because simply put, a ruminant gut loves forage most! 4. Special notes on Selenium-- Here in the cool rainy sunless Pacific Northwest especially, it can be difficult to ensure your ewes are getting enough Selenium to avoid white muscle disease in lambs. My solution for this as a small dairy is to give a sel/e booster to ewes before breeding as well as dose with oral sel/e once a week in the last few weeks. This mineral can be dangerous and harmful to fetuses if in excess, so never give injectable sel/e to pregnant dairy ewes. Worms are bad5. Monitor and prevent parasitic loads. Always feed in dishes, troughs, and pans rather than on the ground where parasites will literally crawl onto the food to get where they want to go—your sheep’s gut. Rotate pastures and keep bedding clean. During pregnancy a ewe can easily get overloaded with parasites, since their gut and immunity is a bit compromised from growing babies. Vaccinations6. Consider a CD&T vaccine to help protect lambs against the leading causes of death in the first month of life. Tetanus and clostridial diseases are hard or impossible to treat, so giving a dose of CD&T to pregnant ewes 2 weeks before lambing will ensure antibodies are being passed to lambs through milk. SUpplies!7. Have a supplies party, not a surprise party! There are a few things you’ll need when lambing begins, now is the time to get all the things ordered and ready. In my experience, every emergency seems to magically happen on Saturday night or Sunday when you can neither access a vet nor pick up medications. (UGH! EVERY TIME!) Furthermore, since everyone else is lambing and kidding at the same time as you are, there may be shortages and you may not be able to get what you need when you need it. Better to be prepared! Now go give the girls some love and tell them to hurry up! We're READY!!!! 🤞💕🎉
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Forking out a 1000 lb round bale of hay with a pitchfork every night gives a girl’s mind a lot of time to spin. I do love conversing with the ladies as they pop their heads in and out of the stanchion, trying to snatch a bite before I push the load by. But eventually they run out of things to tell me (or maybe their mouths are too full.) Today I was thinking how nice it is to be here in this leased barn pushing hay, rather than out on the quad in pouring rain and mud pulling a trailer loaded with four square bales for our little group of 10 cows in 2014. Running two old farms and 200+acres is expensive, so we invested what we could spare every year right back into the land and tools to maintain it. Eventually, things have become a bit easier and less physically demanding. The hilarious thing is…I am still here, forking hay with a pitchfork to 50 cows. Have we made progress? Yes. But it's still a huge labor of love, a work in progress. It's worth it. I think. We are first generation farmers. We both came from middle class families with minimal farming and business experience, and we jumped right into running family farms immediately after marriage in 2012. As stubborn first-borns we can “kick some honeybuns” when needed. Lemme tell you right now, small farming is not for the faint of heart, but it's pretty amazing to experience the accomplishment of hard work. There is a lot of interest in small scale farming now, and for good reason. A lot of millennials and gen Z's want to grow things, have food security, and bring back ethical, environmentally sustainable, and regenerative practices into vogue. The right thing is usually not the easy and most quickly profitable way, so having a vision for the future and perseverance is what literally kept our dream alive all these years. Making a Small-Scale farm profitableIf you are like we were and are starting out without a ton of experience or capital to work with, I have happy things to say to your tired heart. We too, have spent many an evening wondering “Why are we doing this!” Is it worth it?!” I’m here to tell you, it IS. But building a small-scale farm from the ground up does not happen overnight (unless you are a millionaire or something.) Here are a few thigs to remember as you strive toward success with your small farm:
Here are a couple things to remember: 1. You don’t have to do it all to be successful, and you may be crippling yourself if you’re doing too much. 2. Self-sufficiency is a sham that keeps you from building awesome relationships. Find out what others in your community have already mastered and build a network. Value other local producers by supporting them in their enterprise. You’ll have more time to market, produce, and research the one or two things that work best for you and your farm, and you'll find a lot of cool people who are skilled and passionate about other things you want in your life but seriously don’t have time to grow (like bacon.)
The best days will be your best, but the hard days are gut wrenching. Some things get easier with time, but some never do. Don’t give up. The world needs more people like you who have soul, conviction, and a love for all of God’s creatures, and in the end, all that you gain is worth anything you lost. This is a common FAQ that plagues soap -makers like me. Over the years at farmer’s market and soap-making classes I have been asked to explain myself many times. People wonder why I would bother to make natural organic soap with caustic lye as an ingredient. For example: Customer: “Hello! I just bought your soap and now I see on the label there’s lye in the ingredient list and lye is bad so does that mean I can’t use it now?!” Me: “Uhm…(wondering why we didn’t notice ingredient list on the webpage but also understanding that unless we are a chemistry nerd we probably don’t know about saponification). "Of course you can still use it! I love to make caustic products that will simultaneously burn your skin off and coat you with coconut oil!” (Pounding head on table.) Okay, so I'm being a little dramatic and perhaps a bit crass, but the question does pop up a lot. "Why are you making soap with lye?!" If I was more like my sister who is not afraid to tell people where the bear came through the buckwheat I might spice up the conversation a bit. Sadly, I am not her. I do try to be patient because I love what I do and it would be a bummer to get sued for sarcasm. ( Seriously though, ya never know these days.) Honestly though, since I am deeply concerned about the products I use and their impact on our health and the environment, I get it. Lye sounds scary. And it is…in raw form. But the fact is, there is no such thing as soap made without Lye. I think the best way to answer why I use lye in soapmaking is to go back to the basics, and explain what soap is. Your “soap” is not soap, but my soap is soap.After thousands of years of humankind making soap using lye and oil, the facts are in. Real soap is really good stuff. It’s interesting to note how although this method has been used since the Babylonian ages, the concept and science behind making soap this way barely survived industrialization. Big corporations and their powerful marketing ploys for products that are cheap, easy to mass produce, and not actually soap have been successful. But the truth is, if it isn’t made with lye, it isn’t soap. How do you make soap without lye?But wait, you say, " I am 100% sure I saw soap at Walmart the other day and IT didn’t have lye in it.” There are many types of soap that boast a label free of sodium hydroxide lye, but it is important to understand that these imposters are one of two things: 1. A derivative of the soap making process (i.e. glycerin melt-and-pour) and therefore a byproduct of the saponification of...lye and oil. I distinctly remember a fellow crafter who was 3 times my age at a bazaar one year bragging about how her melt and pour soap was better “cuz mine isn’t made with lye.” Just like that, I could feel the camaraderie for a fellow vendor building between us. Maybe it was the adverse reaction of being chilled to the bone on a rainy Washington November day with 0 sales to show for it, but my head wanted to explode. DUDE. You literally just took a bar of my soap and melted it, mixed in flowers and stuck it in a mold. Tell me how that's better. But me, being me, actually said: “WOOOW THAT IS SO COOL! GOOD FOR YOU HON! 😉 My point is, you won’t see lye on the label of glycerin-based products, because the process of saponification has already been completed for you. Melt-and-pour is a fantastic option if you prefer not to mess with lye or want to make soap with kids! But understand that your finished product is much the same chemically as an old-fashioned cold process bar of soap. 2. A Syndet bar (synthetic detergent) of pressed chemicals. These are produced by combining a variety of surfactants and detergents. Dove, for instance, boasts a super low pH, which might be good in some instances and for some people. It is a good example of why chemicals can be natural and not necessarily toxic or harmful. But truthfully, it is not really soap. So then, what is lye?Now that we have that cleared up, lets talk about lye. Lye was traditionally made by your great great great great grandmother by soaking hardwood ashes in water, and straining to use in tallow soap making. Today, commercially produced lye is safer and purer, and simplifies soaping by producing consistent results. Lye is commonly used in the food industry as well. Commercially produced lye has a pH of 14, whilst homemade concoctions can vary. Unless you have a faulty recipe or scale, your fully saponified soap should have a pH of around 7-10, which is not only safe, but far superior to any skin “surfacant bars” on the market. Lye is also on the USDA’s list of approved organic materials, just FYI. what is saponification?It may surprise you, but making soap is nothing like baking a cake. When lye is mixed with oils, a chemical transformation known as "saponification" is taking place. If your recipe is correct, every last bead or flake of lye will be “eaten up” by the oils, leaving no trace of it's former identity. However, if your recipe is incorrect, there could be a biiiggg problem, I.e. undissolved lye. (Yes, this is totally the reason you regret buying that burning block of lavender hell from the lady who crochets coasters and makes soy candles out of baby food jars at the Santa bazaar.) If you don't want to risk a bad experience, buy soap from people who know what they're doing. Be sure to test the pH of your soap and know the signs of a lye-heavy batch if you are a maker yourself. what is superfat?Most recipes include what is called “superfat”, a buffer of extra oils that will remain as oil in the bar of soap. This makes the bar extra conditioning and also works as a safety buffer. For instance, most recipes have a 5% superfat, which means 5% of the oils in the batch are not converted to soap by the lye. I like to use high superfat for my Shampoo Bar, for a good balance of conditioning and cleansing. I wanted to have at least one Vegan bar soap option for my customers as well, so I make this one with herbal tea instead of sheep milk. Using a high fat liquid like milk or cream will also raise your superfat, since milk has fat in it. I remember how some of my very first soap making recipes were incredibly disappointing, because I was using sheep milk in recipes that called for water or goat milk and that already had a decent superfat percentage. Sheep milk is incredibly high in fat and solids, (more so than goat or cow) so my soap was sticky and never took shape. I probably cried, since I was like 12 and bought all the supplies with my lawnmowing money. Soap can only handle so much superfat before it becomes a block of oily goop. Yum. It can be helpful to lower the superfat if you are in the same boat as 12 year old me, using a recipe was too high as well as a high fat liquid. It's great if you want your soap to harden quickly and to to be a powerful cleanser, like in the case of our coconut oil Laundry Soap Recipe. Take care when tweaking superfat percentages though, this really is an "advanced" course and isn't usually necessary with all the good recipes available out there. It can screw up your entire batch and make soap too soft and slow to harden, or adversely, accelerate and explode into a soap volcano faster than you can say "crud muffins!" Hopefully this answered all of the questions you never knew you had about lye and why I use it, and also gave you a laugh or two. We all need one these days!
Have you ever wondered if felted soap is hygienic and safe to use? If so, I have words for you. Today we are going to talk a little bit about felted soap and why you absolutely need it in your life. If you are like I was, you are probably thinking…wool-covered soap? That sounds a little…no…VERY weird. The fact is, there are a lot of people who have never tried and thus never discovered the sensory pleasure of washing one’s hands with a felted bar of luxurious soap. Here are just a few reasons why felted soap has become our 1# seller in the last year.
Here’s a bonus…did you know that humans have a natural love for round things? Studies apparently show that we are inherently attracted to curvilinear shapes over things with edges, some even stating that people associate happiness with round shapes. I totally didn’t know this when I started making my little felties for the kiddos in my life and farmer’s market. But it was remarkably interesting to see how much more popular they became than anything I felted with corners. Farmer's market taught me so much. So there you have it. The data and science behind our feltie slogan “Soap To Make Them Smile.” If you're a millennial like me it all makes perfect sense. Beanbags and pizza, man! ,WHAT AN EXCEPTIONAL YEAR.
Exceptionally crazy, that is! For me a year of "yeah, everything's cancelled" wasn't so bad. Social distance was mere inconvenience, and actually gave me a good excuse to support my local Mossyrock businesses instead of the regular digs in Chehalis and Olympia. I think I can count on two hands the number of times I left the immediate area. We scarcely go on vacations, except for a clam dig whenever they're on. (Which reminds me...I feel like Fish and Wildlife owes me a refund on the licenses I bought but didn't use since they cancelled them all. Crud muffins. Consider it a donation for a good cause?) My beloved Tumwater Farmer's Market had to quit the season, which was disappointing and sad. All of my soap making and felting classes at the Eastside Urban Farm and Garden and the Capital Mall were cancelled. It forced me to stay home and focus on my very lame web presence and the multiple exercises in flexibility on the farm this year. I miss people and fun events, like everyone else. But I didn't hoard and never ran out of toilet paper, so I have both a clean conscience and butt. Hooray! lol This month our pastor is encouraging us to fast and pray for the next year. Here's a just a smakerel (who knew, that word is actually only a Pooh Bear thing.) of what I've praying for!
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HELLOI'm Lydia. Mom to one wild barefoot fluffy headed toddler, a herd of cows, flock of sheep, a group of too many chickens and a neglected garden that against all odds, survives. Married to a wonderful husband with an equal number of titles and jobs...Dad, bro, (also as in, "bro, get over here gimme a hug") hydro-electric power plant mechanic, volunteer firefighter, fixer of all things with wheels and engines. (Ya, I'm proud of him.) Farm life, family, coffee, and Jesus make my world go round. Archives
August 2023
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