Saturday, January 23, 2010

Winter at the homestead

 When winter comes, I am usually mostly housebound. This winter, however, I have been out alot. It's been a gentle winter mostly, with only one real storm so far back  in December. The past few weeks have been hovering around 0 degrees Celcius, so pretty mild!
 This past week we had freezing fog, which turned my area into a fairy wonderland. The trees glittered and sparkled, begging to be photographed. Sadly, my camera couldn't capture the lovliness of it.




sadly, though, my neighbour has lost quite a few chickens, roosters, and a duck to the cold that preceeded the mild spell.
 In Puppy news, the cats are getting along much better with him, and he's really quite clever. He's learning his lessons, not perfectly, but he's getting very good at "come" and "sit". He's also working on sit pretty, shake paw, stay, and off. House training isn't going so well. My fault, as I am reluctant to stand outside in the cold with him.


 Can't wait for spring! I am itching to get into the garden and feel the soil in my fingers and toes, plant the seeds and watch them grow. I am thinking to start some seedlings in the house end of Feb, early March.
 That's how things are here right now!


Monday, January 18, 2010

New addition

We added a little one to our family on Jan 16 :) His name is Fergus, and he's tiny, quiet and so far pretty smart :)
Meet Fergus, our 11 week old Scottish Terrier (Scottie dog)


Friday, January 8, 2010

Making Laundry soap, one year later

 A year ago, I started making my own laundry soap. at first, I was skeptical about if this would really work. I had misgivings~ could this runny gloopy stuff really clean my clothes? would they smell alright? would I REALLY save money?
 The answer to all of those questions is YES! My family's clothing is clean, no smells, and I have DEFINATELY saved money. Before HMS (home made soap) I was going through a container of  SBS (store bought soap) Purex 32 load size in a week and a half.(39 bottles a year?) At about 7$ for a bottle, in a year I'd be spending around 273$ a year on laundry soap (if my math is right.. there is a good possibility I'm off, knowing my math skills or lack thereof LOL) The initial cost of HMS is the biggest... about 15$ for the supplies. I've had to buy more soap as I went along, I've used 6 bars, so I spent 4$ after my initial investment. Therefore,
SBS= 273$ p/y
HMS=19$ p/y
 That's a whopping 254$!!!
 not bad :)