Part to Fairly Cloudy

                                                                                    

It’s been a fabulous 2014 so far. As happens every year, our good friend, the chef, comes to spend a month bird hunting and is generous enough to cook for us, in spite of the fact it is his only vacation for the year. We are so beyond blessed!

Because this can be a difficult season for me as far as barometric pressure and flares, not having to fix nightly meals helps immensely. I’m doing well this year so I am working hard to get all my soaps, candles and body butters made and my inventory built up because we now have an ONLINE WEBSTORE! A good friend in Tennessee worked with me and built it and I am very excited about it. It’s a totally new experience for me. If anyone is considering having a site built, I'd be happy to recommend him and please feel free to leave feedback.

Our chef friend has had nice things to say about my wax tarts, as he is sharing a cabin with 3 dogs and has been singing the praises of a little ‘Simply Vanilla’ tart that is in the warmer, keeping his cabin smelling nifty. Tarts and candles are made from clean burning and sustainable soy wax and both the hot and cold throw is amazing. I’ve learned to be very careful not to burn the White Chocolate Brownie candles unless there are actually brownies IN the house. It’s just too cruel.

I’ve had amazing feedback from the candles, tarts and Whipped Tallows and cannot thank you enough, those of you who have shared. In addition to the above, I rendered some tallow from grass fed lambs and the resulting product is nothing short of decadent! The tallow is WHITE, WHITE and is of such a beautiful, delicate fat, when used in my "Baaaa-D Butter" (as opposed to body) it tends to melt right into my skin, leaving it luxuriously soft. As it is difficult for me to come by this tallow, I will be offering only limited amounts of this particular body butter for now and for obvious reasons, it is a tad more expensive. But that is not to take away from my regular Whipped Tallow Body Butter which is truly wonderful and very nutritious for your skin. Our skin is the largest organ on our body, so it only stands to reason we are better off using products that only contain ingredients that are healthy, unlike so many sold commercially. Tallows contain many attributes that nourish skin and  closely resemble the sebum created by our own skin with a similar cellular makeup. It's a natural. Naturally.

Dinner one night last week was Broccoli-Beef stir fry in my (sorta new) carbon steel wok. I was happy the chef felt I had made a good choice, as there were so many options out there. Teflon or non stick coated cookware just doesn’t fly with me, for more reasons than I can name. Each year I try to acquire something for the kitchen that our friend, ‘Afif’, feels it should have. He outdid me though, having brought an incredibly beautiful and high quality French Chef’s knife as a Christmas gift. I was just speechless at his generosity and the craftsmanship of the offering. He also made us Bananas Foster for dessert, caramelizing bananas with orange juice and a dark rum flambe and serving it over ice cream. Heavenly. How do you ever repay someone like that? We’ve met some of the best people on earth, since coming to live here at the ranch. Last night’s fare was ‘Roast Beast’, Rosemary Mashed Potatoes, made by infusing fresh rosemary in heavy cream and simmering on the stove, adding a little garlic and butter at the end when mashing the tender red spuds. Our neighbor friend, Aki from Okinawa, had dinner with us and it was fun to listen to the two of them share stories of Japan and other far away places, to which I shall never go. I don’t need to, I can enjoy the stories and still relax being right here at home.

Heavy winds blew last night. First came rain, then snow and lots and lots of wind.I went out in the dark and put the waterproof blanket on old Mister, as he has no shelter of any kind to speak of and being wet, then windblown, would be too hard on him. I had worked hard the week before to get Ray the ram in a pen by himself as he was bent on destroying the goats and the baby lambs, who are in a little area with a soft kennel, next to the other sheep. The Maremmas went back in the pasture with the sheeple to keep an eye on everyone and help keep Patch warm.

All night we could hear the wind roar past our little rock home. I waited to hear the cracking of trees, as there are two extremely tall hundred year old sentinels out front, which are hollow. It’s only a matter of time before they come crashing down, yet I hate the thought of seeing them go, as they have witnessed history on the ranch I can only imagine hearing...the bustle of skirts as the ranch wives must have thrown scratch to the chicks, the clink of canning jars on the way to the root cellar, the jingling of spurs as the cowboys ambled to the cookhouse for a meal and the raucous laughter and timely wisdom of the same, as that is the nature of most men who live and work this lifestyle.

Voices of the past lulled me back to sleep despite the ever growing tumult outside. I woke up once to hear TheMan growling because the power was out again and it caused unspeakable insult to his foot, when he got up and was prowling around in the dark. I got up and rummaged around for the flashlight and handed to him. The wind howled and gusted, I thanked God for his care of the critters and beasties on the ranch and drifted back to sleep.

Morning came, with some puffs of wind, a few clouds of a dark nature and bone chilling cold. I climbed into my bluejeans and surveyed the damage. One of the lambs had somehow wound up in the pasture with the sheep and goats and was doggin’ Bruno’s shadow to stay safe from being bullied. The other was still in his pen, crying out in loneliness. Mister stood in the large corral, disgruntled, with his blanket folded up over his back and Ray Ram was nowhere to be seen. The fence behind his pen had blown down and he had escaped into the pasture with EmmaLou and SushiMoo. His shelter was torn away from the front fence and laid down nearly flat. The enormous and terribly, awfully heavy, hay tarp had flipped the 30 tires off of the top and slid down between the large stack and the fence, leaving 9 tons of hay uncovered. 

I returned to the house where I lit the stove, put some coffee in a small pot to warm up and cut yesterday’s soap. This batch is Honeysuckle.

It’s always fun to do, as being handmade, every single batch comes out looking a little bit different. I was pretty pleased with today’s results. Measurements for soapmaking have to be very precise, so yesterday I spent the morning pre-measuring my lye solutions for my various different formulas, then marking them and setting them under the soap sink for use later. Later I will measure out fixed oils to do the same, so even if I have a day where I am a little addled (which happens), all will still go well with soaping.

After lunch, TheMan went out and helped put the tarp and tires back over the hay stack (technically…"I" helped HIM, as he did the lion's share of the work while I stupidvised). He repaired the fence to the sheep alley so Ray the Ram could go back into his pen, and rewired the fence where the bummer lambs were climbing in and out of their little spot. They seem to be doing ok with the other sheep and they know to look to the dogs for protection, so as long as I can get their milk to them out there, they can stay. EmmaLou and SushiMoo and friends came up for a snack while TheMan was making repairs, before heading back to work himself.

We could see the kids in the background bringing their horses up. I miss the days of swinging up bareback and taking off for parts unknown, myself, and may have to saddle up one of these days and just take off for an afternoon. It's been awhile.

Afif is going to fix a leg of lamb tonite as I had one thawed out from the freezer. I have a 5 lb Thomas roast to put on as well, so TheMan can have turkey sandwiches. Sounds so good I can hardly stand it….maybe I will do that tomorrow for a hot lunch and sandwiches after that. Ahhh…the good life. Who could ask for anything more??

P.S. The Webstore has been an overwhelming success thanks to you, my  awesome readers. I want to let you know, I do have all soaps in stock, but some are still a bit soft from being more recently made. To those ordering the softer soaps, I recommend letting them sit out for a couple of weeks to air and harden to extend the life of the bar. I will attempt to send a smaller, harder, fully cured soap along to use in the meantime for those who do order the softer soaps. Thank you and God bless you!
-Petey/Kim