Horsing Around

Family and friends also visited us this summer. Cousins Reese and Jackson stayed for a week, and our friends Erin and Roberto and their two boys, Luca and Liam, came up for a few days from Atlanta.  Horses were a favorite theme for both visits.  Poppy's horses, Buddy and R.C., which he keeps at one of his friend's farm, are broke to ride for field trials, so we gave them a good workout.  My horses, which are broke to beg and be scratched, also got some attention...but no workout.

Poppy and Reese on R.C.

Mommy and Thomas on Buddy

Thomas holding Buddy, ornamented with plume

Thomas and Buddy

That's the look of a horse trader!

Thomas and Luca with Ruby

Thomas looks at Luca...

...Luca looks at Thomas!

The Search for Russell...and Fossil Rocks

We made our yearly trek to visit Granddad over the Fourth of July.  When we pulled into his driveway, we were greeted by a summer tanager singing in the live oak tree outside of his house.  Of course the tanager was really guarding his nest, and his "greeting" was really a warning call to his mate in a nearby tree.  Nevertheless, it was a joyful sight and sound.  Of course, we made our obligatory trip to Shiloh battlefield to look for Russell, Thomas's stuffed frog that has been MIA for two years now.  And we waded through Stony Lonesome creek to look for fossil rocks, of which we found many.

Thomas at one of the Iowa monuments holding his stick "sword"

Thomas and Mamaw hiking on the Sunken Road at the Hornet's Nest

On the bridge at the Hornet's Nest

"Riding" the cannon

Nope, Russell isn't in here

Posing with the cannoneers

At the Peach Orchard

Looking for Russell in the shadows of Bloody Pond

Searching for fossil rocks with Mamaw and Poppy

Found one!

Wielding a mighty stick

Poppy teaching Thomas how to skip rocks

Good try!

With Granddad

The summer tanager

Watch out for the Lunar Bugbear!: Lye Soap Making 101

My latest tutorial at Old Salem was in making soap with lye leached from fireplace ashes and hog lard. This type of soap was a soft soap for general household use: laundering, cleaning, dishwashing, and even repelling insects in the garden.  Though lye soap is great for your skin, I would not label this particular kind as a "beauty bar," unless you want to go on a date smelling like hog lard!  Like many historic homemade crafts, soap making is a finicky process, and our particular batch never coagulated properly.  I'm guessing the moon was in the wrong phase.

Here is a recipe from Mary Randolph's cookbook, 

The Virginia Housewife, published in 1824

To Make Soap:

Put on the fire any quantity of lie you chuse [sic] that is strong enough to bear an egg, to each gallon add three quarters of a pound of clean grease, boil it very fast and stir it frequently; a few hours will suffice to make it good soap.  When you find by cooling a little on a plate that it is a a thick jelly and no grease appears, put in salt in the proportion of one pint to three gallons and let it boil a few minutes and pot it in tubs to cool; (should the soap be thick, add a little water to that in the plate, stir it well, and by that means ascertain how much water is necessary for the whole quantity; very strong lie will require water to thicken it after the incorporation is complete; this must be done before the salt is added.)  Next day, cut out the soap, melt it, and cool it again; this takes out all the lie, and keeps the soap from shrinking when dried.  A strict conformity to these rules will banish the lunar bugbear* which has so long annoyed soap makers.  Should cracknels be used, there must be one pound to each gallon.  Kitchen grease should be clarified in a quantity of water, or the salt will prevent its incorporating with the lie.  Soft soap is made in the same manner only omitting the salt.  It may also be made by putting the lie and grease together in exact proportions, and placing it under the influence of a hot sun for eight or ten days, stirring it well four or five times a day.

*I have no idea what a lunar bugbear is, but I don't think I want it crawling around in my soap!  (And there's the moon again!)

(Cindy and I made the soft soap (without the salt). Cindy has also had success with the "no-cook" or "sun soap" method described at the end.)

Ash hopper (for leaching lye)

Soap making station: brass kettle with lye, lard (on stump), water buckets

Boiling the lye and lard

Keeping it stirred...for hours

Soap Cindy had previously made

Our "entertainment" while stirring the soap: a blacksnake!

The cherries were also ripe, so we spent the afternoon pitting cherries and cooking them in sugar syrup in preparation for drying them.

Tableau with cherries

Pitting cherries using goose quills

Cooking cherries in sugar syrup

Blastoff to Florida!

Just a few weeks ago, we traveled to Florida to visit Lance's parents.  Lucky for us, Aunt Kim and Cousin Olivia also decided to come!  The hi-light of the trip was a visit to Kennedy Space Center where Thomas got to see the Shuttle Atlantis and meet a "real" astronaut.  Lance and Thomas had been prepping for this trip by watching the new Cosmos series hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  And since our return,  they have learning more about life in space, namely how to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth in zero gravity.

A super enthusiastic Thomas with Olivia

The family in front of Atlantis

The "real" astronaut signing Thomas's homemade astronaut jacket

Farm Fest

Here are some pictures from Exchange Place's annual Farm Fest.  

Thomas helping Bethany chop cabbage in the kitchen

Thomas using the thumbpot in the garden

On the hayride

The best ride of all: on Mommy's shoulder!

Farm Helper

Thomas has been quite the helper on the farm this year.  Here are some pictures of him preparing the cucumber holes with our magic concoction, giving a chicken a bath before we treated her legs for scaly leg mites, and finally, admiring his beautiful carrots.  (In the past, I had had such bad luck with carrots, that I had given up growing them.  This year, Thomas really wanted to grow them, so I decided to try again.  Look at what fertilizer the faith of a child was!) 

Temples and Zoos

Building with blocks is one of Thomas's favorite activities, especially when Daddy is helping.  Here are pictures of a couple of my favorites of their creations.  

First, the Temple to the Immortal Cow (notice the milk carton hidden in the temple.)  

This one even has a theme song:

C (quarter note), D (quarter note), C (quarter note), G (dotted half note)

C (quarter note), D (quarter note), C (quarter note), G# (whole note)

And next, Thomas's "Zoo."  (There is even a stall for a fly!)