Suburban Chickens

This spring we decided to get chickens!
We live in the middle of a higher density suburban neighborhood so chickens may seem like a crazy idea, but  with a good chicken house and run I am feeling very positive about the whole adventure.
Now I could probably go on for at least three pages trying to explain why it is becoming important to me to eat food that A. I know where it's coming from B. I know that it hasn't been genetically tampered with and C. has some level of humane treatment for the animals, but I'll just say that it is and so I thought in my one small step towards that we would get chickens, feed them organic GMO free food and then at least one of our protein sources I can feel really good about.  And the chickens are so much fun to watch!!

So anyways, I set out on my chicken research, consulted my wise sister who has her hobby farm, went to www.backyardchickens.com which has a vast store of knowledge all things chicken, went to a Chicken 101 class at Murdoch's the local feed store, and finally on March 4 we got chickens!!

We planned to get four of them because we really have a small back yard, but somehow came home with five.  If you've ever seen a chick in your life I am sure you can imagine how easy it is to get a few extras. They are seriously the cutest things.  Here's the first week they were home

We got an Aracuana (they lay turquoise colored eggs and have very interesting facial feathers) , a Buff Orpington (she is the buff colored one of the bunch and is probably going to be the biggest in our flock), a Barred Rock (she is our high flier who loves to climb up and sit on your shoulder), and two Partridge Rocks.   My verdict is still out on the partridge rocks.  One is really sweet and is my favorite of the whole flock and the other goes crazy if you try to hold her. They are smaller and slower to develop then the rest so I don't know how they will end up.

They lived in a rubbermaid for a couple weeks until they outgrew that and now they live in a dog crate with the sides enclosed to help with drafts.  They eat chick feed almost exclusively though I've started giving them chick grit and half a hard boiled egg every day. I've tried to give them little bits of lettuce and strawberry tops and they just aren't interested in them yet but they LOVE eggs. It seemed wierd to me to feed a chick an eg but I have read and heard that its been done for ages and the extra protein is great for them as they grow their feathers.  So they are growing and squawking and pooping and pecking and foraging and in general are just cute and fun creatures. Soon we will put them in their newly built chicken coop, but I will save the coop adventure for another post.  In the meantime I will leave you with my four week old, somewhat silly looking, chicks roosting for the night.

Making homemade lotion

I haven't gotten to write to my blog almost all summer but now that it is getting colder and our skin is starting to dry out, I wanted to share how I make my homemade lotion.

If you haven't discovered the amazing difference between store bought lotions and lotion made with all pure moisturizing ingredients, I'd encourage you to give it a try.

I get most of my raw materials online because I also sell this lotion on etsy so I am making more than just for our family, but you should be able to find the ingredients at your local health food store.  I have seen them at Vitamin Cottage here in Colorado.

Today I made a whipped shea coconut butter with a mandarin flavored essential oil. This recipe will make approximately 6- 4oz tubs of a whipped lotion

What you need:

8 oz by weight of shea butter

1/2 cup by volume coconut oil

3/8 cup carrier oil; you can select grape seed oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, etc.  I prefer to use almond oil

Essential oil (scent) of your choice

A double boiler set up (I use a glass bowl sitting on a pot of water)

A stand mixer with the whipping attachment

First:

Measure out your shea butter by weight.  I would recommend when buying shea butter, get  'unrefined' shea butter. It is more yellow in appearance but retains all the good vitamins that are lost during the refinement process.   Once you have measured it out, put the shea butter into your double boiler.

Second: 

Measure out your 1/2 cup of coconut oil and your 3/8 cup of almond oil.  The coconut oil is usually solid at room temperature so you may have to microwave it for 20 seconds to get it to melt enough to measure it

Measuring the coconut oil and the almond oil.  The total amount is 7/8 cup 

Put the coconut oil and shea butter into your double boiler.  Now let everything melt, stirring 

often.

My double boiler set up, with all the ingredients melting

The Shea will take longest to melt

When everything is completely melted, transfer to your stand mixer to whip.

The process of whipping introduces air into the lotion while it cools.  Since there is no water added, if you don't whip then you will end up with a solid body butter.  There's nothing wrong with this of course, and you can just stop right here, add your essential oil, put it in a tub and you will have great lotion, but I have found most people prefer the whipped kind.

So to whip your lotion....

You should whip on almost high speed with the whisk attachment. speed 8 on my kitchenaid.

Whip for 10 minutes.  

Add your scent. if it is essential oil, I'd recommend at least 30 drops. if it is an artificial 'scent' oil you will need a lot less.

Whip for another 10 minutes.

Then put your lotion in the fridge for 3 minutes, 

then whip for 15, 

then fridge for 5 minutes, 

whip for 15... 

then fridge for 5, and repeat the 15 min 5 min process until the lotion has cooled and starts to whip up like a meringue.

I can't tell you exactly how long this takes because for me it depends on the day and how hot my house is but I would say roughly an hour of whipping.

This is what it will look like when it is done

Package it up and you will have an amazing moisturizing lotion to use all winter long.  

Hope you enjoy!!! 

And if you read this and say 'oh wow this looks like too much work'  check out my etsy page Bright Star Botanicals :)

Scrap Yarn Knitting - Baby Blanket

I've been so busy this summer I haven't blogged in awhile, but I wanted to share a fun and easy knitting creation I made from scrap yarn.

Someone gave me a bunch of different colors of a shimmery pastel acrylic yarn, that just said to me 'turn me into a baby blanket'. How fortunate my sister is having a baby!
Now there were several colors but not enough of any one of them that I could use a real pattern so I decided to  make one up.  I knew I wanted the blanket to be about 24"x36" and figured I had enough yarn to get there (I think I had a total of 3 balls) but I didn't know how to make it all work together.

Here's the finished product and then I will explain the details of how I made it.

I had a LOT of white yarn, but not a lot of any of the other colors, so it made sense to do a striped blanket where white was the main color.  I had a lot of blue as well, but only a little bit of pink, purple, and multicolor.  I decided to put blue on both ends, and then pink, purple and multicolor in the middle.  I also thought it would look good to have an equal amount of white to color as I striped, and the stripe size would be determined by how much of whichever color I had. For example, if I had 2 1/2" of pink then I would make a 2 1/2" white strip, then if I had 3" of purple I would make a 3" white stripe.
The reason I am explaining all this is I know whoever may read this will have different amounts of scrap yarns than what I had, but this pattern should work for anyone if you just keep with the logic of it.

I wanted to use Size 10 needles, and the yarn was worsted weight but I didn't know what the gauge was because I didn't have the label.
So to determine the gauge I did a swatch of 20 stitches in garter stitch for 5 rows.  This measured just under 5" for me.  I knew I wanted my blanket to be 24" wide so 24/5 = about 5 so I cast on 100 stitches onto my #10 needles.  It's reversed from the way the way the yarn labels usually explain gauge but it works just as well.

This blanket is done entirely in garter stitch (knit every row) so it is super easy.

Here are the instructions:
1. Cast on 100 stitches of your main color. (or as many as your gauge determined for the blanket to measure 24" wide)
2. Knit every row until piece measures 2".
3. Switch to a 2nd color, whichever you have the least of, leaving approximately 6" tails of both the old and new color when you switch for weaving in later.
4. Knit until this color runs out (making sure you don't run out in the middle of a row!)
5. Switch back to your main color, and measure how long your 2nd color was, and match that same number of rows.
6. Switch to a 3rd color whichever you have the next least of, and knit until this runs out
7. Switch back to your main color and knit the same number of rows as your 3rd color.
8. Repeat until your piece measures about 34" or when you've run out of colors.
9. Switching back to main color and finish up the last 2" in the main color.
10. Bind off.
11. Weave in all your ends.

And that's it! you will have a striped baby blanket!

Happy knitting!!