Green Cleaning - DIY Laundry Detergent

This DIY cleaning series I've been planning on writing for the past couple of weeks has really been an eye opening experience for me. I've always been a closet label snob, I instinctively reach for the more expensive brands and have to force myself to buy value brands of things, like shredded cheese and butter. In my opinion, some cheaper products just aren't right, like bread and ketchup; but I'm just starting to realize that all products, cheap and expensive, just can't compare to homemade.

I've always had a problem branching out to the cheaper products for fear there's some flaw hidden by a fifty cent discount, there's always a small part of me that cringes over the irreversible damage these mystery ingredients are bound to create. That's what's so great about these green cleaning products, there are no mysteries or dangerous chemicals and it actually works well. The little pessimist in my brain has nothing to say! Plus, it opens a whole new range of possibilities; I can make my own shampoo and conditioner, soap, body scrubs, lotions, glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, "febreze" copy, carpet powder, laundry detergent, and more, I'm sure.

I was pretty nervous about the laundry detergent before we made it; I love soft, clean-smelling clothes and I wasn't sure these ingredients would be able to deliver. I used my search engine to find some recipes and after deciding I'd rather have a  powdered version, I gathered my ingredients and got started.

The recipe I used as inspiration was recipe #4 from this website.
http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

2 cups bar soap (finely grated)
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax
1 cup Baking Soda
Mix well and store in an airtight plastic container.
Use two to three table spoons per load.

I altered it a little by adding baking soda and I used whatever soap I had lying around, call me lazy, but I'm not interested in buying special products to make my "quick and easy" green recipes, thanks. The recipe says to avoid heavily perfumed soaps and suggests using Fels Naptha Soap, but I ended up using my husbands Old Spice bar soap and it works great. I'm hoping to eventually start making our own soap, so that'll solve that problem.

It's not a very messy job, but it is a pain to hand-grate the bars of soap (I used a bar and a half, one Old Spice and half of one Dial.). I would like to dedicate our current blender to non-food projects and upgrade! I'm hoping Santa, or hubby, figures out I want a Vitamix for Christmas.

The only gripe I have about this detergent is when I washed my large comforter with it, it left little balls of powder in places. I'm pretty sure I could solve that by putting the detergent in before the comforter or just washing smaller loads. I haven't seen any residue on normal sized loads. Also, this particular recipe makes a pretty small batch, as you'll see in the photo, so I'll probably make a triple batch so it will last for about three months. I'm guessing we'll use this much in about a month, but I may be way off, I've never been good at estimating. 

I know for a fact that this detergent works like a charm. It's amazing how when you want a batch of really dirty clothes, it seems like everyone must have wrapped themselves in bubble wrap and hid in a corner! Well, I found my super dirty clothes in the form of towels. Towels that were put underneath a leaking duck container. If any of you own ducks, you probably don't need any other description than that, but let me tell you, ducks are not clean birds. They like to make a little duck swamp of poop, food, and water. Imagine that soaked into three or four towels and your bathroom carpet. Yuck! We have since moved them to a different room with a different container, thank goodness! One wash and dry cycle later, those towels were good as new, and I'm totally sold.

Check back soon to see what we use for stain remover! I've been looking for set stains for weeks now, I even tried to create them by pouring chocolate sauce on old onesies, but they've all gone missing. I just need to pop that bubble wrap.

Bird houses - Craig's Post

We have 14 bird feeders we maintain through the winter and will be adding a few Oriole and humming bird feeders as it warms up a little more. I never would have imagined we were the "bird watcher" types, but we love them! 

We were out of state for a few years and our resident bird population dwindled. The numbers are back on the rise and we want to encourage them to stay closer so we built some bird houses.


We looked online and found this model 

http://www.50birds.com/mpsidemount.htm

It is suited for Nuthatches, Chickadees and Downey Woodpeckers. We built 22 of these, 11 left hole entry units and 11, right.

We also built 4 Bluebird house of this design 

http://www.wildbirds.org/info/houses.html

We finished hanging all 26 of them on April 6th. So far we have no tenants.

We have made one of two bat houses, so far. We plan on building several Wren houses today; as well as a few squirrel houses, and at least one Barn Owl nest box.


Check back to see our progress.




Also coming up, a post to introduce Charlotte and the family, the long-awaited green cleaning post, and updates for the chickens, ducks, and rabbits. We've been busy bees these last few weeks and now have over 43 animals in our house! Speaking of bees, as long as they're still available, the hubby and I will be buying my parents honey bees for their anniversary! Happy anniversary, guys! We love you!!

No poo!

I know the title may have you a little nervous, at the moment, but I promised to never write about poop, and I won't. I'm writing about using shampoo, or not using shampoo, actually.

This has been a fad for all the DIYer's and "green" families in Internetland for quite a while now, so I decided to give it a try. I know what you're thinking, "Ew, she doesn't wash her hair?" My hair is very clean, I promise. It is a little unconventional, but it didn't take long for me to feel like a dummy for spending so much money on hair products in the past.

The first time I used the "No Poo" method, I did it totally wrong, technically. The recipe I that I meant to use is from care2.com, which I found using my standard search engine. The link is on the bottom of the page if you'd like to check it out. This recipe suggests using one moistened tablespoon of baking soda thoroughly massaged into the only onto the scalp, rinse after a minute or two. Follow with a rinse of diluted vinegar all over your hair, one tablespoon to one cup of warm water, allow to sit for a minute and then rinse.

The article I looked at explained there would be a breaking-in period which your hair would need to adjust to the lack of chemicals and while the pH balance of your scalp returned to normal, so you need to give it at least a week or two before giving up. Well, this didn't happen for me. Maybe it was because I used to wash my hair every other day, or the fact that I dumped probably about two handfuls of baking soda on my head, followed with a straight vinegar bath the first time I tried the "No Poo" method, or maybe I just have super hair, I certainly can't tell you why. I can tell you that my hair is strong, soft, shiny, and it smells great.

I usually wash my hair every other day. I have a small travel bottle with maybe two or three tablespoons of baking soda mixed with water and a couple drops of essential oil that I leave in my shower. I don't know how long it takes to go bad, but it only takes 4 or 5 uses before I have to make a new batch anyway. I keep the vinegar in a small spray bottle and I'd say it's about half vinegar and half water. The point is, I don't bother measuring anything; if I did, it'd probably be different for you anyway. Everyone's makeup is a little different when you get right to it and it's not rocket science anyway, it's hair!

I want to warn you that washing your hair this way feels totally different than using shampoo. The wash doesn't foam, it feels gritty and dirty while you're washing it, basically like you took a handful of sand and rubbed it around on your head like a dirty monkey... Also, after using the vinegar, my hair tends to feel a little greasy, but it dries perfect, so I'm not sure why this is.

I was really impressed that this method works so well. I was a little skeptical at first, but it gets even greasy hair clean. Plus, it's so nice knowing exactly what I'm putting on my skin and hair, some of the chemicals and random ingredients companies use should be illegal, and so should the prices!! I hope you give it a try, please let me know how it works for you.

03/03/13 ~ Before first baking soda wash.

03/09/13 ~ No shampoo for 6 days.

03/12/13 ~ Taken after brushing my hair.

 These last two were taken about 10 minutes ago, 03/18/13. Honestly, I haven't even brushed my hair today, I threw it up in a bun after my shower.  It still looks so clean and shiny, if I don't say so myself. Here's the article I looked at when I first started.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/no-poo-get-beautiful-hair-with-just-baking-soda-vinegar.html?page=2

Chicken Update

It's been a full week since we first got our two little chickens. They've grown considerably, although you can't tell unless you compare it to a baby picture, or a baby chick, which we now have examples of both.

My parents went to town on Saturday and called me from the local country store. Well, apparently I inherited my impatience from my parents, they were calling to see how I would feel about buying some more chickens. My mom, T.Burnett, told me they had Americanas at the store and asked how many I wanted, so I said all of them. She also got two Rainbow chickens and four Gold Star, with our first two that makes thirteen chickens! The five Americanas are not Ameraucanas, the rare breed. These are Easter Eggers with a tricky name. I had to do a little research yesterday to figure out what the difference was, but Easter Eggers or fancy chicken, I'm excited!

These chickens were more stressed out than our first two. One had a pasty bum and that was dried and caked on, it was terrible. After cleaning her, she relieved herself and has been acting normal since. I put some Apple Cider Vinegar in their water, one tablespoon, I read that it helps keep their rear ends clean, so far so good. 

One of our Easter Eggers wasn't doing so well, however. She had an infection, evidenced by thick, bloody feces and a hydrogen peroxide swab. We quarantined her and dropper fed her some mashed up chicken food, honey and water and I bought one of those pedialyte for chickens things to put in her water. She didn't make it through the night, unfortunately, but we got the medicine for that problem, tetracycline hydroxide, today so we'd have it on hand next time. I was a little distraught over it this morning, but it's a good reminder that no matter how hard  you try to help, sometimes these things happen.

On a happier note, the other twelve chicks are healthy and my parents surprised me with a new chicken tank to put them in, it's a big solid, metal affair. It's 2'x4'x2', which is more than enough space for 13 chicks. We may have to keep the other chicks separate for a while when they get here, so we may still need to put them somewhere, but we'll just play it by ear for now.

Gold Star Chicken

We replaced the bedding with sand and hay, like my friend, Jesse, suggested. They didn't have regular hay at the store, so we just bought what they had, which was alfalfa hay. The chickens went nuts for it, so we may throw some alfalfa in once a week or something like that.

Aren't they cute?!

Chickens

About a week ago, I placed an order for 15 chickens. Five Buff Orpingtons, four Rhode Island Reds, three Barred Rocks, two White Rocks, and one Black Australorp male. I picked those breeds for specific reasons. One, they're all good layers; we want chickens for eggs, not for slaughter. Two, they're supposedly all relaxed and friendly breeds. Three, they are all cold weather tolerant. I do want at least a couple of other breeds. The Easter Eggers, and I do want a few actual Ameraucanas as well. I was looking at the ornamental breeds of chickens available and I'd probably want one or two, but I haven't decided which. I think I need to put that up to a vote with the family.

I don't have to tell you how excited I am to get our chickens in two weeks! I just happened to have an idea of what dates the local country store was getting chicks and I thought it would be a great idea to go look at them to get an idea of what to expect.... Well, let's be honest, we all knew it would happen, we came home with two little babies! I had already bought everything we needed for the chickens the day I ordered them, so we set up a little tub for them, and they made themselves at home.

We used a tupperware box for storage and put it in our bathroom. Like I said, it's pretty cold up here, so we have a space heater in there so they don't chill. We set up a reflector lamp with a clamp on the side of the bucket and the first day we used a regular 100 watt bulb, but today we're going to try a red Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL). I read that using a white light might excite them too much and stress them out.

We used pine shavings that we bought at the country store. Make sure that it's not cedar. The store in my town only has pine outside that you have to ask the clerk for like ice, everything else is cedar. I'm not an expert about chickens and since looking into the cedar thing further and finding that even pine is bad for chickens, I may just go get some sand from the river bank. But they seem fine, so I don't think my chickens will mutate or anything from standing on pine for a few days.

I bought two waterers and three feeders, one feeder for grit. I read that the water and food will get dirty and need to be cleaned several times a day, so I bought extra so we could change it out. Handy for the water, it got gross quickly; the food is still alright after 24 hours. I am going to buy the nipple waterers, however. I've read several places and a Backyard Chicken (BYC) user's random piece of advice was that these are a necessity for clean drinking water.

We're trying our hardest not to handle them too much, but they're really cute, so we're failing a little. We don't pick them up unless we have to, but they're usually pretty willing to climb up into our hands for a little nap.

We won't put all 17 of them in here, of course. We have a bigger tupperware storage box that we'll use. I think we may put them together, but we'll see how it goes. We'll keep the smaller box to put the chicks in when we have to clean though. They're messy babies! It needs to be cleaned daily, if not dumped, at least covered. With sand it may be simpler just to use a kitty litter scoop.

The coop remains a mystery at the moment. We're not quite ready to start a big project outside yet. It's still pretty chilly and there is a lot of chopping, clearing, and digging that needs to be done, so more on that later. Check back soon!

B.Burnett

Grand Tour - Interior

Since winters get cold here in the Midwest, we chose to do the outside work in the summer hoping that we'd be able to continue on the inside work during the wintertime. It hasn't been going as quickly, but we've done a lot of really important things.

The previous owners and builders of the property cut a lot of corners when they initially made the house, so most of the work that we've done on the inside is repair work. When we first got the idea to remodel, D.Burnett started by painting the upstairs bedroom. The walls were covered in so many layers of wallpaper, the corners of the room had rounded!




Our first big project indoors was the downstairs bedroom. We started with this room because when they were installing the sliding door upstairs, we saw the decking they had added wasn't properly sealed, allowing water to get in and seriously damage some boards. But, when we opened up the walls and ceiling, only one or two boards actually needed to be replaced due to rot. We did find that the weight of the upstairs had basically been caving in on the downstairs bedroom and bowing the boards underneath. So, we jacked up the second floor; added LVLs, a man-made material, to help support the top floor; and lowered it back down. Also, the studs were set at 24" instead of the standard 16", so we added one in the middle, making it a 12" interval.

They also replaced the sliding glass door and demolished the closet between the office and the bedroom.

There were mice climbing through the sloppy construction before our remodel. Yuck!

The electrical was pretty screwy, so we decided to redo and improve the electric wiring. We went pretty custom, adding extra outlets and things that go way beyond my level of understanding. D.Burnett has tried explaining it several times, but apparently it's not my strong suit. He says the contraptions below are called ballasts and if I tried explaining it, I'd be making it up.

This is the electrical voodoo (and a heater) that runs our plant room.

Wiring in the bedroom.

We noticed the house seems to be shifting, so investigating into that issue we found that the foundation was pretty flimsy, set on a hill made of sand, so D.Burnett framed and poured concrete slabs in the basement to help reinforce the foundation. We're not done with that particular issue yet, we still need to take off the siding in our living room to see just what the issue is with our load-bearing structures.

Also, D.Burnett did some work in our plant room, which I've already told you about. He took out old, nasty insulation and used new spray-insulation to fill in all the gaps in that room. Before using the spray insulation, once you had taken out the old, nasty pink stuff, you could see straight through the back of the house to outside. Needless to say, the room is a lot warmer.

Now we're waiting for the weather to warm up so we can get the bedroom put back together. We're also tearing down the wall in the living room to see if there are any load bearing issues. I'll be doing several posts soon; I still need to show you our property, I want to tell you about the chickens we ordered and how we're going to take care of them, and I need to show you some of D.Burnett's chainsaw carvings!

So, since there's still a lot of house that we haven't seen, I'll take you on a visual tour of the place.

Top floor.

Main floor.

Here's a quick sketch of the house to get your bearings.








When you first come into the main entrance on the side of the house, you have the living room to the right.

The kitchen is on the left of the main entrance.

Our roasted chicken dinner, yum!

The laundry room is to the right of the stair case and the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom to the left. We keep the bathroom warm with an extra heater! So warm, in fact, this is where we'll be keeping our baby chicks when they arrive in a couple of weeks!!

Downstairs bathroom with baby tub.

Upstairs we have three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. I decided it was too messy to take pictures of yesterday, so you'll just have to imagine. Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for everything we have coming up!

See you soon,
B.Burnett