Getting Radical

Getting Radical
by Chris Stanley on 06/28/10

Our family has been lightly tossing around the idea of not using our lights anymore and making candles to use instead. We also were thinking we could turn off our air conditioner. The following day the air conditioner stopped working and we are pushed into our plan a bit faster.

The reason we are doing this is to prepare us for using less electricity when we build our log cabin that will be powered by alternative energy only. Maybe it is radical or maybe it's genuis!

Not only does this help with energy costs, but it also takes away the incentive to be inside and forces us outside more to do the things we need to do any ways.
Chris, Sandi and Sol

Use what you have.... when you have it

Two days ago we cut down some mimosa trees in our back yard (I was testing my on sale $2.99 machette I bought from Tractor Supply) in an attempt to clear some space and give sun to the trees we really want to thrive. After cutting them down we noticed that the bark peeled very easily and my brilliant wife decided to make a basket with the bark. With no prior basket making experience she worked until dark to get as much bark as she could and create a basket. She was able to finish about half of the basket and it turned out beautiful, but the next day it did not want to cooperate because as it dried it curled and was not very pliable. The other trees we had cut down were also not peeling in whole sheets anymore as it dried. So if you start a project finish it as soon as possible you never know what might prevent it's completion later.
We also used some of the branches of the trees to make teepee tomato plant stakes to help guide them as they grew.
Following that we pulled all the leaves off of all branches and used it as mulch along with 30lbs of old dog food (to fertilize) and our trimmings from our bushes to smother some grass and help to create some rich soil in the future.
The more you think about becoming self sufficient or just how to be more sustainable you will start to see things that you can use that would have otherwise been dismissed as trash.
There is a great line in the Self Sufficient Life and How to live it where the author stated that the garbage man should be the last one called to a self sufficient homestead. Nothing is garbage when trying to be self sustainable.
Thinking this way we were able to take something that would have been trash and find 3 uses for it, or actually 4. We used some branches to give the chickens "roosting sticks." They really enjoy the sticks.
We listen to the Self Sufficient Homestead podcast and they have a great saying they put on their tee shirts now that I think is applicable here
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
Think outside the box and you just might find uses for things you never would have previously.
In a few days we will post our newest homemade item which will be shampoo. The soap is working beautifully already with only 1 week of aging. The aging is suppose to complete the hardening of the soap, but it is already hard enough to use and we are enjoying it a lot.
Chris, Sandi, and Sol

Homemade Chicken Feeder

What you need
1 5 gallon bucket lid
1 smaller bucket w/lid (we used a 14LB bucket)
Drill
2 screws

We drilled 4 quarter size holes in the sides of the bucket. Make sure you drill directly above the bottom of the bucket on the sides.

Next place the 5 gallon bucket lid with the top on the bottom of the bucket so the feed will collect on it. I only drilled 2 screws near the center of the lid which seemed to hold fine.

Fill feeder with feed and place the smaller lid on top of the bucket and you are good to go!

I'll give you this advice for FREE
We asked a Food Lion (which is a grocery store) manager if they would sell any of their 5 gallon buckets that the cake icing came in and they said, "no, but we give them away."

So stop by your grocery store or local Wal-Mart and ask. It never hurts to ask. I know from a friend that Wal-Mart will sell their buckets for $1.00 a bucket or for a $1.00 for as many as you can carry.

This is a 14LB chicken feeder and I checked tractor supply's price for a 10LB feeder
Cost to make $0.00 Time to make 5min
Tractor Suppy $15.49
Total Savings of $15.49

Soap

What you need
13 ounces of lye
5 cups of cold water
5lbs of fat
7oz coconut oil
7oz olive oil
4oz beeswax

(substitutions- weight for weight of oils and lard, and twice as much beeswax for lard)(simplified you would start out with 6lbs of lard)

I grated orange peel and lime peel and let dry overnight(1 orange and 1 lime)

I only had 1 tsp of citrus essential oil and I added in a few drops of lavender (next time I will use 2 tsp of EO)

mix lye and cold water, let cool
melt fat until clear and let cool until you feel resistence but not to the point of hard fat floating in there
pour lye (lye should be bathwater warm just feel outside of container) into fat (fat is still on stove, burner off)while stiring slowly. If fat seperates turn burner on until it warms back up and turn off.

Stir 25-ish minutes

It is time to add scent when you can make a line for a second in the top of soap

pour into greased container (I used a large tupperware and two bread loaf pans and filled them up so be prepared with enough container space)

(Here is where I sprinkled grated peelings onto top of soap for looks. I had to push the peelings into the soap, I used the head of a screw)

Put in oven (keep oven off) with the light on for some heat and pan of waterto keep it moist. I let my soap sit for a day and a half and pulled it out and set it on the counter. It was still too soft to take out of the pan so I left it on the counter for another day and it came out fine.

I have read that letting the soap age is a good thing. I don't really know why but I imagine it is so the bar is dry and won't fall apart so easy in water. I cut the soap blocks into bars with a knife and stacked the soap bars on an old recieving blanket, covered them up and set them out of the way. They say let them age for three weeks or so, but we'll see how long it takes for them to get dry enough.

One thing I did notice was my soap didn't lather but I looked it up and it is just a result of using alot of lard in the mixture. But it cleans great!

TADA! Thats it. Sure you can make this into an art of chemistry but this was the first time we ever made soap and ours turned out just fine and I made half this stuff up. So don't be afraid to just do it and experiment! And don't be discourage if yours doesn't turn out, research if you can use your failed soap over again in a different soap recipe.

Cost of one batch of soap $20-$25.00 for 40 bars. Once we are in the position to be able to "create" our own ingredients by using our our animal fat and create our own lye it will be cheaper, but for now we don't have those resources.

Homemade bar of soap $ .50 a bar Time to make 1 1/2hrs for 6 months of soap
Walmart Irish Spring $ .50 a bar
Being Self Sustainable PRICELESS

The Bantam Life

This is the start of our blog and our first test post. Visit us at TheBantamLife.com as well as here on the blog.
Chris Sandi and Sol