Making your own laundry soap step by step. It is so easy.

I have been making my own laundry soap for about a year. I started with little batches...decided that was silly and now I make about six months worth at a time. Here is that recipe.

Chop up two bars of Castille soap. I use Dr. Bronner's. Chop it up as finely as you can. 

Put the chopped soap in your food processor. 

Put three cups of Washing Soda into the food processor with the soap and buzz it up until really well mixed and all lumps are gone. 

Pour the mixture into your laundry soap container. Put three cups Borax into the food processor and buzz it up just to break down any little lumps. Pour it into the container and stir it up really well. There will be some compacted soap in the bottom of the food processor. I scrape up every bit I can and add to soap. 

This is the finished laundry soap. I have a tablespoon that I keep in the container. Use one to two tablespoons per load of laundry. This is a very concentrated soap and you don't need more. Your clothes will not get any cleaner using more. If you watch your laundry like I did at first, you will see that there are no suds in the washer. It is chemicals that make all the suds in commercial laundry soap, so see the lack of suds as a really good thing!

I haven't done the math but I figure it costs about $7.00 per year.

Trying some kitchen alchemy

I bought a yogurt maker. My cousin has one and highly recommended it. This is my first effort...in pictures.

My probiotic culture to get the yogurt going, my morning coffee and coconut milk for the coffee.

The organic milk heating up. 

Everything getting ready for the warming phase. Note the little package of Compassion Farm sunflower seeds. Can't wait to have my own. They are so lovely.

I am a girl who needs to listen to some tunes while I cook or clean. This was my selection for yogurt making.

The finished yogurt in my granola. 

My trillium is glorious. My Dad would have loved that.

I bought this trillium about thirty years ago from a nursery in Ontario. It had a flower or two each year. They seemed small and fragile. I am from Ontario and they are such a symbol of my childhood. They were all through the forest behind our house. So even though it didn't flourish, I loved it and let it be. 

My father died two years ago this month. It has been a time of learning about him. Of reconciling my life without him in it. Joy in knowing that he is with his parents, brothers and Rhoda. The real and true loves of his life. 

When I returned home from my fathers funeral, I walked up the driveway and stopped in my tracks. The trillium had the three biggest flowers I had seen since leaving Ontario decades ago. They were perfect. I was overcome. 

So these are the flowers now. They seem a bit bigger this year. I have given them a bit of fertilizer and I'm going to nourish it and see if I can get five flowers next year. The thing I am sure of is that it will be flowering in April...I love you Dad.

Oooops, I almost killed all my baby Lavender Hidcote.

These little pots of lavender were under the grow lights and on the heat mat in the greenhouse. I went out today blissfully unaware. They were a disaster. If I had waited half a day more, I think they were be beyond hope. After much water all but two look almost back to normal. 

Learning to graft...I opted out of this one.

Isn't this gorgeous. As part of a weekend long permaculture course, we tried our hand at grafting. When I saw just how we were going to do this, I sat back and watched. It looked very dangerous pushing a knife down through the wood in the direction of your hand. Bam, one of my carpool group cut her hand. Bam, one of the men at the class was bleeding. I'm not big on knives at the best of times. Thank you, but no. I'll pass on this one.