Back To The Garden and Frugal Accomplishments

Last week was a busy week for my soap business.  Between wrapping and making soap, getting a wholesale order together, and delivering soap to galleries to restock, it made for several busy days.  I'm pretty excited about my newest soap, Back To The Garden.  There are floral and herbal essential oils in it, as well as aloe, hempseed oil, mint from the garden, and a bit of local clay.  I've used floral fabrics for the inner wrapper, and paired some with a packet of flower seeds and garden gloves.  I made another batch today, as I only have two left, and they are to be delivered to our local hardware store.

I haven't kept up very well with my Frugal Accomplishments this past week.  All the usual has been happening... using homemade soaps in bathroom and laundry, hanging laundry on the line, washing plastic bags for reuse, composting, adding vegi scraps to the broth bag.  I harvested chard, broccoli, basil and oregano.  I made a chard gratin dish, broccoli and egg fried rice, and used the herbs in pasta sauce.  I continue to use my homemade deodorant.  I cut a bouquet from the garden.

I was thinning my apple trees, as Brandy suggested, and came upon this in one of my apples.  From my research, I believe it to be a green fruitworm. I've not seen one before, & wouldn't mind if it's the last!  J has sprayed once using a permaculture recipe that includes neem oil, fish fertilizer, molasses and something else I can't remember.  Hopefully, he will have time to spray again soon, which helps feed the trees and also deters pests.

Our first Barred Rock hen laid an egg today.  Isn't it cute?  The three girls have been checking out the nest boxes for days, but today was our first egg.  So it begins!  I'm not sure I mentioned it, but we got 6 Buff Orpington chicks 3 weeks ago.  We've wanted a good sitting hen, so we're hoping at least one of these will be.  We'd like to be raising our own chicks, and my experience with Buff Orpingtons has shown them to be great sitters; in fact sometimes too good, where they've had to be coaxed off the eggs.  None of our current hens have any inclination to sit, but we've got high hopes for these girls.  We lost our second Lakenvelder/Delaware cross hen this evening.  She'd been doing poorly, and the extra vitamins, handfeeding greens, keeping her separated from the rest of the flock didn't work.  We found her when we went to close up the chickens tonight.  Life on a homestead can be a mix of heartbreak and hope.  Our gardens are coming along nicely, though we are very much in need of rain.  We are at least 3 inches below average already.  I found our first tomato this week, on one of the storebought tomato plants.  I hope everyone has a good week!