a day of squash and soap

Well, today I did not get the coop doors done as planned.  It turned into another chilly wet day.  I don't mind the cooler weather but the rain is miserable to work in.  So, one more delay.  *sigh*

But, it was a good day anyway.  I spent the day with a good friend, we ran some errands, picked up my weekly milk, got a bushel of apples at the local farmer's market (and guiltily shared fresh pumpkin donuts!).  We then made a batch of soap (1/2 lavender and 1/2 heather for me).  It has been many months since I have made soap and the last batch didn't come out as great as I would have liked - I tried a different method and it seemed great until it cured.  This is my regular recipe which is very simple and consists of olive oil, coconut oil and palm oil with goats milk.  This time I used a solid block of frozen milk instead of ice cubes.  I get my goats milk from a local friend and she froze the milk in portions just for my soap making, which is very cool.  The mixing of the milk and lye took quite a bit longer and it never got as hot as it usually does so the lye mixture and oil was mixed together at a cooler temperature.  The trace happened much faster.  So, in a couple weeks time, we will see how it turns out.

For lunch today I sauteed up spaghetti squash and made pesto from the basil and lemon balm in my garden.  It was quite tasty.  For dinner I cut up a butternut squash and baked it in the oven with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.  I made a batch of bacon and then sauteed sage from my garden in the bacon grease and sauteed the baked squash in the sage and bacon grease.  I topped the squash with the bacon and shaved parmesan.  Quite tasty.  The rest of the bacon was crumbled and mixed with baked/mashed sweet potato and salmon with fresh parsley from the garden for tasty salmon cakes!